Originally Posted by
vijil
ack... are you trolling, Gordon?
Ultimately paintball is about having fun, and fun doesn't rely on a perfectly designed game. It's like complaining that rental go karts aren't as fast and don't have the roadholding of F1 cars, or (since F1 cars exist) complaining that go karts can't hover and go 2000mph. It all has nothing to do with fun. If I'm in a go kart, and you're in a roughly equal go kart, we can have a fun race. So what if we can't both go 2000mph.
The core of your issue is that you seem to be assuming that longer range engagements, more accuracy and less shooting = more fun. That may be your experience but it's far from universal. I love the close fast firefights, the noise, the colors, the tightly organised strategy on a level playing field, the fact that the nature of the game rewards getting up close and personal. Is the game perfect? Heck no, but neither is any sport. So long as it does what it says on the tin it cannot be called fundamentally broken.
But that's not really the point of the thread.
The question is what we'd do different if starting over with existing tech and knowhow and the answer isn't clear. Round balls are cheap and convenient - and since perfect accuracy is not a requirement for fun to most people this is a worthwhile tradeoff. Is there a place for magazine fed shaped projectiles? Sure thing, I love FS rounds. Do I want everyone using them? Not really - having different classes of players is (for me) part of the fun. Would we have hoppers like we do? Probably not, I'm leaning towards box mag type setups or just straight magfed.
Honestly though, starting from scratch I don't think paintball would exist at all. Immersive Augmented Reality with shock vests so you feel the hits would be the order of the day. It'll take over eventually regardless, the ultimate unification of gaming and real sport. Paintball's lifespan is limited by technological progress so enjoy it while it lasts.