Paintball Journal

In a spot of news that’s guaranteed to change the way that many paintball fields look at doing business, Drop Zone Paintball has announced that they will only be allowing gravity hoppers on their field during recreational play.

Their aim is to level the playing field again. As guns like the Ion and PMR were released, more and more people started substituting quantity of paint in the air for skill because it became so financially viable. For what people used to pay for Tippmann 98 Customs, they began to be able to afford guns that could actually compete with higher ends.

This meant that even beginning players were able to shoot very quickly without having played for enough time to gain the skill that many had had to gain previously. In days of old, people played until they were actually truly being held back by their gear, and then had to invest a lot of money into buying guns that were not the leap in technology that you see today.

So, at least in my head, ten years ago, you didn’t see the random inexperienced kids shooting their mad gats at the chrono. Or ramping on the noobs at their local field. Or thinking they were hard until they suddenly got lit up and ran off the field crying.

Like today.

Anyway!

Drop Zone has come up with a perfect solution. There’s no ROF limit, no board caps, no tech limit on guns. Instead, there is a blatantly obvious object that has to be on top of your gun: a gravity hopper. It’s easily recognizable, and very, very few people are going to try to cheat by modding a grav hopper. In fact, how stupid that would make you is hardly describable. Plus the switch might give you away.

So, what are the potential problems? None that I can see, as long as they’re reasonable about allowing teams to practice with electric hoppers, because those aren’t going to leave tournament paintball, at least in the foreseeable future.

Read on to see the full text release!

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Disclaimer: This article is written in an entirely facetious manner and does not reflect the views of Dana or his employer 451 Press. Actually, Dana really doesn’t know what 451 Press thinks about the state of cheating in paintball, or if they know that Dana works for them. However, he is sure that they would not condone cheating in paintball if they knew what it was. Paintball, that is.

Cheating, contrary to popular belief, is a great thing for paintball!

First of all, it evens the playing field so that everyone can compete on the same level. I mean, who wants divisions of players by skill level? In all the professional sports there are already established and enforced rules, professional refs, and instant replays so players have to resort to steroids and enhancements that put them at risk! Why do that, when cheating does the same thing, without the bodily harm that anabolic steroids can cause?

Secondly, there are more paint sales because it takes more paint to shoot someone out these days. One ball doesn’t cut it anymore. When you’re shooting a hopper full just to put one ball on your opponent, just think about how much you’ll have to shoot when they’re wiping! Cheating is the biggest boon for paint sales since the semi-automatic was invented.

Things really should just stay the same in paintball. There should be no negative stigma attached to cheating, and wiping should be just another part of the game just like it has been for the past few years. Paintball can do nothing but benefit from all of the wonderful side effects of cheating.

You know… everything except grow to become a legitimate sport. But who wants that, anyway?

If you carry pods on the field, which I’ll bet you do, you may be in danger of contracting a severely debilitating disease. Let me break it down for you.

Disease Profile -

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We’ve all been in that terrible situation. You reach back and feel for a pod only to realize that you pro-loaded one too many and are not completely out.

If you’re a standard player, you start to worry. But if you’re me, you just reach a little higher.

Why? Let me show you…

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A most excellent idea, spawned from a double run-through seen several months ago by Evan and me, is the Kill Train.

Something that’s fun to do is to have your whole team take off down one tape side, preferably the right tape is everyone is right handed. This can be done right on the break, or immediately afterwards and usually works best against inexperienced people who enjoy running to their bunkers off the break without looking up.

The lead-man or “Engine” shoots straight, aiming at the outside corner of the right back bunker, or whatever other bunkers are occupied along the right tape. The “Freight Cars” gets to shoot at a forty-five degree angle, in and across the field. The “Caboose” is in charge of shooting straight across the field, perpendicular to the tape, making sure everyone gets mopped up.

That’s about all there is to it! Now go try it, and be sure to yell “Kiiilllll Traaaaiiiiin” while running down the field.

Seriously. No, seriously. Stop laughing and read this.

Sadly, apparently there were winners at this tournament. Okay, I’ll admit, I’m not that great of a player. In fact, I’m inferior to many. That doesn’t mean I play at this level of “tournament” paintball, though.

In the nine months that I’ve been here, there have certainly been some interesting moments. Who could forget the first time Evan scoffed at my insane drills and inventions, or the first time that someone I didn’t know laughed at something I wrote! Ah, what good days.

Here are some of the best… er, most fondly remembered ideas that have been produced and found by the brilliant writers here at Paintball Journal.

Most Useless Mod
An amazingly useless mod for a hopper.

Awkward…
Ten extremely awkward places to play. Give ‘em a try sometime, let me know how it goes.

Get With It!
Where I tease pro paintballers about their lack of keeping up with the Joneses.

Safety Tips
Top ten gun safety tips, including one of my favorites, “Keep your gun pointed in a safe direction, such as at a hippy or communist.”

Potato Sack Paintball
I don’t really know how to describe this one… I really don’t.

Confuse Thy Enemies
“8. Affix a ‘bayonet’ to the end of your gun. Signal the charge. Entire team charges the enemy’s position with paintbrush bayonets.”

Cheapest Ion Body Ever
Coincidentally, also the most cardboard Ion body ever.

Everyone (yes, that means you!) is complaining about cheaters these days. If you aren’t complaining about cheating and are instead doing the cheating then you can get the hell off this site and go read some idiocy on Small Talk about condom slogans or pick up lines.

Well, my friends (assuming those cheating bastards have left), it is time to do something about it! Heck, and not just cheating either! This about being heard. You are the customer, the athlete, the player, and you need to be heard.

I invite you to be heard. Start small - talk to local field owners about things you’d like to see in the future for the fields in your area. Then take an active role in it, whether that means volunteering your time to set up a better hyperball field or helping put together picnic tables near the staging area.

A lot of fields are short on refs, and if you’re willing to learn and take it seriously, then you should definitely give it a try. This is a good way to promote sportsmanship and fairness in a proactive manner. If you see someone cheating, make sure you get them out of the game, and then talk to them afterwards. Say something like “Hey, man, I saw you wipe that hit, can you make sure not to do that again?” Make sure they acknowledge you. It’s important that they know that it is absolutely not okay to cheat.

And if they cheat again, there’s no need to let them keep playing against honest ref-fearing folks like you and me. Talk to the field owner, and be sure you know exactly what the field policy is in a case like that.

Here is your chance. Start taking more of a part in the paintball community at large. Don’t accept the status quo, instead work for a better environment for everyone from professional players to rookies just renting their first guns.

Rob “Tyger” Rubin has crafted one heckuva superior blog. “Views From A Paintball Cynic” is excessively well written, and brings up many great opinions that I disagree with.

Apparently it’s been around since 2005, but no one told me anything about it! That’s okay though. I forgive you.

Here is what Tyger has to say about his blog:

So what can you expect from this blog? Views from someone who’s been burned by the best, ripped off by the worst, and tired of towing the party line when it comes to dealing with these people. Paintball has problems, and instead of dealing with them the entire industry would rather pretend they didn’t exist at best, or cash in on them at worst.

It’s pretty delicious and refreshing for me, a paintballer who thinks about things in a more positive light than this gentleman (who I simply must refer Evan to, seeing as how Evan is such a cynic himself.) I think paintball is in the crapper, but I think I’m a bit more hopeful than Tyger.

Anyway, Views From A Paintball Cynic is totally worth a read. Five thumbs up and all that.

“Sup’AirBall™ just released a new set of Mini Bunkers. The Classic Mini Can now shows the colors and face of your favorite Pro players.”

What?! Oh, man, wait that calls for a good picture I’ve got somewhere around here…

What the heck are they thinking. No one is going to buy these. Surely we aren’t that dumb…

Sweet! Even though the score editing looks a little shabby, I am assured the TV version is edited correctly to show Penn State instead of Purdue. I like the camera angles and the commentary. Best TV paintball I’ve seen yet.

I’ve been a big hater of side-line coaching for quite a while now. But I recently read something that really got my attention. First of all, when coaching by spectators is prohibited, one person can make a lot of difference, screaming out a position. The players can hear and possibly choose to react.

However, what if it was completely allowed. The crowd noise would be crazy, and the shouts kind of mangled. I can just see players getting all screwed up because of it. There’s also an unintended side-effect - counter coaching, actually attempting to get a player killed by telling him to move.

Interesting. I’m still not a fan, but it does put a bit of a new light on coaching…

True to their name, I had never even heard of UKS until today. I was shuffling through PBNation’s video thread, when I saw a thread with over 12 pages of posts. Figuring that it was either a really crappy video or a really great one, I clicked on the link and well…

If you watched that, then you’ll be more than excited by this:

Good luck for the rest of the season, UKS! I know it’s pretty much impossible to reach your goal now, but keep it up and I bet you could at least place 1st in an event. So far they’ve been placing in the 20’s, with a 22nd place finish for Boston.

Special Ops B114 Bomber Tank. Don’t let it’s size fool you, this tank is one powerful son of a gun. Oh wait. It’s MASSIVE.

They say everything comes back in style, and now, 114 cubic inch air tanks are back thanks to Nitro Duck and Special Ops Paintball. This 4500 psi, 114 ci tank, appropriately named the B114 Bomber, gives you enough air to power your Hammer for hours at a time. Don’t let its size fool you, though. Thanks to aluminum and carbon fiber construction, the B114 isn’t much heavier than your average 45 / 45. The B114 uses a reliable, high-pressure Nitro Duck regulator and sports the SpecOps logo and a camo design right on the tank. Perfect for heavy gunners, the B 114 fits inside the tank pouch of any SpecOps vest and gives you thousands of shots off one fill.

What amazes me is the weight. This tank weighs less than my aluminum 48/3000. I love it. With a remote (which is really the only way to use this), the Bomber can be a perfect choice for a hardcore woodsballer. It’s price really isn’t that bad either.

In my deep, philosophical conversations that I have with my uncle, often we discuss intelligent things like variants of paintball that really ought to be more common than they are. One of these is Paintball Marco Polo.

Imagine, if you will, a sunny day in which about six or seven kids are wandering around the backyard playing paintball. Now, this may seem like an impossible task without bunkers, but no! This variant requires no bunkers at all. Just have one of the kids close his or her eyes and to start the standard pool game that I’m sure you are all familiar with. Instead of catching and tagging the polo-ers, the person who is it shoots them. Or at least attempts to. It’s hard to aim a paintball gun while blind For the bold and adventuresome, this game may even be taken to the watery depths of a waist deep pool. Just be careful not to drop your gun.