kiwigat

Hypothetical: We're trying to design a new "pro" version of speedball. Maybe it needs to be: team based easy to ref. Probably shouldn't be getting refs to count bodies during the game. no electronics. To keep it playable for walkon or outlaw games. no timers other than the main game limit. Again, this is a ref load and outlaw ball issue. easy to admin. So, I think just one or two objects. Having loads of flags gets a bit funky. easy to explain. No complex scoring structure. Definitely no points-per-kill or points-per-body (alive or dead).  playable anywhere there's bunkers. No need for walls or buildings or whatever. Minimal special equipment. So ideally you could just use a flag or a ball. No paint lines required to mark the field. Again - outlaw. Any field, anywhere, any time. An incentive balance that makes flag action happen while the opposition still has bodies alive at least, say, 50% of the time. What happens when you put all that in your brain and stew on ...

This shot looks great on a poster. It sucks during live coverage. Anyone can make an exciting paintball reel in premiere or final cut. It's MUCH harder to do it live.  We've been debating this for so many years. Paintball has certainly been on TV before, but it's always been... mid. If you ask a paintballer why it's so hard to film they'll normally tell you "because there's no focal point". And they're right - paintball has no single point of focus. Action can be happening everywhere, all the time. Every player "has the ball" all the time. That's part of what makes it so much fun - you're not being left out if nobody passes to you. But mate it sucks to film in a way that is easy to follow. How do you know where to point the cameras? And even if they're pointing the right way, things happen so fast that a lot of the time you end up missing things because you're on the wrong camera at that moment. So how do you decide which ...

This one is a workout. aka Push the Payload. Take a standard speedball field. On one team's side at the 30 in the middle there's a differently colored aztec or small temple.  Two teams of 4.  Make sure there are clear corner markers and a clear startgate that's tall and can be used for cover. When shot, you respawn by running around one of your own back corners, across to your other corner, then back to your startgate. Wipe yourself down (or sub out) while in cover, then rejoin the fight. Or: wait for teammates to show up and then all breakout at once. Your call. Your goal: push the payload , which is the aztec. You need to get it past the 50 to score one point, to the opposition 40 for two points, and to the opposition 30 for three points and a "delivery", ending the point. Then there's a break between points and now the other team goes on offense and tries to push it the other way.  A match would be two five minute push attempts per team, for a total 20...

The ongoing saga of vball continues. I get feedback, I notice problems, I write another blog. Sweet. Here's the new revision: hangzone - as before. Carry the flag into the enemy zone to win 1 point and end the set. The zone is much like a touchdown zone in NFL. Pull point - Get a point for the first pull, so up to two points per "set" which is what I'll call the old "point". You get points during sets to win games . Centre flag as before. Pass and drop and throw the flag, fine - it's a nerfball. Um... that's it. Otherwise standard speedball, though I suggest a time limit with no points cap and very limited paint (hopperball basically). Carrier respawn was dropped as it creates an incentive to overshoot players walking off. This format incentivises movement, focal point and risk. It's also simple. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. The problems with paintball include cost, commitment, pain and fun. So I suggest this in addition to the ab...

So you may have heard of the NSL ,  a new paintball league in the USA with a few ideas. The core concept is that of a "live flag" meaning essentially that the flag is in play during the game rather than being an afterthought once you've eliminated the competition. How do you do that though? How do you make teams actually want to get the flag rather than just waiting til they've shot everyone? And even if they do get the flag, why would they risk it all trying to score and push up when there are still opposing players alive? It just makes sense to play conservative most of the time in the current game, since a player that's safe in a bunker and concentrating on holding a lane will be a more effective shooter than one who's out in the open or focussed on moving up. What do the NSL do well? Well, the core idea of a live flag game makes sense. We need a focal point and the flag provides that. The touchdown line rather than a hang station makes scoring feasi...

*Updated April 2015* Paintball is hard to watch. I don't think I need to explain it in detail since being here you've probably thought about it, but most folks will say it's because there's no focal point. And that's probably true. It's freaking hard to watch a sport when you don't know where to look (like football). It's even harder to watch a sport when learning all about the sport doesn't even make it that much easier (unlike football). Paintball is screwed, they say. Let's give up on making it watchable and just enjoy playing. It aint broke so don't fix it. Bah. Yeah, so people have tried. The NSL. Redzone tried too, probably more successfully. Moneyball... let's not even go there. But do we really need a whole new format ? Nah. Just a few tweaks to what we've got. Here's a few potential ways. 1. Make that pull worth something Sexy, sexy flagpull. If you make a pull matter, teams will be more likely to grab the ...

Not next year. Not even ten years from now. Most folks don't seem that interested or seem to assume that things will just continue along roughly the path they've been on so far. Unfortunately for them the future would say otherwise. There's a technology on the horizon that could   will  make paintball, airsoft, RAM, CoD and just about everything else redundant. It already exists in a primitive form and there are no real technological breakthroughs still needed. It will let you feel hits like paintball, will no longer rely on honesty, and it'll revolutionise the spectator appeal of the sport. It's called Augmented Reality, and maybe you already have it on your phone in a basic form. Meanwhiles google are actively developing it in the form of Google Glasses:- A little exaggerated! Here's how it would work. Everyone has some special gear - at minimum goggles and a gun, but potentially more if you want to feel hits via small electric shocks (see IRTac...

If you're going to make a paintball game, you need to do it like this. Focus on one league only, like the PSP. Ignore woodsball because that's better served by games like CoD, and because paintball is a small market and you dont have the cash to throw around on redundant content. Focus on the gameplay first and foremost. Capture the experience. What does a team have to deal with at a major tournament? Weather affects sliding distances and stamina. Refs running around can be distracting. Crowd noise and coaching. Individual skills unique to paintball need to be included to get the feel right. Reloading while shooting is a big one. Slides, dives, running and gunning, communication. All of this could be built into an RPG system *if* you have the time and money. Use a new distribution model like steam, XBLA, PSN. Don't waste money putting boxes on shelves. Get the basic gameplay right before worrying about how many markers you have in the game. You can add that sort of ...

Over the last while I've been considering the problems with tournament paintball as it stands. It's all ended up in this idea that I think could make paintball more accessible as a sport. RaceTo is awesome, but I have just one suggestion. It's very simple: Remove the flags and replace them with touchdown style lines. That's it. Call it vBall for now, just for the sake of having a name. It's not at all like moneyball, bacaball or the new NPPL TVball (or whatever). Those all had a big problem in common - unnecessary complexity for the referees, players and spectators. Bacaball was terrible for this with four different ref flags and four field flags. Moneyball was doomed from the start - everyone knew on sight that it would have massive issues with enforcing the line of advancement kill law. Nobody really seems to know what's going on with NPPL TVball, least of all casual spectators. My system has avoided these problems. Here's the reasoning behind the ...

left - CEP are a Christian based paintball team that now play in the professional division of the PSP "Isn't it unchristian to shoot people?" Good question. I gotta admit I love shooting people. With paint. I'm not bad at it either - not that great, but I've certainly had the odd moment of goodness. Still I gotta get a few things straight here as far as my faith is concerned because people don't really seem to understand what it actually means to be a Christian these days. Anyways it's Easter right so... yeah. Figure it's a good time to put the two together! Paintball can be a pretty lame sort of a thing at times. Materialism - the love of possessions, hating someone even if it's just on a sports field, the sexualisation of the sport that goes on, the "look at me in my flash gears" vanity, the downright disgusting attitudes. I don't think Jesus would be a fan of any of that, and not just because he's Jesus or whatever - th...

Wow I'm really jumping around the topics these days. The last post was on fixing speedball, the one before that was an attempt to define milsim, and now I'm all the way back to milsim again! I'vep been running into a few discussions online lately about milsim paintball. A common theme was that 68 cal paintball isn't the best way to simulate the military as far as these things go - most folks seemed to think that .43 cal RAM does that better. I'm not sure I agree. Now there are a bunch of ways to simulate real combat including things like strapping laser tag units to real guns firing blanks or using simunitions, but I wont include those two as they aren't available to average Joe Schmoe. What is available to us is RAM, airsoft, paintball and laser tag. Laser tag can be discounted quickly - the milsim style laser tag guns are huge and innaccurate, you can only be shot in the head or gun, and the people running the games will rarely do proper scenarios. The real qu...

Let's face it, speedball is broken. The sport is dying and the formats available right now aren't particularly exciting to watch. They are also very difficult to film and lack tactical variety or enough "big moments". This is an idea for a format I've been throwing around that aims to address most of the problems with tournament paintball formats these days. As I haven't playtested it it's hard to say how successful it could be, so I'm putting it up online in case anyone wants to have a go at it. Bear in mind this is an extremely rough first draft. It should ideally have the following effects on gameplay: More aggressive. You can't win by sitting back and shooting ropes. More athletic. You don't get much of a break when you're hit. More of a focal point – the players at the front will take this role as they are the ones who will score. Scoring will always happen in the face of opposition, expect insane dives for the line an...

So it's official, Joy Division have decided to hang up their Angels and leave the sport. This is huge. Joy Division were no ordinary pro team. They wore leopard print gear that most would laugh at until they couldn't see for the paint on their gogs. Some members were real life Zoolanders, travelling the world to model for Hugo Boss and Versace between events. Beyond that, they were the guys who proved to the world that a few friends with the right drive and passion can take on the American professional circuits and win . They proved to the world that you don't have to be an American to do that, or have a big league in your home country. They showed us that you don't need big money backing to beat the best in the game. From Siberia to New Zealand they have been an inspiration - it was a photo of them on the wall of a shed that got me into paintball. They were ambassadors of the international name like no team before or after, second only to the Russians in terms o...

In paintball we've got three main streams - Speedball or tournament paintball, recball or woodsball, and milsim. Milsim is a hazily defined version of the game that's meant to be more "realistic", although what that means really depends who you're talking to. So here's a rough guide to milsim as I see it, for those who want to know. Milsim stands for "military simulation". Ie. to simulate the military. The first thing you need to know is that paintball can never really simulate real warfare - we're limited by the range and accuracy of a paintball, the fact we must wear masks, and most importantly the fact that we don't die when we're hit. We can however get close in other aspects. First up, milsim is not a matter of wearing camo and shooting a gun that looks real. There are plenty of paramilitary forces around who don't wear camo (the Taleban, for one), and a marker that looks real is a joke if it's still performing like a s...

Paintball is not an extreme sport. People don't like it when I say that. We have this idea in our heads that paintball belongs in the same realm as skate, bmx, freeclimbing and snowboarding in the Xgames. We love to say that paintball is "the only team extreme sport". It isn't, because it's not extreme. Now before you get all uppity let me explain myself. Paintball is definitely a sport, there is no question about that. It rewards physical endurance especially in the Raceto style formats, requires quick reflexes, communication, teamwork and speed. Better teams will normally win, just like any other true sport. But it's not extreme. In fact, treating paintball as an extreme sport will do more harm than good. First up, the pain factor. Rugby is not considered to be an extreme sport, but almost everything in rugby hurts more than getting shot with a paintball or even many paintballs. Simply being in the scrum hurts more than paintball. If you tackle s...

This is an info post for those who are considering developing a speedball problem, but even if you're not many of these skills will work well in a scenario game. I'll run through a few of the major differences you'll find in the way that speedballers play, the gear they use, and what you need to be competitive. I'll assume that people are already familiar with the safety and gear aspects of paintball. Me: Trained weekly with team Wellington Hybrid for a year or so under the tutelage of Martin Dannefaerd. Captained the end result of the Hybrid secondary team - EQM - for a year. Coached Nelson team Nurv for an event. I've played four or so of the "big" New Zealand events and a whole pile of local 5man events, as well as the HB triples and coaching an xball lite event in Chch. I'm nothing special by nationwide standards, but I think it's enough to know the basics. This article is essentially a mish mash of standard techniques I've picked up...