... In my opinion too much of the same gets boring, I would welcome variety at events as well as replica fields prior to millenniums etc. I think there is a skill in reading a fresh unpracticed field in the morning rather than checking your well practiced lanes still exist.
Could it be the resurgence of woodland events such as the woodland masters is partly due to the lack of variety at sup air events?
In the last few years players have expected to sites to have an up-to-date Millennium field, regardless of whether they were going to play MS events or not, and to have the latest event layout up and running within 24hrs of it's release. Offer them an out of date field,a non MS field, or an alternative layout, and they would either piss and moan, or just stay away and patronise somewhere that did have such. (This also grew to an expectation of astroturf too,as most of the precious little prima donnas don't care too much for getting their feet wet, their kit dirty,or cleaning mud from their barrels after the inevitable core sample when their ambition exceeds their skill set!) If there was an extended gap between MS events, then a previous season's field may have been recycled, giving the chance for them to at least post an existing field plan for players to pour over.
As a result, this allowed site operators/event promoters to get lazy,and for Laurent to acquire a newer, better, more expensive Mercedes/yahct/girlfriend etc. Having layouts handed to them on a plate took the effort of designing a symmetrical layout of their own (something SupAir/MS have occasionally failed to get right first time). If the field played like dog poo, games ran overtime or paint consumption was excessive, hey, it wasn't their fault, it was down too the field designer.
In a way, this allowed players a more direct connection with the players and teams they aspired to,by playing on the exact same layout they felt more in the game when watching the webcast. And who knows,
Nexus a generic "Pro" team (or players thereof) may even have shown up to the occasional Piddleshire league event at the behest of their sponsors,allowing Justin Agglett and his palls to wallow in the associated glory as they rubbed shoulders with and mimicked the moves of their heroes.
Gone were the days of laying out fields on Friday evening,of a Reading event as we often used to, pretty much by eye and making adjustments as necessary so that field walking was a necessary part of the pre-game regime.
However, with the rise of the CPPS as the major league in the UK, those teams and players who have aspirations to play MS (even NXL etc. now). can make the trek to Penkridge and rub shoulders with their heroes. There is the opportunity for more fun and maybe even quirky events to be held at local sites on non-standard layouts, and for those who would rather not stand on the start-gate only to sling a fist full of notes down the field at game-on.there is increasing opportunity to play well organised woodland events.
Hopefully,we can see more diversity creeping back in to paintball, and a narrowing of the gap between woodsballers and power rangers!
