Is Reunification still in the cards?

[Baca Loco]

chicago, you can't knock a different version of speedball when it hardly exists, if at all. why not just keep the xball or 7man dimensions? or just somekind of new set-up? 7/X is the new brew of paintball baby! drink up!

It might, just might, be worthwhile to know if any significant change of that sort will actually work before one decides to do it--as in a league making a format change. Could you put 7 players on a normal Xball field? Yes, but I don't think the only result is to simply have 2 more players.

baca, any positive effect right now with the high profile venues are, you're gonna like this answer, intangible. [ok upon further reading spherepoint already hit it. good post.]

I'm not dissing the intangibles but I am questioning the value for benefit in an environment where we are daily told the sky is falling and the status quo can't be maintained because of massive deficit spending by both leagues. If all that is true and we're a couple years into stadium parking lots all I'm looking for is some positive result other than making the players feel all warm and fuzzy. Seriously, if I'm running a business and one of my goals is to reach beyond my constituent market then I'm gonna have a plan, projected costs and projected timeline of desired results, etc. in place as at least a guideline to measure real results against. Maybe that stuff exists and the league(s) are prepared for the long haul but if so let's stop hearing about what dire straits everyone is in.

i'm sure you really do. especially when the best question i could think to ask either you or robbo would be "so... you like paintball?" haha. at mohegan i didn't know you were there and wouldn't know what you look like to even go up and say hi. at boston on saturday i was too busy dropping 2 out of 3 to talk to anyone. did get to meet matty marshall which was cool. meeting one out of four isn't bad right?

but while i have the opportunity i'd like to say that i really enjoy what yourself and robbo write in PGI. though after reading your articles baca, it sometimes makes me think you might be the dennis miller of paintball.

Keep digging that hole. You got time for TV boy but ... s'okay.

Dennis who?

just a fleeting thought here: how many posts does one need to have before you are considered to not be typing "thinly disguised rants by folk with a chip on their shoulders?"

I'm over 4000 and not there yet so you have a ways to go.

 

[muskratjim]

the reason to make it 7xball is because you are trying to get some very high powered people to come together under one banner. on the nppl side with a great deal of money from pp/wdp have invested heavly in the phrase "super 7"
on the xball side you have procaps and richmond who have invested huge sums of money to come up with a format that most players love to play.

stuck in the middle is 4 very rich men who control vast bussness (dave, sergi, adam and billy) who provide their respective teams with every thing but cant really support two leagues, 10 plus events, and a bunch a whining paintballers who want everything for free and two get paid.

paintball has only been around for twenty odd some years. in the first 50 years of pro football everybody had jobs outside of the game. baseball didn't have a millon a year guy till nolan ryan. the first twenty years of nascar were not like it is now.

and what do all these things have in common. nobody really made big money till the game was on tv and outside sponsers in the form of advertising come around. so untill we can get our own house in order "ie" a unified league format. and figure out the best way to showcase our stars on tv, we should shut up and just keep ballin' because as we all know this is a great game to watch and play and th erest of the world will find out sooner rather than later.

 

[Chicago]

Richmond has nothing to do with anything at this point.

 

[SPHEREPOINT]

It is a given now that both leagues have invested heavily into their own brand names, and therein lies a big problem. Before 2003, we all played just paintball. At that point there were no copyrights, trademarks, etc, assocaited with the we actually played. That has all now changed. Because of those heavily invested in names, both sides are going to be reluctant to let go of them. Somehow, a little bit of the game we all owned in some way was taken away. Changing will not be as easy now. What's even worse is that there are absolutely ugly attributes to both formats. Coaching (and worse, counter-coaching) take away or eliminate some of the attributes that make paintball appealing in the first place, ie. surprise, stealth, making an unknown move (the unknown in general) are eliminated in X-Ball. X-Ball lets dumb players make great moves and great players become minimized because the sixth man and even worse, drunk Bertha the paintball mom, are removing chance, risk and surprise from it all. I think I can actually SEE Paul's head swelling and getting purple from here!
On the flip side, 7-man lacks exactly where X-Ball is strongest-repeatable format. How many times have you guys played a 7-man game, lost it, then watched that same team be beaten badly by yet another team that you yourself pummled into submission yesterday? It's infuriating to watch, and even worse to experience. X-Ball allows you to correct and overcome, that is its greatest attribute.
A blend is probably the way of the future, and honestly, it's probably going to have to come from all of us players/field-store owners/ forward thinkers, not the higher ups. Power to the player, grassroots (r)evolution will settle this a lot faster and more efficiently than any type of boardroom negotations. Has anybody ever thought far enough out of the box decide on a new number of people to take the field as part of mashing two formats-and I don't mean 3 man.

 

[Chicago]

Giving up your 'investment' in a brand isn't an issue if your brand isn't worth anything. NPPL/NXL/PSP, as brands, arn't worth much - just as many people dislike them as like them, and outside of tournament paintball, nobody knows what they are anyway. If you can create a new brand with just as much value to it with a pretty small investment, it's just not worth bothering with the old ones.

As for coaching, if you have spectators, you have to have coaching - as Pete would say, end of. And please, let's not start this hogwash that XBall lets dumb players make great moves. Dumb players have ALWAYS been able to make great moves. And there is nothing inherently 'skillful' about stealth paintball. How is two teams trying to guess where their opponents are more skillful than two teams who (may) know where their opponents are?

And have you actually played XBall Sphere? Usually people who say "X-Ball is bad because coaches give away positions" havn't actually played, or have played other teams that don't usually play xball - because it just isn't that simple. Try playing, and see how much more aware you are of the other team's positions. IF they're really nice and sit in their primaries you'll have a pretty good idea, but if they're a practiced XBall team, by the time you figure out where all their players are they'll be hanging the flag. What XBall changes is that you have to deverything faster, before your opponents get a chance to ccommuniate.

 

[SPHEREPOINT]

Played it? I started playing it in 2003 in LA and continued doing it until this year. It was better then than it is now. Coaching gets ugly for all involved. It was a concpet that was forced in this game three years ago and changes the game-in my opinion, hardly ever for the better. Players that have worked long and hard to develop the skills that they have are losing out to a coach and inexperienced player with a fast gun.

 

[Chicago]

I definitely agree it was better then than it is now. XBall doesn't really have coaching anymore, just spectator participation. Coaches have been increasingly marginalized, which I think is a shame.

I'd be happy to take away that fast gun though.

 

[muskratjim]

okay maybee i should move richmand to the big 4 and make it the big 5 instead but that still dosn't dicount the fact that he created the game that most players love to play and if givin' a chance will vote for some form of x-ball format. when it comes to coaching i,ve seen it both way where a coach has helped and counter coaching has hurt but most players should be blocking out every thing and concetate on the game not what happens from the spectator side. and a possible way to remove counter couching is to place the fans 10 feet back from the net and in the stands leaving an area for the coaches to apply their trade.

 

[SPHEREPOINT]

I'd almost be happy with a coach only-minimize the spectator participation as they are the ones who do most of the ruining. Bump them back 20 or 30 feet and things might work out okay. Oh, and ditch the rampers for sure!

 

[Robbo]

okay maybee i should move richmand to the big 4 and make it the big 5 instead but that still dosn't dicount the fact that he created the game that most players love to play and if givin' a chance will vote for some form of x-ball format. when it comes to coaching i,ve seen it both way where a coach has helped and counter coaching has hurt but most players should be blocking out every thing and concetate on the game not what happens from the spectator side. and a possible way to remove counter couching is to place the fans 10 feet back from the net and in the stands leaving an area for the coaches to apply their trade.

Jim, he's not even in the big 5 now, he's outa the loop in this one and the fact that he created the game is now pretty much academic.

And you also say the big four of Sergey, Dave, Billy and Adam can't support their teams in two leagues isn't right either.
All those guys mentioned can easily support their respective teams in both leagues so I'm not really sure of the point you are trying to make here.