Amsterdam Masters shout outs!

[Orange]

u r taking the piss!!

I can't believe what I'm reading about the Dutch Masters, it was the worse (Millenium) Tourny ever!!
Sure all the stuff they could make money on was there, toilets for 0.50 Euro, rolls for 3,00 Euro, loads of discount coupons for the local pizza place and coffee shops, but some of the important things that really matter at a tournement: safety, playing schedules and safe zone was total ****!!!

Who ever put those towers up must be a complete retard, everybody knew the weather forecast: rain and heavy wind for Friday and Saturday, but they left them up, even when the first two nearly crashed on the Smart Parts tent they only secured those two, over one hour later the one on the Angel field tiped over and nearly killed at least 5 people, if it wasn't for the people in the Diablo tent shouting there heads of the US woman taking the pictures would have been dead for sure, only then did they decide to secure the rest of the towers....

Same goes for the safe zone, didn't they check the weather forecast: RAIN AND HEAVY WINDS: HELLOOO WAKE UP AT THE WHEEL!! why the **** did they put the tables out in the open, next to a covered totaly empty hall!!!! they could't of made it more obvious they didn't give a **** about the players!

As for the playing schedule, on Thursday night 21.00 the schedules were finally finished, and the teams who waited for them saw that a lot of them were playing 2 games at the same time, 3 games in a row etc. when questioned about this the answer was: "just try and get to the fields as soon as you can after your games", any idiot could see this wasn't going to work!!
And sure enough, after the first 6 games there already was a delay of 2 hours, and the last games were over at 21.55!!
Same **** the next day, teams standing around for hours in the rain waiting for the other teams to finish games on other fields before they could start the next game, total chaos!
Turns out they had a PA system, which they used to tell people their car was being towed, why the **** didn't they use that to call the teams to the fields and get some organisation in this chaos, all that was needed was for someone to get his ass in gear and call the teams to the fields, as nobody knew what was going on.

As for this computer crash bull****, please come on, don't insult us even more, when the **** did the start making the schedule, when did it "crash" the registration deadline was weeks ago, they've known for weeks who's playing, how come they didn't make the schedule 2 weeks ago, or one week ago, or even 2 days before the event, we've been asking for days to post the teams in this forum, like I said the registration stop was weeks ago, why always wait untill the last minut with the team listings and playing schedules.

Like I said before, everthing that makes them money is always spot on, and never ****s up, but the bare neceseraties for the players: marschalling, air fills, toilets, schedules, safety is always ****ed at these big events, for the kind of cash were paying we should at least get something better that this, the smallest piss woodland tourny is better organised!
Personally I don't give a **** about 10% discount at some pizza place, I would rather they stick there time into organising a smooth running tourny, time has come for the business men to take in some advise from the players, NPPL style, as the Millenium Series is starting to turn into a money making event were the player are seen as stooges who'll turn up anyway.
It has already changed from a BYO series to only sponsors paint, so Teams like Hellwood who'se paint sponsor doesn't sponsor the series had to pull out, the next thing that will happen is the the paint prices will go up, as I'm sure everybody including the promoter lost loads of money again, yep it's a sure money loser to put up an event like this, but hey what do you know, they're going to put another one on next year, they must really love us players.........

 

[Orange]

As for your points, if you feel the whole thing was so bad, why did you stay? Why did you stick around to play all 10 games? Surely if you feel that both the services offered, and the safety were so bad, you should have packed up, gone home, and demanded a refund!
What you are doing now is eating the entire Big Mac, and then go back to the counter to complain about the taste. If you don't like your meal, don't eat it.
Just my opinion


Killer opinion, and I'm sure your sponsers would have paid the refund, I think not! and even if they did, there are still the flight tickets, rental cars, hotel bills to be paid!
Face it, if they would refund all of this, there would have been 6 teams playing the Dutch Masters....
This is what is so ****ed up, they lure the teams in with the usual: 140 teams, biggest trade show in europe etc. and when you've commited yourself and turn up it turns out the organisation is total ****....

 

[Buddha 3]

Don't tell me I'm taking the piss, when I'm not!

Like my post said, I was speaking my opinion, like you are doing in yours. Opinions are not pisstaking my friend.

Like I said earlier, if you are unhappy with the product on offer, DON'T USE IT! It's a bit easy to bitch and whine on here, but if you want to make an active contribution to ensuring a better quality next year, send an email with your suggestions and comments to the organising people, there addresses are easy to find on their website.

Some people, like me, had one hell of a cool ass weekend, some people did not. That's the way it is. But if you want to see things changed, do something about it, what you're doing now is a waste of energy. And if you so hate the promoters for whatever reason, and think that it all sucks so much, why still attend these events? I just don't understand that...

PS I know for a fact that th eorganisers actually had these towers because they could take a bigger beating than those of some other events. I've got photgraphic evidence that I'll be more than happy to send to you that'll show you towers that would have come down, and would have killed people under these circumstances...

 

[Buddha 3]

Originally posted by Orange
As for your points, if you feel the whole thing was so bad, why did you stay? Why did you stick around to play all 10 games? Surely if you feel that both the services offered, and the safety were so bad, you should have packed up, gone home, and demanded a refund!
What you are doing now is eating the entire Big Mac, and then go back to the counter to complain about the taste. If you don't like your meal, don't eat it.
Just my opinion


Killer opinion, and I'm sure your sponsers would have paid the refund, I think not! and even if they did, there are still the flight tickets, rental cars, hotel bills to be paid!
Face it, if they would refund all of this, there would have been 6 teams playing the Dutch Masters....
This is what is so ****ed up, they lure the teams in with the usual: 140 teams, biggest trade show in europe etc. and when you've commited yourself and turn up it turns out the organisation is total ****....

You beat my post with this one...

Sure, my sponsors would have refunded all that stuff for me. I got sponsorship coming out of my ears! I get soooo much free stuff that I just give half of it to charity. Wake up and get real dude.
From some of your posts i get the impression that you are Dutch, but you seem to have a very limited understanding of the Dutch laws in that case. If you could have proven that you were being bull****ted (which would not have been too difficult if things were as bad as you make them seem, provided you would have indeed walked away..), you would not only have gotten your entry fee refunded, but all other costs as well.
Why is it that the vast majority of people that I spoke to, including people with more tourney experience than I could get if I played every NPPL and Millennium and local event for the rest of my life, though the whole thing was great? Sure, they all thought that the tower issue was a let down, and the weather could have been better, and the schedules were running late, but a lot of tourneys run late without the computer going tits up! (and I know for a fact that the thing did go tits up, cause I saw it happening)

You should have walked, and you should have gone for the refund if this is how you feel. That's what I would have done if I felt the same way you did...It's just that I don't happen to feel the same way.

 

[Al Woods]

Whuuut!!

Well said J.

You see, the thing I notice about the MAJORITY of paintballers is that we wanna play the game no matter what. Sure the towers collapsing was some seriously messed up **** that needs addressing next time but the main influencing factor was the weather. If the weather wasn't as f*ked then the towers would never had collapsed and the games would have run to the correct times, kinda, and your post would have been about how happy your ass was with whole event.

I gather you didn't like the field layouts then and how they all played differently? I gather you didn't like the fact that you could get a sweet 4500 fill ALL the time without having to wait for hours? I also gathered that the simple layout of the whole venue, the seating, the Draxxus stand, the on-site bar and decent food they had or the fact that no matter how f*ked up things got the teams just played the games and still managed, no matter what, to put on a good show?

Room for improvement? Yes.

Unlucky due to the weather? Yes.

Good job for a first attempt in horrendous conditions? Again, yes.

 

[Orange]

Well I guess we've been speaking to different people then, everybody I spoke to, from nov to pro thought it was by far the worse Millenium event.
Jorn Windler was one of the ultimate judges of the Max Masters, and helped with the organisation, so he knows what he's on about.

Why still play them? there isn't anything else out there! and even standing around for 2 hours in the rain is worth it to compete and play with the best teams in the world, that's why these promoters can get away with so much, because we always show up again.
Look at the World Cup, it was **** 2 years ago, a lot of the same problems the Dutch Masters had, but the next year there was a record amount of teams playing, why? because there is no alternative, as soon as the NPPL sets up their own league things will change, I'm sure of that, as we are offered an alternative.

The thing is teams come from all over the world, spend thousends of Dollars / Euro's to play these events, so you expect something special, and in Amsterdam the organisation level was below the average woodland tourny, I expect to get what I pay for!
After all the **** that happened at Skyball last year, why the **** didn't they make a backup! If you saw the computer crash, I'm sure you can tell us when this happened, as I'm curious when they started working on this, the captains meeting that never was, was planned at 18.00 on Thursday, so they must have been printed out by at least the day before, surely they didn't wait untill the last day....
As for the tower issue, how can you call that a let down? people nearly got killed because nobody did anything for over an hour after the Smart Parts booth nearly got crushed by two other towers!

Maybe this is a waste of energy, but I thought this was a forum in which you could share your thoughts with other players.
Believe me we complained at the event itself, in most cases it didn't help, everbody was blaming each other.
We did get permission to put our stuff in the hall when it was really pissing down, as the safe zone was open air! but when we got there the other teams had already taking things in their own hands and had moved into the shelter in mass.
Personally I really think there should be more players involved with the Millenium Series, not just business men, look at the Joy Masters organised by Magued and Joy, killer organisation, totally focused on the players, shame they aren't all like that....

 

[Buddha 3]

Don't get me wrong, you are entitled to post your vies here, I could have easily removed them if that wasn't the case. But you have to realise that some people will not agree with what you have to say. Also the way you started your original post is something that has a tendency to rub people the wrong way. Your latest post however is far more civilised, and offers good points.
Don't get me wrong, I saw many points that could be improved upon, but overall the weekend left me with a great feeling, it saddens me that it left you with what seems to be a bitter feeling.
As far as the no alternative is concerned, unless you are not willing to force change, either by demanding refunds, or (very extreme) setting up your own alternative, staying for the duration of the whole thing, and complaining afterwards is just wrong in my view, but like I said, that's just my view.

PS, the computer crashed on the thursday evening, during the registration. I think Jean Manuel might be able to tell you more about that though.

Take care my man, I just hope you understand that all this is not meant as a personal attack on you, but it's just me explaining how I experienced things.

 

[rancid]

Ain't there some duel standards here? Robbo and pgi went beserk about the world cup a couple of years back and that was cos of the netting; now it seems we'd rather talk about the game rather than the fact that someone could have got brained.

It will be interesting to see what is written in the mag.

 

[Eddepet]

Nicely put Jos......

All you negative people out there being negative about the DMAz.....stop being negative and trying to ruin it for everyone else who are thinking about coming next year! I had the best weekend in a very long time.

Again, big up to our broz from K2......you guys is tha shizzit!

Eddepet

 

[Orange]

No problems here, I don't see this as anything personal, you and the people you spoke to had a great time and myself and the people I spoke to had the worst tourny for a long while.
I guess you were one of the lucky ones that wasen't playing at 22.00 at night after waiting since 12.00 and wasn't standing next to the tower as we were when it came down.
I posted my first post in the wrong thread, it was supposed to be a new thread, I've seen you have removed it, maybe you could put it back in, as I don't want to bring down your "shouts out" post as it was never meant to go in this thread.
All the subjects I've posted her we asked about at the event, and nobody could give us any answers, so obviously I'm going to share them with my fellow players, hopefully people from the event will read the and see that they didn't get away with it, it was a big cock up.
Like I've said before I'm a firm believer in you get what you pay for, if I pay $ 25 entry fee for a BYO tourny, I'd expect the standard to be not perfect, put paying $ 1000 entry fee I'm expecting at least a decent playing schedule, dry player zone, good air station, loads of toilets and decent safty, and sadly in Amsterdam apart from the Air, which was killer, and the $ 0.50 toilets they weren't there.....