Hi,
If anything, nothing to the original post was addressed and outside that fact this has become a political discussion.
Politics should not be discussed in Paintball. Why? Cause it shouldn't. All that happens is the fact we generate more emotion and more argument, more fixations on one topic.
Reactments are one thing. What paintballers call "reactments" or scenarios are another. The last time I checked no one had a Civil war looking gun/marker/ what ever PC term you would like to call it, marched in straight lines and shot each other at ten feet away or 3 meters for you metric folks
If anything at this level players are going to act like kids again. I don't know about you but before I was into paintball and when I was a kid, my friends and I would venture out into the woods and play war or combat. We would sit there and say we have indestructible armor or something silly to that fact. (Side note: If I still had all the different toys guns I owned, they would literally be worth as much or more than the real things.)
If anything big games and scenarios are an extension of that fact. We sub-consciencly want to relive what we did when we were younger. Personally, let people do what they want. If they want to build up a Model 98 into a super sniper gun, go for it. If someone feels they want to dress the part of a scenario game, go for it. I would guess it would be evil or terrible that someone dressed up like the SS in a game that pits the US vs. German in a battle of Berlin or something, especially if they were playing a role.
The media has had a field day with paintball sometimes. Generally, paintball gets a mixed reaction from the press. You see a show on the Discovery Channel that has a segment of some US forces using Pro-lites to run practice drills. As a matter of fact, there is a third Delta Force movie that has SMG 60s being used in some kind of training. From my understanding of the event of Shattnerball was an attempt to show big game/scenario paintball to the masses. I wished I was able to make the event but my personal life schedule didn't allow it at the time. The negative sides are too many to name. Every so often so a thrill seeker will go out for a "good time' and shoot people or vehicles with their paintball marker.
Push come to shove Paintball will always be known as a "war game". Right now as we speak, there is a very good effort on the part of X ball to get the tourney side of the sport legitimized somewhat. You are right Tyger, tourney ball needs to get its act together. X ball is doing that by giving a standard and a format to follow. However there are still a large number of players out there that play in the backyard or little tourney at all. Therefore, this market is tapped for the big games which is the country folk come to the big city feeling.
I took a few local people to a game up at EMR. Out of the entire group of 8, only my friend and I were the only ones to have played a field with more than 30-40 people playing. This is in an area where there are about 7 major fields and another dozen or so smaller fields within a 3-hour drive time. Pretty much all were amazed at the fact more than 600 people where playing at a time. One of the kids had never been on a legit field. Speedball, the castles of EMR and the town amazed him. He never knew anything like that existed. I had bumped into the kid a few weeks later and he was still thanking me for taking him there to play.
Now I m going to break one of my own rules here, Political discussion. My issue about the holocaust is that fact that's its only about the Jews. What history forgets is the fact another 5.5 million that were not Jews and died. (We had a pretty decent Jewish survivor speaker in our area about two years ago that actually addressed the issue.) The Nazis during World War 2 murdered my great aunt’s family. My aunt is not even Jewish! My Lithuanian roots were most likely "exterminated" during the same period. As the one fellow mentioned on this topic that 25000 Dutch were killed. I m shocked someone even mentioned that! There are several people who know me personally. They we will attest the fact even though I have the looks of a member of the perfect race according to a 5-foot tall short man I would still be going to the ovens.
The entire 20th century has been the bloodiest century in recorded history. Two world wars have taken nearly 80 million lives. A number of minor wars have taken close to another 20 million. Now were firmly in the 21-th century, war lingers on the horizon again. If man truly learned from his mistakes, we would not have any more war. There would be no genocide. People could live together. However, people cannot live together. Look at Yugoslavia, a land that had genocide in its country for over a 1000 years. The whole Palestinian and Jewish problem continues. Checyzna (sp? I think I'm correct) continues. How bout the Japanese genocide on the people of china during the 30s? Remember folks, we traded the information learned there for our bio and chemical weapons program and those who committed acts barely had any punishment. The peoples of Tibet continue to be persecuted for their religious beliefs. One of the largest mass murders of the 20th century, the purges of Stalin left an estimated 30 million people dead. It is understood why man writes about a utopian place.
Now I got the soapbox speech out of the way
, I should really get back to my whole point of this thing.
Ok I really don't see or understand why we would have to explain the fact that someone who plays a German or dresses like one for a D-Day game. So what he's getting into it. Technically, Hitler was involved with D-Day and his blunders were capitalized on. Maybe if the scenario was based on a camp or something in sense, yeah then it would worth getting emotional about it. Yeah there is something cheesy about using the name of some horrible day in history to market it no matter what it is. What we should really understand is the fact we walk home after a day of "war games". We don't die when we get gogged. We don't lose a limb when a squad buster pops right next to your bunker. We are not sawed into two when the guy with the super fast gun stitches us across the stomach.
When I reffed, there was an older Vietnam vet playing his first time in a private group, he started freaking out during the middle of the day. One of his friends got an edge on him. We stopped the game took him to the sidelines. Let him cool down. He got a grip after a few moments. He played the rest of the day fine after myself and the other ref explained to him that it was just a game. My other ref was a vet himself and they both talk for a while as I reffed the next game.
Tyger, not everyone thinks of the political ideologies behind a game. All you are doing is creating nonsense regarding this matter.
Later,
SHAG
