D
HB Coverage
- Thread starter Baca Loco
- Start date
Just an observation
Hmmm....well, I wish that the quarterfinals went into semi-finals which would go into finals (final 4).
I know it's "only the best move on" but in the Am division, it went from the top 16 going into the best out of 4 in your bracket (only one in your bracket moving on) going on to the final 4, so only 4 come out of 16. Pretty much you could not lose one game in the quarterfinals in order to move on directly to the finals. When you're in the "must win" situation, the refs are more critical, and any mistake (player & ref) becomes magnified even more...and you're not even in the finals yet. Most of the reffing was pretty good. Some of the refs were a little lazy and it did affect some of the games, but overall the reffing was great. The "Eye in the Sky" ref was a great idea and a few times they were the only ref able to keep track of what was going on when a run-through was happening or a "furball" was happening, and the "Eye" also was able to direct the regular refs to where they needed to be. The refs were more willing to just pull people on a "trade", which cut down on some arguing, and game delays. Apparently the refs were working on zones, and collapsing zones and things seemed to be going more smoothly, which is a good thing, but I think the refs on the NPPL field need more money (that field is used for the "major" games and the finals so they work longer, harder, and are under more scrutiny) or they need to be relieved/switched out with refs from the other fields as those other fields shut down. Rumor has it that Chuck was having trouble getting good refs up until the last minute, but it was a near thing. Phil Dominguez warned people not to shoot his "poles" at the Captain's Meeting.
Overall the level of competition was very high (as was the reffing) and so was the emotional level. With some of the games being so key, a few words were exchanged over opinions about refs decisions and and some bonus balling (quite a few taps to the back of the head and neck as a player is walking off with his gun in the air are usually quite upsetting). It is a little disappointing to only drop one game in the semi's and only one game in the quarter-finals (winning nine games out of 11 total) and not making it into the finals, but hey...someone has to get cut.
The vendor's village was great. Plenty of vendors, plenty of shoppers, quite a few women (but still not enough) in skimpy clothing down by the beach (thank you Body Glove
)...and it was nice to see some people I hadn't seen in awhile (Hi Seanette, Evelyn, Chris-thanks for the schwag from Hybrid, Jeff, Dave W., Leon, Isaac G., Gloria - now at WGP, Guy -AKA "Alien Hunter", the gang from Relic), there was the Climbing Wall, the trick motorcycles, and bikes (this year there was no rapper pulling up in a limo, passing out "Bling Bling"), the loud music, free magazines, and there was even a little shooting range where you could make a T-shirt (empty) dance with the newest A4 (for $5.00). There was also a booth where you could check out a new marker (Odyssey) with an interesting trigger; the trigger swivels in the middle so you have a finger above and below the hinge; it's very quick . One of the Intimidator Techs I talked to said that the new Hybrid inline regulator has the least dropoff of any reg. he's seen and Hybrid has some interesting looking side grips. Most of the vendors I talked to seemed to be very happy with the turnout but a few bad seeds stole the locking collars off of the drop tubes on a few guns...one at Hybrid, and another at WGP off of their newest gun. Speaking of which, I think the Karnivore probably needs a little bit more R&D. Apparently it's a serious gas hog, and the e-cockers in general had a serious problem with physical trigger bounce...not electronic trigger bounce, but the kind of bounce where you go reload, and the gun is still firing as you reach for your pod. I was laughing when I heard Chuck first describe it, but then it happened with my gun when I was testing it down on the sand...and I was shooting a Timmy that never had that problem before. I had to turn my debounce from 2, all the way up to 10 and I turned my LP reg. down to about 65. Some of the E-Cocker shooters had to de-tune their guns down so far that it felt as though you were shooting a pre-98 cocker.
I didn't stick around for the Linkin Park/Stoned Assassins (Cyprus Hill) game but I'm sure the Stoned Assassins won handily. A few people were talking about knocking over the Dynasty mascot (a blue dragon with a very nice looking handler) until they realized there was a girl in there. Security was kinda iffy (people were wanding through with surfboards in hand...in the players areas) but better than nothing. I still think there should be plywood walkways in the players areas (wheels don't roll well in sand and you're more tired walking around than playing games). The astroturf was nice. No-one seemed bothered by the spikes used to keep the bunkers in place. The games usually went quick if the teams were good. The cleaning crews kept the fields clear and the bunkers clean (Chuck bribed some kids with gear, food, and money). Overall it was a nice experience.
Ray N.
Hostile Takeover supporter
PS Sorry Robbo for walking over your team on Saturday...you didn't look too happy. I was going to Razz you before the game but my friends didn't want to rile up your team and he was afraid of your muscles
Hmmm....well, I wish that the quarterfinals went into semi-finals which would go into finals (final 4).
I know it's "only the best move on" but in the Am division, it went from the top 16 going into the best out of 4 in your bracket (only one in your bracket moving on) going on to the final 4, so only 4 come out of 16. Pretty much you could not lose one game in the quarterfinals in order to move on directly to the finals. When you're in the "must win" situation, the refs are more critical, and any mistake (player & ref) becomes magnified even more...and you're not even in the finals yet. Most of the reffing was pretty good. Some of the refs were a little lazy and it did affect some of the games, but overall the reffing was great. The "Eye in the Sky" ref was a great idea and a few times they were the only ref able to keep track of what was going on when a run-through was happening or a "furball" was happening, and the "Eye" also was able to direct the regular refs to where they needed to be. The refs were more willing to just pull people on a "trade", which cut down on some arguing, and game delays. Apparently the refs were working on zones, and collapsing zones and things seemed to be going more smoothly, which is a good thing, but I think the refs on the NPPL field need more money (that field is used for the "major" games and the finals so they work longer, harder, and are under more scrutiny) or they need to be relieved/switched out with refs from the other fields as those other fields shut down. Rumor has it that Chuck was having trouble getting good refs up until the last minute, but it was a near thing. Phil Dominguez warned people not to shoot his "poles" at the Captain's Meeting.
Overall the level of competition was very high (as was the reffing) and so was the emotional level. With some of the games being so key, a few words were exchanged over opinions about refs decisions and and some bonus balling (quite a few taps to the back of the head and neck as a player is walking off with his gun in the air are usually quite upsetting). It is a little disappointing to only drop one game in the semi's and only one game in the quarter-finals (winning nine games out of 11 total) and not making it into the finals, but hey...someone has to get cut.
The vendor's village was great. Plenty of vendors, plenty of shoppers, quite a few women (but still not enough) in skimpy clothing down by the beach (thank you Body Glove
)...and it was nice to see some people I hadn't seen in awhile (Hi Seanette, Evelyn, Chris-thanks for the schwag from Hybrid, Jeff, Dave W., Leon, Isaac G., Gloria - now at WGP, Guy -AKA "Alien Hunter", the gang from Relic), there was the Climbing Wall, the trick motorcycles, and bikes (this year there was no rapper pulling up in a limo, passing out "Bling Bling"), the loud music, free magazines, and there was even a little shooting range where you could make a T-shirt (empty) dance with the newest A4 (for $5.00). There was also a booth where you could check out a new marker (Odyssey) with an interesting trigger; the trigger swivels in the middle so you have a finger above and below the hinge; it's very quick . One of the Intimidator Techs I talked to said that the new Hybrid inline regulator has the least dropoff of any reg. he's seen and Hybrid has some interesting looking side grips. Most of the vendors I talked to seemed to be very happy with the turnout but a few bad seeds stole the locking collars off of the drop tubes on a few guns...one at Hybrid, and another at WGP off of their newest gun. Speaking of which, I think the Karnivore probably needs a little bit more R&D. Apparently it's a serious gas hog, and the e-cockers in general had a serious problem with physical trigger bounce...not electronic trigger bounce, but the kind of bounce where you go reload, and the gun is still firing as you reach for your pod. I was laughing when I heard Chuck first describe it, but then it happened with my gun when I was testing it down on the sand...and I was shooting a Timmy that never had that problem before. I had to turn my debounce from 2, all the way up to 10 and I turned my LP reg. down to about 65. Some of the E-Cocker shooters had to de-tune their guns down so far that it felt as though you were shooting a pre-98 cocker.I didn't stick around for the Linkin Park/Stoned Assassins (Cyprus Hill) game but I'm sure the Stoned Assassins won handily. A few people were talking about knocking over the Dynasty mascot (a blue dragon with a very nice looking handler) until they realized there was a girl in there. Security was kinda iffy (people were wanding through with surfboards in hand...in the players areas) but better than nothing. I still think there should be plywood walkways in the players areas (wheels don't roll well in sand and you're more tired walking around than playing games). The astroturf was nice. No-one seemed bothered by the spikes used to keep the bunkers in place. The games usually went quick if the teams were good. The cleaning crews kept the fields clear and the bunkers clean (Chuck bribed some kids with gear, food, and money). Overall it was a nice experience.
Ray N.
Hostile Takeover supporter
PS Sorry Robbo for walking over your team on Saturday...you didn't look too happy. I was going to Razz you before the game but my friends didn't want to rile up your team and he was afraid of your muscles
----Actually the level of competition was very high and there were plenty of "killer" moves. I believe I saw Rocky C. clear out a snake and then the rest of the field rather easily, but I have a poor memory for names.
----Opie said that their marker was awesome, fast, accurate, and light. I'll grant him two out of four for now. I almost didn't recognize him with his hair.
----Everyone seemed to like the green carpet. Slides seemed to be smooth. I did see a player trip over one of the bunker elastic cords, but overall everyone seemed happy with the field surfaces.
----Although there was alot of talk about the robot, I personally didn't see it come into use, although I did want to try it out with my marker. Although everyone was warned in the Captain's Meeting to lock their guns into tournament mode, the refs seemed to be checking more to see if your Eye was disabled when they chrono'd the guns (disable the eye, and your guns ROF drops to 13 in a Timmy...enable the eye and you go back to max ROF). One thing we encountered was that we discovered that in one of our W.A.S. boards, if you changed the battery, sometimes the dwell bumped up to 25. The techs said to just drop it back down to 8 and nothing else should'be been affected. I noticed that my gun had serious bouncing problems so I had to detune it by quite a bit...but it still shot pretty fast. It seemed to me that alot of people had more paint-related problems on Sunday morning...and their guns had been working perfectly on Saturday. One of our guys had their A4 trigger stick and the Angel tech said that he found loc-tite where it wasn't supposed to be and to not crank down on the tiny setscrews in the trigger frame on both sides of the trigger.
Ray B.
Thanks to TJ and Nulod for filling in some holes. You guys are the best. I can't wait for my wife to get home from deployment so I can work overtime and earn enough to take my team to a big event. In the meantime, I appreciate every story I can get. Thanks.
Correct me if i'm wrong (i usually am) but isnt Dick Clarke only involved in the NXL and not the EXL and divisional XBall?