Idea !!!

[Robbo]

There are occasions when I get an idea in my head that makes absolute sense, and I mean absolute, but I also know, it won't gain any traction for various reasons.
This idea?

Our beloved sport of paintball, tournament paintball that is, would benefit on oh so many levels if we all went back to 7 man .....

Our sport cannot support the XBall 5 man format we play now.
It is a white elephant format and was only created to grease our way onto the silver screens of American TV. ... it really was.

The only reason we adopted the XBall format over here is because we always follow the Yanks, and in most cases, it's the sensible thing to do but now the Holy Grail of TV has been shown the dead box, we need to employ something other than slavish mimicry.

The problem is much like the fable of the Emperor's new clothes whereby nobody will say what is glaringly obvious to all ...... we need to dump the XBall format and go back to reality.

The people who might resist this are at best, self-serving and at worst, idiots because you might hear cries of despair from teams who play the CPL and who are insulated from the real costs of playing this format but these can be effectively ignored.

When I cast my mind back to the gripes and moans of yesteryear when 7-man was the only real game in town, they pale into insignificance to the bitching we get now .... if you think back to say, the year 2000, try to imagine what you would get if you documented all the pros and cons of 7 man at that time ..... now, lurch forward to the present, and now document all the pros and cons of this format we use......... if you do it sensibly, you will discover it's an insane situation we find ourselves in ... and yet, the chances of going back to reality are what?
No hope and Bob Hope ?

Pretty much .... but once again, we would be faced with a massive dollop of commonsense going up against an industry seemingly convinced that we can't go back .... if we came forward, then why not back?

Just a thought ......

 

[RoryM]

OK so 7-man tourney with mixed pools of the divisions, where the small guys can have a crack at the top teams?

That may be the re-birth it needs! There was nothing better than going up against a pro team and sometimes nicking it! Usually worth the trip in itself!

And it could upset the big teams as we know 1 loss in the groups for a pro meant night night to the weekend.

Yes the pros used to complain about this in the manner of 'it is a waste of time/paint', but in reality, it meant they had to be professional. It is just like the FA cup, every little man can have a moment of glory at a top flight teams' expense.

Bring it back!

 

[Robbo]

OK so 7-man tourney with mixed pools of the divisions, where the small guys can have a crack at the top teams?

That may be the re-birth it needs! There was nothing better than going up against a pro team and sometimes nicking it! Usually worth the trip in itself!

And it could upset the big teams as we know 1 loss in the groups for a pro meant night night to the weekend.

Yes the pros used to complain about this in the manner of 'it is a waste of time/paint', but in reality, it meant they had to be professional. It is just like the FA cup, every little man can have a moment of glory at a top flight teams' expense.

Bring it back!

You rightly mention one of the reasons why a lot of am and novice teams wanted to play these events.

And the pros represent exactly what of tournament paintball???

I'm afraid the numbers don't stack up if we listen to what pros want ....

 

[bobby boy]

7 man

OK so 7-man tourney with mixed pools of the divisions, where the small guys can have a crack at the top teams?

That may be the re-birth it needs! There was nothing better than going up against a pro team and sometimes nicking it! Usually worth the trip in itself!

And it could upset the big teams as we know 1 loss in the groups for a pro meant night night to the weekend.

Yes the pros used to complain about this in the manner of 'it is a waste of time/paint', but in reality, it meant they had to be professional. It is just like the FA cup, every little man can have a moment of glory at a top flight teams' expense.

Bring it back!

about time and bring the fps down to 280 before some one gets hit in the eye from bounce off from the field

 

[Sid Sidgwick]

7 man Fed cup?

 

[Dusty]

Oddly enough i was having similar thoughts on the way home. Similar but different in that i think it should remain five man for mass appeal but played on a seven man field in division three.

and bring back multiple field layouts.

 

[SAMUEL.D.RYAN]

Hmm, is 7man the preference just because it "was better before"? It's a genuine question, if you look at my join date you'll see I wasn't a member during the 7man times. It just seems like 7man could be another compromise again, is there another format that will grow the sport even further?

I could see, for example, why complete newbies would be put off by the fact that they had to find 6 friends who were as passionate as they were or join an existing team before they could compete.

3man and 2man seem like they could do with a revival.

 

[Buddha 3]

I think Pete's mention of 7 man (correct me if I'm wrong Pete) isn't so much about the number of players on the field (though the more players you have, the lower the cost per player tends to be), but more about the way the game was played and organised back then.

Personally I'd say yes, do it. For all the reasons already mentioned. I used to be against mixing up pros and the rest, because the pros should be the elite and hence play other pros, but since the only people who come to see the pros are paintballers anyway, might as well play them. We won't be on TV anytime soon, so we don't need an elite league to showcase to the rest of the world. We just need fun back in our events.

As a retired playes, when I think back to what I liked about playing, it wasn't the actual games, it was spending a long weekend with good friends and people that had a similar drive. It's drives/flights to the events, it's the walking the fields of differing designs (good point Dusty), the going over the footage of the games. The games themselves only took up a small portion of the time spent over at an event and to the people that claim that all these x-ball derivatives give people more bang for their buck, I say crap. Having looked at a good number of games over the weekend, the amount of time actually played is still minimal. I've seen more points being scored within 40 seconds, then points that took longer... The shortest game of 7 man I've ever played in was 45 seconds (a win), all the rest lasted much longer. And the bills were a lot smaller too.

Pete, you are on to something.

 

[Robbo]

Hmm, is 7man the preference just because it "was better before"? It's a genuine question, if you look at my join date you'll see I wasn't a member during the 7man times. It just seems like 7man could be another compromise again, is there another format that will grow the sport even further?

I could see, for example, why complete newbies would be put off by the fact that they had to find 6 friends who were as passionate as they were or join an existing team before they could compete.

3man and 2man seem like they could do with a revival.

Nostalgia always has its wicked way with me but I'm afraid it's just plain sense that provokes this idea .... I can easily cite a myriad of reasons of why 7 man should be resurrected none of which correspond to wearing rose-tinted glasses.

If you really think about what I asked in that first post, you will discover what I am saying makes sense.
For those people who weren't around in paintball's heyday, maybe ask someone what the Toulouse events were like and just what made them special.

The value for money overall was better then and the cost was lower .... we also need to address ramping, it sucks !!!!
And I hate the sideline coaching cr@p we see .... the list goes on .....

As for 3 man and two man?
As far as I know, they were never really popular anyway and so can be effectively disregarded.

 

[head_-_shot]

I don't see why we don't take a chance with it, there arn't many downsides, and afterall, whats the worse that could happen!