Is cheating part of the game?

[Richard Kirke (DUPS Rocket) UK]

Cheating

Hi, I posted a long thing about peanlisation on the other thread, and as you can tell I have pretty strong feelings about cheating.

The difference with paintball is that cheating means staying in the game, and taking other people out, and that a game lasts 10 minutes not 90 and that in football a competition lasts MONTHS not one day, so any cheating can be examined and punished.

What Roy Keane and Paul Ince do is push the limits, becuase things are a bit more objective, in paintball its closer to fact.

Anyways for more rantings see th other string:

http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6490&perpage=15&pagenumber=3

There are places where the envelope can be pushed... but I feel that impact on a game is too significant, after all if Russian Legion were a clean, talented football team they would still win, becuase they would get loads of free kicks from oposition "pushind the envelope".

Just my thougts

Richard

 

[RED HOT]

my 2cents worth

there seems to be too many players who accept cheating as part of the game. some see playing on as part of the game. this needs to stop. i've seen so many players who are 'commited' for a run or mug who are blatently hit on the way in and still gets the other guy on a mutual kill. this is not pushing the rules or playing the rule book, its cheating no two ways about it.
if you ever saw my guys play you'd probably think they were chumps for turning around and taking the long walk when getting hit on the way in for a mug. but we call it playing fair. whats wrong with that?

 

[Bigdog]

Blatant

Originally posted by TJ Lambini
[B
However, if you're sat behind a bunker and you feel a hit you have a responsibility to check yourself or call a ref over to do it...obviously there will be tha odd instance where you don't feel a hit, but these are few an' far between. In short, if a guy is getting pulled for playing on on a regular basis, he's gonna get a rep as a cheat, but if it happens every now and again then it's like getting sent off in soccer.

S'never gonna be cut n dried in paintball... [/B]

Hows this:
http://www.forceofnature.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=getit&lid=48
First game of the finals in Chicago this year, if it doesn't come out properly on the low res version try the higher one.
Guy from strange playing tight against a bunker takes a ball in the butt, doesn't try to check (use hands to find paint), but turns around to try return fire & gets on in the head - maybe fair enough, but what about the Dynasty player that takes a hit in the mouth (must taste nasty) & carrys on!!!! If you have paint on you you are out, simple.

 

[roo boy]

cheats r cheats r cheats

Most sports have some form of cheatin happenin, but i dont think th@ the outcome of the game or event could change so dramatically as in paintball!!! If some1 is hit plays on or wipes & plays on then the game could have changed completely if th@ person had decided 2 walk. The only way 2 stop it is 2 have more refs on field .If they no they r gunna get busted & pulled even maybe 1 4 1 then they might think twice!! There will allways be cheaters but @least stop the temptation 4 them.
More refs would be more expensive but if paintball is serious about becoming a Xtreme Team Sport with major backin from outside sources it has no choices but 2 lift its game!!

 

[Jones the Paint Magnet]

Cheating is cheating. Arguments like "it's just part of the game, blah blah blah" is a way of trivialising the lower end of it. Why rag on Salm so much - he was just "pushing the envelope", but to the nth degree. Once you make the allowance, then you're on a slippery long slope which will (a) encourage people to get away with more, and (b) give plenty of room for arguing calls with refs.

The Roy Keane example - even the toothless organisations in charge of football got fed up with his attitude and penalised him. Look behind the overpaid minority in the Premier League and there's plenty of players had their careers brought to an end by deliberately reckless challenges. Why? 'Cause the tackler had a bit of testosterone to burn. Does having dirty players in football promote other players to be "clean" - I don't see a logical connection.

Things in paintball happen fast - that's where the difficult calls come in. Would be nice if players could self-regulate, but I don't see that happening when there's prize money at stake, so we're going to have to rely on the refs to work out what happened apply rulings accordingly.

Same thing happens in fencing (sabre and foil). There's a possibility that both players can land a valid hit, and it can be over in a blink of an eye. The ref has to decide who was making the attack, and whether the defender got hit, parried or riposted. Sometimes the call is off - but hey - we're all human and it's a difficult call : live with it.

However, if I go to fencing competition with say, bits of my jacket rubbed with vaseline (so the hit won't register), or keep barging my opponent off the piste, or land a hit under his kneecap after he's scored - then I'm gonna get black carded and removed from the venue. Yes, you do get a few obnoxious people who like to push things by arguing with the ref on hits. But the scope of cheating is far less - fiddle with your equipment; you're out. Fence after the president calls "halt"; you're out. Perhaps this is why a fast and competitive sport is still seen as "gentlemanly" (although women are generally the politest fencers)?

 

[Wadidiz]

The Ideal vs the Real or Morality vs the Way Things Are

I could really wax philosophical here and talk about the rise and decline of Western thought and culture and the epistemological base for our social rules and laws and other such shiznit.

Maybe there was a time when there was more of a sociological consensus about being sportsmanlike, following the rules, playing honorably and calling cheating dishonesty, not just part of the game. But those times are definitely gone, we just have a shadow of that remaining in some of us and sometimes our collective consciences give a twitch or two.

Let me illustrate that with a major hockey series I saw many years ago. I can't remember if if was some kind of world cup or not, and I don't want to be distracted by the details. I just remember seeing Sweden playing some incredibly skillful hockey with an incredible combination of individual talent and masterful teamwork. Then my national team, USA, faced Sweden in the play-offs. The Americans had all the same skills going for them but they added the dimension of sheer, ruthless, consciously-applied brutality, seasoned with pushing the rules and plain cheating when the refs weren't looking.

I remember distinctly the feeling that I had then of a nauseous embarrassment for my country's team. I saw the frustration of the Swedish team who tried to face the challenge but just didn't seem to collectively have it in them to dish it back out the same way it was being given them. (And, believe me, Swedish hockey players definitely have the capability to be brutal and push the envelope. It just had not been developed nearly as far at that time.)

I couldn't help but wonder how the US players could live with themselves. How they could enjoy a victory like that.

I was reminded of that same feeling when I read and heard all the reports about X-Ball at Nations' Cup. I remember Robbo's description of Russian Legion's frustation at the Americans' ability to ruthlessly and skillful push the playing-on rules way beyond their limits.

To apply this to my personal experience playing paintball: I played with an incredibly good NPPL amateur team years ago. We became the Amateur 5-player champs and took 6th in 10-player. The first-string players were not only very skillful, great at teamwork but also very good cheaters. I'm not trying to sound goody-two-shoes but I have always been against cheating and they knew it. (I can swear under a polygraph exam that I have never cheated during a tournament. I confess that I have once or twice while practicing.) The fact of my anti-cheating stance, I know for a fact, kept me from playing more in the tournaments. I was once told during a drunk confession that a less skillful player was put into certain games rather than me because it was known that I would walk off the field if I, for example, got hit on my hopper. This guy wouldn't.

So I come back to this: some people can kill whatever they have left of a conscience and be proud of a win that involved their cheating. I can't. I can only be proud of what I have achieved on a fair, even ballfield.

Since there are so many players who don't have much of a conscience, we have to have tough, realistic rules and they must be enforced consistently.

Steve

 

[roo boy]

cheatin is cheatin

I didnt say that cheatin is a good part of the game but 4 as long as I have been playing it I have seen it from Pro's to walk on's.Im sure when u get the amount of money th@ is invested in2 soccer pumped in2 paintball things would be completely different.

What Salm did was was on the xtreme end of being wrong! If u did **** like th@ in any other sport u would be crucified bad. Th@ would be like Lewis doin a shin kick 2 the head of Klitschko. Or maybe Tyson bitin Lewis's ear in their rematch.

I know it is hard reffin in ball things happen so hard n fast. I cant ref 4 **** & I admire any1 who can but the more on field(especially highly trained) the better.

I have worked in Broadcast 4 awhile & 4 Paintball 2 kick ass it needs 2 pick it's act up. I have had alot 2 do with extreme sports which have huge amounts of money thrown @ them & if we want ball 2 be in the same league things need 2 improoove.

The Millenium series seems 2 b rockin & with the NPPL Super 7's on the way things might now start 2 get more uniform and paintball might get the respect it really deserves!!!

 

[Matski]

Wadidiz

Makes me laugh that youve cheated while practising.....mmm that makes sense..not.


"I couldn't help but wonder how the US players could live with themselves. How they could enjoy a victory like that."

Winning is everything, sponsors care more about winning teams than clean teams, in the short-term anyway.

Harsh penalties and quality reffing will help to minimalise wiping but even the best refs are gonna miss some things. Blatent wiping should not be 'part of the game' and could possibly damage the progression of the sport in the long term. As for that whole grey area we call 'playing on', I think it will always be apart of the sport, all sports have grey areas where the rules can be pushed and paintball is no exception.

IN FACT I believe that one of the skills of game is knowing how far, and when to push the limits of the rules to get the results. You gonna sit and think about what could happen if you get tagged or you gonna pull that run through you just thought up?

 

[Wadidiz]

Wadidiz

Originally posted by matski
Makes me laugh that youve cheated while practising.....mmm that makes sense..not.

I agree with you that it didn't make sense. Sometimes we played long practice games and I just didn't want to have to stand on the side-lines and twiddle my thumbs. It was also out of irritation and frustration towards some of my teammates who wiped several times in one game. No excuse though.

As for playing-on: I am on a mission from God to get that under some kinda control.

Steve

 

[Buddha 3]

To backtrack a little to Manike's question about why we seem to get all hotblooded about cheating in paintball, whereas we find it 'normal' in other sports: I think it may have something to do with the fact that some of the cheating goes completely against the whole point of paintball. You get hit, you're out. Simple.
In another thread we established that playing on may constitute a far bigger effect on the game, but when we talk about cheating, people always mention wiping first, probably because it is so directly against the whole point of the game. So maybe it's a bit like a soccer player picking up the ball, and running around with the thing in his hands. That also goes against the whole point of the game.
In some sports, cheating or fouling is even part of the strategy used to beat the other team. I remember when I played American football that we would sometimes opt to accept the penalty for a late hit, when we knew that it would make the other team's quarterback very nervous for the rest of the game. We'd get a one-off penalty, but the other team would struggle to complete any passes. So yeah, cheating and fouling is part of any sport. It's up to the players to decide how far they are willing to go, and they must also accept the consequences of their actions. Sad thing is that at the moment it is possible for people to get away with a lot.