It's actually extremely simple... Well I think so anyway.
Buttons? WTF? no buttons here. If you just lock down on the flag stations then I wish you the best of luck when you get your ass bunkered.
As you said if you take your focus off the other team to just look at the button that team is gonna come down and take you to pieces and then change the flags... bit stupid to just watch the flags huh?
It matters how far up the field you get and how long you own certain areas of the field. Doesn't a normal game of paintball just matter about how far up the field you get? Lets face it once you are at the other teams base station haven't you just pretty much won the game?
If you wish to play defensively that's your choice, to be honest I think if you play defensively you will never get any points with this format and will lose all the time, just what you deserve. teams with flair and imagination who deserve to win will go for it and get points and win. If you chose to play defensively it will not help you. You can choose to play defensively in a normal game as well? Why is that any different?
You think the crowd would rather follow buzzers than flags? Come on, what if you tune in late? and missed the buzzer? you have no idea what is going on. if it makes you happier when you tip the flag we could make a buzzer sound.
What is it about buzzers? I think that has to be the crappest form of signalling something has happened possible.
The 10 minutes of action is exactly what they can use and edit to make a program. if you just have 2 minutes of action you will be hard pressed to make a longer program than 2 minutes... with 10 minutes you can always edit it down to make a set lenght interesting format. Same way we get football highlights. You have to have more so you can reduce it down. Starting with an uncertain lenght which could be very short does not give the production company any scope to work with. We must give them that scope so we must give them more game time per team on team competition.
I've actualy researched this and had non paintballing players watch paintball on TV, most were not impressed because they couldn't always see what was going on and who was winning. Buzzers will not solve that problem but flags will. Same as with when you turn on American football, you may not see the score but you can see who is on the offensive and how far down the pitch they are...
The game is not the best for TV in its current form. The only people who like watching it at the moment are people who play and understand what is happening. To be honest I don't give much of a **** about them (well I do but...) I care about the millions of people that have not played but which we could show something exciting and get into the sport.
I think to be honest as with many you are thinking too much about your own game as it is now and not what we can do to make the future of our sport better and more acceptable for people WHO DO NOT PLAY to watch... THAT is what we must do... and I will still get satisfaction from shooting out people on the opposing team... just now I will get to do it for 10 minute periods non stop (Am i the only one that thinks that will be much better?) rather than having the game over in a couple of minutes most of the time.
manike