Philly Open

[Baca Loco]

Hey kidz,
If you attended this event let's hear what you gotta say. Below is the complete text of post from someone who was there to get you started.
If you're wondering why I'm using "Mom's" post it's cus most of the other reports I've heard haven't been as polite or as constructive as "Mom's" post--but maybe they all got it wrong.
If so, here's your chance to say so.

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PSP Report Card (as posted by "Paintball Mom" in another forum)

Venue = A (If you turn the wrong way on Belmont St, you took your life in your own hands. Otherwise, the playing surfaces were nice, even after it rained a little. And when the sun was shining, the park was a really nice place.)

Security = F (We must have walked by the highly concerned "ID checker" without our ID at least 20 times. Not to mention we could just avoid her all together by entering the players area through the EVIL/JT Field Walkway. Little kids were making out like bandits on Wed/Thurs taking whatever they wanted from players areas.)

Site Maintenance = C (PSP, could you at least have someone pick up the trash. Make the players do it themselves or provide adequate support to keep the areas clean. The 10-man and X-ball staging areas were like mini trash dumps by Saturday afternoon. Disgusting.)

Field Maintenance = D (While some refs were at least making some effort to keep the fields/bunkers clean, most didn't give a crap. The bunkers weren't wiped down between games/matches and seldom were key bunkers raked out enough to prevent eliminations from sliding/crawling on broken paint.)

Judging = D (LAZY is the word of the day for the majority of the reffing crew. Although there were a few refs who showed some hustle (and thank you for those that did) most just stood on the sidelines and eliminated players by pointing at them from 30 yards away. We saw one of the guys from Tipmann judge a 10-man game from his chair on the sidelines. We know judging is a tough job. If you want to know how it should be done, go watch a few NXL matches. Watch Boogie in particular. If you don't strive to judge like he does, then do us all a favor and don't do it. You don't get paid and earn series points for nothing. And when did NOVICE teams suddenly qualify to ref events? Again, another event proves to all of us that having PLAYERS ref is not the way to go. Not to mention that the REFS were the ones who set the schedule way behind on Friday by not showing up on time. Nice job guys.)

Rules/Roster enforcement = C (Our computers went down. Nice. Hand-written rosters. Nice again. What's the point of the APPA ID system?)

Overall = C (PSP, a nice venue alone will not earn you points. Still the most pressing issues remain the integrity of the league and rule enforcement, the quality of the judging and how the players are treated. Keep working on these things because although they are still falling short, they are improving.)
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[Baca Loco]

X-Ball in Philly

On a somewhat unrelated note there has been alot of talk about the viability of X-Ball with a potential spectator audience and I have some interesting anecdotal info to pass along.
There were upwards of twenty plus folks attending the event specifically to watch Strange play Div. 1 X-Ball because they knew or knew about a single player on Strange and thought it would be neat to see what it was all about. Only two or three of the folks who came to watch had ever seen any sort of PB played before.
Both the Strange-Dogs match-ups were tightly contested, more defensively oriented--at least in terms of the score--than is often the case and guess what? They all thought it was awesome. Loved the game, loved the suspense, had no problems following what was going on, and were generally amazed by the whole PB thing. And why?
Cause they had a hook that connected them to what they were seeing on the field. The same things that tie fans of any sport into passionate followers of their games--they had a reason to care about the team and the outcome.

What's the point? Point is there's been lots of talk among players about how much interest X-Ball has and now you know. Give folks a reason to care about the games and the game won't turn the people away.

 

[raehl]

In reverse order...

Hrm, wouldn't it be great if there were a way to have a bunch of paintball teams that people were already familiar with and attached to? I wonder where you might find something like that?


Re: the APPA ID system:

Honestly, I never intended it to work as part of a security system for the players tent, and if it's going to be used like that, it's going to need a bit more tech (because there's no way a guy, or 5 guys, standing at the entrance with anything short of a scanner is going to be able to know if you're on the list.)


That said, I know for a fact that the ID system works - there were several teams at Chicago and Philly who were forced up because of the ID system, and that's just the ones that I had some reason to know about - there were probably more who moved up "on their own" just because it wasn't likely they'd get away with playing down. And there's already been one team DQ'd for playing with an invalid roster.

Off the field, the APPA ID system does a few other things - it automates the team list (No more wondering if your registration made it in) and automates payment notification (no more wonering if your payment was accepted). It automates waivers (for those of you who were not there, if you completed your roster prior to the event as you were supposed to, when you got there your team waiver had a list of all the player names and addresses and all ya hadda do was sign the thing. Come world cup we'll have player class on there too.) And it puts player and team information in a format where it's easily used - so promoters can do things like email all the teams coming to an event about last minute information, which, until now, I don't think anyone was really able to do because even if you could reliably get emails out of people as part of taking registrations, you'd still have to decipher them from forms and enter them into the computer for them to do you any good.

That's not to say there isn't room for improvement and that improvement isn't planned - I'd certainly welcome any comments about the ID system either here or at ids@paintball-players.org. We'll do better on the connection next time - it worked well in testing prior to the event, did ok on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then went to hell on Thursday, although that may have been the power grid going down.

One thing we'll be adding, although I'm not sure if it'll be 1 month or 3 before its done, is player and team profiles - so players and teams can input their own information, including pictures, sponsors, etc, and that'll get instantly put into a page with the other teams, (basically give you a basic team home page). You can check out a basic version of this we use for the college league here:
http://college-paintball.com/cgi-bin/teamprofile/showteam.cgi

We also had feedback that people wanted to be able to carry rosters over from event to event, so that'll go in as well.

Two final points: I don't think the hand-written roster criticism in the original post is valid - the only way anyone had to deal with a hand-written roster is if they did not take the time to complete their roster prior to showing up, which every team was supposed to do. And at the end of the day, the whole thing is free, which is pretty cheap for getting anything at all.


- Chris

 

[knobbs]

In reverse order...

Originally posted by raehl
Re: the APPA ID system:

Honestly, I never intended it to work as part of a security system for the players tent, and if it's going to be used like that, it's going to need a bit more tech (because there's no way a guy, or 5 guys, standing at the entrance with anything short of a scanner is going to be able to know if you're on the list.)

I think by the word "ID" attached to it, people are expecting an identification system, and the only reason you use an ID is to prove you are who you say you are--i.e., for security purposes.

While the other stuff is nice, it could be done without a physical ID. A team could sign ahead of time, fill out a web form with the roster, and have a waiver to sign ahead of time, as well as put them on email lists, etc. With a physical ID (and all the fanfare that surrounded it) people are expecting it to come into use...which it didn't.

As far as having a guy standing at the entrance with a scanner, NPPL makes great use of thier IDs as a security system, why is that harder for the PSP? PSP had a chance to make good use of the system, but it sounds like they blew it.

 

[ChuckC]

And what exactly does NPPL do that is so great for security? I played Chicago and NJ, and I saw hundreds of people in the players' area that didn't belong....just as I witnessed the exact same thing in Pomona and Philly at the PSP's. The hands down best security I've seen thus far this year was at the PSP Vegas event...those people would not let ANYONE in without a pass...even if you just walked off the field with all your gear, your marker and paint all over you - no pass, no entrance. The next best secured event was the PSP Chicago.

But PSP definitely dropped the ball in Philly...I had some gear stolen there, as did several others whom I talked with.

My question is this: If I pay money to play an event, and part of that money goes to hire security personnel to protect my belongings, and my stuff gets stolen...whose responsible?

 

[Fabio421]

I had hella fun playing in Philly but I felt that the infrastructure left alot to be desired. Especially from a security standpoint. In the past when we had our events off to ourselves and there was no one there but paintballers, you could assume a certain level of trust among your fellow players. As the sport grows and the group becomes larger you lose some of that. Now that we are holding events in more public places the need for security is greater than ever. I thought the security at the Vegas PSP was the best all year. Philly was the worst. Not only was the security non existant but we were staging next to a somewhat sketchy part of town. I walked fields on thursday and played for the next three days and was not asked once for my I.D.
This event could have used a beer vendor also. I'm sure this was not allowed because I noticed that you can't even buy beer at the convenience stores in Philly. But it sure was nice to have all those bars spread around the site in Chicago.
The fields played very well. Especially the Evil field. Props to the set up crew.
Reffing was horrendous. The Evil field reffs were the worst. The reffs were late at least two of the three days of the 10 man. (I played afternoon session on Sat. so I don't know if they were late that day.) Thanks Lane for coming out onto the field and reffing Sunday morning to try and get the games on the JT field started. Thanks to Jax Worriors for jumping in and trying to improve the reffing on Sunday.
Overall I had fun but I thought that this was the worst event so far this year. That being said it was still better than some of the events last year (Vegas). The PSP has come along way thanks to healthy competition from the Super 7's. I still think there is plenty of room for improvement. I can't wait until cup. See you all there.

 

[knobbs]

Originally posted by ChuckC
And what exactly does NPPL do that is so great for security?

Well, having been to NPPL Chicago and NJ, all I can say is that I was turned away from the players area in Chicago when I tried to go in and get sunscreen from friends that were playing and in NJ I was not allowed to cross the players area to get to the Evil field, even though the other way around was extremely muddy. I didn't have an ID, so I didn't get in...sounds exactly like what security was supposed to do. Maybe I'm just shifty.

Are you sure those people in the player's area that didn't belong werent podbitches or other hangers-on that also got IDs? Just because you aren't playing doesn't necessarily mean you aren't allowed in there. Teams could bring extra people to help.

I wasn't at Philly, so I can't say a thing about the security there other than what was posted here, which is what I responded to.

 

[Gislo]

Even if they do check for passes all the time they need to:
1. Check if the person is the same as the one on the ID (photo match). (Never happen to me except for field-checks once on Joy Masters.) They only look to see if you have a card hanging there or not, if you do - pass. I could probably use one of my old cards to get in to the staging area! (In fact... hm no lets not tell that story...)

2. Prevent players/persons that do not play from entering the players-area.

3.
What stops me from entering the players-area even if my team isn’t playing? The "guards" probably got no clue if I belong there or not. What are they going to do - check every player passing to see what team they play for - and if there is a photo match?

4.
And what stops me from going to the registration and enter my self as Tom Jones - saying I am playing for a local Novice team. And If they check to match a roster I'll just say I am crew(?).

... or whatever. They are nice to show co-workers and friends though. And I even got to lend a book at the local library having forgot my library-pass. Guess that’s worth the cash...

(Even if it is bad english I think most of "you" got the point!)

 

[raehl]

I started the player ID system for one purpose only: Keeping track of what divisions players should be playing in, ad not just for national circuits, but also so that local promoters could have some clue as to whether players were coming in from out of town and sandbagging their local events. Can it be extended to security? Sure, but if done right, you need photo IDs (which we're not doing yet) and a way to quickly verify whether the person on the ID is allowed in the players area for that event.


But, I will say this: If you are relying on any amount of security at the gate of the players area to keep your stuff from being stolen, you're asking for your stuff to be stolen. Hundreds of players play these events, and while I trust the vast majority of them, I don't think trusting every single one of them is a very safe bet.

Even if you do want to trust every player at a several-hundred person event, do you trust them to not drop their pass outside the event where someone can pick it up?

Maybe there's a market for custom-printed gear bags with locks. Then if some kid is walking out of the players area with a locked gear bag that says STRANGE all over it and an ID that says "5-Finger Discount" the guy at the gate has some clue that that ain't supposed to happen.


- Chris

 

[KillerOnion]

A friend of mine playing on Fat City told me the cleanup crews were caught doing some "cleanup" of several tables worth of equipment...luckily they were caught in the act and at least one entire van full of stuff returned. Kids are one thing, but the hired help?!