shock horror!

[gldnandy1987]

outpost is a new site but the guys that run it have 15 years experience in the sport - never had a bad day there, markers well kept/rarely run out of gas(refilled every 2 games) friendly day - only issue is the facilities but as its a new site and they are still working on it then i cant find anything to complain about, ive been to delta force and it wasnt a complete disaster tbh

 

[Mario]

Don't judge every site from one bad experience and it is ashame people don't come back to paintball after a visit to deltaforce

Thats the point Gassy, my mates (and i would suspect others) will judge this site and paintball in general based on this one experience. Surely as a business model it makes sense to retain a loyal user group of regular players. When i worked for WDP at their fields they had groups who returned time and time again because it was/is so good.

Perhaps i've been lucky in that i've played at the best sites in the country. NPF, skirmish notts etc. These were back in the day but i know that mostly the people who were running them then are still running them now. I know that money for infrastructure was spent and does makes a difference. The fields at the NPF are outstanding. The fields at the site i played at were poor and best.

What i'm trying to ascertain is if for the most part site owners have ignored what players have been saying to them for years now (I remember threads and threads discussing what could be done to improve sites and encourage player retention, and this was 5 years ago if not more?) and i'm wondering if anybody actually acted upon it.

Just to make the point, the staff were great, the gun's were well serviced (the guy was fixing spare guns in between games etc) and we did have a good day. But they could of got a regular group of people who would play and spend money there if they invested some money. It just beggars belief in my head. Am i being naive?

p.s. It was not a delta force site. I think that Delta force is ingrained in Paintballers psyche as being **** because we've all said it for years. It's been a long time since i've seen a thread complaining about them so i wonder if things have got decidedly better there?

 

[leachy]

Thankyou for the compliments Mario.
As you have said we have players retuning to NPF over and over. We try and make it a day to remember and something to tell your mates about, we have regular Marshal training days so that hopefully we all know what we are talking about when asked a question by customers. We try and change the game arenas so that players are not doing the same thing they did last time. All the kit is thoroughly cleaned and checked after every days play and safety standards are higher than I have seen at any other site. Yes, there are alot of us that have been there a while, I am looking at more than 15 years now.
Over the last few months we have had groups turn up with tickets they have been sold in shopping centers, the sellers say that NPF is part of thier group (I'm not gonna say who it is) but its a 3 star site and Solihull and Reddich are thier 5 star sites. We let them come in and we give them a day to remember. I don't think anything has got better if thier selling tactics are anything to go by
NPF don't sell tickets in shopping centers they don't need to, we give the customers what they want without ripping them off. On one day last year we had 420 customers on site using almost every piece of kit we had, so we must be keeping them happy.
You have got to put us out of our misery
WHERE DID YOU GO

 

[Echowitch]

DF certainly have the large scale advertising out there. Although I'll chat to their ticket sellers I personally dislike them as they are sell-hungry money obsessed individuals who don't know Paintball, don't care about, and are not a good image for us to be representing to the public.

There is an alternative though. MOP (Ministry Of Paintball.) Their staff (from my experience) are friendly, know a bit about paintball, and they represent the independent sites. Only problem is that they don't have a very large presence like DF.

 

[WizBit]

We had Delta Force reps in basingstoke a few months back advertising a paintball site in basingstoke. I was interested to know where this basingstoke paitball site was, as soon as i was over there they were asking how much my last paintball day cost, where did i go, as soon as i mentioned i do walkons and had my own gear he turned his back on me.

I went to a Delta Force site once, and would never go again. Im grateful i started playing paintball through the Skirmish chain as if Delta Force was my first eperience i wouldnt be playing today.

I agree with Robbo though, these Non DF sites should get out there and do similar things it would increase their player base and get them known, thing is if you google paintball sites, you are more likely to bring up chains like Delta Force and Skirmish rather than individual sites.

What the OP is saying is right though, if you have a bad experience for your first time at something, you are not likely to go again or even try it somewhere else. My wife had a bad first time experience at paintball and will never go again.......no matter how hard i try to get her to go.

 

[Ryan.Grainger]

The Force

I have also made the mistake of visiting a delta force site as a friend got the tickets very cheap (talking 10 or 20p per ticket+lunch+100 paintballs) But the thing is as soon as i went in there, i knew it was going to be awful as the manager immediately started trying to split our group up to make up numbers in several other groups!?. Paintballs were £7 per 100 gloves were £10 and stuff like that... I have all of my own equipment so i brought it along, then i realised they were only running CO2 so i sacked off using my mechanical marker, then the manager came back to me and one of my friends (as we were the ones that confronted him on the matter on splitting up our group) and he tried to inform me that my friend and i were not allowed to wear our dye i4's due to the "tinted lens" i have a smoke lens and my friend has a HD lens (burnt yellow) as he was under the impression that it was intimidating and would scare the other customers!? On this occasion i entertained this fools thought and went with him to get another mask, he presented me with a very old beaten up Proto mask, upon inspecting the lens there were many hair line fractures along the bottom of the lens so i refused to wear the mask and informed him that i was wearing my own. Upon inspecting the masks of my friends in my group, many of the masks has hair line cracks on the lens' so I made the site manager change them for new ones.

Then we were given our paint, it was given out in small plastic bags of 100 without pods and were told that we had to find the pods in the "pod bin" if im honest it was just a bin as all of the pods were broken so luckily my friend and i had some lock lids that we used but my other friends in my party had to "scavenge for pods".

Now it was time to play, we were presented with a crappy hopper and told to go and get a gun, now they were running infernos on CO2, i picked up a inferno and had a look at the bolt, and the gun was filthy! So i had to clean it myself.. Some guns must have been shooting at 400fps+ where as others it was more like 180-200fps and there was no chronograph on site! Also you used a different gun for every game as they made you rack them up in different places every time, so one time you could have one shot shot like a dream, next one that was beyond awful.

There was a no headshot or gun shot rule so people would just poke their head and gun over the crudely put together bunkers and then if they did get hit, they would play on anyway as there were only 2 marshals for a game that was 30 vs 30! The guns were also accurate for about 5 meters.

Now here is the fun part, I was hit on my arm, and i was wearing my jersey, it hit the padding on the jersey and it hurt a hell of a lot, i pulled my sleeve up and I was BLEEDING!? The paint was like shooting marbles and didn't break but left lasting damage.

The group we were against across the course of the day lifted their masks up at least 20 times in game this was disgraceful and would not have been acceptable at my favoured site Mayhem Paintball where i marshal occasionally, one even took his mask off, threw it on the floor and went to go and try to have a fight with a team mate who shot him! Although Delta Force said that they would throw you out if you lifted your mask once, nothing ever happened despite informing the site manager. It was like playing against thugs.

Name and shame you say?
Ok with pleasure:
Delta Force Juniperwood
Billericay
Ramsden Heath, Essex CM11 1HL
0844 477 5119

 

[SteRoberts]

I guess im lucky to have started balling at NPF and then develop at Warped. 2 great sites and great customer service. From the sounds of it the bug might not have bit so hard if at all if i had started at these sites you speak of.

 

[Barfoot]

Going back to the issue with lack of marshalls on the field, dont quote me on this but am pretty sure sites use the ratio of 1 marshall to 15 customers. so in the eyes of the organisation "management" in probably feel they are doing no wrong. but they dont have a bunch of 12 year olds running around thinking there master chief or a best man that is steaming. But in all honesty the ratio should be 1:10 not 1:15 but there we go everyone and everything have turned into money grapping buggers. money before public safety

 

[Missy-Q]

Going back to the issue with lack of marshalls on the field, dont quote me on this but am pretty sure sites use the ratio of 1 marshall to 15 customers. so in the eyes of the organisation "management" in probably feel they are doing no wrong. but they dont have a bunch of 12 year olds running around thinking there master chief or a best man that is steaming. But in all honesty the ratio should be 1:10 not 1:15 but there we go everyone and everything have turned into money grapping buggers. money before public safety

1 per 10 is the correct ratio. Anything less and your customers are not getting the service they should. That's an 'on field' ratio too, not counting auxiliary/support staff. Short staffing, in my opinion, is the quickest way to leak customers.

 

[upzii]

My first ever paintballing event i went to was awful, we had one marshall for a 20v20(ish).
As mentioned below the masks were awful and i fell over people on numerous occasions because neither me or them could see where we were running, One kid (14 i think) took his mask off and was shot in the forehead, luckily wasnt shot in the eyes. He was removed from the site rather rapidly.
The paintballs were so hard they barely burst.

Back to the self marshalling thing, i often think why do i bother admitting ive been hit ?
I shot someone in the mask and all they did was wipe it off and carry on !