I feel that the main thing paintball needs is longevity for 2 reasons:
1) the players pay to play, dictate to them the way they have to play and things get stale quickly and they'll walk. Only have to look at NXL where sure, it's all balls to the wall 45sec games but seems a good portion of players are getting tired of that style once it's the only thing they play, and that's only after a few months not a few years.
2) if you have little variation and there is only one side to the game then any outside sponsors will quickly lose interest. Most other successful extreme sports have many flavours e.g. Snowboarding (Pipe, Park, Jibbing, Freeride etc) BMX (Trials, Flatland, Street, Pipe, bowls)
So I don't feel we need to make such drastic changes at this stage not least if TV is sniffing the existing format and it's sold to them, to propse to change now by any great margin would be counterproductive and we'd be back to square one. TV likes the product, the atmosphere, and most of all the demographic as that means advertising and therefore $$$$. It doesn't care as much about the rules. Look at American Football, it is bloody complicated when you get to it.
I'm a 110% behind the posts about standardising the rules (e.g. trigger bounce and the base camp business), but I don't feel that in doing so you need to radically change the format as these proposals would appear to do.
1. 7-minute games for 7-player; 5 for 5, 10 for 10.
I have to admit I've never played an real tournament with 7 min games, but can see the logic
2. Center flag
I prefer 2 flag, but have never played center flag 7 man.
3. 100 points for valid flag hang
4. Bonus points for shorter games: sliding scale system; from 30 seconds = 100 points to 5 minutes 29 seconds = 1 point.
5. No other points: no first grab, no elimination points, no armbands to count.
I don't think you need to go that far. I would suggest its just a bit simpler, 100 points for hang minus 1per player lost. 50 points for transit minus 1 per player lost, 5 points a kill (never understood why 3 as if everyone scores the same it doesn't matter)
6. Netted-in area is playing field; deadbox or judges boxes clearly marked as out-of-bounds. No boundary lines to watch out for.
I don't like this at all, I think thats imposes too many restrictions on fields - for instance if we are to use stadiums it's much much easier to mark fields out the same size than do it with towers etc that hold the netting. For instance Campaign used the wire fencing as a basis for the netting. I think just making sure there is good thickness (like chalk lines in football) solves that problem.
Plus, another take is that making it like a cage/ring is even more adversarial and not as good for selling to outside world. Having it as a field is more like other team sports.
7. (Future development: timer connected to button and buzzer that player slams with flag to mark time and indicate a flag hang.)
Nice idea, but don't think it's a necessity.
8. Penalties will be recorded on scoresheets to break possible ties.
They are already aren't they if it's not 1-4-1'able.
As i said, I am all for standardising the rules, and ironing out the inconsistancies, but NOT making such radical proposals at this stage.
1) the players pay to play, dictate to them the way they have to play and things get stale quickly and they'll walk. Only have to look at NXL where sure, it's all balls to the wall 45sec games but seems a good portion of players are getting tired of that style once it's the only thing they play, and that's only after a few months not a few years.
2) if you have little variation and there is only one side to the game then any outside sponsors will quickly lose interest. Most other successful extreme sports have many flavours e.g. Snowboarding (Pipe, Park, Jibbing, Freeride etc) BMX (Trials, Flatland, Street, Pipe, bowls)
So I don't feel we need to make such drastic changes at this stage not least if TV is sniffing the existing format and it's sold to them, to propse to change now by any great margin would be counterproductive and we'd be back to square one. TV likes the product, the atmosphere, and most of all the demographic as that means advertising and therefore $$$$. It doesn't care as much about the rules. Look at American Football, it is bloody complicated when you get to it.
I'm a 110% behind the posts about standardising the rules (e.g. trigger bounce and the base camp business), but I don't feel that in doing so you need to radically change the format as these proposals would appear to do.
1. 7-minute games for 7-player; 5 for 5, 10 for 10.
I have to admit I've never played an real tournament with 7 min games, but can see the logic
2. Center flag
I prefer 2 flag, but have never played center flag 7 man.
3. 100 points for valid flag hang
4. Bonus points for shorter games: sliding scale system; from 30 seconds = 100 points to 5 minutes 29 seconds = 1 point.
5. No other points: no first grab, no elimination points, no armbands to count.
I don't think you need to go that far. I would suggest its just a bit simpler, 100 points for hang minus 1per player lost. 50 points for transit minus 1 per player lost, 5 points a kill (never understood why 3 as if everyone scores the same it doesn't matter)
6. Netted-in area is playing field; deadbox or judges boxes clearly marked as out-of-bounds. No boundary lines to watch out for.
I don't like this at all, I think thats imposes too many restrictions on fields - for instance if we are to use stadiums it's much much easier to mark fields out the same size than do it with towers etc that hold the netting. For instance Campaign used the wire fencing as a basis for the netting. I think just making sure there is good thickness (like chalk lines in football) solves that problem.
Plus, another take is that making it like a cage/ring is even more adversarial and not as good for selling to outside world. Having it as a field is more like other team sports.
7. (Future development: timer connected to button and buzzer that player slams with flag to mark time and indicate a flag hang.)
Nice idea, but don't think it's a necessity.
8. Penalties will be recorded on scoresheets to break possible ties.
They are already aren't they if it's not 1-4-1'able.
As i said, I am all for standardising the rules, and ironing out the inconsistancies, but NOT making such radical proposals at this stage.
Some very good points, especially about teams not throwing themselves away insanely every time. Also the need for a workable point system for the types of tournaments we have these days.
