The "bling" factor - A discussion

[DJForbes]

there isnt a gun out there under £500 that stands tall when compaired to a Ego 10.
i carry a fluffy with me all the time. however all i do is pass it out to other people. ye everyone claims there gun dont break balls.

not sure what i can say to convince you that its not about having the most expensive gun out there. i say use a Ego 10 for a week then tell me its not worth the cash

dont get me wrong you can play with any marker, but to be the best you need the best that also goes for the best skills to.

 

[Jamie.JC.Campbell]

its not worth the cash , there said it

you can get markers that will do the same job for cheaper if looked after. Aslong as it is throwing out balls at a consistant fps and works every game you are good to go. efficiency to me seems a bit overrated because how many people here get a chance to fill up after every game ? just about everyone. the difference in the weights of markers these days in no real biggie if you want to be lighter why not just take off your t-shirt, thats about the same weight. flashy screens and stuff are for show. look at dye DM's one of the worlds best markers at this point in time, it has a blinking light.

there is alot of pressure in this side of paintball to have all the "cool" things, but for someone just coming into the sport these things are at large prices that will not make any sense to them as they enter the sport and they feel that this is the things they need to be able to play.

 

[John C]

This concept is a bit outdated since SLGs and Ions etc came along and gave people tournament performance for just a couple of hundred quid.
5 years ago a two hundred quid marker gave you a singificant disadvantage on the field.
There was a progression from terrible blowback, through to high end electro. You either payed your cash or you suffered with a disadvantage on the field. Not so any more.

Nowadays those with the brand new latest marker are usually the guys who dont train.
The guy with the beaten up old marker because he uses it every week, is usually the one to worry about.

 

[Dusty]

Personally I think it should be more expensive to get into the sport, that way it would discourage the drop ins and blowouts who buy their marker setup for £300, use it for a couple of months, the f*ck off to the next hobby after selling their gear for £250.

If it were more expensive, the only people playing would be doing so because
a) they really really want to
b) are dedicated enough from the outset to drop £500 or more on gear, lets face it, any 15 yr old scrub can get £300 gathered up by asking mum and dad really nicely
c) clearly have the money to spare therefore can comfortably afford to dedicate the money required to train every week or fortnight. It's pointless having kids on your squad who might or might not make it to training due to money. They'll find the money for a saturday night on the razz though.

I bought an Angel Joy Fly the day they were available in the UK and I still have it, because it's the best gun for ME. Yes it was expensive, yes it was well well worth it.

 

[CAMPBELL]

paintball isnt expensive becasue you have to buy all the gear, you can get a decent marker cheap these days no problem. the expensive bit is the paint & location of the sites. sometimes you have to travel bloody miles because the sites area in the middle of no where. i spend more money on petrol getting to training sites/tornament venues than actually on my gear and paint

i shoot an old ego thats about 4 years old, yeah the other guys on the team shoot newer guns but does that make them any better as a player ? no. will i buy another gun because everyone else has a blue one and i have a black one ? no.

 

[Smally85]

I have just spent the last 12 months (ish) playing again after a 3 year break. I started off with a PM7 which I'd left in my kitbag since I quit. After the first tournament I had persuaded a group of players I used to play with who had also quit to start playing again. As a team we spent the next 10 months using nothing newer than a PM8. I got myself a DM7, and there were at least 3 others on the team being used all season.

Did we struggle to compete? Hell no. We still had our old skills and still had guns that could shoot 10.4bps at a consistent velocity in a straight line. The main issues our team had throughout the season was getting hold of consistent paint. You argue with me till you are blue in the face that the EGO10 is the most amazing thing ever built, and I'm sure it is lovely, BUT for the cost of that marker I can pay for a years worth of paint for myself.

Now, if I was playing the CPL and every split second mattered to me I would want the lightest kit I could find, which would mean that I could justify buying a Dye NT or an EGO10 etc. but I don't, and lets be honest, not many of us do. This doesn't mean I can't aim high, I'm just realistic about my priorities, I'm never going to walk into a CPL team and just play, I'm going to have to train my ass off for that, so until I am that good, why do I need a gun that light? Like someone has already said, the few grams you save won't make that much of a difference to 99% of us.

 

[Return of the Silver Fox]

Unless we are in the pay of the industry we are all members of the public so the argument that the public won't pay is flawed.
I played the last cppl event with an etek 2 and it performed flawlessly all day proving that even on a budget you can compete with the opposition.
In my humble opinion if your choice of marker leads to you to not having the money to play then other aspects of your financial arrangements are probably in tatters as well. You don't buy marker to have it sat in a bag just as you don't buy an expensive car to have it sat on the drive while you save up for petrol.
If you think members of the public (not punters :0/) don't know how much kit costs from their first day at a rec ball site I'd suggest your mistaken. I will guarantee that at some point in the day a customer will ask how much the kit costs and marshalls will take great glee in giving the prices from starter kit to tournament grade gear.
The problem is not with the price of the kit it's with the understanding of development costs and the associated marketing. The successful companys around today have invested millions in the sport and we shouldn't be bleating when they expect a return for this hard work.
In short I've spent tens of thousands playing paintball, I've forgone new houses, cars, holidays etc and I wouldn't change a thing.
Would I spend 1k plus on a marker - yes and I'd make sure everybody knew about it.
In short I've spent most of my money on paintball, beer and women - the rest of it I've just wasted

 

[Bambulus]

there isnt a gun out there under £500 that stands tall when compaired to a Ego 10.

In what way? I mean, even if your gat can shoot at ridiculously high speeds compared to say, an Etek1, the hopper you put on it will still limit how fast it can shoot. The kind of speeds offered by high end gats nowadays are just overkill, since they can't even be shot that fast in the real world, even if you wanted to. What's the point in surpassing the physical limit?

And arguments about kick are negligable. Sure you may have a ridiculously smooth shooting marker, but when shooting my etek, I hardly notice any kick at all. The only way I would notice is if I was conciously looking out for it.

i carry a fluffy with me all the time. however all i do is pass it out to other people. ye everyone claims there gun dont break balls.

Same. In fact, the only time when a ball has broken in my gat is when the barrel came a little loose and the ball caught the seam on the way out. An O-ring sorted that out.

My fluffy isn't the only thing I lend out, either. When my mates gun when down due to leaks, I lent him my SLG. Not only did he love it, he's considering replacing his leak machine with the 09 SLG. And mine is the one with the crappy plastic trigger.

Cheap still doesn't mean bad, or unreliable.

not sure what i can say to convince you that its not about having the most expensive gun out there. i say use a Ego 10 for a week then tell me its not worth the cash

Not alot, if all you're going to talk about is performance. If you want to say that you want the newest thing on the market because it's the most pimping thing around, or you think the new barrel kit is immense, then go for it. Hell, even if the soft shooting wowed you into spending a grand, then that's fine. It's all good in my book, we're a sport that comes with the expensive gadgets and the vanity, I see no problem with that


Just don't lay out the excuses on performance, because if a gat can shoot paint consistently then it's perfect, performance-wise. Even my pump does that, and I've been laughed at for taking that thing out (They weren't laughing when they had a nice bruise on their forehead,I tell yah )

dont get me wrong you can play with any marker, but to be the best you need the best that also goes for the best skills to.

Skills over gear. Any day. Part of the reason I love playing pump is because the punters are out-shooting me. Gear just gives you the opportunity to outgun and outplay everyone else, but all you need is something that shoots. Give Ollie a PMR and he'd still play like Ollie.

Sorry if I come across agressive, I tease hard

 

[Bambulus]

Personally I think it should be more expensive to get into the sport, that way it would discourage the drop ins and blowouts who buy their marker setup for £300, use it for a couple of months, the f*ck off to the next hobby after selling their gear for £250.

If it were more expensive, the only people playing would be doing so because
a) they really really want to
b) are dedicated enough from the outset to drop £500 or more on gear, lets face it, any 15 yr old scrub can get £300 gathered up by asking mum and dad really nicely
c) clearly have the money to spare therefore can comfortably afford to dedicate the money required to train every week or fortnight. It's pointless having kids on your squad who might or might not make it to training due to money. They'll find the money for a saturday night on the razz though.

I bought an Angel Joy Fly the day they were available in the UK and I still have it, because it's the best gun for ME. Yes it was expensive, yes it was well well worth it.

Don't agree. At all.

I'm one of those lot who bought cheap from the word go, but I've never let a single person down because of what I can and can't afford. I've never made any promises because I know that I can't back it up with my bank balance.

What you're describing is simply a case of eyes bigger than wallets. I can understand it being frustrating when somebody promises to make it to playing time but then doesn't because of money, but making things more expensive will only set to discourage recballers such as myself. The responsible ones.

It's cutting off the nose despite the face.

 

[Dusty]

Nah, if you want to play badly enough you'll find the money, those who think it's too far out of their financial reach just don't have the will or the drive to do it

If you'd been told your first marker was going to be twice as much as it actually was, you'd still have bought one