Vote Here - The Choice is Yours !!!!!

[John Sosta]

I voted F5 not because i designed it but because over the past few years I feel I have seen tourney ball deteriorate to some games lasting less than a minute and people leaving the game.
When I started playing in the woods at one point the tourney scene was growing at a phenomenal rate in fact just in the south east we had the home county league with 40 ten man teams competing every month and the big Euro tourneys having warm up events and 3 magazines that you could read about yourselves in. 1/2 hour games and it was fun to play.
Then came sup air and shortly after came xball at that point everyone (me including) thought yes this is the way to go and the whole scene changed and it killed woodland tourney ball.

Since then the fields have become much smaller and to compensate for smaller fields gun restrictions came in and as fields became even smaller the restrictions became more.

To top it all off teams were being asked to pay more and more in entry fees , laneing became crucial to winning a game so paint consumption went up.
Also players that were new or not so good players were not wanted as only 5 people were on the field.
So now we have a situation were costs have gone up, some people were not wanted ,and game times reduced to minutes, so value for money plummeted .
And as some people has said previously they stopped playing because of this.

Now to say it would be to the detriment of the sport to go back into the woods i think is wrong as we wouldn't even have a scene if it were not for the woods.

I wont go into why i designed Formula 5 except to say

A -----------I tried to address the issues above
B------------Give a focal point to the game
C------------To try to unify anyone holding a Formula 5 so via the results and stats database it meant something to play anywhere.

Now maybe the future is not F5 it maybe it be some other format i don't know but paintball needs something new and unless we address the issue of which format to use and take into account what players want and make a sport where everyone is welcome then we will continue to shrink even further.
At the very worst if F5 does not take off i will be able to say at least i tried and maybe point out that there are other ways of playing paintball that can accomodate everyone.

 

[Soul Doubt]

Now to say it would be to the detriment of the sport to go back into the woods i think is wrong as we wouldn't even have a scene if it were not for the woods.

Im not saying that tournament woodsball is bad, that can cater to a specfic group of players, which is fine. what im suggesting that returning to the woods from where the current level of the sport has developed to would be like starting over again. I understand people have nostalga for the woodland days, but even at this current cross roads Sup'air has done great things for paintball. yes paintball came from the woods but sports develop and evolve all the time, sup'air caters for a group of players that would disappear if there was no Sup'air paintball, take these stats for example, this is a forum for tournament paintballers yes, but this is the what the forum is driected towards, sup'air paintball and that is why here under 20% of the players wish to return to the woods, calculate that as an average for the rest of the sup'air baller population and it is evident that sup'air is still wanted over returning to the woods. So by reason of logic surely leaving sup'air and going back to paintballs roots (see what i did there) would discriminate against this percentage of players who wish to play sup'air paintball.

This seems logical to me, maybe im missing something? No Sup'air no more sexy gear, no more Sup'air compaines, no more shiny markers, no more CPPS, no NPPL etc etc all of it would be undone.

 

[Soul Doubt]

I voted F5 not because i designed it but because over the past few years I feel I have seen tourney ball deteriorate to some games lasting less than a minute and people leaving the game.
When I started playing in the woods at one point the tourney scene was growing at a phenomenal rate in fact just in the south east we had the home county league with 40 ten man teams competing every month and the big Euro tourneys having warm up events and 3 magazines that you could read about yourselves in. 1/2 hour games and it was fun to play.
Then came sup air and shortly after came xball at that point everyone (me including) thought yes this is the way to go and the whole scene changed and it killed woodland tourney ball.

Since then the fields have become much smaller and to compensate for smaller fields gun restrictions came in and as fields became even smaller the restrictions became more.

To top it all off teams were being asked to pay more and more in entry fees , laneing became crucial to winning a game so paint consumption went up.
Also players that were new or not so good players were not wanted as only 5 people were on the field.
So now we have a situation were costs have gone up, some people were not wanted ,and game times reduced to minutes, so value for money plummeted .
And as some people has said previously they stopped playing because of this.

Now to say it would be to the detriment of the sport to go back into the woods i think is wrong as we wouldn't even have a scene if it were not for the woods.

I wont go into why i designed Formula 5 except to say

A -----------I tried to address the issues above
B------------Give a focal point to the game
C------------To try to unify anyone holding a Formula 5 so via the results and stats database it meant something to play anywhere.

Now maybe the future is not F5 it maybe it be some other format i don't know but paintball needs something new and unless we address the issue of which format to use and take into account what players want and make a sport where everyone is welcome then we will continue to shrink even further.
At the very worst if F5 does not take off i will be able to say at least i tried and maybe point out that there are other ways of playing paintball that can accomodate everyone.

Forgot to add that Formula 5 has always given me a tingly feeling about it, this idea of a focal point is very interesting, as ive mention before i played it and had some issues with it but i thing i need to play it again and really decide what i think....

Keep up the great work John, a pioneer of paintball!

 

[Formula5Paintball]

Big Thanks!!

The Formula5 team would like to say thank you to everybody who has voted for Formula5, those who have advocated why they voted for us, and those who have expressed a wish to try the format!

For the latter I'd like to remind you all that in June we have an event running at National Paintball Centre in Staffordshire, so I would encourage all Northern teams who are interested to come along and give it a go!

Check out our website, facebook page or Balls out Promotions for more Info

 

[SabreWolf]

I voted F5 not because i designed it but because over the past few years I feel I have seen tourney ball deteriorate to some games lasting less than a minute and people leaving the game.
When I started playing in the woods at one point the tourney scene was growing at a phenomenal rate in fact just in the south east we had the home county league with 40 ten man teams competing every month and the big Euro tourneys having warm up events and 3 magazines that you could read about yourselves in. 1/2 hour games and it was fun to play.
Then came sup air and shortly after came xball at that point everyone (me including) thought yes this is the way to go and the whole scene changed and it killed woodland tourney ball.

Since then the fields have become much smaller and to compensate for smaller fields gun restrictions came in and as fields became even smaller the restrictions became more.

To top it all off teams were being asked to pay more and more in entry fees , laneing became crucial to winning a game so paint consumption went up.
Also players that were new or not so good players were not wanted as only 5 people were on the field.
So now we have a situation were costs have gone up, some people were not wanted ,and game times reduced to minutes, so value for money plummeted .
And as some people has said previously they stopped playing because of this.

Now to say it would be to the detriment of the sport to go back into the woods i think is wrong as we wouldn't even have a scene if it were not for the woods.

I wont go into why i designed Formula 5 except to say

A -----------I tried to address the issues above
B------------Give a focal point to the game
C------------To try to unify anyone holding a Formula 5 so via the results and stats database it meant something to play anywhere.

Now maybe the future is not F5 it maybe it be some other format i don't know but paintball needs something new and unless we address the issue of which format to use and take into account what players want and make a sport where everyone is welcome then we will continue to shrink even further.
At the very worst if F5 does not take off i will be able to say at least i tried and maybe point out that there are other ways of playing paintball that can accomodate everyone.

Spot on post, we dont need to remove any part of the sport to be honest, we just need variety, but above all an inlet of new blood, once they are in playing regular, there should be a choice of which direction to go competative wise!

Woodsball is the ideal inlet since this is where it starts for most people out on rec days, a return to the woodland tourny scene would be then a catalyst for competition and once they are aware of competition play, then they should beable to go and move into which ever area they wish to compete in.

Thats the logic that i have in my head but as always, numbers is the problem, so i do believe that the biggest inlet for fresh blood should be exploited to increase numbers over all in all formats.

 

[Biscuit]

soul doubt i believe you have the wrong idea about woodsball tournies.
know lets put your thoughts right
my team played woodsball tournies for a year in full tournie gear that did not make a differance markers and bright yellow tops
learned shed loads,field craft especially
year later entered the cpps and did ok that year also entered the fed cup and came 4th in the race to 2
when you think about it what a better way to bring in new blood
players have this idea that woodland tournies are like scenario games,far from it.
think about it what better way to get new players in to playing competative ball
we have hundreds of sites woodland sites,how many sup-air sites have we got 10 tops
get a strong woodland scene going then the best players will progress to sup air

 

[SabreWolf]

Not only that, you will get an ingress of players coming back to play paintball who quit because of the reasons mentioned before, this = win for all.

 

[Soul Doubt]

soul doubt i believe you have the wrong idea about woodsball tournies.
know lets put your thoughts right
my team played woodsball tournies for a year in full tournie gear that did not make a differance markers and bright yellow tops
learned shed loads,field craft especially
year later entered the cpps and did ok that year also entered the fed cup and came 4th in the race to 2
when you think about it what a better way to bring in new blood
players have this idea that woodland tournies are like scenario games,far from it.
think about it what better way to get new players in to playing competative ball
we have hundreds of sites woodland sites,how many sup-air sites have we got 10 tops
get a strong woodland scene going then the best players will progress to sup air

Im all up for that, i think i stated something more vague about it in one of my earlier posts, its not woodsball/ scenario woodsball or tournament woodsball i have an issue with, the bigger and better it grows, the better paintball will be. The only issue I was highlighting is the idea of getting rid of Sup'air in exchange for tournament woodsball, which im against.


I can undertsand also about the gear etc, but on a more long term plan with woodsball being the only option hypothetically then camo would provail and compaines would either change tactics and make more camo gear, or go bust like say razza? because of the nature of their products, being a product of the sup'air envrioment in itself.


This is all rather interesting mind you

 

[SabreWolf]

I wouldnt worry about supair ball dissapearing, i think that side of the game will always be around. The point im trying to make is supairball and all other formats and types will benefit from a healthy woodland scene because invariably, people will change between the different formats at some point in their playing time but i think it will be a good place to start if we want to bring new people into the game.

 

[JonBon (Bonich)]

I voted F5 not because i designed it but because over the past few years I feel I have seen tourney ball deteriorate to some games lasting less than a minute and people leaving the game.
When I started playing in the woods at one point the tourney scene was growing at a phenomenal rate in fact just in the south east we had the home county league with 40 ten man teams competing every month and the big Euro tourneys having warm up events and 3 magazines that you could read about yourselves in. 1/2 hour games and it was fun to play.
Then came sup air and shortly after came xball at that point everyone (me including) thought yes this is the way to go and the whole scene changed and it killed woodland tourney ball.

Since then the fields have become much smaller and to compensate for smaller fields gun restrictions came in and as fields became even smaller the restrictions became more.

To top it all off teams were being asked to pay more and more in entry fees , laneing became crucial to winning a game so paint consumption went up.
Also players that were new or not so good players were not wanted as only 5 people were on the field.
So now we have a situation were costs have gone up, some people were not wanted ,and game times reduced to minutes, so value for money plummeted .
And as some people has said previously they stopped playing because of this.

Now to say it would be to the detriment of the sport to go back into the woods i think is wrong as we wouldn't even have a scene if it were not for the woods.

I wont go into why i designed Formula 5 except to say

A -----------I tried to address the issues above
B------------Give a focal point to the game
C------------To try to unify anyone holding a Formula 5 so via the results and stats database it meant something to play anywhere.

Now maybe the future is not F5 it maybe it be some other format i don't know but paintball needs something new and unless we address the issue of which format to use and take into account what players want and make a sport where everyone is welcome then we will continue to shrink even further.
At the very worst if F5 does not take off I will be able to say at least I tried and maybe point out that there are other ways of playing paintball that can accommodate everyone.

John has been at the forefront of paintball for most of the years I have known him, pushing the envelope as he does with new ways to do this, or make that faster, on a battery with less gas or make it even lighter. It’s in his nature to observe, question and modify and always hopefully for the better.
I can remember him, me and a guy called Jim Locke (he was captain of a team called the Vulcans, do any of you remember them ?! ) we were discussing this “Idea” John had of having end zones (in the woods!!!) with timed playouts and central focal point. Oh how we laughed and got all excited about “another new way to play” …who would have guessed that we were discussing the start of Formula 5 as we now know it.
A decade and a bit later a lot of hard work a considerable outlay in the setup and “that” scoreboard and F5 has started.
I have played splats pumps, semis, woods-ball, rec-ball, speedball, arena ball, hyper-ball, 2 man ,3 man, 5 man , 7 man , 10 man , 12 man ,15 man, sup-n-air, millennium basically anything paintball.
Paintballs future is not in one specific genre, just look at the history of its variations, how can any body be presumptuous enough to suggest such a thing!!?.
John has touched on an idea which if tried, in true spirit which we ALL started paintball with will have you loving it again or if not the love thing will definitely have you warming to it ..
Formula 5 gets my vote cause its bloody great ……and not because John is my best mate !!

we dont need to remove any part of the sport to be honest, we just need variety, but above all an inlet of new blood, once they are in playing regular, there should be a choice of which direction to go competative wise!

Exactley !!