WORLD CUP news! Avalanche caught cheating!

[manike]

Honesty the best policy...

Chris I'd love to see all cheating stopped. But at the moment cheating is a part of paintball at all levels not just pro or tournaments. It will be a mammoth job to stop it all and I'm a little more realist than that. As the stakes get bigger, so is the value behind the risk. I do believe it is possible to stop the cheating with similar methods as has happened with the college X-ball.

As a spectator I watched the college X-ball and the Pro X-ball. I have to be honest and say a lot of the college X-ball bored the hell out of me (some was good but most was lacking the excitement). Same breaks, same players sat in same bunkers conserving paint, very few people trying exciting stuff, even the commentators started getting sarcastic at one point when a team kept breaking the same way and was trying to gee them up to try something different. The pro X-ball was much more entertaining. I loved watching the AA's go at Dynasty.

I don't think currently many pro teams have much to worry about you guys taking their sponsorship deals.

I agree with Pete in that the best will rise to the top, and at the moment you guys have quite a way before becoming the best to watch. A cynical view maybe but so what if you are clean if you aren't as much entertainment?

I was hoping the X-ball final of the college league would be more exciting but unfortuately we were robbed of seeing it.

I have a lot of respect for the fact there were only four penalties in total for the whole college ball event. But from what I have seen so far, I would pay to watch the pro's play, but not to watch college ball.

I hope that changes and as your players get used to the format it becomes more entertaining. I wish the college league the best of luck in that.

manike

 

[raehl]

Righto

I'll be the first to say that there's a lot of room for growth in the skill level of college players. We'll never be as good as the pros (nor should we be, that'd be bad), but we can certainly be better. Right now, college teams are pretty much stuck with the talent of the players who happen to be attending the school. We are starting to see high school players making college decisions based on the paintball teams at various schools, and as incoming talent starts looking for schools with established teams, the talent collection on the college teams is going to increase.

In terms of the X Ball, I know at least one team broke the same way every time on purpose, because it was working and they didn't want other teams to know what the other break-plays in their playbook were. Of course, the team they were playing should have picked up on the fact that their opponents were breaking the same way every time, but that's where effective coaching comes in. This was all put together in 1.5 months, there were really only 3-4 teams at the event who had really managed to put together a good coaching staff and it showed. If you had a chance to watch the Purdue-LSU game, you would have gotten the chance to see two good coaching squads at work. Both Michigan State and the University of Illinois are good technical teams, but both sufferred hard core due to ineffective (read: unpracticed) coaching.


Anyway, point of the matter is that's all stuff that's relatively easy to fix and will fix itself quickly - the cheating and behavior problems are somewhat entrenched in the non-college leagues and are going to be much more difficult to change - there you're right, it's part of the game, and it's accepted, and that's precisely why we're in some ways in a better position to "bring paintball to market".


I realize there are going to be a lot of people who don't agree with my assessment that we're doing it the right way and they're doing it the wrong way (if they did agree, they'd be doing it our way already ), but who is ultimately right is something no one is going to know until it happens. Maybe you can get paintball to the masses without putting an end to rampant cheating - but I don't think it's likely.


Course, whether what I think should be of any concern to anyone else is another topic of debate entirely.


- Chris

 

[manike]

Fair enough, good luck.

What ever the future holds it's not going to be easy, but it could be very exciting

manike

 

[Robbo]

Chris, idealism when applied to paintball ain't one of my shortcomings.
The US more than any other nation in the world uses TV to promote the cutting edge of competition.
An integral component of that is the belief and actuality, that the pros (and for the time being, I will include the pros of paintball even though it is a misnomer of sorts) exhibit the best there is to offer.
People pay, and I mean pay to watch the best.
As an aside, we all know that to foul in Basketball is wrong, that's why people are often penalised in the game.
How much money do you think people would pay to see a completely sanitised game where no fouls take place ?

Now I know there are pitfalls to this comparison but in essence, it is a sound one.

Bad behaviour, even playing and the consequent penalising, and bad mouthing may now well have become an integral and dare I say it, an attractive part (from the spectators point of view) of pro paintball.
And please don't anybody try to assume the moral high ground and tell me people don't like to see this sort of crap.
Go and watch ice hockey and if there's one thing that gets the crowd onto their feet, it's a big punch up.
Now I am in no way suggesting that this is the way we want to go but bad behaviour is part of all human's behaviour, it is me , it is you and it is everybody else and people, like it or not, like to see it.
I am not giving carte blanche to cheating or rowdyism but let’s face it, paintball is an adrenaline-fuelled game, cracks are bound to appear in the fabric of fair play but this is what adds colour, spice and some might say, excitement in itself.
I don’t like the cheating, in fact I hate it, I am not even trying to mitigate it but we need to have some sort of pragmatic handle on things and to suggest that we can ever play without those tendencies is absurd.
The pros are secure from the threat of collegiate ball believe me.

The real game, the cutting edge, warts and all, balls to the wall, in yer face exhibition of raw skill, endeavour, pain and 'out and out' excitement is solely within the domain of the pros, make no mistake about that !!!

Robbo

PS Manike, try not to agree me with too many times, I might begin to think the end of the Universe is nigh !!

 

[Buddha 3]

Originally posted by Robbo

Go and watch ice hockey and if there's one thing that gets the crowd onto their feet, it's a big punch up.
Now I am in no way suggesting that this is the way we want to go

Bummer...That would have been my spot on a pro team secured then...

Okay, cheating is bad, I think we all agree on that one, but I seriously think that it ain't as big a problem as we make it out to be. It's part of every game. Do you have any idea what kind of nastiness goes on in a pile up during an American Football game? I do. Problem with paintball is that some of this cheating can have a direct result on the outcome of a single game. Somebody plays on for a second, and makes that key bunker move, his team wins. Yay!
Now in X-ball the result of a single game (or perhaps we should now refer to them as play) is not the be all and end all. There are plenty of 'plays' in a single game, so playing on doesn't have as big an impact anymore, yet you can still be penalised for it. In other words, the gains to be had from cheating are getting smaller, but the loss stays the same, or gets bigger. I just think that X-ball might see a decrease in cheating because of it.
We need to worry about the impact cheating can have on a game. In the current format everybody knows and loves it's just too big. But we shouldn't worry about the fact that cheating happens. It's part of sports as a whole.

 

[manike]

Pete, we actually agree on quite a lot apart from when we are clashing heads I think so far we have only clashed twice? on just one subject.

 

[raehl]

The problem is...

Fouls are not the same as wiping. Wiping is like playing basketball with 6 players instead of 5. Trying to equate it with a foul is wrong. Fouls happen when you're playing hard. Wiping only happens when you make a conscious decision to cheat. No one would let you play basketball with 6 players on the court, and no one should let you wipe either. It fundamentally alters the nature of the game - no, spectators do *NOT* want to see wiping.

And spectators don't want to see players who know they are hit running down the sideline and bunkering people either, just like they don't want to see someone commit pass interference and get away with it.

See, players try to AVOID fouls and pass interference and ebing offsides, because they know there's a good chance they'll get called on it, and the penalties suck.

Players actively try to wipe and play on, because they know they'll probably get away with it, and if they get caught, it's not a huge deal. THAT is what has to change.


And yes, spectatos DO like the OCCASIONAL fight/tussle - because they RARELY (outside of hockey anyway) happen in athletics. That's what makes them interesting, the rarity. Number of baseball games >> than number of fights at baseball games. A fight at a baseball game is like Jeremy Salm shooting from the woods - it's not supposed to happen, when it does happen people get suspended, and that's what makes it a newsworthy clip on the sports highlights. If there's a fight every game, it's just not interesting anymore.

Spectators do NOT want to see a brawl at every tournament they go to, or every play result in a shouting match between players and officials, beecause at that point, you're not watching an athletic event, you're watching a bitching fest, and most people can get that at family reunions.



Your analogies are just plain off.

- Chris

 

[Robbo]

The problem is...

Originally posted by raehl
Fouls are not the same as wiping. Wiping is like playing basketball with 6 players instead of 5. Trying to equate it with a foul is wrong. Fouls happen when you're playing hard. Wiping only happens when you make a conscious decision to cheat. No one would let you play basketball with 6 players on the court, and no one should let you wipe either. It fundamentally alters the nature of the game - no, spectators do *NOT* want to see wiping.
And spectators don't want to see players who know they are hit running down the sideline and bunkering people either, just like they don't want to see someone commit pass interference and get away with it.
See, players try to AVOID fouls and pass interference and ebing offsides, because they know there's a good chance they'll get called on it, and the penalties suck.
Players actively try to wipe and play on, because they know they'll probably get away with it, and if they get caught, it's not a huge deal. THAT is what has to change.
And yes, spectatos DO like the OCCASIONAL fight/tussle - because they RARELY (outside of hockey anyway) happen in athletics. That's what makes them interesting, the rarity. Number of baseball games >> than number of fights at baseball games. A fight at a baseball game is like Jeremy Salm shooting from the woods - it's not supposed to happen, when it does happen people get suspended, and that's what makes it a newsworthy clip on the sports highlights. If there's a fight every game, it's just not interesting anymore.
Spectators do NOT want to see a brawl at every tournament they go to, or every play result in a shouting match between players and officials, beecause at that point, you're not watching an athletic event, you're watching a bitching fest, and most people can get that at family reunions.
Your analogies are just plain off.
- Chris

Chris, your choice to take my views to the extreme and then to offer them back repackaged and on that basis, criticise them is not the best way to go about things if an answer to this problem is required.
I did not say wiping was acceptable in any game, wiping in my book is the lowest of the low, I was however, which I readily admit to not clarifying, meant playing on, bad mouthing and the occasional loss of temper.
I am not advocating that every game should harbour examples of all these just so's it satisfies the crowd's lust for extreme behaviour, far from it but I also ain't in denial about how people behave and what other people like to see.
Anyway, mate, you stick with college ball and when the big bucks come along, the pros will inevitably clean up, like it or not, that’s the way it is going to be.
Robbo

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by manike
Pete, we actually agree on quite a lot apart from when we are clashing heads I think so far we have only clashed twice? on just one subject.

Hmmm, that's as maybe, in future, let's try and keep away from 'you know what' !!!
Pete

 

[rancid]

Pete, what's Nexus's policy on playing on? Will you, wont you?