Played paintball the other day

[Ranger55]

... After not having played for probably five years. What a blast. I had so much fun, I went and got a new paintball gun. Can't wait to play again! Look out woodland creatures that enter my yard! Anybody else ever played or play regularly?

[JRT6]

I prefer indoor because it's a much faster game; play wise and time wise. I'll shoot 500 to 1000 balls in a couple of hours. Haven't played much recently though as the games have been dominated by kids who cheat like hell. Paintball is way to expensive for that crap. I need every elimination I can get.

[CinaC]

I used to play all the time in high school. But with the equipment rentals, and the cost of the paintballs, I just haven't had the funds to spend in quite a few years.

[MikeinMN]

I don't play paintball, have never played paintball, and will never play paintball, for two very simple reasons:

1. Ultimately, in the end, it's practice, or training, for killing people; not something I feel I'll need anytime soon, thanks. If I want to fantasize about, and even pretend to kill people, video games are fine for me.

2. I'm a professional freelance photographer, as in, I do it for money. (Photography's a lot like sex; most start doing it because it's fun, many continue to do it for money.) I do mostly nature - not landscapes, but wildlife, and the like. It's getting harder and harder to find a patch of woods near Saint Paul that doesn't look like something out of a bad acid trip, with red, blue, green, silver, yellow, and many other colors splotched, smeared, streaked, and splattered across the trees, rocks, and everything else; the few stretches that haven't been shot to hell with paintballs have them spilled all over the ground, where they swell up to twice their normally already quite conspicuous size when wet, and if the ground isn't covered with paintballs, there's a bag, box, or empty hopper from them near.

It used to be that, around Saint Paul, high-school kids, dopers, and mountain-bikers did the most environmental damage to the city's woodlands, but in the last eighteen months paintballers in their helmets and body armour have surpassed half a decade of weekly woodland keggers...

Which, um, if you didn't figure it out, ****es me off. "Look out woodland creatures that enter my yard" indeed. I got some photographs of an albino squirrel last year - the real deal, fully albino, pink eyes and everything. They're rare, and these slides would be right up there with my closeups of a red-tailed hawk as not only my favorite photographs, but my most marketable, had someone not shot the squirrel in the *** with an orange paintball. Having been hit by a paintball, unprotected, I'm amazed the squirrel lived...

[Rimfire]

I play when I can. The cost is what keeps me from playing more.

[shooter1201]

MikeInMN...I can appreciate your views. HOWEVER...playing paintball DOES NOT 'teach you to kill'. It teaches you to SURVIVE. Paintball can be one of THE MOST realistic approaches to teaching an officer...or anyone else...the 'survival mindset'.

As for 'cheating', JRT6...the whole idea is to SURVIVE and 'make it home'. There's rarely any such thing as a 'level' playing field in real life. Example: the alst time I played, it was with a bunch of teens. I got waxed, in the back, from about 20 feet. I hit the ground.....and waited. Sure 'nuff, the kid came over to 'gloat'. BIG MISTAKE on his part.

[Ranger55]

Sorry you feel that way MNMike, however, if you find sarcasm such a valuable service, you ought to be able to recognize a little humor. Squirrels are difficult animals to kill, unlike rabbits. While I can appreciate nature, I hunt also. As for environmental damage, litter is one thing, but paintball is about as environmentally damaging as hiking. Paintballs are entirely water soluble, and any splats left behind won't last a hard rain. I doubt every tree and rock is scarred for life. Where do you take pictures? A paintball field? Those are the only places I've seen that much paint. It seems as if you dislike paintball because you think it hurts your photography business, and I can identify with that. Having said that, maybe you should ply your trade on property where paintball is not allowed whether it be private or public. Paintball is prohibited on public land in DE and for good reason, I think. There are plenty of other places to play. Fantasize about killing people? Please. And um, if you can't tell, it ****es me off when people make sweeping, generalalized statements out of ignorance.

As for the rest of you guys, do you play at organized fields or in a buddy's woods? Crazy, it's cheaper if you have your own stuff, then all you have to pay for is gas and paint and I rarely use a full case of paint in a day.

I play mostly woodsball, never played speedball. Only played on an organized field a few times, but it was fun. Usually we get together on a buddy's farm (PRIVATE PROPERTY) and play in an old sand pit. One of my shift partners is a Sims instructor, so we abide by many of the same safety rules and very strictly enforce them. I probably have only played paintball five times in the last seven years, but I would like to play more, work permitting. My work is always getting in the way of my recreation!

[JRT6]

quote:

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Originally posted by shooter1201:
MikeInMN...I can appreciate your views. HOWEVER...playing paintball DOES NOT 'teach you to kill'. It teaches you to SURVIVE. Paintball can be one of THE MOST realistic approaches to teaching an officer...or anyone else...the 'survival mindset'.

As for 'cheating', JRT6...the whole idea is to SURVIVE and 'make it home'. There's rarely any such thing as a 'level' playing field in real life. Example: the alst time I played, it was with a bunch of teens. I got waxed, in the back, from about 20 feet. I hit the ground.....and waited. Sure 'nuff, the kid came over to 'gloat'. BIG MISTAKE on his part.

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Paintball doesn't teach or give me anyhting. I control my mindset. It's an action pursuit game. A GAME and that's all. Paintballs are harmless to the environment. I don't know what MIkeinMN is talking about but here the comercial outdoor paintball fields do a ton of business and woods look fine. I promise they look better than the blacktop that would be there instead if it wasn't for the paintball business.

Mike's post was one of the most obnoxious in this forum in a while, and that's saying something.

Cheating? Cheating is when I plop down $90- in field paint plus sometimes tournament fees and have some punk I just marked wipe off the hit, hit me, and I get eliminated. It gets even better when the punk brags to his friends in ear shot of the refs how he wiped three hits off. Look at it this way: take off work by burning a holiday, go to a match, put down some hard earned cash, then turn around and go home without playing or having any fun. That's what the cheating is.

[ 05-12-2003, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: JRT6 ]

[Hemtt]

I too hate cheaters, one way my friends and I have solved this is to limit our clothing to one layer (All Safety gear on of course)and rather than looking for marks we judge winner and loser by whoever screams and gives up first, Or whoever runs out of ammo. Multiple hits in every encounter makes for a lot of effort in being the first to get the drop on someone. You go thru a lot of paint but I'd just buy Beer with the money anyway...

Will Coy

Willy Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers are just about .68 cal you know...

[BeatleFan]

I'm thinking a paintball gun might be a good way to run my neighbor's obnoxious, ****ing tomcat off my front porch AND prove it's her cat at the same time. She's in total denial that it could be HER Precious Fluffy. Why she doesn't neuter the little hairball from hell and take him inside, I'll never know.

[10-98]

i havent played for about a year now, but im dying to go back. i have a fairly new paintmarker (used 3 games/3cases of paint). i always play with a large group of friends so the honor system works fine.

ive played skirmish (woods) and speedball. in woods we play our guys vs. walk-ons, in speedball we get our own field.

CO2 and air is free, paint is expensive @ 85.00 per 2000 balls.

how about an officer.com pain*ball tourney??

[Darkwulfe]

I used to play allot when I lived in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Since moving out to Montana I have not had much luck finding people to play with. There are no playing fields set up in this area. The few people who play just go out to forest service land. I used to play indoor every Friday night and outdoor every Sunday afternoon in MN. I have not had much luck getting others to try the sport yet. The only time I play now is when I volunteer to play a bad guy for the swat team during training.

[ateamer]

If it's a game, shooting in the back is cheating. If it's combat training, it's a good tactic.

Our Office training day yesterday was tactics for patrol and we used Simunitions. Excellent way to train - gets the point across about using cover, making every shot count and using the front sight. I wish we did that every month.

[10-98]

quote:

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Originally posted by ateamer:
If it's a game, shooting in the back is cheating. If it's combat training, it's a good tactic.

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back shots are good, its your fault for not using cover. its unsportsmanlike to shoot someone closer than 10-15 feet, at that range you should ask for surrender cuz close shots HURT.

[Xanthorius]

I played last night for a buddie's bachelor party. It was awesome. I purchased a brand new paintball gun last fall after selling my old one, and hadn't gotten to use it in "combat" all winter. I was really happy with the performance, plus I captured the flag and won for my team!

On the downside, I did shoot the bride in the hand and gave her a large welt/bruise on the back of her hand two days before her wedding