Scenario is wrecking woodsball.

There are many blogs that discuss where paintball is currently at this point in time. In-fact, it is a difficult time for paintball. Things were set in motion long ago that have caused some stress on the industry and on players. This has been covered in depth in other places, so I have no desire to get into it. For the record I am talking about issues such as tournament paintball, high ROF markers, and poor attitudes ruining the sport.

However, there is one trend that is discusssed often in my local circles that I have not seen much talk about. That is how scenario paintball is ruining woodsball. Yes, I meant that how it sounded... scenario is wrecking our fun! Now let me quantify, I love a well thought out scenario almost as much as the next guy, but there are times I just want to go to the field and play some 20 minute CTF games!

My buddy Mike said it well... "every time a field gets more than 10 people they think that they have to have some elaborate scenario where the tooth fairy is fighting off the easter bunny for control of the world". What he means is that it seems like every time we go to the field for a relaxing weekend to just play some good old woodsball we end up spending 20 mintues in a briefing about some scenario the field manager just thought up, which has no time limit and seems to last forever because no one is clear on the objectives. 

What we want is to go to the field and play a 20 minute CTF game that is straight up elimination. We want to go back to the staging area and have a 5 - 10 minute turn-around before the next CTF game. We want to do this all day long, if we need a break we sit out a game and we are out 30 minutes at most. 

As it stands with these "mini-scenarios" or whatever you want to call them, some of them are an hour long. And on top of that they take 45 minutes to get started. So if you don't like the scenario, or are having equipment problems, or need a break... you are missing 2 hours of paintball by the time that game is over. And the way fields are starting later and latler, you are then lucky to get one or two games in all day. Add to this the high cost to play, and you can see why we think scenario is wrecking woodsball. 

Paintball became incredibly popular on the basis of medium length capture the flag, and attack/defend games. These are the staple of woodsball & paintball in general. While the scenario game has its place in this sport, we should be playing CTF on a weekly basis and saving those well written & planned scenarios for period special games. 

That is where I see local woodsball at this point in time... I am excited to look back 12 months from now and see if we have gone in the right direction.

Hello...

As I look back on my last 3 - 4 years of playing paintball I have trouble recalling all of the great memories. I know that I have come a long ways and achieved much. I went from a walk-on rec player with a spyder to co-founding Team N.E.O.S.M.U.T. and eventually taking over as the owner of Cleveland Paintball. I have photographed regional scenario events for RECON Magazine and I started the website www.woodsballphotography.com. 

I have gone from rec-ball to being a serious MILSIM paintballer. I am active as a business consultant for MilSim Products out of Erie, PA and work as their Sponsorship Coordinator. My team won the MVP trophy at the 2007 Global Conquest game at Hell Survivors in Michigan, and is well known in the region. 

As I think through these milestones that have made paintball so rewarding for me I often wish I could reflect more closely on specific details... I wish I had started a blog from the beginning. So rather than continue to wish I figure better late than never. I am starting this blog for my own amusement as a way to record the good & bad that comes with playing paintball.