[John]

Relive a classic moment in paintball history with Derder's full Obscure Influence movie from 2005.

Follow some iconic teams like Avalanche, XSV, Dynasty, Naughty Dogs, Russian Legion and so many more!

Fast guns, run-throughs, blatant penalties, overshooting, terrible weather, overreacting, Xball, 7-man, terrible slides, and pranks with some of your favorite players only much younger.

[tweeter4]

Yes! Love the mid 2000s DerDer videos! Thanks for the post

[Paul77]

ahh the good old days, when we all took our licks. i love when people get shot these days like three or four times and complain about being over shot.....

[$balla]

Thanks for sharing!

[E99_Curt]

Seeing these nice spacious layouts brings a tear to my eye

[tweeter4]

Originally Posted by E99_Curt

Seeing these nice spacious layouts brings a tear to my eye

For real. I don't understand why the NXL is so damn thick about layouts.

Less bunkers = less sitting and laning all day

Less bunkers = easier to film and follow for viewers

Less bunkers = lower cost for field owners nationwide

Less bunkers = more interesting layouts instead of the blob layouts they do now

Less bunkers = bigger moves since you can read lanes much better

[$balla]

Originally Posted by E99_Curt

Seeing these nice spacious layouts brings a tear to my eye

Same.

[Legacy]

Originally Posted by tweeter4

For real. I don't understand why the NXL is so damn thick about layouts.

Less bunkers = less sitting and laning all day

Less bunkers = easier to film and follow for viewers

Less bunkers = lower cost for field owners nationwide

Less bunkers = more interesting layouts instead of the blob layouts they do now

Less bunkers = bigger moves since you can read lanes much better

The paint companies want you shooting your lane so they sell more paint.

[painter4life05]

Wait this was 15 years ago, damn I feel old.

[L4sT_ReSOrT]

Originally Posted by E99_Curt

Seeing these nice spacious layouts brings a tear to my eye

Longer fields, less condensed layouts, guys who loved the sport. The glory days.

[Old-Soul]

7man and bigger fields.
Man I would love to relive that.

[Mr. Stealthy]

Embrace the ultra-violence... This was a tougher generation of tournament paintball for sure. For those who talk about wasted paint, we actually used less (per-game) due to how brutal/fast most of the games were. Drills are another story...It also required more athleticism to get to bunkers as they were pretty wide spread/scarce by comparison.

The big downside is this was super unwelcoming and quite a big step for newer players to get into. There are pros and cons to the various formats and rates of fire but I say don't half *** it. If you are going to use ramping, use an awesomely high rate of fire and let people push the envelopes of the equipment and players. If you are going to go for a lower rate of fire, go the ICC route.

[Waffleman]

Disagree about more bunkers meaning more paint. Bigger lanes make people hunker down longer because the risk of getting shot is higher since you're in the open longer.
Plus back then the ROF was higher in all formats

[Mr. Stealthy]

Originally Posted by Waffleman

Disagree about more bunkers meaning more paint. Bigger lanes make people hunker down longer because the risk of getting shot is higher since you're in the open longer.
Plus back then the ROF was higher in all formats

It is the combination of slower ROF (with ramping) + more bunkers = more paint. I saw this firsthand when we were running our own local 5 man series to fund our team's other tournaments. As soon as we lowered the ROF cap and added more bunkers, the paint sales increased significantly. It also attracted more players due to the reduced ROF, so it was a win across the board. Definitely longer, more drawn out games. The same recipe isn't a certainty with true semi as the individual player preference and skill has a big factor in the equation.

The cool thing about it in my mind is that making it to these really forward bunkers early in the game was a really big deal and required a ton of athleticism and strategy to accomplish.

[Waffleman]

I guess it really depends on the team. If you're a Russian/Dynasty team you'll Mon down the field and get quick kills. If you like to sit in your bunker like Thunder then you'll use more paint. My first field was an air all field setup in some guys cow pasture, when he held tournaments you were limited to 10 pods per team per match. Obviously we'de want more now but I'll tell you it made me a better player having to work for that perfect shot

[Mr. Stealthy]

Originally Posted by Waffleman

I guess it really depends on the team. If you're a Russian/Dynasty team you'll Mon down the field and get quick kills. If you like to sit in your bunker like Thunder then you'll use more paint. My first field was an air all field setup in some guys cow pasture, when he held tournaments you were limited to 10 pods per team per match. Obviously we'de want more now but I'll tell you it made me a better player having to work for that perfect shot

I think you isolated a very important component of building skill sets. One thing our team owner always did is make us play hopper ball for all of our non-practice days and even some practice days. I didn't appreciate this at the time, but this forced us to develop some good skill habits in regards to accuracy and paint management. We all sort of start out this way and then slowly cheat ourselves into something better.

I think one thing you will notice if you watch a solid amount of video of both pro NXL games back then with 15 bps ramping and matches now is that the matches were indeed shorter with the higher ROF and more spread out fields. The players were also not typically carrying the amount of paint that you see today. The 7 man days are the exception as this format could really swing either way depending on the strategy/layout.

[MachineGunCrew]

This video is just as good as the first time I watched it. Seeing so many of those older guns. They shot so well. I miss my Angel now. Thanks John!

[tweeter4]

Originally Posted by Mr. Stealthy

Embrace the ultra-violence... This was a tougher generation of tournament paintball for sure. For those who talk about wasted paint, we actually used less (per-game) due to how brutal/fast most of the games were. Drills are another story...It also required more athleticism to get to bunkers as they were pretty wide spread/scarce by comparison.

The big downside is this was super unwelcoming and quite a big step for newer players to get into. There are pros and cons to the various formats and rates of fire but I say don't half *** it. If you are going to use ramping, use an awesomely high rate of fire and let people push the envelopes of the equipment and players. If you are going to go for a lower rate of fire, go the ICC route.

To me a statement like that is 100% on point. The reason I feel this sport lacks a bit in its widespread appeal, is that the current NXL iteration does not really consistently show/accomplish wild feats of atheticism or skill in an impactful way. Extreme sports are popular on TV and media because of the crazy things you see (insane moves in skateboard, huge waves in surfing, etc.) Paintball used to have that with the high ROF and minimal fields because players would need to pull off crazy and wild moves in normal game settings almost every single point. It added a great WOW! factor to the game and a speed and brutality that doesn't exist now.

Essentially for the wide audience of paintball there are two types of moments that enthrall and make them say WOW!, which is huge full field moves, brutal bunkering and overshooting (like big NFL hits). Mass appeal comes from instantly understandable moments. For a casual viewer, if you need to explain to them why they should say WOW! at something, they never will. Kind of like how in the modern game we are supposed to appreciate "amazing snap shots" and the like. That **** is boring. Show me the total max extreme of the sport in terms of BPS, athleticism, and speed.

And, I don't feel it matters if the pro level of old school NXL was unwelcoming with a high entry barrier, because it is not enjoyable for a casual player to play. Just like the NFL has barriers, you dont see the casual backyard footballer going out and playing full speed, pads on football.

Originally Posted by Waffleman

Disagree about more bunkers meaning more paint. Bigger lanes make people hunker down longer because the risk of getting shot is higher since you're in the open longer.
Plus back then the ROF was higher in all formats

It absolutley means more paint. The modern layouts are setup in a way that you can lose out lanes and miss shots through lane gaps multiple times, and still have even more lanes to hold that player back from advancing. Which means if I miss the D1 lane, I will shoot the D2 lane, if I miss that I will shoot D3 lane, if I miss that I will shoot the 50D lane, and so on.

In old school Xball you didnt really have the ability to sit and lane. The fields were built "wide" in that the second the opposing team got wide on you, you were utterly ****ed because there was no where left to go and it was live by your gun mode with minimal bunker coverage. If you missed the initial shot and a team made the snake or made the 50 you were just wrecked in 10-15 seconds. Since the risk/reward was so high for these moves, almost every team was sending multiple guys to do this.

I mean even XSV, who pretty much mastered and redefined the Ironmen book on modern lane control and conservative play was going out and either winning every point in 30 seconds, or losing catastrophically in less than 45 seconds trying to hold lanes with Rich, Neil, and Micah.

I think back then I was rarely going onto the field with more than 3 pods as a front player. The most I would ever shoot would be running out to a corner and even then pretty much took 4 pods and a hopper. Now when I play NXL games I never go out with less than 7 because I can realistically shoot that in a single point.

[sokopath]

awesome throwback

[PBSales]

Originally Posted by tweeter4

To me a statement like that is 100% on point. The reason I feel this sport lacks a bit in its widespread appeal, is that the current NXL iteration does not really consistently show/accomplish wild feats of atheticism or skill in an impactful way. Extreme sports are popular on TV and media because of the crazy things you see (insane moves in skateboard, huge waves in surfing, etc.) Paintball used to have that with the high ROF and minimal fields because players would need to pull off crazy and wild moves in normal game settings almost every single point. It added a great WOW! factor to the game and a speed and brutality that doesn't exist now.

Essentially for the wide audience of paintball there are two types of moments that enthrall and make them say WOW!, which is huge full field moves, brutal bunkering and overshooting (like big NFL hits). Mass appeal comes from instantly understandable moments. For a casual viewer, if you need to explain to them why they should say WOW! at something, they never will. Kind of like how in the modern game we are supposed to appreciate "amazing snap shots" and the like. That **** is boring. Show me the total max extreme of the sport in terms of BPS, athleticism, and speed.

And, I don't feel it matters if the pro level of old school NXL was unwelcoming with a high entry barrier, because it is not enjoyable for a casual player to play. Just like the NFL has barriers, you dont see the casual backyard footballer going out and playing full speed, pads on football.




It absolutley means more paint. The modern layouts are setup in a way that you can lose out lanes and miss shots through lane gaps multiple times, and still have even more lanes to hold that player back from advancing. Which means if I miss the D1 lane, I will shoot the D2 lane, if I miss that I will shoot D3 lane, if I miss that I will shoot the 50D lane, and so on.

In old school Xball you didnt really have the ability to sit and lane. The fields were built "wide" in that the second the opposing team got wide on you, you were utterly ****ed because there was no where left to go and it was live by your gun mode with minimal bunker coverage. If you missed the initial shot and a team made the snake or made the 50 you were just wrecked in 10-15 seconds. Since the risk/reward was so high for these moves, almost every team was sending multiple guys to do this.

I mean even XSV, who pretty much mastered and redefined the Ironmen book on modern lane control and conservative play was going out and either winning every point in 30 seconds, or losing catastrophically in less than 45 seconds trying to hold lanes with Rich, Neil, and Micah.

I think back then I was rarely going onto the field with more than 3 pods as a front player. The most I would ever shoot would be running out to a corner and even then pretty much took 4 pods and a hopper. Now when I play NXL games I never go out with less than 7 because I can realistically shoot that in a single point.

Cornhole is on TV. Bowling is on TV. Poker is on TV. All of these things are boring as h3ll to watch but at least you can follow along. Paintball isn't TV friendly. If there was money in putting paintball on TV it would have been done by now.

ESPN bailed for a reason. If there was a way to make it profitable they would still do it.

[L4sT_ReSOrT]

Originally Posted by tweeter4

Essentially for the wide audience of paintball there are two types of moments that enthrall and make them say WOW!, which is huge full field moves, brutal bunkering and overshooting (like big NFL hits). Mass appeal comes from instantly understandable moments. For a casual viewer, if you need to explain to them why they should say WOW! at something, they never will. Kind of like how in the modern game we are supposed to appreciate "amazing snap shots" and the like. That **** is boring. Show me the total max extreme of the sport in terms of BPS, athleticism, and speed.

Very, very insightful post. I agree with the sentiments/gripes against the modern era of professional paintball. It's soft, boring, and robotic. I don't want to watch 5 guys break out to a bunker, then plink around till whoever has one body and concede the point. That kills it for me.

You think seeing a bunkering is fun? Witness Travis Lemanski or another big boy in the back pull off a miraculous 3 on 1.

Originally Posted by PBSales

Cornhole is on TV. Bowling is on TV. Poker is on TV. All of these things are boring as h3ll to watch but at least you can follow along. Paintball isn't TV friendly. If there was money in putting paintball on TV it would have been done by now.

ESPN bailed for a reason. If there was a way to make it profitable they would still do it.

His point wasn't to say paintball should be on TV again but rather why it was appealing to the general public in the first place. It used to be a more extreme sport.