Welcome back everyone! Last post we briefly spoke about a
few of the fundamentals of paintball. We spoke about how paintball is mix
between speed and strategy, so if you have any catching up to do go have a look
at that post. Today I'll be going over
the general rule for paintball then closing off with issues that have grown as
the sport popularized, and the current state of those issues today.
So what’s
the main goal every paintball team has when they walk out onto the field? It’s
simple, get as many players on the opposing team eliminated as possible, and
score the flag on their starting station. Now this does seem simple but there’s a twist,
each game is given a total of 25 minutes of playing time. That being said,
there is no certain amount of rounds per game. There could be as little as 3
rounds (which mean each round was fairly long). Heck I've seen some games have
as many as 10 games! Like I said paintball is an extremely fast moving sport.
This concept of speed is what keeps players and the audience in the stands on
the edge of their game or seat. Now teams are given points for every opponent
they eliminate (and yes, friendly fire is also accounted for) but this does not
guarantee a win for that round. Hanging the flag on the opposing team’s base is
what gives the most points and typically guarantees a win. Note I used the word
“typically” this is because if your team has a penalty that deducts not only
points but as well a player for a certain period of time depending on the severity
of the penalty. Penalties can be from talking back to the referee, fighting, wiping
paint after being hit (worse penalty by far), and any other general behavior
that is not sportsmanlike Now once all the playing time has been played, officials
add all the points together and the team with the most points wins! Now I know
this is a random place to put this but I have been getting many questions such
as, “If you only get shot once are you out?” or questions like, “Are there a certain amount of
hits before you are called out?”. To
answer these questions, players are considered out once ONE paintball has successfully
hit and broke anywhere of the player’s body, this does include the marker and
hopper. This is why paintball is so intense! Think about it, two teams of 5
players each player having a marker that is capable of shooting 12 paintballs
per second with each paintball travelling at 300 feet per second ( or roughly
204 miles per hour) and players are cannot even be hit once…..Crazy right?
Now a
major downfall for paintball is all the issues and misconceptions that many
people have on the sport. For example many parents refuse to let their children
play because many view the sport as a promotion for violence. Although the idea
of having individuals shooting each other with paintball markers can easily be
misunderstood for a violent standpoint parents need to have a more open eye
and view it from a different light. This dilemma really hindered the growth of
the sport during the early 2000’s; heck I still remember how hard it was to get
my mom to take me to the field whenever I first started playing. So exactly
what did the community fight this misconception? Well one easy way was the fix the name that
many people use to call the markers back during the early 2000’s which was the
term “Paintball gun”. The word “gun”
typically was what scared many people who was scared when it first came to
playing. Then around 2006 some genius decided that entire industry of paintball
should refer to paintball guns as paintball markers This simple change in name
caused the industry to boom, and in the end the sport keeps thriving til this
very day.
So that
about wraps it up for this week’s blog post, Next week I’ll be going over some personal
experiences of mine whenever I first started playing. If you have any question
please feel free to ask in the comments below, I'll answering them next week.
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