[geeks] [rescue] Video card request

Charles Shannon Hendrix shannon at widomaker.com
Thu Dec 1 20:50:29 CST 2005


Thu, 01 Dec 2005 @ 14:07 -0500, Nadine said:

> That's why I play paintball.  All the planning in the world doesn't
> counter the fact that once the action's underway, chaos ensues.
> Even GPS can't counter it.

True.  However...

I don't like paintball because around here at least, it has very few
realistic combat elements. They are usually on rather open fields, with
random "cover" scattered here and there, and tons of kids and immature
adults playing. They arrange everything in short matches, and try to use
scoring systems and things like that which just ruin it for me.

Most paintball organizers seem to have played too many cartoon computer
games, and seem to arrange their paintball games to be like Quake rather
than like Infiltration.

The scoring also often seems geared toward making allowances for the
people who get hit a lot, rather than punishing them like I think it
should.  

This causes two primary problems:

    - it rewards stupid moves that get you shot, rather than rewarding
      you for keeping your head down
    - short matches mean everyone is in a rush to engage
    - the scoring makes people go for personal frags at the expense
      of teamwork
    - the scoring makes people less likely to do things like use
      suppressing fire, which rarely results in a kill
    - you can *FORGET* using FFFF tactics in most paintball games,
      partly because of the points above

If I ran a wargame, here is what I would do:

    - a mix of weapons, if possible.  This one is probably not
      practical, but ideally I'd like a mix of single shot weapons in
      addition to semi and fully automatic
    - no score
    - no matches
    - replace score and matches wtih scenarios and goals, examples below
    - limited ammo.  Generous, but not the ridiculous amounts I
      see being expended at most paintball matches.  This would also
      lower the costs

Of course, I have a hard time even getting people to play realistic
computer combat games, so this probably wouldn't fly, but I can dream.



-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["We have nothing to prove" -- Alan Dawkins]



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