What is paintball ? Perhaps most of you know it from company
outings. But did you know that it is a very rapidly growing sport all around
the world ? Let me introduce it to you a bit.
The first paintball equipment appeared in the 50s in the US. Originally it was
used to mark livestock by cowboys and by foresters to mark trees. The current
form of paintball comes from the 80s. Three friends Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel and
Charles Gaines came up with idea of organizing a game using markers. Thanks to
the media other people heard about this game and ,like these three friends,
started to paint each other. Since this moment the world of paintball has begun
to grow around the world. The basic equipment for the game is pneumatic
paintball gun – a marker, a protective mask and balls with paint based on
edible gelatin.
Nowadays
this play is becoming a fully professional sport, worth multi-million dollars.
There are two kinds of paintball due to the venue. Sport paintball played on a designated
area with inflatable fabric "bunkers" called balloons. Speedball
games are played on the fields with predetermined dimensions and the players
hide behind balloons in different shapes and sizes. The number of players in
one team depends on the league in which the match is played, the most common
format is 5 vs. 5 or 7 vs. 7. The main Polish league is PLP (Polish Paintball
League), and in Europe – EPBF (European Paintball Federation). Here you can
watch a short film from one of the PLP events in 2014:
The second kind of paintball is ‘woodsball’. The name comes from the area where
it is played. In this type of paintball, games often simulate military
operations, players are dressed in uniforms, using masks. Markers are
different, often they imitate real weapons. Woodsball games often take the form
of MilSim that last a minimum of 24 hours and are played over an area of
several kilometers. In Poland one of the most famous paintball maneuvers are
events organized by Pretorians called
Saltus. They combine a paintball play with a survival skill play. Below is
another short film from one edition of Saltus, you can notice differences in
players’ equipment and in techniques used.
(I’m sorry for the language
and curses)
I would recommend playing it, emotions during the game are not to compare with
anything else.
Sources:
http://greathistory.com/the-history-of-paintball.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintball
Sources:
http://greathistory.com/the-history-of-paintball.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintball
http://plp.pl/
http://saltus.pl
Comments
Anyway your article made me remember a fun video of a bachelor party, where the groom get's to be Rambo and they use paintball guns. It's quite long but I think it's pretty cool. Check it out if you are interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYjrs-51mXU
I love paintball !!! I heard that in our school there was a group which organized paintaball. I tried it for the first time when I was at integration camp. When you are protective gear you don’t have to worry that you will get hurt and feel any pain when you get hit. I had only once been to a badly prepared paintball that everyone had been too afraid to shoot anybody because it hurt a lot.
Paintball is a sport that is growing rapidly, also in Poland. For a large part of participants is only attractive form of recreation, there are also aficionados who spend a large expense and time to perfect your skills in this area.
CS GO is quite good, but I still prefer older version, 1.6. :)
Like Marta, I also tried playing laser tag and this too was exciting.
Next Monday I have a company event and guess what we'll be doing? Do you have any tips and tricks for a newbie like me? :D
I don't have any tips for fog in the mask, it is always a big problem. I used to use a special protective fluid for swimmers. But I have my own mask :)
Have you dad played paintball only once or more in some paintball team ?
Anyway, thanks for the article, especially the part about the origin of this sport. I find it a bit funny for some reason. :)
However really big forest fields (woodsball) with some kind of role-play are also cool.
I would like to try speedball some day :)
It is a form of leisure which I definitely recommend:)
It was mainly "woodsball" as you described it in the article, although it's the first time I've encountered this term :)
The cool thing about paintball is that it allows you to make your own rules.
For example, I highly recommend The Hunger Games scenario where all of the players start in a big circle with weapons far away and in the center there is more ammunition and a better gun.
With the right group of people and the right playground, it's really fun!
I don't get excited by pretending to fight in any way: not in video games, not in paintball. I am a coward and when I once played paintball I spent the entire game sitting behind a bush and pretending I even wasn't there. And these suits - covered in somebody else's sweat from the inside, thick, in my case way too big (they didn't have child suits, only ones or fully grown men), smelly helmets - ew, ew, ew. And the markers are not as harmless as they say - my friends always have their backs all bruised when theyfinish their paintball sessions and once I knew a guy that got accidentally hit in his face and had a nasty wound for a couple of weeks. He has a scar on his jaw to this day (this happened 10 years ago).
Anyway, I understand that people enjoy this as a sport and as a way of entertainment, but this is not my type of thing. However, I really like listening about the paintball fields and how the owners put A LOT of effort to make them very interesting (post-apo in old mental health facilities, some battlefield or sci-fi themes).
Reading your presentation I wish to play it again, cause I always loved wood, running, competition and adrenaline :)
The idea of more serious 'woodsball' looks like a much better experience. After this presentation maybe I will give it a shot.