Have we reached a plateau?

[Pulsipher]

Everyone loves their tacticool special forces gear, but not many are willing to invest the money to get a Haji looking OPFOR loadout.

For one, I am.

im not growing my face raper for nothing!

[Cap n pickles]

aeg recoil is the future, i dont care how many pistons and gears i go threw, i want recoil!

[dr.feelgood]

As i understand it, the gas rifles of today only share base similarities with classic airsoft. Either way they are pushing all airsoft to have recoil and working bolts. So everyone wins.

Also a shift from a basic force on force skirm (or OP) to squad based games that are more planned. Manicotti Incident was a great example of scenario based squad play, and I'm hoping to be part of hosting things done in a similar vein.

[Bad Karma]

Have we reached a plateau?

No.

[Steve]

I think airsoft has reached a plateau.

There simply are not enough player dollars floating around in the community to support people who do airsoft-related work full-time. There are some exceptions. Retailers seem to be doing all right, but they are the only group associated with the local airsoft industry that sem to be able to do airsoft as a business.

I have yet to meet a full-time event promoter, trainer, referee, or league official that supports themselves solely on airsoft. There are no full-time dedicated outdoor airsoft fields. By this, I mean large areas that are used specifically for airsoft, and provide the field owner with enough revenue to run the field full-time. Indoor fields seem to be either loss leaders for the associated pro-shops, or repurposing unused space from another business.

Airsoft is still a hobby, not a sport. At least around here. When the community supports a full-time cadre of hangers-on, then we can talk about being a sport. For example, a firearms instructor bills $75+ an hour for basic instruction. How much will an airsoft player pay for basically the same material?

[Pulsipher]

i dont want airsoft to be a sport, ever

[Ivan Daylovich™]

Sport is an activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.

Airsoft is a sport.

[Steve]

Airsoft is a game, not a sport. It's a somewhat more active version of a first-person shooter. Sports are played competitively. Sports are played professionally.

Airsoft is kids (of all ages) shooting at each other with toy guns.

There are no Airsoft Leagues in the area. There is no governing body of the 'sport' of airsoft. There is no sanctioning body that governs overall player roles and responsibility, or sanctions teams, or even sets a baseline standard for rules. Unless you count insurance agencies, that is.

Field owners don't get together in a committee to decide what direction the 'sport' will move in. There is no 'season', or 'ladder', or any of the other accoutriments of even little-league-level sports.

It's not a sport. And won't be, unless enough of the community decides that they want it to be.

It's a game.

[Sleepy]

Airsoft is a game, not a sport. It's a somewhat more active version of a first-person shooter. Sports are played competitively. Sports are played professionally.

I could argue against that. There is quite a bit of competition, but in the same way that Little League is competitive. Its not serious, but its still there. I know that one the extremely rare occasions I show up for games, Commiehunter and I spend a good deal of time hunting each other. Why, I don't know, but it amuses me.

There are no Airsoft Leagues in the area. There is no governing body of the 'sport' of airsoft. There is no sanctioning body that governs overall player roles and responsibility, or sanctions teams, or even sets a baseline standard for rules. Unless you count insurance agencies, that is.

But, in a way, there is. AP does seem to act as a governing body. Rules, regulations, safety standards, coordinating games, and inter-team rivalry & communication are all carried out here.

Field owners don't get together in a committee to decide what direction the 'sport' will move in. There is no 'season', or 'ladder', or any of the other accoutriments of even little-league-level sports.

Okay, can't argue with that.

It's not a sport. And won't be, unless enough of the community decides that they want it to be.

It's a game.

I think the only reason that's true is because of the way AP, and many other communities, structure themselves to be non-competitive in the traditional sense. We choose not to have ladders, and seasons, although we do have the CQC games, which are a very strict form of competition, with clear winners and losers.

Personally, I don't think the game has reached a plateau. Airsoft follows the military very closely, and also political situations. So from a gameplay standpoint, we might be playing basically the same games over and over again, but the backgrounds are often very distinct from one another.

Technology-wise, absolutely not. LiPo is the new thing, there's GBB rifles, which admittedly are a cover of classic rifles, but still new enough, and equipment and methods are always changing. 10 years ago, the minigun was a completely harebrained idea that never got any traction, and now the only problem is that production models are expensive. There will be cheaper alternatives in the future.

Personally, I'm looking forward to GBB Metal Storm. Just a wall of plastic going down range at a million rounds per second.

[Sleepy]

HOLY DOUBLE POST, BATMAN!

[Steve]

There are no Airsoft Leagues in the area. There is no governing body of the 'sport' of airsoft. There is no sanctioning body that governs overall player roles and responsibility, or sanctions teams, or even sets a baseline standard for rules. Unless you count insurance agencies, that is.

But, in a way, there is. AP does seem to act as a governing body. Rules, regulations, safety standards, coordinating games, and inter-team rivalry & communication are all carried out here.

I would have to disagree. Airsoft Pacific has a series of rules for AP-sponsored events. But the community does not impose those rules on field owners in the area, or on teams or players outside of AP events. It is not a condition of membership to play by those rules at non-AP events. The stillborn APL was an attempt at a league, but it never took off. AP is a user community, not a governing body of the hobby.

It's not a sport. And won't be, unless enough of the community decides that they want it to be.

It's a game.

I think the only reason that's true is because of the way AP, and many other communities, structure themselves to be non-competitive in the traditional sense. We choose not to have ladders, and seasons, although we do have the CQC games, which are a very strict form of competition, with clear winners and losers.

By not having structured team-on-team ladders, the community has chosen to treat the hobby as a hobby, not as a sport. The CQC events are a specialized competitive event, true. But these events show how teams handle a series of set-piece engagements, rather than a quantifiable set of skills assessments. Even the CQC events are based on multi-choice scenarios, with teams competing for time and points, rather than against each other. At the end of a CQC event, you know where your team stacks up against other teams based on time and point totals, rather than knowing which team would have left in body bags versus holding the field. I’m not bashing on the CQC series, mind you. Merely pointing out that even this competitive event is based on team scenario play rather than being a team on team competition such as you would find in any sporting tournament.

Personally, I don't think the game has reached a plateau. Airsoft follows the military very closely, and also political situations. So from a gameplay standpoint, we might be playing basically the same games over and over again, but the backgrounds are often very distinct from one another.

Airsoft follows the military very closely? Seriously? Um, no. No, it doesn’t. Hicaps, Multicam, players walking off the field whenever the whim strikes them, lack of clear OpOrds at events, and a very eclectic loadout mix even among teammates. All of these are things that show that airsoft does not, in fact, follow the military. At all. When was the last time you saw someone on the field spend five minutes looking at someone out of the corner of their eye to try and puzzle out if they should be at parade rest or attention when addressing someone based on their foreign rank insignia? How about being ordered to secure an area that has zero strategic or tactical importance for four goddamn days at 40 below zero? Or grabbed your AEG to go out on a foot patrol to secure a Traffic Control Point for a day and a half to make sure that the guys delivering well-digging equipment to some little shit village end up on the right road, only to have them call you up and let you know that they flew it in under helicopters two days ago? Airsoft doesn’t follow the military, unless you are talking about the Army that only exists in Hollywood. I can’t argue about the political situations, because I stay as far away from current events as I can, having been a tool of foreign policy. The scenarios, though, are just game ideas with a little bit of plot and a little bit of dross to dress them up.

Technology-wise, absolutely not. LiPo is the new thing, there's GBB rifles, which admittedly are a cover of classic rifles, but still new enough, and equipment and methods are always changing. 10 years ago, the minigun was a completely harebrained idea that never got any traction, and now the only problem is that production models are expensive. There will be cheaper alternatives in the future.

Personally, I'm looking forward to GBB Metal Storm. Just a wall of plastic going down range at a million rounds per second.

I am a fan of the GBB rifles for firearms training. I like the realism, and I love the ability to hand one to someone who has never fired a rifle without having to worry about them NDing and sending me home in a box. For skirmishing, though, they sit at a bit of a disadvantage. If the community were to decide to move to a more mil-sim approach, with real-cap mags, uniform and loadout requirements, and C3I structure, GBB rifles would definitely hold their own.

I’d be all over an airsoft Metal Storm. That would be awesome.

[Sleepy]

Perhaps my initial statement was not entirely accurate. I would say that airsoft follows a very fantastical/theoretical idea of the military. We follow the idea of it, if not its exact operation, the fantasy of it.

Yes, not every game abides by AP rules, and they are not foisted on field owners, but the overwhelming majority of games we see on AP use AP rules, which in my mind, makes AP a de facto governing body, even if they have not chosen to be so.

[Haloeclipse]

blah blah blah.

all the things you say we dont have, and suggestions for things we should have, are reasons why i like airsoft the way it is. Team vs team is gay. A team vs team competition really doesnt mean squat in a milsim genre, not to mention reaks to heck like speedball. Take the BSP challenge for instance. Both scenarios presented the teams with the same objectives and same total possible points, however each team attempted to acheive their goals any number of different ways. Just like the real world, any agency would handle a drug buy/sting differently, or differ in how they would guard a vip. Most, if not all the teams took all or most their ideas from the real world and applied them to a relatively realistic objective. This is a great basis for the grading of teams on realistic skill sets. Honestly a team vs team approach proves little.

We tried the whole "league" thing, I think it was called NWAL or somethin like that. It went nowhere. I and Im sure many others, prefer leagues to go no further than suggestions for rules/safety. Who the hell died and made any group the king of airsoft?

I prefer airsoft to be a competitive hobby. THere is simply no where to go but inflatable speedball courts if the term "sport" is its future.

[Norseman]

I would have to agree about the differentiation of weapon platforms, but again you're getting into the advancement of "mil-sim" and not just Airsoft in general when you talk about that. When squad guns and sniper rifles are used adequately as force multipliers, amazing things happen. The planets align and somebody gets the smackdown hard, harder than any smackdown ever delivered by a lone gunman with a Super9.

What good is an M249 or an M60 without incredible riflemen to push the flanks and eradicate the enemy while you are laying down fire? You may as well be standing there with a 15lb cement brick screaming "SHOOT AT ME! HERE I AM!"

What good is an L96 or an M24 if you are just plinking people randomly, giving away your position, and then getting shot by 100 angry kids with full auto when you have to relocate? No good at all.

This message paid for by the people for advancement of squad tactics at Airsoft games.

LMAO!

[Fred]

I do see a plateau, tactical tree huggers and BB lobbing noobs.
People who are just too afraid to move up, even if it's 8:1 in their favor and only 1 minute on the clock to complete their objective.