Paintball

[eMTe]

Im going to play my first paintball match in coming week. I always had a desire, but never had opportunity and never fought wildly to have one. Somehow, always when I was near to play the match (ie: I was sitting down and suddenly thought, hey, maybe Ill do something different that I didnt do) it occurred that I dont have enough friends wanting to play and the wish falled into oblivion. Now we're constructing a team from people from job and since we're going to play in 11th Nov (national holiday) everyone will be free and can possibly join us.

My question is, have you ever played paintball and do you have any advices or have some humorous (or painful - it happens) stories to share.

[Pager]

I've played a few times, I even have my own gun. Coincidentally the first time I played, my friends and I celebrated that night by having a party and we all got busted for drinking under age.

My advice to you, find cover and keep your head down. I always found it was good too if you teamed up with someone, that way you could watch each other's backs. And watch you neck, if you take one there, it stings!

After I bought my own gun, my friend and I went out and played in a forested area, we didn't splurg for the face masks so we just wore safety glasses instead. With one rule, no shooting above the shoulders. It had been a quiet day, perhaps the forest was just a little too big, because we hadn't seen each other in hours, so I decided to camp and wait, I had found this fantastic bush which was in front of a rockface, so I crouched and waited. I heard a stick break to my right and I watched as my friend walked out from behind a tree, and proceeded to walk away. When he was about 15 feet away, I jumped out, with a nice, "HA!" He screamed, turned sharply and shot at me and hit me dead in the glasses. The paintball hit with such force, it smashed my glasses into my face and left an imprint. Afterwards we went to get some pizza, and people were looking at me strange while I was walking around, I got back into the car and looked in the rearview mirror and my face was painted bright pink. I guess when it was wet it barely showed, but when it dried it became glowing.

[Chroelle]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I played it, and had a blast at a friends bachelorparty. Its classic bachelorparty-stuff in Denmark, so most people around 30 gets to try it.
We played capture the flag, which was AMAZING fun. The cooperating with a teammate can be both good and bad. Two gets spotted easier than one, but if it reduces the chance of begin hit in the neck, then I am all for! OUCH!
We wore overalls when we played in the outside paintballcenter, and we remembered everything for the groom except shoes to cahnge into during this, so he came out of there with multicolored sneakers... Oh and a multicolored (black, blue, yellow, red) skin under his regular clothes. The last map we played was not capture the flag, but simply a "Groom gets 20 secs to either mow you guys down, while your backs are turned or he can use them to escape..." He used 15 seconds hitting everyone but me, and then 5 secs later he was around 5m from us when we turned around guns blazing....way too short a distance. OUCH!

[Zyx]

My experience with paintball is pretty much the same as with Chroelle. All up to the let's all shoot at the one guy thing.

[eMTe]

Everyone here and in rl warns me about neck, I wonder why they dont give masks with neck-protecting extensions. Id better find myself a thick scarf!

[Chroelle]

But that eliminates the whole fun of shooting other people in the neck.

[eMTe]

We wont play paintball in the end. We are short with minimum required teamplayers - 10, not enough people decided to join. Instead we'll race karts. Karts deserve their own topic, but since Im not debutant in this subject it can wait.

At least we have funny new thread.

[Tormuse]

I've never tried it before, but I think I'd like to try paintball some day... when I'm in a masochistic mood.

It's probably moot to mention this now, but if you decide again to play paintball, you might want to ask Ancsur2002. She played it recently and has her own tales of battle damage. She didn't mention the neck, but she did mention other... er... sensitive areas that got hit.

Also, go-karting is a lot of fun. I recommend wearing eye-protection; the one time I went karting, I got a face-full of dirt and dust.

[eMTe]

She didn't mention the neck, but she did mention other... er... sensitive areas that got hit.

Hah! What areas?

As for go-karting (so this is the right word) I never had problem with eyes, but maybe it depends on weather (if you race outdoors), speed and surface. Afaik there are different kinds of karts and professional vehicles can speed up to over 200 kms/h, but I have experience with most amateurish ones, which speed up only to 80 kms/h.

[Tormuse]

Hah! What areas?

*Ahem* I can't divulge all of the areas, but she did mention that she had a painful shot to the kidney that left her gasping for breath. (Apparently, her protective gear didn't cover the sides of her torso) She said she got revenge on them, though, so it's all good.

[eMTe]

Ah, kidney. Yes...

Im not too happy with today's racing, because the track was full of curves and bottlenecks and besides the kart I had had an oversensitive gas pedal and undersensitive brake. I was put back on track 7 times for an 8 minute ride.

[Chroelle]

*throw in joke about oversensitive driver as well*