I was ambushed on my 18th birthday. A team known as "Wolf Corps" threw me a surprise birthday party ...and forced me onto their team. Not that I didn't go fairly willingly. But I wasn't good on their team, and these past few weeks I haven't had much fun playing on a team. Then just a few of us started playing, staffing, and chilling together. Today we quit wolf corps and started a new team. Mutiny Airsoft.
Teams can be the most important and defining part of your airsoft experience. The teams I consider best have three qualities:
1. Friendship –Airsoft teams are about fun. Our team does other activies then airsoft, such as bowling, watching movies, and just hanging out; cuz we're losers and don't have any other friends....
Anyways, team mates should be friends outside of the game because it gives them a sense of warmth, unity, and positive attitude that’s needed to play the sport well. New members should only be added if everyone on the team likes them for more reasons than their player skills. Honestly, recruitment should be avoided.
Otherwise a “high school mentality" will come out, where a bunch of people who only sort of like each other, are put into a group and expected to cooperate. Drama, jealousy, passive-aggression, you know the drill.
2. (A lack of) a rank system – Teams with the least amount of rank tend to be best. In airsoft, rank within a team isn’t needed because most teams are small and inconsequential. They should be focusing on competing as a unit, not competing with themselves. A team that can be communicative and efficient without a rank system is a true success.
3. Real world application and practice – The more often a team plays structured games together, the better they will be. Practicing hand signals, communication, and basic maneuvers can help, but teams should focus mainly on learning how each individual operates, and how to cooperate their various skills on the field. This ‘silent communication and trust’ can only be learned in real games and operations.
A few more things.. (I know I know, I'm surprised you read this far, too.)
Teams shouldn't strive to be champions of the sport. This isn't paintball. You can't really rack up your kills or count your victories. The best teams are mainly about building a strong bond with each other. They help develop the airsoft industry into a more honorable and friendly community.
Members of teams will be judged by the actions of their fellow mates, so it’s important you trust them with your (airsoft) life. If one member is seen cheating, they have all cheated. If one member gives up, it can lead to an entire team failure. Still making the decision to join a team is not as important as the decision to stay on a team.
Just like a random dude at the airsoft field said a few weekends ago, "Finding a team is a lot like having sex with a chick, try it, but sometimes it doesn't click. Then if your an asshole like me, you just leave. You can be nicer about it too, though."
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The unexpected danger of being lit up from 10ft or less…
That, my friend, is a bb that was shot into my ear. A shemagh was wrapped around my entire head. I have no idea how this happened.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
What you need to know about military sims and ops
Hands down, by far, I have created the greatest memories; played the best games; and met the most friends at ops. There are two types of players: the kind who wear gloves, and the kind who haven't been shot in the finger yet. Likewise, there are two other types of players: the kind that are addicted to ops, and the kind who haven't played an awesome one yet.
The first op I played in was Smart vs. Baker I at desert fox fields, MOUT. I didn't have my own gun yet, and half of the op was a group of guys trying to get me to win a gun (we had raffle, everyone but three people put my name instead of their own... one of the other three people won it, go figure.)
No worries, I ended up buying a better gun bla bla bla, I'm okay with it. (okay not really I still hate them)
...moving on
The op was intense because I was such a newb at the time. I was in the middle of the entire opposing team (a small unit of only four men), in perfect position to kill everyone, unseen, undetected ... and my gun was on safety. I was an idiot. I can't remember exactly what happened, but needless to say I died, and it was pretty funny. I met a guy on the other team who also died, and we had a grand conversation as ghosts. He introduced me to a team who I still play private games with regularly.
The airsoft community can be really open, accepting, and helpful. They tried ever so hard to get me that gun *evil eye at picture above* and are still family to me. This is one of those things about ops, you work more closely with people you don't know. At pick-up games, people tend to stick to their groups (much to my chagrin) but at ops you have to befriend more people, and they have to befriend you. Well, to have any fun that is.
On to what you need to know: A main concern I hear from players that haven't played good military simulation games is boredom and orders. I don't like to play soldier. I don't like to follow orders unless if they serve a purpose. I don't like to sit around guarding an objective or do the boring jobs real life soldiers have to do. That's not what I'm paying for, or spending my free time on. Believe it or not, most event organizers realize this and do everything they can to avoid giving you a bad time.
The difference between an operation and a pick up game is generally the same: Time. Pick-up games are fast, operations are drawn out. This allows the game play to develop more, more realism, and forces players to rely on skill and planning more then manpower, gunpower, or luck.
An example of how the game play develops: In a private night op, we were insurgents searching for two downed helicopter pilots to take hostage, while the U.S. forces were attempting to rescue them. This was played on a huge section of open desert (there was about a mile of playable field between our camp and the enemy camp), which allowed for a huge amount of realism, also I had never played there before, so I didn't know the land at all (which is usually the situation in real life). We started at 10pm. Originally, the U.S. forces managed to find the pilots. Then we ambushed them and captured the pilots, but our teams were split up in a fire fight, and one of the pilots escaped. By then it was around 3 or 4 in the morning, until around 8 we continued to assault each others camps attempting to capture the other teams pilot. On top of this our pilot (as we were the enemy) managed to escape three different times, and we had to hunt him down and capture him each time. (Not my fault. I wasn't in charge of keeping prisoner, we zip tied him for christs sake..)
That was by far the best night op I've ever played, because it developed so naturally. No one told us what to do. No one planned anything. Shit just happened and we had to deal with it. On top of that, there were explosions, real injuries (haha), and so much treachery (you can't tell who's on your team at night... that goes both ways, unless you're the only girl *sigh*)
Just because you aren't playing "shoot 'em up" the entire time doesn't mean it isn't extremely fun. Often you have many other challenging aspects to the game then just attempting to annihilate the enemy. For example, in Shifting Sands, you have to work closely with a group of role-playing civilians to complete your objectives.
I was a civilian in Shifting Sands as well as Mojave Thunder, and, well, all I can say is I get into my role. In shifting sands I pulled out a loaded pistol in the middle of a troop of U.S. soldiers, and just like the 6 aeg's were on me.
I wasn't even killed. We ended up in a giant wrestling match, civilians, soldiers, and insurgents in the mix, until someone finally pulled the "camera" out of my hands.
Civilians in these games aren't being payed. They are there, as volunteers, to make the game play as interesting as possible. Aka, If your not having fun, then I'm not having fun either. And I'm not having fun unless I get tackled at least once...
I have been to poor ops, and there is never a guarantee an op will turn out well. There are so may variables involved in the outcome of an op; if the players don't take initiative well, it's going to be a crummy game. Most game managers can't control this (unless they control who signs up for the game, which is generally impossible, or they control the game...).
Let me break it down for you: The larger the op is, the more inexperienced players there will be. The more inexperienced players there are, the less initiative they will take. The less initiative the players take, the more structure game managers have to add to the game. The more structure that has to be added to the game, the less realistic development will happen. Less realistic development = :-(
So in general, you can assume the smaller the op, the better the game play. However, this is not always true. Larger ops usually have bigger budgets. Which means bigger venues, better raffles, more time spent planning, and more awesome stuff (explosions, vehicles, buildings, etc). So it's a switch up. Also, once upon a time I went to a small night op. My team was supposed to be ambushed. The enemy team never found us. Yeah >_> it's never guaranteed to be awesome either way.
**I will say one thing, if you go to an op, please do your part. Read through the player packet, from cover to cover, and understand it thoroughly. Imo, people who show up without reading the player packet shouldn't play. It makes things much more difficult for them and everyone else.
There is a risk in going to ops and events. But it usually pays off. If an op is awesome, it is just awesome, I can't express it in words. If an op sucks, oh well, you wasted some time and money, but you got to hang out with your friends, maybe do some camping, and had a fun weekend anyways. If you can afford to take the risk, I say take it, usually there is someone putting everything they can into making that op turn out, and if you do your part as a player, it might just.
"Yes, 'risk taking' is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called 'sure-thing taking'."
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl.
The first op I played in was Smart vs. Baker I at desert fox fields, MOUT. I didn't have my own gun yet, and half of the op was a group of guys trying to get me to win a gun (we had raffle, everyone but three people put my name instead of their own... one of the other three people won it, go figure.)
No worries, I ended up buying a better gun bla bla bla, I'm okay with it. (okay not really I still hate them)...moving on
The op was intense because I was such a newb at the time. I was in the middle of the entire opposing team (a small unit of only four men), in perfect position to kill everyone, unseen, undetected ... and my gun was on safety. I was an idiot. I can't remember exactly what happened, but needless to say I died, and it was pretty funny. I met a guy on the other team who also died, and we had a grand conversation as ghosts. He introduced me to a team who I still play private games with regularly.
The airsoft community can be really open, accepting, and helpful. They tried ever so hard to get me that gun *evil eye at picture above* and are still family to me. This is one of those things about ops, you work more closely with people you don't know. At pick-up games, people tend to stick to their groups (much to my chagrin) but at ops you have to befriend more people, and they have to befriend you. Well, to have any fun that is.
On to what you need to know: A main concern I hear from players that haven't played good military simulation games is boredom and orders. I don't like to play soldier. I don't like to follow orders unless if they serve a purpose. I don't like to sit around guarding an objective or do the boring jobs real life soldiers have to do. That's not what I'm paying for, or spending my free time on. Believe it or not, most event organizers realize this and do everything they can to avoid giving you a bad time.
The difference between an operation and a pick up game is generally the same: Time. Pick-up games are fast, operations are drawn out. This allows the game play to develop more, more realism, and forces players to rely on skill and planning more then manpower, gunpower, or luck.
An example of how the game play develops: In a private night op, we were insurgents searching for two downed helicopter pilots to take hostage, while the U.S. forces were attempting to rescue them. This was played on a huge section of open desert (there was about a mile of playable field between our camp and the enemy camp), which allowed for a huge amount of realism, also I had never played there before, so I didn't know the land at all (which is usually the situation in real life). We started at 10pm. Originally, the U.S. forces managed to find the pilots. Then we ambushed them and captured the pilots, but our teams were split up in a fire fight, and one of the pilots escaped. By then it was around 3 or 4 in the morning, until around 8 we continued to assault each others camps attempting to capture the other teams pilot. On top of this our pilot (as we were the enemy) managed to escape three different times, and we had to hunt him down and capture him each time. (Not my fault. I wasn't in charge of keeping prisoner, we zip tied him for christs sake..)
That was by far the best night op I've ever played, because it developed so naturally. No one told us what to do. No one planned anything. Shit just happened and we had to deal with it. On top of that, there were explosions, real injuries (haha), and so much treachery (you can't tell who's on your team at night... that goes both ways, unless you're the only girl *sigh*)
Just because you aren't playing "shoot 'em up" the entire time doesn't mean it isn't extremely fun. Often you have many other challenging aspects to the game then just attempting to annihilate the enemy. For example, in Shifting Sands, you have to work closely with a group of role-playing civilians to complete your objectives.
I was a civilian in Shifting Sands as well as Mojave Thunder, and, well, all I can say is I get into my role. In shifting sands I pulled out a loaded pistol in the middle of a troop of U.S. soldiers, and just like the 6 aeg's were on me.
I wasn't even killed. We ended up in a giant wrestling match, civilians, soldiers, and insurgents in the mix, until someone finally pulled the "camera" out of my hands.Civilians in these games aren't being payed. They are there, as volunteers, to make the game play as interesting as possible. Aka, If your not having fun, then I'm not having fun either. And I'm not having fun unless I get tackled at least once...
I have been to poor ops, and there is never a guarantee an op will turn out well. There are so may variables involved in the outcome of an op; if the players don't take initiative well, it's going to be a crummy game. Most game managers can't control this (unless they control who signs up for the game, which is generally impossible, or they control the game...).
Let me break it down for you: The larger the op is, the more inexperienced players there will be. The more inexperienced players there are, the less initiative they will take. The less initiative the players take, the more structure game managers have to add to the game. The more structure that has to be added to the game, the less realistic development will happen. Less realistic development = :-(
So in general, you can assume the smaller the op, the better the game play. However, this is not always true. Larger ops usually have bigger budgets. Which means bigger venues, better raffles, more time spent planning, and more awesome stuff (explosions, vehicles, buildings, etc). So it's a switch up. Also, once upon a time I went to a small night op. My team was supposed to be ambushed. The enemy team never found us. Yeah >_> it's never guaranteed to be awesome either way.
**I will say one thing, if you go to an op, please do your part. Read through the player packet, from cover to cover, and understand it thoroughly. Imo, people who show up without reading the player packet shouldn't play. It makes things much more difficult for them and everyone else.
There is a risk in going to ops and events. But it usually pays off. If an op is awesome, it is just awesome, I can't express it in words. If an op sucks, oh well, you wasted some time and money, but you got to hang out with your friends, maybe do some camping, and had a fun weekend anyways. If you can afford to take the risk, I say take it, usually there is someone putting everything they can into making that op turn out, and if you do your part as a player, it might just.
"Yes, 'risk taking' is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called 'sure-thing taking'."
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Why care about winning?
After we lost a game this weekend, I said, “That was a great game.”
My CO asked, “Yeah but, what was the objective?”
"Well," I said, “To have fun.”
Many of my favorite games have been ones where my team lost. When you first start out, racking up kills and winning objectives is stellar. But the more you play the less you want to just win, and the more you want to earn winning. It’s way more fun to plan something and see it come to fruition, then just get lucky.
Many new players want respect. But respect isn’t something anyone can give you and it isn’t earned. Respect starts and ends with you. Anything else is hollow and trivial. Once you can truly be happy with what you did and not need compliments from others, or the classification as a winner, that is when you truly have respect. Self-respect. When you have self-respect, losing will only effect you in the way of self-improvement, and others not recognizing your skill won't bother you anymore.
I’ve had a few splendid moments in airsoft. Most of them others didn’t get to see and weren’t recognized, but that shouldn’t be a bummer (remember my number 1 pet peeve, nothing should ever get you down?). While winning and being seen as a winner does feel pretty awesome, knowing you did better then you thought you could will always feel the best. So yeah, care about winning, but only if you earned it. And don’t care if others saw you, either.
“What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
My CO asked, “Yeah but, what was the objective?”
"Well," I said, “To have fun.”
Many of my favorite games have been ones where my team lost. When you first start out, racking up kills and winning objectives is stellar. But the more you play the less you want to just win, and the more you want to earn winning. It’s way more fun to plan something and see it come to fruition, then just get lucky.
Many new players want respect. But respect isn’t something anyone can give you and it isn’t earned. Respect starts and ends with you. Anything else is hollow and trivial. Once you can truly be happy with what you did and not need compliments from others, or the classification as a winner, that is when you truly have respect. Self-respect. When you have self-respect, losing will only effect you in the way of self-improvement, and others not recognizing your skill won't bother you anymore.
I’ve had a few splendid moments in airsoft. Most of them others didn’t get to see and weren’t recognized, but that shouldn’t be a bummer (remember my number 1 pet peeve, nothing should ever get you down?). While winning and being seen as a winner does feel pretty awesome, knowing you did better then you thought you could will always feel the best. So yeah, care about winning, but only if you earned it. And don’t care if others saw you, either.
“What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Be aggressive, be be, AGGRESSIVE!
Whenever I played basketball this year, and the cheerleaders would sing this stupid cheer, I would roll my eyes. What kind of athlete doesn’t realize the aim of the game is to “be aggressive”? It wasn’t until I started playing airsoft that I realized some athletes don’t.
In basketball, unaggressive players are benched. In airsoft, we don’t get this luxury. Players who hide behind walls and defend when they are supposed to be attacking, are as useful on the field as Anne Frank’s drumkit. If you’re the team that is supposed to be attacking, please, attack. Move up. Use grenades to your advantage, and get the team as close as possible to the objective.
All it takes to be aggressive in airsoft is practice, and more importantly, confidence. Three weeks into playing airsoft regularly, I blew up the Armadillo with the satchel and won a game. Nothing has ever beat that moment in airsoft for me, because it was freaking terrifying, but I did it anyways. That’s a cool feeling; it’s what airsoft is all about. But you’ll never get that feeling in anything you do in life, if you don’t take the risk firstly, but also don’t know what the hell you’re doing.
Visualize, visualize, visualize. See what you want to do, and then do it. Don’t go in blindly. If you know exactly what you’re going to do, it turns out to be pretty easy (but still looks impressive). I promise, running out into the open has never worked (the adrenaline is nice; the spray of bb’s is not). Airsoft is a mental game, what makes it addictive is that every situation is different, every challenge knew. A skilled player isn’t one who has the physical ability to do barrel rolls and jump through windows, it’s the ones who can put those abilities to use in well and quickly thought out tactics (the best are the ones who can do both.)
The aggressive player is always on the move. Take advantage of every hole, window, and door way; always know where the enemy is. At the same time, move around, change buildings even if it’s not to your advantage, so the enemy doesn’t know where you are. You’re goal is to see but not be seen, and surprise the enemy. At first, make it you’re goal just to move up as far as possible, as a newb, never fall back and defend; regardless if it’s good for the objective, focus on developing your own player skills first.
And for once, listen to those cheerleaders, the ones that don’t get pregnant can be pretty smart.
“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
In basketball, unaggressive players are benched. In airsoft, we don’t get this luxury. Players who hide behind walls and defend when they are supposed to be attacking, are as useful on the field as Anne Frank’s drumkit. If you’re the team that is supposed to be attacking, please, attack. Move up. Use grenades to your advantage, and get the team as close as possible to the objective.
All it takes to be aggressive in airsoft is practice, and more importantly, confidence. Three weeks into playing airsoft regularly, I blew up the Armadillo with the satchel and won a game. Nothing has ever beat that moment in airsoft for me, because it was freaking terrifying, but I did it anyways. That’s a cool feeling; it’s what airsoft is all about. But you’ll never get that feeling in anything you do in life, if you don’t take the risk firstly, but also don’t know what the hell you’re doing.
Visualize, visualize, visualize. See what you want to do, and then do it. Don’t go in blindly. If you know exactly what you’re going to do, it turns out to be pretty easy (but still looks impressive). I promise, running out into the open has never worked (the adrenaline is nice; the spray of bb’s is not). Airsoft is a mental game, what makes it addictive is that every situation is different, every challenge knew. A skilled player isn’t one who has the physical ability to do barrel rolls and jump through windows, it’s the ones who can put those abilities to use in well and quickly thought out tactics (the best are the ones who can do both.)
The aggressive player is always on the move. Take advantage of every hole, window, and door way; always know where the enemy is. At the same time, move around, change buildings even if it’s not to your advantage, so the enemy doesn’t know where you are. You’re goal is to see but not be seen, and surprise the enemy. At first, make it you’re goal just to move up as far as possible, as a newb, never fall back and defend; regardless if it’s good for the objective, focus on developing your own player skills first.
And for once, listen to those cheerleaders, the ones that don’t get pregnant can be pretty smart.
“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The problem with labels.
Never label anyone, or group of anyones as cheaters permanently. If you do this, and those players stop cheating or never were cheating in the first place, you’ll start to assume they are regardless. This will lead you to feel that they are “cheating” you when they are “out playing” you. There is a stark difference. Be open-minded. Give people a second chance. I’ve only heard of one field ban due to cheating and I’ve never seen one first hand. In all likelihood, you’ll be playing against those “cheaters” again and again, give them a new chance every time you play with them. It’s better for everyone this way.
p.s. it's discouraging to tell someone they are a "no good cheater" try encouraging them to become more honorable players instead, it's bound to be more effective.
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
p.s. it's discouraging to tell someone they are a "no good cheater" try encouraging them to become more honorable players instead, it's bound to be more effective.
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
Honor, skill, maintenance.
ThatGirl
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