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About Paintball
At its essence, paintball is a competitive game played like any other competitive game,
to win. It is like a more challenging, high-stakes version of tag, hide-and-seek, or capture the flag. Because you shoot at other people (and get shot at!), paintball requires specific equipment (goggles, a gun/marker, pressurized gas, and paintballs).
Beyond that, paintball is hard to describe. It can be played indoors or out, with as few as two people or as many as 500; a game can last 5 minutes or 24 hours; its objective might be to take something, bring something, find something, or to simply be the last person standing. Depending on the field you play, tactics
will be vary as well -- from being quiet and sneaky and picking your shots carefully, to being loud, fast, and shooting constantly A paintball game can be different every time, but theres one thing that stays the same: its an adrenaline rush.
The Games
Paintball, sometimes called the national survival game is a sport that is a high tech version of the kids' game, captue the flag. It grew from games similar to
capture the flag. Invented by Bob Gurnsley, Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines, the first game of paintball was played in 1981 in New Hampshire, United States as a type of capture the flag. By 1983, the first tournament with a cash prize was held.
The term
paintball can refer to any one of several game variations where two or more
players fire paintballs at each other from a paintball marker. A player is
marked if the paintball contacts, bursts and sheds its coloured "paint" on the
player or any equipment carried by the player. A typical rule of thumb is that
the splat left after a hit must be the size of a US quarter (25 mm). Paintballs
that do not break are not counted, as well as spatter from paintballs that broke
before reaching the player.In other instances, people also play by being hit
more than once in a game and keep playing. Referees/Marshalls are also in the
sport like any other to enforce rules and ensure safety of players of all ages.
They are also there to make sure that no ones is violating the rules and to
check players on the field for hits. Violators are usually thrown from the game.
Players must wear paintball mask and goggles to avoid serious injury to the
face, ears and eyes. Regulated fields require masks, goggles and marker plugs or
barrel covers to play on the field. The plugs and covers are used to prevent
accidental firing of a paintball while not engaged in the game.
Most fields
take these safety precautions extremely seriously and will eject players for
violating safety rules. Paintball travel at about 300 ft/s (90 m/s) and getting
hit with a paintball usually stings and leaves a welt or bruise on the skin. In
general, getting hit by a paintball from far away hurts less than getting hit at
close range, because of wind resistance on the paintball. Also, getting hit can
hurt more if the ball does not break and instead bounces. A paintball can break
exposed skin, which is why it is recommended that all skinarea are covered with
some kind of cloth. Generally adrenaline surging through your body during a
paintball match makes the pain fade quickly. |
