Welcome to part two of the question and answer series I am working on. Feel free to send in your answers to these questions also, as all are welcome to voice their opinions. This is a work in progress and we are hoping to get the voices of all side of paintball heard. This is an article by the players for the players. Enjoy!
Ryan Close
Pennsylvania
PennDragons
Why do you play paintball?
I play to have fun and fun, to me, isn’t defined by winning. My team has a great core of guys (and gals) with the same mindset. I also try to go out to put the best face on paintball that I know how at local fields to try to help attract new players into becoming actual regular players.
What is your favorite style of play, and why?
I, personally, still love Woodsball. I’ve played both but I like the variety that the woods gives you. Different terrain and the ability to use hide in brush to ambush people. While sometimes I really like the fast pace of speedball, I still really like a bit of a slower pace and the feel that I could be ambushed at any time when I walk around the next tree or berm.
What are your plans for the 2010 season?
More of the same I guess. Last year, when we decided to hit UWL in P-Burgh, we did a lot of training that we hadn’t done before and we feel our game improved quite a bit. This time we plan to do more of that training and we’ve added regular sessions at an indoor speedball field to really work bunker usage and snap shooting which we found to be our weakest point in the tourney.
What is your all time favorite marker you have owned?
I never really owned many markers like some people on our team have. My kid got a Piranha years back and when I started playing, most of the guys we played with had A5 Tippys so I just followed suit. Our team was more of a milsim woodsball team at the time. We still are to an extent but we’re starting to get away from the milsim gun types and just using what works better. My main marker is now my SP1 w/ blackheart and a Prophecy Loader.
Where is your favorite field, why?
Well, we play at Skirmish USA and Lehigh Valley Paintball quite a bit but my personal favorite field was an “outlaw” field we used to play in that was called “The Ruins”. It has so much different terrain and old concrete shells of buildings that were used in the early 1900’s for some industrial purposes. The owner didn’t mind us playing there. In fact people had been playing there for 15 years or so. It was open to anyone that wanted to show up. Sometimes we’d have 3v3 or up to 15v15 depending on the weekend and weather. The sad thing is that one of the things that made it great, that ANYONE could just show up and play, is what ultimately killed it. Apparently one weekend there was a fight or something and the Police were called and the owner has since barred everyone from his land. We only have hearsay of what happened as we weren’t there, though so we don’t really know exactly what transpired.
Who are the 3 best players in the game?
This I can’t answer. I don’t follow the professional aspect enough to say who the best are. Personally, I respect ANYONE that does the best they can and does what they can to bring new players to the sport.
What can be done to better the game?
In my opinion, the sport is great but the thing that could make it even better is for people to check their egos (not the Planet Eclipse kind) and attitudes at the door. there’s a lot of immaturity out there and it makes some people do stupid, stupid things either to get other people to think they’re cool or because they don’t know how to lose (or even WIN) graciously. If your team is running riot over another (or several others) take time to help the others out. Switch it up and play on their side and let a few of them play on YOUR side and help their game out. Think about when you were a beginner. How much would something like that have meant to you?
What is your local paintball scene like?
For a relatively small locality, it’s pretty “hoppin”. I live just down the road from Lehigh Valley Paintball North and I go up there on Sundays to watch the good speedball teams practice as it’s BYOP day too. There are regularly 8-12 5 & 7 man teams there on Sundays It’s an indoor field so there are people there throughout the winter to keep up their skills. Skirmish USA is up in the Poconos and gets several hundred people up there even on cold, snowy weekends from all over the PA, New York, New Jersey areas. LVP (Lehigh Valley Paintball) South is just down in Hatfield and Iwannaplay Paintball is still only an hour or so southwest of the Lehigh Valley. We’re definitely not wanting for fields to play at. I’m sure I’m even still missing a few.
If you could have a mascot what would it be?
Well, if we’re talking about the team, we’re the PennDragons. What do you think?
If we’re talking about me personally…..My call sign is Raeven….What do you think? Lol
Where will paintball be in 10 years?
Well,I can’t imagine markers getting much smaller and they’re becoming so efficient on air, it’ hard to imagine what more can change that hasn’t already recently changed. My biggest hope is that the sport becomes more popular as I enjoy watching it on TV. Right now I’m relegated to YouTube.lol As far as prediction…..I’m not even going to try. 
Joshua Silverman
PaintballX3
Why do you play paintball?
I play paintball because I played paintball in 1993 and fell in love with it! I fell in love with paintball because I wasn’t big enough for football, wasn’t tall enough or coordinated enough for basketball and wasn’t very good at most other “mainstream” sports. In paintball I found something a small, fast, somewhat intelligent person could do well! I’ve never looked back!
What is your favorite style of play, and why?
Woodsball is by far my favorite style of paintball, though I have played, promoted and enjoy all styles of play. I love woodsball because it’s the most like the game I remember playing in the nineties. Big fields, sneaking and moving and crawling and getting dirty and making tough shots through thick brush or through the cracks in a pallet at 30 yards, all with a bunch of good friends. The rush is there in any type of paintball: I play now for the friendship and the fun!
What are your plans for the 2010 season?
To work hard, to help positively promote paintball to as many people as I can, and to play as much as possible! I want 2010 to be a great year for paintball (we need it) and I want to do my part, one game, one trip and one shot at a time!
What is your all time favorite marker you have owned?
I’ve owned everything from Splatmasters to Phantoms to one of every kind of Tippmann ever made, to Autocockers and Angels and Egos and Luxes! My all-time favorite gun is my Automag RT. It worked, with little more than oil, for year after year after year, shooting straight, fast and consistent. It got me further in paintball than I ever dreamed I could go, and I won my very first tournament with that gun in my hands.
Where is your favorite field, why?
I’ve been blessed to be able to play paintball at some of the most amazing places in the world; from Jungle Island and SC Village to CPX and Skirmish, EMR, Wayne’s World, Paintball Central and Pev’s. That said, it’s really hard to pick one. I must say though, the field I think of when I think of the word “paintball” is a field that doesn’t exist anymore to my knowledge, Virginia Adventure Games. That’s the field I played my first game at, that’s the field that I joined my first team at, that’s the field where I learned almost all of what I know about paintball and made some life-long friends. Some might even say I grew up there. Chopper, wherever you are, you’re still the man!
Who are the 3 best players in the game?
That’s a direct question with a not-so-direct answer. There are so many greats in the modern game, and that’s just on the tournament side. There are dozens of people in the scenario world that literally affect the course of games involving HUNDREDS of players…but those aren’t the names the kiddies on the interwebz know about. If you’re asking about them, you have to mention names like Oliver Lang and Justin Rabackoff and Ryan Moorhead…it’s very hard to pick just three but those are the names that pop into mind.
What can be done to better the game?
Loyalty will go a long way. So many players are so concerned with saving five bucks or three bucks or even a buck on a case of paint or that next gun that they’d rather buy online than support their local store and field, and those people are really killing paintball. Without the local store and field, paintball literally does not exist. Players might just have to suck it up and spend a couple of dollars more on a case of paint or a marker or actually pay a field fee or buy air if that’s what it takes to be playing paintball instead of golf or going fishing next season. We’re all responsible for supporting our local fields and stores because they are the ones in the trenches day-in and day-out, sacrificing to make paintball literally exist in their local areas.
What is your local paintball scene like?
Garbage. There might be paintball in my local area (within 25 miles in any given direction) but it’s not played at a real, professional, good-for-the-game field. I have Pev’s and Skyline an hour north that do all they can in DC, and places like Splatbrothers in Richmond that work hard, but in-between, there’s literally nothing: there’s nowhere in my town to get AIR or PAINT and it’s sad because I know people are playing.
If you could have a mascot what would it be?
I honestly have no idea what that question means! lol
Where will paintball be in 10 years
I have my hopes for paintball in 10 years. I hope we’re a more organized, more united sport and industry that is willing to work together to increase the positive awareness of what we do, but realistically that’s only going to happen slowly. In ten years we’ll hopefully have realized how important recreational paintball is; how important it is that first-timers have a blast and that they come back for more, and that woodsball, tournament ball or recreational play somewhere in-between, we all need to get along, work together, shop and spend locally and unite as a game, sport and industry to present as positive an image as possible to the world in order to gain greater acceptance. Ten years. Clock starts now.
“Loyalty will go a long way. So many players are so concerned with saving five bucks or three bucks or even a buck on a case of paint or that next gun that they’d rather buy online than support their local store and field, and those people are really killing paintball. Without the local store and field, paintball literally does not exist. Players might just have to suck it up and spend a couple of dollars more on a case of paint or a marker or actually pay a field fee or buy air if that’s what it takes to be playing paintball instead of golf or going fishing next season. We’re all responsible for supporting our local fields and stores because they are the ones in the trenches day-in and day-out, sacrificing to make paintball literally exist in their local areas”
Very much agree. I just ordered a new board for my F8. I could’ve gotten it much cheaper online but I ordered it through my local PB shop to make sure they get the $$ for it. They’ve been a little strapped for cash of late and I want them to stick around.