Old Timers, chime in!!

[darcness]

After a discussion on Facebook got started, I'd like to see if we can't continue it here.  I happened to talk to a few of the older members over on Facebook and I'd like to see if we can't get some dialogue going here as well.  It's really nice to be able to find some of you guys I played with back in the day.  Also I think it will help me figure out who's doing what and maybe make a few connections so I can get back into the game.  It's really hard to get motivation to spend money and drive to different venues if you know you're running solo.  Hopefully by getting something going here, I can find a group of new/old friends to run with.

Just for some background, I'm darcness (Ron) and I used to play with Chaseman on team RATS back in 2008-2010.  I know some of you weren't too keen on Chaseman or our team, but I always tried to be friendly, helpful, and fair to other players.  I just wanted to have fun and I enjoyed my time spent playing at SFOD's field in Davison.  I also made it to a few events out in Bangor when team RAGE was still around and had a blast playing there.

I hope to get to know some of the new faces, but also look forward to seeing who's still around from back in the day. 

[luke213]

I'm back or have been back the last couple years. Luke213, luke2133 at one point because of a screw up from proboards back in the day. Played with Hado, ACO etc way back then. And more recently went to Irene last year and met up with some guys to put faces with names for the first time in a long time. These days I organize local games in the UP and help organize players up here, and hope to eventually have time to go downstate again.

I doubt bar my recent adventures many guys remember me, Knief, Zorak(if you come back) and a few others have known me over the years though. And I've been a global mod since around 2004ish maybe earlier. And an admin since I swapped the site over to the new server and started handling all the back end stuff there.

Luke

[darcness]

I can't honestly say I remember playing with you Luke, but perhaps I did at one point if you ever attended games at SFOD's field.  It's good to meet you though and I'm digging the discussion we are having about doing some things to help out the forums.  I'm down for making this place great again for sure.

[luke213]

It would have been before your time, I forgot to mention I stopped playing around 2005 I believe, maybe a touch later, and then for almost 10 years I just stopped in on MIA from time to time, then came back a couple years ago and started playing frequently again.

So there was a whole stretch when I was traveling the country, and doing a bunch of other stuff like starting my business where I wasn't at all involved with MIA or airsoft as a whole;)

Luke

[T6e9a]

I first hit the forums back when I got more interested in the sport around 10 years ago, maybe slightly longer. I lurked for a good long while, and had it up and was looking through, primarily the commerce section, every chance I got at school and home. Through familiarizing myself more with gun platforms and their functionality, I started into work and repairs in and on them. And from what started my interest in the sport over 10 years ago, with a broken spring pistol from the Salvation Army, has grown to running an airsoft shop in Roseville 3 days a week and being one of the most highly regarded airsoft technicians in the state.

The last 2 years have been primarily work and projects for the community, and not nearly as many weekend games since my friends and I graduated high school and moved out for college. Only recently, have I been making a better attempt and getting out to more games(though the last few have failed and ended up project runs...). Regardless, I find myself more on the business and technical side of most things airsoft.

My "back in the day" fields were Farmington CQB, Eastside(over different ownership and locations), and MTAC. Plenty of good times were had. The local teams I remember at the time was ODA561(or some number) and The Fighting Tacos. I pretty much grew up in the indoor/CQB environment. Which compared to today, was much closer knit, even though there were a fair number of new players.

Nowadays, even though I am taking a break from taking on projects, though I still fully intend to keep my services out there, I enjoy hanging out with SK at No Limits games, if not playing, definitely chatting. I would consider being more on the ref/staffing side of things. If I'm not feeling up to playing, I always like to find a way I can help out. Same with the forum and the discussion that lead to this, I am willing to help out where I can, to get the community back to how strong it was before.

[darcness]

Sounds awesome Tango 6 and thanks for replying.  Like I said, I'm looking to help link up some of us guys from back in the day and make a push to start bringing airsoft back in a big way to Michigan again.  I know I can't do it alone but if we can get a dedicated group of people to start being active on the forums and on the fields, I know we can make this happen!

[Canto]

Hey there, Canto (John Conolly) here. I've been watching the discussion on facebook concerning the shift within the community as well. It's also evident on the field too, the player base itself has shifted to a newer (younger) generation of players and the older "guard" of original participants isn't quite as active as it once was.

I started playing airsoft in 2005 and started hosting public events in 2006 with Hole in the Wall Paintball in Bangor, Michigan. I will say, that the player base itself has shifted dramatically since I started. I'm not sure if it's for better or for worse.

Most of the fields and hosts that were around back in the day are no longer around. My first event was 'Operation: Red Out' back in 2006 hosted at Futureball in Whitmore Lake, Michigan. I remember meeting Hado, Knief, and all of the original moderators/admins back in the day and had no idea at all that I would become one of them myself.

One of my personal goals is to see the original community of players come back. With the shift of the original forums from Proboards to the current miairsoft.org forum and the massive shift to Facebook it seems that the community itself is split and more divided than ever before. There is a lack of statewide cohesion with everyone doing their own things in their own "sub-communties".

[luke213]

I think myself some of the sub community situation is because of the lack of organization on Facebook as a platform. If you keep everything in one group it gets so cluttered it's hard to find events and other things your looking for. So guys make another group so they can find the stuff they want. Then it just breaks down further and further until it's all fragmented. That's one of the reasons I think forums make the most sense. Want a section for a specific team. Can do. Want a section to prep a team for an upcoming game it's easy to do that too.

I think it's just allot more flexible. But on getting the older guys back in(I tried to twist hado's arm when I talked to him about the move to the new site). Allot of us are just busy with everything going on. And I think some of us can't commit to big milsim types of events and more likely can do pickup or single day scenario events. Myself this year has been insanely busy and as a result I've only hosted two games up here. Thankfully other guys have stepped in and hosted regularly. But it's the biggest problem for me is time.

But like you I hope that we'll see some more guys find at least some time to be involved in the community again as well as the hobby. I'd love to meet up again with all those guys it would be a blast;)

Take care

Luke

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[Canto]

Even though the communities are somewhat divided (Michigan Airsoft, Michiana Airsoft Coalition, West Michigan Airsoft, Airsoft Society, AirsoftForum.com, etc) we as a community have one very, very solid thing going for us. That's the fact that we are a solid and unified organization. There isn't a power-struggle going on behind the scenes for who is in control of what.

The admins/moderators of the forum are the same as the facebook group and the statewide organization page. All of us know each other (at least to some degree) and more or less have personal contact information for everyone.

The rules and regulations for what is considered safe and acceptable conduct are uniform throughout the state of Michigan. If you want to be able to post your game(s) or advertise your team, you have to follow our rules.

I remember going to the Michigan vs. Ohio Round II in Ohio last summer, shitty sportsmanship on the part of the Ohio players, but the fact that damn near everyone on the Michigan team was friends or at least knew of each other was not only encouraging but made the game itself enjoyable.

Cohesion as a community I feel will keep us together as a statewide organization and network of players, teams, and fields.

Any new players I meet out at Hole in the Wall Paintball I always encourage to join the larger Michigan Airsoft community. For both networking purposes and to boost our numbers as a whole. I'm planning on putting up a flier near the back counter that advertises the forum and the facebook group for people to see when I'm not there as well. People always ask us (the field) "Oh, you do airsoft here?" I'm surprised every time, you all can't see the millions of rounds that are on every single field here?

Event hosts and fields are less likely to want to work together because money is involved. Speaking on behalf of myself and Hole in the Wall Paintball, we don't offer our services for free. For those that don't know me, I'm not just an airsoft event host for the field, I'm one of the permanent staff (11+ years) and part of field management. Competition in the state on a given weekend is fierce for the playing population. This results in locations not treating people as well as they should and not wanting to work together. Which I don't quite understand myself. Everyone wins when you treat ALL players well, paintball or airsoft.

Regardless, staying unified (Forum, Facebook, etc) I feel will ultimately keep us together. Paintball is also going through something similar. Funny enough, there isn't much of a unified front in the paintball scene either. Until I created it, there was no 'Michigan Paintball' community for the state either, again the lack of a unified community results in lower turnouts and less networking for everyone.

[darcness]

Hey Canto, thanks for the great replies.  I agree that the unified front that we as airsofters is what will get us through these trying times.  When it comes down to it, we are all here to shoot some bb's and have a good time.

I'm thinking it may be time to get back to basics and try to make the community a little more cohesive.  I know that's not always an easy thing to do, because as you said, the fields need to compete to turn a profit.  However, I don't think it has to be a field/organizer specific thing.  I think the veteran and active players just need to put aside some of their differences and teach the new generation a thing or two. 

I'm doing what I can to maybe try to spark some conversation here on the forum because I think if we can get that going, it might help kickstart some traffic and get people feeling part of the community again.  Facebook can seem so disjointed and impersonal and I miss how active the old MIA forums used to be.

[Gimpalong]

Been playing since '06 or '07. Had a lot of fun at SFOD back in the day.

I honestly think we're headed to a new "golden age" of airsoft in Michigan. We're starting to see more and more guys putting a lot of effort into the hobby. I'm thinking specifically of the RUSFOR guys. Like 'em or hate 'em, you've got to give credit where credit is due for their commitment to MVD/SOBR loadouts and such. There also seem to be a lot of new fields popping up along with a renewed commitment to hosting bigger, "scenario" or "milsim" style events.

I would love it if the forum came back to life, but I understand the lure of Facebook. I can check 20 groups in a couple of minutes via FB, I can advertise equipment for sale with a couple of clicks (no hot-linking over to the Imgur or Photobucket). There's a lot to like about FB. Unfortunately, there's also no collective memory on FB, no ability to really search back for topics of interest and no way to easily segregate information into different categories (tech questions, general discussion, etc).

[darcness]

Thanks for the reply Gimpalong.  I agree that Facebook has it merits.  Then again so does the forum.  That being said, we don't have to be mutually exclusive.  We can still utilize both of these tools.  We can use each one in such a way to maximize the efficiency and productivity of both, which only benefits everyone in the long run. 

I do see positive signs to the community just in the short time I've been back in the game as well.  Just the fact that we are HAVING a discussion about this is a huge first step.  As I said on facebook, you have to discuss, come up with a plan, and execute that plan.  It all starts with talking.