June 25, 2011--Operation Blackwater

[Rael]

I guess it may be a little early to start this thread since the game is still going on....but the daytime play was good stuff! Mojo...interesting scenario with shifting alliances, spies...even the occasional "crossdresser."
After a year's hiatus from the field, it was good to see some old friends, make some new ones, and shoot at anything that wasn't Bravo. Got some good kills with my AK, and even a couple with the M93R during the afternoon game. G.O.A.T.s...good to see you running strong. Looking forward to hearing other perspectives on the day, and seeing pictures of the action!

[Felix]

I have already come home beacuse of parents, but i must say.. that was one amazing game. Yes we betrayed side after side, but money was king for us Blackwater players. We had some great engagements and funny stories. Truthfully i really didnt see many issues with the senario and would love! to play it again.

And that cross dresser your talking about.. haha that was so unplanned but worked perfect!

[stuckmojo]

well let me say that i was glad to see so many turn out. and i also want to commend everyone on honorable play. i cant remember the last time i have been to a game where everyone played so well and worked together as a unit. i was really impressed with all 3 faction co's, you guys did an awesome job. alpha officially won but bravo was in it until the last minute. im glad that everybody rolled with the punches in this unusual game. im sure not everybody enjoyed it but as a whole i think it was a huge success. i look forward to everybodys thoughts on the game. again thanks to everyone who came out and played. rael i almost had a heart attack when i saw you today it was good to see you again

[Rael]

rael i almost had a heart attack when i saw you today it was good to see you again

Likewise. Again...game well done!

[cripto]

Today was awesome! Those darn mercenaries...I wish we had known what the bomb looked like, otherwise it wouldn't have been regarded as trash! XD

[Bishop]

It was a fantastic game, I loved the mechanics, loved everything about it. I only had a couple issues

1. (I know we cant do anything but it still needs to be addressed) Paintball... I mean, I understand triggertyme is a paintball field, but how is it safe to have paintballers playing when we are out playing airsoft? There is no way The owner makes as much from the paintballers as he does from when the AOSC comes out(on that given day), so how come he cant just close the field to paintballers for that one part of the day? We don't play there every week or anything, just once every couple months! I mean, we pay 20 bucks, of which Im sure the large portion goes to him, so how come he can not do the AOSC the courtesy of just closing paintball for that one day?

2. Blackwater- It was a great mechanic, but I didn't like that you would enter a base pretending to be on one team, even when asked, and then go in and shoot everyone in the back. I understand mercenaries, but that happened a lot, and it didn't seem to me to be a very good sportsmanship idea. I understand the concept of being a merc, but it wasnt fair to say one thing to people and then go and shoot them. To me, thats cheating, however if no one asks, I certainly dont see a problem with going into a base meandering in as though you are on their side, or even not saying anything, but to say you are on a side, then shoot the people who trusted your word just rubs me the wrong way (Personal Opinion of course, not anyone else), Other than that, I loved the idea that blackwater added, perhaps it is too big, but having a 3rd faction roaming the field completely changed the gameplay in my opinion.


Other than those 2 minor issues, I had a fantastic time! This has been, in 3 years of airsoft my favorite scenario or game I have been in. Much thanks to Mojo and Felix for putting it together, I truly enjoyed it. It is one of the few games I have felt is worth more than I paid for it!

TL;DR It was a fantastic game, I loved it!

Ty

[Rev]

I didn't see any paintballers out there today, I am sure they could have been out there but it wasn't a problem for us and we traveled the field all day.

As for BW saying they were one team and doing something else I also didn't see that happening. Socom and Aircross were the ones entering bases helping or what ever and we knew we had to answer if we were asked. If you are talking about when we killed all the green before lunch no one said we were green I know when I came up Dom told me to not say anything because green didn't know we were not with them.

[2nd Ranger]

I had a good time especially seeing you again Rael and Jeremy had a good time rolling with y'all again

overall the game was kinda a bust for me though cause I was plagued with techinical gun issues the whole day but when they were working they worked awesome

good job Mojo with this game the only complaint I have with it is what has already been voiced how BW walked in and said they were on your team and then shot/stabbed/safety killed/insert perfered method of death here us other than that I really enjoyed the 3 faction cause it kept you on your toes more

[Star_folder]

Yeah, everyone has praised this, I have more to add, but I'm tired and will add it later.

But while I'm thinking about it, I do want to give some ideas.

Blackwater was too big for what alpha and bravo where. I wasn't quite sure how to take it. But I feel they should be a smaller rag-tag team, or a full size faction, but they ended up being a full size rag-tag team, and a very, very powerful force to be reckoned with. I realize that alpha and bravo where expected to be larger, but there should be some team balancing in there some where.

And, I think that everytime blackwater changes factions, or is bought out, they should respawn at a base controlled by that faction. I understand that you guys could have gotten a call saying that you are now bravo players, when you are standing in the middle of an alpha base. That's just not right. I flat up told people to start shooting you on site, to not even give you the benefit of the doubt.

I think that's about it. Great game Mojo, Stealth Hero, you did a great job running alpha, I hope I'm able to run with you again some time. All in all, I liked having the mercs around, it was really interesting to see them doing one thing or the other. I think most of it will just take some getting used to. We didn't really know how to take them, but I feel you guys really acted like mercs.

[Felix]

Truthfully, when we entered a base, we just walked up. Didnt have to say anything let it be iomplied. Star_folder i commend you for telling them to shoot us on sight, because thats really what you should have done XD that really did solve the issue. Now for them walking up saying alpha then shooting, thats not right.

Blackwater was originally going to be 35 guys, but we had so many drop out that it became the 15 man team. Which was only about half of either side. It was intended for us to be a little smaller and I do think come next game whatever team is Blackwater does need to be about 10 guys.

And when we were bought out we would respawn at the base controlled by that faction..? If your talking about when you walked up dead and saw most of blackwater at South base, we had actually walked over to that base earlier alive and dropped the flag so that the Bravo Chief would be forced to buy it from us to respawn his men.

[Star_folder]

Truthfully, when we entered a base, we just walked up. Didnt have to say anything let it be iomplied. Star_folder i commend you for telling them to shoot us on sight, because thats really what you should have done XD that really did solve the issue. Now for them walking up saying alpha then shooting, thats not right.

Yeah, I heard two reports from my guys that blackwater did that to them. But, what's done is done.

Blackwater was originally going to be 35 guys, but we had so many drop out that it became the 15 man team. Which was only about half of either side. It was intended for us to be a little smaller and I do think come next game whatever team is Blackwater does need to be about 10 guys.

haha, that's actually the number we came up with last night when talking. We decided that 10 guys was still large enough to turn the tide in any battle, but wasn't so large that they could just run over the opponent. The count for alpha was 30 or just under 30, but, there wasn't ever 30 of us in one place, or 20, most was probably 15 at the start of the day, but we where scattered all over the place doing various things.

And when we were bought out we would respawn at the base controlled by that faction..? If your talking about when you walked up dead and saw most of blackwater at South base, we had actually walked over to that base earlier alive and dropped the flag so that the Bravo Chief would be forced to buy it from us to respawn his men.

What I meant was a preventative for shooting members of a base. Let me explaine

Blackwater is hired by bravo to take a base, they take it, boo, and now blackwater and bravo are all in the same base. Well Alpha comes along and buys blackwater to help them do something else, well instantly, blackwater becomes alpha, and shoots all the bravo people in the base with them. That's what I imagine is what was happening with the back stabbing. My suggestion was that whenever blackwater is purchased by a different faction, they have to go "respawn" at a base controlled by that faction before they can enter battle, preventing them from shooting bravo players in the back.

However, now that I'm awake and thinking about it, I feel like that would be a bad idea, and would take some of the fun out of the game. I can tell you this though, next time we do this, and I'm in a base with you guys, there will always be someone with a 0 MED gun pointed at you, just in case you guys try something fishy.

Anyway, on to the good stuff. We started the day running to the tower, only to find that bravo already controlled it. Goodness you guys ran fast. Last time I played, we got the tower first, and still waiting 5 mins before you guys showed up, but not this time. I was surprised. We then contracted the help of blackwater and ran over the tower. And held it for a good long while, if I remember correctly. Anyway, soon after we took it and held it, I left with a few others to go and try to retrieve the bomb from our hq, which didn't work all that well, We where dead, and walked right by the mercs. Didn't really think that all the way through, cause they kind of pinned us for a few mins before lunch. We still had to deal with some bravo players though, and believe it or not, they actually picked up the bomb, and then tossed it away because they didn't know what it was, good job guys. We finally pushed out, but then it was lunch time.

After lunch, we walked to the tower, and then flanked way around and hit the airfield. We took that, there was some pretty awesome stunts during that. But we took it and held it, until bravo ran us over. I had thought we had purchased the mercs to help us keep the airfield, but, the only one I ever saw shoot a bravo player was felix, thank you felix, that mac11 burst was pretty awesome. But most of the merc players I saw where just standing around.... Anyway, we died, and fell back to the campsite to respawn. We did, i'm not entirely sure what happened after that, cause there where only 5 or so of us that showed up at the campsite, when there where about 10 or 15 of us at the airfield. We got pinned by a steady flow of bravo players though, we where down hill and they had the advantage. I eventually just took my team and left the area to come around and flank. We caught up with the rest of my team in time to find out that the mercs where helping us again, and we rolled through the forest, and hit those bravo players hard. Again, at the person that I shot in the jugular, sorry.

We eventually pushed them out of the area, which gave us enough time to to blow up the tower and win the game. It has been the first alpha win I've been apart of sense playing with the AOSC. Stealth Hero ran one heck of a team, I'm not sure how you pulled off some of those merc deals, but good job. I enjoyed being the XO, for once, I felt like I knew what was going on on the field. It was a nice change of pace from TDC. Mojo, good job, you came up with a great game scenario, and it played out much better than expected, though I'm sure Felix helped out a lot. Good job you two. Skywalker was terrifying as ever, though I'm pretty sure he wasn't ever on anyone's "team" he just kind of roamed the field, joining in on which ever battle that would give him more targets. It was also nice that steevo showed up, and stayed for most of the day.

Again, good job guys, great game.

[thehbomb89]

I'm very new to the whole airsoft scene and this might be the reason why I didn't understand the mechanics of this game very well. This was actually my first large scale game and to be honest I left with a sour taste in my mouth. My only issue was the mercenary team being so fickle. I know with the way the media today it can be very hard for some people to understand what a mercenary company really operates like. They simply cannot jump from one side to the next on a whim because they need a bigger military force to protect them. In the real world if a mercenary company betrayed countries back and forth it would be eradicated immediately by both countries. Which is what my team (bravo) wanted to do after the first time we were betrayed. But our CO was told by the admin to try and work with charlie. There was no way to win the game without charlie's help which makes me think the entire game was based around them and that is incredibly unfair. how exactly were we supposed to win when the people we are supposed to work with are calling themselves friendly one second and safety killing us the next? Also I was very aggravated when we took over the airfield and a single member of charlie just waltzed in (which I have to admit looked pretty awesome) and shot 3 or 4 of my teammates before we mutually eliminated each other, which is a grey area because he got me before I got him but he was nice enough to call himself out. Immediately after that though the admin starts going off about how the bomb was two feet away from us and we never picked it up and whatnot while the same member that came in and took almost all of us out is being healed while we had our backs to him and kills all of us... again... while we were distracted by the admin... while he was showing us for the first time in the whole game what the bomb looked like. I just think the game leaned too much on charlie team to help either side to be successful and it was almost impossible to win because we never really knew if they were on our side. Eventually my team got tired of getting stabbed in the back and ended up shooting charlie on sight. which inevitably ended up backfiring on use because charlie joined up with alpha and outnumbered us. I have to say it wasn't all bad though. we had some really good moments which ultimately outweighed the bad ones and I definitely want to play a large scale game such as this again. just without a nebulous faction and hopefully no last minute changes which also threw me off considerably. Which like I said I'm relatively new to the airsoft scene so that might have happened regardless. I congratulate everyone on a good effort to make a broken game work and we ended up having rolling with the punches.

[Hotspur93]

Today was awesome! Those darn mercenaries...I wish we had known what the bomb looked like, otherwise it wouldn't have been regarded as trash! XD

I KNOW!! Dude you and I had the bomb in our hands and basically asked our selves, "What the heck are all these cords? Whats with this blue thing? Is this trash?" These things mainly being asked because we found it in the middle of no where. But imagine how different the game would have turned out if we had just grabbed it and ran seeing as how alpha had no idea that we were there xD

[JeremyC24]

After lunch, we walked to the tower, and then flanked way around and hit the airfield. We took that, there was some pretty awesome stunts during that. But we took it and held it, until bravo ran us over. I had thought we had purchased the mercs to help us keep the airfield, but, the only one I ever saw shoot a bravo player was felix, thank you felix, that mac11 burst was pretty awesome. But most of the merc players I saw where just standing around.... Anyway, we died, and fell back to the campsite to respawn. We did, i'm not entirely sure what happened after that, cause there where only 5 or so of us that showed up at the campsite, when there where about 10 or 15 of us at the airfield. We got pinned by a steady flow of bravo players though, we where down hill and they had the advantage. I eventually just took my team and left the area to come around and flank. We caught up with the rest of my team in time to find out that the mercs where helping us again, and we rolled through the forest, and hit those bravo players hard. Again, at the person that I shot in the jugular, sorry.

I was on the merc team yesterday and that whole situation was screwed up from the get go. We had were told to go to the airfield but we weren't told why we were walking to the airfield. On they way up and being clueless as to our mission we went about healing some of the dead bravo players in our path for lack anything else to to. When we finally reached the airfield it was announced that we were fighting for green and most of us promptly were shot in about 15 sec because there was little to no cover. Had we known why we were going to the airfield before we were standing in the middle of it that engagement would have gone quite a bit differently. Chalk that one up to a communications breakdown.

Also I don't recall one incident where we turned on the team we just helped while we were still in their base. I can only speak for the squad I was with most of the day though. We usually just filed out and returned to our spawn to await orders. The only real backstabbing type incident that I know of is when we unassumingly walked into alpha base at the tower looking for the bomb. We didn't find the bomb but we did kill all of them and capture the weapons expert. However, we never told them we were friendly we just walked in with our weapons slung and they made an assumption.

Overall I think it was interesting, but if this scenario don again I think that Blackwater needs a more defined role, and a smaller group. They should be able to influence the outcome of an engagement but not bring overwhelming force to it. Even if they could not be contracted by either team but were controlled by the game admin to carry out small missions here and there to keep the game interesting and balanced but never have an allegiance to anyone in particular. They can sabotage, steal, and kidnap to keep the game balanced but be hostile to both teams to clear up any confusion. It would be interesting if anyone blackwater could be captured as well but a limited amount of time forcing them to have to execute a prisoner rescue or operate short handed.

It was a great day, and I'm glad that SOCOM had the chance to come and play for the merc's. I'm sorry of we pissed anyone off or left a bad taste in anyone's mouth, but we were just playing the game according to the rules we were given. Having 3 factions is a cool twist, the implementation just needs a little work.

Great game, thank you admins and faction leaders.

[Arbee]

I spent more time taking pictures than I actually did shooting, but I had fun all the same. I got to see a lot of old friends, and I even made a few new ones.

I loved the scenario you put together, Mojo. Being part of the Blackwater team was a blast, and being a part of the exchange just made all the (admittedly well-earned) hate raining down from Alpha and Bravo worth it, haha. My only problem is that I'm too out-of-shape for all that walking, especially in the heat. Maybe when it cools down some, eh?

Anyway, had a great time on a great field with some great people. Except for the end where I lost my keys and got a bit ornery while trudging about looking for them--I apologize for that. Everyone who assisted me in that regard has my utmost thanks.