|
Post by Gimpalong on Aug 18, 2014 8:34:14 GMT -5
Please post all After Action Reports (comments, photos, etc) regarding Operation Blacksheep @ Camp Grayling here!
|
|
|
Post by Combat Junkies Airsoft on Aug 18, 2014 8:50:52 GMT -5
Had a HELLA good time on an amazing AO. Pea granades are my new favorite toy for BBwarz. Bravo 2-4 post event.
|
|
|
Post by Gimpalong on Aug 18, 2014 9:03:39 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Mosin on Aug 18, 2014 9:18:52 GMT -5
This is just a copypasta from what I'm emailing Blacksheep 6 on my thoughts of the event, I hope some of you agree with my points and also email him about the event, as the more people you have behind something the more likely it will change (Power of the consumer or something):
I'm not sure how much it is worth, but being that it was my first Blacksheep event, and being that I'm a Combat Veteran who has been out for exactly one year as of August 21st, I figured since Blacksheep commits itself to being the best "MilSim" experience out there, I'm hoping any insight I bring below is worth the time it takes for you to read it, if you do. I hold no grudges against anyone, and at the end of the day it's airsoft, so it's nothing too serious, but I hope my feedback as a "Pathfinder" for Grayling helps make the future events run a little smoother or maybe even your other events elsewhere. The easiest way for me to address things I had issue with is in chronological order of the day, so here we go.
Briefing, I feel that majority of this could have been condensed into something around 45 minutes, instead taking to the tune of 2 hours and some change (I suppose that's just the inner Officer within , hahah). Nothing was covered that wasn't on the WarnOrd or the OpOrd Rule Set, but obviously a quick explanation of the medic system was good reinforcement. The rest of it, I would have harped that it should have been read, and hell probably even printed or laminated and passed out at registration for quick reference for those "Who is in the right" situations. Speaking of which, the Tan XO made a judgement call over some people being sour about a thunder b being thrown into the jail cell to evacuate the entire building (Green held) and reset, except green reset at the gas station while Tan still held the Embassy. Pretty easy to figure out who is going to reclaim that building, in the future I think it'd be best if XO's and CO's didn't use their entire sleeve of past Blacksheep events to toss around verdicts as an Official, that's what the Officials are there for. Of which I think you had two officials, having also had to host an event for something around 100 players with only three guys I can personally say that's a nightmare I never wish to relive, and I hope that you guys obtain more people in the future.
The medic system itself is something I'm not entirely certain I'm a fan of. Having as many armbands as you do with a fresh batch of squad can instantly make a building held by four people a building held by twenty eight people. I'm not sure what I'd do differently here, maybe less armbands, but having people have to walk to a respawn tent creates an inner timer in itself that is comparable to if a group has to go RedCon 5, and isn't such a bad thing. Having the "Bleed out and regroup" system just meant if a guy crossed a danger area that I was holding and I tagged him, he stood there and stared at my position for two minutes, walked back to his medic to get an armband, and then shot directly into the murder hole on the second pass. Kind of kills the element of surprise inherent in a good ambush position for me, whereas when a guy has to walk enough to keep him out of the game for 10 minutes, the chances of him thinking about coming all the way back just to get me is usually a bit less.
Something else worth mentioning is the blindfire. On at least three occasions I witnessed pistols and arms going directly through murder holes and shooting at the guys on the other side. One time this happened to me with a window and the shooter claimed he had line of site on my leg, but given the frantic shooting that happened the moment it came out the window in several different directions rather than the clean precision shot to me being one foot away doesn't really sell me on that.
The amount of "Underground" information being passed from dudes on both sides hanging around the CP and listening in on what was happening kind of ruined a bit of it, having clearly designated areas in the CACTF where both Tan and Green can plan and run patrols out of without fear of the enemy being a weak cloth divider away probably would have helped. I'm not going to complain to much because I was saved from two specific mortar strikes aimed for me on the rooftop, but knowing exactly when snapshots were going to happen seemed to make it almost as predictable as those tallied up scores that are conducted once every hour.
The last thing (on the not so great) side I'll touch on was the lack of acknowledgement of the battle from the CO's and XO's. It was never explained that they're out of play but they still have a radio and can still walk around and make commands. This especially didn't play out in my favor as I sniped the Tan XO's multiple times hoping to make orders go offline for them for a bit, but everytime he just looked up at me and gave me that look that some do when you have a giant red rag on and you get lit up. Sorry man, if I see you do active spotting and adjustment on field and walking around looking like you're important, and I can reach you, I'm going to do it.
On the plus side sportsmanship was really good. Doing some 100+ meter shooting from rooftops to rooftops with the bolt action and having them acknowledge that with a dead rag was probably the highlight of the day for me. Had one Tan guy lose his cool because he was standing directly in front of a door and I plugged him at a later time with my LM4, but he immediately apologized, we bumped fists, and went about the business. That was refreshing to see.
To solicit more direct feedback at the end of your event, I would advise refraining from saying that 90% of the problems are player based, and also refrain from asking if anyone has any "pissant comments" -- as the moment you said that I felt everything I listed above was going to have the connotation with a pissant comment. A really easy way to mitigate that is have "end of course critiques" printed up with a lot of room for players to write direct feedback. If it's important enough that a player is going to handwrite it out, then it probably a lot less of a chance of being a pissant comment. If you do create this I'd have a lockbox with a one way slip for the critiques to go into that only you could open, so players could inform you of what's going on within your staff ranks.
The final thing I'll say is the cleaning up process. Picking up our specific trash and MRE stuff I can expect and appreciate, and that can be as simple as designating one squad to a building and having that done in ten minutes. Making players who drove 10+ hours and pay the full $150 sweep up their own bbs, and pick up the flags throughout the building, and all the other general Blacksheep cleanup work and saying "you're all locked in here until it's clean" doesn't really jive with me. I'm all for leaving a place better than the way I found it, which is why I carried the provided trashbag (good touch) with me into the field, and as I made a mess I cleaned it up. Forcing the players to go back on field after 24 hours of hard airsoft and the fun stuff they paid for to do the cleanup work isn't cool, especially considering on the conservative side the event made something around $30,000. This goes for the very end asking players to scrub the shitters in the barracks.
Also, spoiler alert, the MRE is a Chef Boyardee can in a plastic bag with a fruit packet, capri sun, and nutrigrain bar. Combined caloric intake of maybe 1,000 calories, and that's being generous. In the future I'd refrain from calling this an MRE, as most are expecting (Players on my team included) something to the tune of 2-3k calories or more, as is found in an actual MRE. Being that you designated me the range medic, I'm surprised nobody went down for hyponatremia (A low amount of sodium within your body level caused by [multiple reasons, I'm listing the ones relevant] increased physical activity, increased water intake, and not enough electrolyte intake through drink or food. But I know a lot of people invested in more food once they found out about that.
Overall it was a fun game, I had a good time, but if I just left it at this final comment then maybe nothing would be learned and nothing would be improved. I'm not sure if I had to pay the full $150 and I had to drive many hours to come to another one I would do it, but being that it was in Grayling I'd venture to say it goes up there with what can be expected at National Event Host status event style, and watching players hit the wall while we decided to hit the building is always a nice treat. When I host events, I typically look for feedback like this and I often ask if anyone has any comments for any reason please approach me and I stand off to the side as the game concludes and everyone does the shake hands and walk off field thing. A few times I had players ask if they could speak to me privately about something they didn't like in the game, and I look for immediate ways of improvement to whatever issue the player had. I hope that you feel the same way about the above. It was really great to meet you, and I sincerely hope you come back to Grayling to do that again, as our squad wasn't satisfied with being told we were the runner up for squad of the day at the end of it from the Green CO, haha.
Respectfully,
Mike S.
Alpha 2-1
|
|
|
Post by Pagan on Aug 18, 2014 10:10:44 GMT -5
Honestly, Mosin posted almost word for word what I had typed up, so I'm not going to bother rehashing his incredible valid points.
Here is one thing I would like to add:
20 hours of capture and defend with four hours of fragos thrown in during the dead of night doesn't make for the most memorable game play. I understand that this event is about pushing the limits of your endurance, but it's contrived when done just for the fact. Put some fragos in while players are still fresh and leave some of the 5+ hours building security shifts for the midnight hours when it's possible to get the so called " battle rest".
I do understand that this is how real life can happen, but in real life you don't get re-spawns, so let's acknowledge that we're dealing with something other than real life.
The facility was phenomenal and the sportsmanship from 95% of the players was the best I've ever encountered.
I'm glad I had the opportunity to attend.
|
|
|
Post by Gunny87 on Aug 18, 2014 10:41:20 GMT -5
Mosin already hit on most of the points that I would have addressed so I'll refrain from repeating them. I had fun over-all attending this event and I'm always happy to get the opportunity to play with a lot of the members from this community. I stayed up and played the entire game with the exception for a 30 minute rest I got in a stair well with my head against the wall when we were holding the Embassy during the early hours of the morning. For me personally, I think a 24 hour airsoft game is something that I only want to experience once however.
|
|
|
Post by Puma1 on Aug 18, 2014 11:39:46 GMT -5
Only thing I disagree with is the cleaning up part, Mosin. I feel that, in order to return to the event next year (and further into the future),you clean up after yourself. I'll acknowledge that there were several people who drove up or down from places like Canada, Wisconsin, Ohio Indiana and the like, and they still had 12 hours to get home, but it still is common courtesy (in my mind). My personal thoughts on this would be to give a 10$ credit to a clean up crew to lessen the initial sticker shock and to still make sure you get a clean field at the end of the day. Money talks.
My thoughts on this event are mixed.
There were some really awesome moments, and some definitely not so awesome moments.
Mosin touched on most of these problems and I'll only illustrate the ones A2-3 ran into. The opening of the game was a total massacre (I believe Rage, for the most part, was with us in the initial push). We were being hit from front and behind while trying to enter the hotel. After being hit and me medic'd twice, i finally got inside the building, which was nearly as bad as outside. The fog made it impossible to see even profiles, and most of alpha was stuck in the room to the left of the door. the team made some progress as far as kills, but tan was medic'd pretty much as soon as they were hit. I eventually called myself out and rejoined my squad for redcon-5. Nothing our CO really could have done their, nice move by Bravo command to take over both of the high-valued buildings before we even got out there.
From a 2-3 standpoint, we had a pretty darn good crew. The most memorable time for me at least was a through the woods trek on the tan held residential area behind the church. We snuck around, staying low and taking roughly 30 minutes to get from the school to that area. Most of the tan in the area were helping to defend the green advance on the church, so we snuck up almost all of the way until we had to take someone out. After that, we hit something like 10-15 tan in a matter of 5 minutes. We then held that area for a good hour and a half - two hours.
After that, we headed out to the embassy, where we were to stay for several hours. I think we hit 7.5 hours of defending it before we were removed to rearm and rehydrate. We were given a 4 minute turn around time and sent out to take back the residential area by the school in the morning. We entered the school, where we were eventually overran by 2 full tan squads.
Those of you on the fence about attending a blacksheep event, I'd say this was well worth the trip and money invested.
Looking forward to some improvements next year, but I'll be back,
|
|
|
Post by Legionnaire on Aug 18, 2014 11:42:02 GMT -5
Overall I had a good time and would go again. My biggest annoyance with the event was how dead set our XO was on taking buildings 4 and 18 (Embassy and Hotel). I realize that these buildings contained items that gave extra points to the owners but when I was told numerous times that other smaller buildings "didn't matter" and "I don't give a fuck about those, I want 18" i became extremely annoyed. My squad by itself cleared and took the entire residential area numerous times. Some times we had small resistance and other times we literally had NONE. Aka, we walked into the buildings and just flipped the flags. Hello 600 pts (plus the 200 from the school, so 800 in total). I don't claim to be Napoleon when it comes to tactics, but there honestly weren't many times I agreed with the tasks we were being set to or more so, the way we were being set to/told to execute them (I.E. angles of engagements/assaults, drop off points, and command competency with battle plans and tactics etc). In order to better illustrate my frustration, I'll give an example (Map below for the more visually inclined). After being told that we and two other squads were going to just be plopped in front of building 18 and that we were going to just charge through the front doors, I decided to actually pitch a battle plan to our XO. My squad was to be dropped off at building 4 and were going to make our way through the tunnels to building 18's basement (F those tunnels btw). Meanwhile, the two other squads were to be dropped off behind buildings 8 and 25 in the street and were to move into building 8 to await the go ahead to assault. At this point in the game, Bravo owned buildings 4, 11, 24, 25, 8, and everything south of 8 (unlisted building numbers were either occupied by Alpha or had an unknown occupancy by me). Upon my squads entry into the basement of 18 we were to radio into command and then they would give the orders to the two squads in building 8 to assault. One squad was to pepper the windows of the SW wall of 18 and provide cover fire while the other squad was to move onto and into 18 and to meet up with us. Upon cover of the chaos inside 18, the third squad would make entry/join in. After killing the guard to the tunnel in 18's basement, my squad entered and holed up to radio into command before advancing. To my extreme frustration, upon radioing in, we were told that the two squads that were to be dropped off were dead.... I am still dumbfounded as to how two entire squads were killed in a COMPLETELY friendly zone. I don't blame them, for if they were dropped off in a position outside of the pre-designated area (something I wouldn't doubt due to the nature and bad positioning of previous drop offs) they were likely killed fairly quickly. To be more fair, I do accept that there could have been other things going on above ground and/or at command level that I was not aware of that may have hindered the plan. But at the same time, at no point was I radioed and told that anything had changed/been effected nor did I hear anything over the command channel (radios did work in the tunnels btw. I had checked earlier). So, instead of a 25-30 man assault on building 18, it was a 6 man assault. 6 vs. 3+ Alpha squads, neat. Don't worry though guys, we were kitted out with Crye so we had the Delta based gods on our side (*passive aggressive sarcasm intensifies*). At this point, knowing we had an honest drop on him I was told by the Alpha guard that he had about 30 seconds before he would bleed out and would be able to return to his squad upstairs and tell them what was going on. I'm not sure who you are but I believe you were apart of Suicide Kings. A big thanks to you for recognizing the drop we had and for being a good sport about it. That showed good character and was a testament to the SK guys (if it was SK). We then began the assault, successfully clearing the basement and then the first floor before we were killed off from the second floor balcony. Despite some of the "fog of war" and other frustrations that come with any milsim game, I had a blast, even during the last five hours when our squad consisted of me and one other. Here are some pictures below I gathered from a few guys of the squad and the Blacksheep FB page. I sniped the Alpha XO from this position so I am confused hearing that they weren't technically apart of the game? He knew my general position after the shot and yelled and congratulated me on the good shot and apologized that he didn't have a red rag. Nothing about the encounter would have made me think he wasn't apart of the game. MFW I realize 5 Hour Energy, protein bar, beef jerky, granola bars, and coffee are a bad combo. The squad sans Beta as camera man.
|
|
|
Post by Gunslinger on Aug 18, 2014 11:51:38 GMT -5
Mosin had some really good points I agree with and Pegan is on the money with the "get in a building and sit around bored as shit for the next 5 hours". That for me was the worst part of it. Impulse was a great squad leader in my opinion and held coms with our higher ups as best as any one could. We had a squad with some really fast shooters I feel that weren't utilized enough to keep them as busy and excited as they would have been and there for slowed their stride. It felt like at time we had to much "capture the flag" going on. I can think of a few instances where we could have claimed more ground (and at least got involved in a exciting fire fight or two) if there was more permission given to do so and players would have had more interesting stuff to do. I understand as well though it was a marathon and not a sprint so I kinda see why it was done that way but again felt there were a lot of lost opertunitys to "get shit done". The players there on site we some really cool people on both sides! I experienced quite a few fist bumps between me and other players for either shooting them or getting shot by them. Made me feel like some one else stated that guys out there got that it was a game and had fun doing it. Let's face it we don't do it for money or to save the world, it's a game built around the honor system. I was surprised at the meal given situation ( a can of chef boyardi ) and the one given for "the meal plan" to take to the field in a box. For the 25.00 I guess you can't exspect much but a hot meal goes a lot farther to get guys warmed back up and ready to move. Glad now I didn't spend the extra 25.00 I would have been pissed. Also I would have liked to actually have a place to keep all my exspecive "toys" and change of cloths in my bag. I got dropped off there and didnt have a vehicle to store things and wasn't told there would be room for a vehicle any way. I understand the "embrace the suck" premise, BUT this is airsoft. We are not real solders storming a occupied village of indigenous people. Come on. I was awake the whole 24 and man was I beat when I got home! I had a blast being around some of the guys I consider the top of the scene in this state. X, Tank, Death Dealer ( put down the broom and no one gets hurt ), Mosin, Pegan, Devil and Gunny and so on, you guys are honestly part of the reason I come out to games any more. So I think it was just cool being around you guys and some others I didn't mention because the names escape me, for some serious airsofting. I know if I go to the next one I will try to prep physically for a couple months in advance. All in all I had a good time. Don't care who won, achieved my goal of shooting people and getting shot, experiencing a fricken sweet "field" and seeing some cool guys doing what we all enjoy.
|
|
|
Post by Coldwave on Aug 18, 2014 12:15:12 GMT -5
Pretty much what the SK guys said. Although I have two instances of the "don't call people out" rule. This was stressed in briefing but when it happened on the field it wasn't corrected. I had a guy from bravo (who was a veteran and preached to our squad about said rule during briefing, and was also a blacksheep vet) who screamed at our squad from the top of the school to call our hits, and stop being "fucking bitches or he'd come over there" We were in the residential area where he couldn't even have a chance of hitting us. So of course we promptly returned the bird and took pop shots at them through murder holes. The second instances was where we deployed right in front of the hostile building 25, the first two off the truck (X, and Comax) got hit and I darted behind them towards the cover of the building. The player who shot the two from the window proceeded to freak the fuck out. Luckily a ref was standing right there and assured him he didn't hit me. The guy calmed down shortly after that and I walked back to the front of the building after getting shot on the opposite corner and fist bumped him.
Blind firing was an issue, I got about 4 bb's in the leg from a gbb from 3 inches away. The guy punched out a murder hole and stuck his arm through and started popping away. Luckily I was in front of it so it didn't hit Shrike.
And finally to the guy who Redconned his squad out 30 minutes into the game, all because he got in a kids face and the kid pushed you away. Man the fuck up and get over your pity party. It was a shame you ruined your squads day because of your pity party.
All in all I had fun running with X, Tank, Gunslinger, Deathdealer, Comax, and the guys who decided to tag along with A-Team. Impulse did very well as SL. I'm not sure if I'd go again but it was a cool experience.
|
|
|
Post by Gimpalong on Aug 18, 2014 13:38:14 GMT -5
Oh Hai guiz, Get your free Coldwave calendar here: So hot!
|
|
|
Post by Gunny87 on Aug 18, 2014 13:47:48 GMT -5
Only thing I disagree with is the cleaning up part, Mosin. I feel that, in order to return to the event next year (and further into the future),you clean up after yourself. I'll acknowledge that there were several people who drove up or down from places like Canada, Wisconsin, Ohio Indiana and the like, and they still had 12 hours to get home, but it still is common courtesy (in my mind). My personal thoughts on this would be to give a 10$ credit to a clean up crew to lessen the initial sticker shock and to still make sure you get a clean field at the end of the day. Money talks. Well considering that Blacksheep is the only national airsoft game hosts that I'm aware of that makes you clean up after you play there, then it makes me wonder why other national event hosts like Lion Claws don't make you do this even though they get to return to AOs multiple times if given the opportunity to. They could easily outsource this to someone locally and give them $100-$200 to do this instead of making the people tho played a lot of money to attend the game do this. But I guess Blacksheep doesn't look at their players as "customers" like other event hosts do. I sniped the Alpha XO from this position so I am confused hearing that they weren't technically apart of the game? He knew my general position after the shot and yelled and congratulated me on the good shot and apologized that he didn't have a red rag. Nothing about the encounter would have made me think he wasn't apart of the game. Legionnaire, you said it was the XO, was he fully kitted up and armed? I know the CO's weren't in play. But I know one of the guys on the command element of Alpha was running around on the field and was playing a little and when he got shot he would don a kill rag and call himself out of play. He did every time I saw him get shot when I was around him. Lastly one of the things that sorta took away from the realism of the game was getting inserted onto the field in one of these. Now here me out before everyone starts calling me out on this. I'm grateful that for most of the time, I didn't have to hoof it all the way from the CP to the AO every time which was nice unlike at every other airsoft game where you have to walk back to a Re-spawn point. So I am grateful to have them, than to not have them. Now I understand it's probably easier and a lot less expensive to rent two of these trucks from the nearest rental facility that's closest to the AO which probably makes them convenient to source rather than having to transport across the country, however it would have been much cooler to get transported in something more appropriate for a MILSIM event like a 2 1/2 ton truck like we've seen at least at one LC Op and if you ever attended a Blind Fury that had them that was really cool to get driven around in. Especially considering that we were on a freaking military base to begin with. Also for obvious reasons you couldn't shoot at them which made total sense, but at least they should have been able to be taken out by a foam rocket from a gas propelled device like a 203 or a M72/M79 or something like that which would really make it more realistic instead of seeing a yellow rental truck pull outside of a building that you're defending then see a bunch of guys jump out the back. It also would add another dynamic of realism to the game instead of not being able to interact with them at all. This would make carrying anti armor weapons actually applicable like we saw at the two Northern Lights that were here in Trenton. Even in the Blind Fury games that had the 2 1/2 ton trucks, those could be taken out which added to the experience.
|
|
|
Post by X on Aug 18, 2014 13:54:44 GMT -5
First, I totally agree with everything Mosin said. I paid $150 to play airsoft. Don't expect me to clean up the whole MOUT, after 24 hours of fighting, with a fucking hand brush and dust pan. Pay someone else to do that shit. I don't care if it's baked into the admission cost. I would be fine with a $5 cleaning cost being tacked on to admission. With 200 people that's a $1000 to pay 10 kids $100 each to run around the second half of Sunday and clean the place up. Those 10 kids will also probably do a lot better job than the 50 dudes that still have barely enough energy to move doing it half ass. Hell I'll bet you could even pay less than that. If those kids are anything like I was they would be happy to just be on a MOUT facility to check everything out. I'm not trying to continue my smart ass remarks regarding the pea grenades. However, I honestly thought they were not very effective if they were not cooked off because the fuse time on those things was super long. Long enough for anyone in the room to seek cover. My suggestion for some of those Bravo guys using them is to make sure you're cooking them off. My observations of the Thunder Bs was that they go off faster, but they don't have a great BB spread. I watched several go off to see that they split on one side and shot all of the bbs on only one side. The pea grenades had a better distribution, but after standing 3 feet from one that went off (it was properly cooked ) I couldn't feel the BB hits at all. I'm sure adrenaline played a part, but I was expecting some pain and got nothing. I would feel totally safe using pea grenades at MIA sanctioned events if the community is OK with it.Things I liked: - Squad was great. Thanks MiA-Team + extras it was a good time. Our squad leader Impulse did a great job of balancing discipline with fun. Letting us go out and attack shit (occasionally against orders from command) a few times, but still making sure we were doing our jobs. - Sportsmanship was generally good. Every time there was an issue that I saw, guys would kiss and make up afterwards. No long standing butthurt. - The environment was challenging for me in a whole new way. I've never pushed myself through a 24 hour event like that. In fact I can probably count on one hand how many times I've skipped a night's rest before. I'm not exactly the crazy, party all night, kinda guy. - CACTF Facility was sweet - I liked the tamper resistant chrono stickers. - No overkill issues. I was sure that I was in for some pain with the FPS/Engagement rules, but I had no issues even though I took point on several entries. - Coming through the tunnels to jointly strike building 18 with RAGE required me to employ ECM ;D (Erection Control Measures, for those not at the briefing). - Hearing big guns from the training exercises going on outside the CACTF. - Patrolling the rooftop of the Hotel. I just thought it was cool to be walking around 3 stories up with a view of the entire AO with everyone below me, ready to defend the hotel, counting on me to let them know where the bad guys were coming from. - Chicken Noodle MRE Things I didn't like - Beef Stew MRE - Trying to sleep on concrete (I'll just stay awake next time). - CO talked about how this was a marathon and to pace ourselves yet god forbid we get a 20 minute break to eat at CP after 6+ straight hours in the field. - CO wouldn't let us be aggressive. DeathDealer, single handily cleared out the Hotel (waiting for his helmet cam footage!) and our orders were not to reinforce that position. Luckily SK showed up just in time, I briefed them about DeathDealer and we were able to lock it down. We were told several times to just hold positions that were not being attacked at all. We held the church for hours with no contact and orders to stay there (hence trying to sleep on a concrete pew). - Heated leather seats trying to get me to disobey orders and sleep in the car. Assholes! hehe. - The intensity of the smoke was actually getting somewhat dangerous. There were times in the Hotel where there was literally 2 feet of visibility. I had to shine a flashlight on my boots in order to see them. That's more of a AO thing than a host issue. I wasn't too concerned for myself, but I can see some idiot trying to brace himself on a wall only to find out it's an open window. Or, more likely, someone falling down a flight of concrete stairs. Things I would have liked / would have done differently: - Deuce and a half trucks instead of Penske rentals. I get that it's a lot easier to find a Penske truck. - Rape victim sound track loop was not really necessary to give me the "MILSIM Experience". Speakers were mostly annoying because they were cranked up to distortion levels. meh... - Would have been nice for our squad to get a FRAGO. We didn't get to participate in any of them. Just defending / attacking bases. - I should have brought out a bedroll. As stupid as it sounds sleeping in the church would have been way easier. That might have helped stave off the sleep deprivation if I had gotten more than 10 minutes of sleep all night. - Should have brought our motion sensors. - We needed better squad to squad communications. I could only remember RAGE's squad channel (7) so they were the only ones I had outside contact with. I should have wrote down all of the individual squad channels. - The sweet sound of A-10 Warthogs
|
|
|
Post by Coldwave on Aug 18, 2014 14:03:24 GMT -5
Oh Hai guiz, Get your free Coldwave calendar here: So hot! Greatest post ever.
|
|
|
Post by Gimpalong on Aug 18, 2014 14:16:47 GMT -5
This. I understand that the company leadership wants all hands on deck, but allowing a squad even a 30 minute break is going to extend the duration that that squad can stay on the field. I was a far more effective player when I was able to go back to the CP, take off my PC, rest my legs, down a clifbar, reload magazines and take off my eye-pro for 30 minutes than when I was scrambling to get re-equipped in 10 minutes. This was especially true after REDCONing back after having assaulted through some of the those residential structures. It's easy to sit in a building all day and defend, but it's a lot more physically taxing to do the hard work of assaulting. I was surprised our command element did not designate an area of one of the larger structures (basement of the hotel or embassy?) as a rest spot for Alpha company squads. Having a squad rest in a building that was already secured would have given them a reserve squad to go and actually do stuff once rested rather than having every squad scattered throughout the AO. I was also expecting our command element to have a schedule for when each squad would be rested rather than each squad just going generally inactive at random. I didn't have a problem with cleaning up at the end of the event. It would have been nice had Blacksheep advised us that that was part of the deal so people could have been expecting it. That said, cleaning up the bathrooms in the barracks was a bit much to ask. The base certainly has cleaning staff and Blacksheep could have paid money to have that done given the sanitation issues involved. My main issue with the end of the event was how long it took for it to actually be over. ENDEX was at Noon, but the final debrief and raffle weren't over until 5 PM. 5 whole hours. That's simply absurd given that many people had driven long distances to attend. Blacksheep bills its games as the "premier milsim experience," but, as Pagan mentioned, the majority of the game is spent flipping flags. That said, I'm hard pressed to see a better way to provide an organic, free-flowing experience without making things so complex that problems would result. My suggestion would be to start the FRAGOs after the game has run for 3 or 4 hours. That way people have gotten a handle on the geography of the AO and the game has started to slide into a flow. Running the FRAGOs only in the middle of the night seemed like a way to keep players on the field. The event certainly isn't as hard as a marathon (imo, having run two of the things). If you are reasonable fit and can stay up late you can play a 24 hour game. Alas, I did not experience any spiritual revelations or vision quests. You guys had pea grenades? I just tossed the contents of my "MRE" raviola onto someone's face. The facility itself was beautiful. Easily the nicest, cleanest AO I've ever played on. The sound effects, smoke (sometimes a bit much...), rockets and the ambiance provided by the nearby ranges was amazing. The use of the REDCON system was interesting to say the least and while it cut down on squad fragmentation it also cut into the nice mixing and matching that happens in other events when you meet up with people you know in other squads. SK spent a bunch of time moving as a mixed squad with RAGE, but we didn't really get to play with other MiA folks. Overall, it was amazeballs.
|
|