PBNN Issue #7 – 2/26/98

editor: QtPie

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to the newest issue of the PBNN. This issue is jammed packed with information. I believe this is the best PBNN that I’ve put together yet! Thanks to all how submitted articles and keep them coming guys!!!

A Note about Profiles: I’ve been asked numerous times why I have not asked so-and-so to do a profile. Let me tell you how the profiling works and maybe you will understand it more. Usually there are four people and one team that will be profiled in one issue. Those four people will “tag” a person to do an article in the next issue. I only pick a person to do a profile in extreme cases.
1. A person tagged is unable to be gotten ahold of. The “oldies” sometimes are no where to be found and do not receive the newsletter so they do not even know they are tagged. In that case I will ask the person that tagged them to pick another person. If I can’t get ahold of that person, I will pick someone myself.
2.A person declines the invitation to do a profile for the newsletter. In this case again I will ask the person that tagged them to pick another person and if I can’t get ahold of him/her, I will pick someone myself.
3. Someone just doesn’t TAG anyone when they do their profile. Once again I follow the step above before picking another person myself.
If are you not tagged, just be patient and I’m sure someone will tag you sooner or later. intend on publishing this newsletter for awhile and hopefully the majority of the regulars will get tagged someday! 

Table of Contents

Articles
Happenings
Team Profile
Player Profiles
Closing Notes

Articles

Spread Kits and how to combat them.

Written by Werewolf

Spread kits on guns, personally I do not like them because they can be “deadly”, unless you do a few things which make them a useless weapon. 1. To avoid getting splatted, get padding and lots of it… NOBODY uses spread with nobounce balls because the cost is too high.. so if you get padded, then 90% of the time it’ll result in a bounce. 2. When spread is shot, it will take a couple of squares to spread out. This will result on 1-3 squares in which the ball will miss you if you are close to the enemy. So get near the enemy when attacking because they may have spread. 3. Spread causes lag, and lots of it, so take advantage of it. Since everyone uses free balls, the shot will be SLOW. If you see slow balls coming towards you, that means it is time to Run 3 spaces away. They’ll be lagged so when you are running, click the mouse and kill em.. (have true movement on). That way they’ll miss you because of ball speed and you will get an easy splat. 4. Since spread makes a lot of balls, you can easily see where someone is shooting at from far away. Just grab the old Uhv and give them a taste of Nobouncing speed in the general direction where their balls came from. Spread has it’s advantages of cost and unlimited balls, BUT it is SLOW, inaccurate, and exposes yourself to other players who can easily splat you.

Darkmans tips for newbies.

Written by Darkman

I have played paintball for about six months now. Lately a lot of new paintball players have been asking me for money and tips for success on paintball. After a lot of testing and trying new stuff, I have put together a list of the things I think a newbie should do to become the best they can, as fast as they can. I will warn you, this is only my opinion and many of the other players might have different ideas, but this should at least be a starting point for you. When you first start playing paintball, you will have to register your character and get him up to lvl 2. Once you have gotten a lvl 2 character, the fun can begin. When you become a lvl 2, the game will give you a $1000 gift. If this gift is spent wisely, you can get some decent stuff that will help you a lot. I would recommend buying the following equipment. Wear each item after you buy it. For example to wear the scarf you would type wear scarf.

Equipment Small Backpack- cost $25 this item can be purchased from the middle store by typing buy small Padded Scarf-cost $25 this item can be purchased from the middle store buy typing buy scarf Padded Leggings-cost $100 this item can be purchased from the south store buy typing buy leg Padded helmet-cost $50 this item can be purchased from the south store by typing buy helm Once you have bought those 3 items you should go to the northeast store a.k.a. the chop shop. From the chop shop you should buy 3 kits. To assemble these kits, you must have the kit in one hand, and what you are putting it on in the other hand. For example, to assemble the woodland camouflage kit onto the scarf, you buy wood, rem scarf, and then ass kit scarf. Then wear scarf. Woodland Camouflage kit-cost $20 to buy this kit type buy wood. Once you have bought this kit type ass kit scarf. This will assemble the kit to your scarf. Swim Kit- cost $250 To buy this kit type buy swim. Once you have bought the swim type ass kit leggings. This will assemble the swim kit to your leggings. Grassland Camouflage kit-cost $20 To buy this kit type buy grass. Once you have bought the grassland kit type ass kit scarf. This will assemble the kit to your scarf. The next thing you should buy is a turbo kit from the chop shop. You don’t have enough money now, but as you play more you will save up enough to buy it. Turbo Kit-costs $1100. To buy this type buy turbo. Then type ass kit leg. After you have bought those 5 items you should head to the northwest shop,a.k.a. the gun shop. Here is where a lot of newbies screw up. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go out and buy an expensive gun. I would strongly recommend that you use a newbie shooter and newbie ammo. Beginner Paintball Gun- cost 0 top buy it type buy beg 10-ball bag of free paintballs.- cost 0 top buy this item type buy bag. Once you have the bag in one hand and the gun in the other type dump bag gun. Then sell the empty bag. Then repeat the process buy typing buy bag. dump bag gun. sell bag. You should repeat this process until your gun is full. Do this after every game to make sure that your gun is full. I would keep using the beginner gun until you get turbo kit. It is not that bad and will save you a lot of money. Once you have a turbo kit you might decide to switch from a gun to a can. Once you have done all of the above things you are ready to go out and fight. Right now you should have at least $500 left over. I would recommend that you save this money for equipment in the future. As a newer player it will be VERY hard to get started. Do not get discouraged or down on yourself. There are a lot of people out there with better equipment so it will be hard for you to compete. I have also put together a list of helpful newbie strategies for you to use in games. If used right you could find yourself getting 1-4 splats per game.

Strategies

#1- NEVER STOP MOVING – if you stop moving, you will be a very easy target, and will die pretty quick.

#2- Try and stay in the open plains. Your equipment is very bouncy and this is your only chance. If you see a red guy, shoot at him, then move again. It will be easy for people to sneak up on you if you are in any other type of terrain.

#3- Shoot past your enemy. This takes some practice, but it does work. pretend there is a straight line between you and your enemy. Don’t just shoot where he is. Remember a paintball rarely goes through someone.

#4- If someone is shooting at you a lot, this is the time to run for trees or some sort of cover. Remember a paintball can rarely go through 1 tree, and will never go through 2 trees.

#5- Don’t waist your money on mines or grenades or expensive ammo equipment. This is more important, and although you might start out slower, in the end you will be a lot better because you will have the better equipment.

#6- If you see a bot, try and figure out which way it is going. Usually a bot will run in a pattern. If you can figure this pattern out, you can shoot ahead of it, and kill it before it kills you.

#7- Stay away from mountains. These will slow you down and make you a very easy target.

#8- Never fire more than 3 shots without moving. Someone will see where your ammo is coming from and they will run over and kill you.

Even if you do the above things, I can not guarantee success, but it should help you stay alive. And who knows, maybe someday you can be one of the paintball greats.

Other helpful hints As a newer player I would recommend that you play mainly Team and Cooperative Flag games. The are the only ones you have a good chance at winning. Even if you do not do great that game, your team might still pull out a win so you get money. If you are on a server, and they are not playing teams or cooperative flags, I would strongly recommend that you try another server. To vote for a team game or a cooperative flags game, you type ga v t and ga v co. To remove your vote for one of these games, type ga r t and ga r co. If you do find yourself in survival, don’t panic. Just keep moving and remember how to fight. If you are in an invaders game go find a nice clearing about 10-15 spaces away from the edge. The bots will show up and just start shooting them. You will get about 3 or 4 splats doing this, but then you will most likely die. Do not let this discourage you. In my opinion, invaders is the hardest game to get good at on paintball.

If you ever have any questions about anything above, or need any more advice once you pass the beginner stage, do not hesitate to ask me. I would be more than glad to help anyone out that I can. If I am not on you can ask Darkblade for help. If needed, he can get in contact with me.

Bot Splatting: Skill or No Skill

Written by Hurricane

Often people who have a lot of bot splats are criticized of having no skill. To me, people who say this are just plain dumb.

1.) If Dug and RM didn’t think invaders or mining took any skill, they wouldn’t have put invaders and mines in the game.

2.) People don’t control what games they play. If the game happens to be invaders, of course we’re gonna get as many bots as possible. It’s not like we’re just gonna sit there and let ourselves get splatted because bot splatting takes no skill.

3.) Mining is harder than people think, especially with the way invaders is these days. 50% of the time, you won’t get any splats with your mines because the bots only come out 2 walls (and sometimes only 1.)

4.) Staying alive after all the bots are out and most of the players are out isn’t exactly easy. Often bots will stumble upon you, even though they can’t see you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

5.) People often look at people’s bonus and say “Woah, you have mostly bot splats, you must really suck.” Now I don’t want to mention any names, so I’ll just use myself as an example. At the time of this writing, I had 23k splats, and 5500 of those are players. Most people are saying right now “Jeez, he sucks.” Let’s take the fact that I’ve only played 3000 games, which turns out to be about 2 player splats per game, which incidentally is a better average than some as the so called “great players.” (No names mentioned.)

So please, next time you start to hag on somebody because they have mostly bot splats, think about the above 5 things. Thanks.

The Cool Stuff No One Ever Told You

Written By Tyson, The Mr. Know-it-all.

Hi everyone out there, this article is designed to tell all you cool people stuff that you may not know. How about a little about myself first? Ok My PbN name is Tyson (my real name is Tyson too), I have about 4500 splats or something like that, I don’t really know. Here we go, off into the land of knowledge called my brain (lots of knowledge, no spelling ability).

Camo information

Basically, there are 2 types of camo; normal camo and special camo. I classify basic woodland, grassland, desert, mountain, water, and multi camo as normal camo. With normal camo you can be seen on the terrain it covers up to 5 spaces away. A multi jacket or suit will camouflage you in grass, trees, mountains, and deserts. If you are crouching you can be seen in whatever terrain your camo is for up to 3 spaces away. This camouflaging ability is not affected by movement. Special camo is as follows (to me): refracto, insulation, interference, and cloaking. An item with refracto on it will make you completely invisible to normal sight. When you move with refracto or chat with refracto you can be seen for a few seconds. Interference and insulation both stop different kinds of special items, interference will stop all locators (satellite and player) and x-ray glasses. It will not make you invisible to normal sight. Insulation will block infrared viewers from seeing you, but not normal vision. A cloaking suit makes you completely invisible when moving or chatting, but covers all your body (you cant carry anything that is not in the suit).

Weapon information

There are many different types of weapons: guns; cans; grenade launchers; paintrocket launchers; mines; and old stuff. Guns fire any kind of paint that is at the level they are or below, i.e. any gun can shoot free ammo, but only a high-velocity semi-automatic gun can shoot hv semi-auto ammo. Spread-fire kits make your gun shoot 3 paintballs at a time to the left and right of your targeting cursor. Burst kits let you fire 3 paintballs at a time, but only in the space you target. Cans can fire in any direction one space, and if you turn auto target home off and target one space away from you, it will auto-fire on that space whenever an enemy is under it. Grenade launchers and grenades splat everything on the space you fire them, or a 3×3 area if they are large. Grenades can go over any terrain type and splat infinite numbers of players or bots on that splat area. Each of the 3 grenade launchers has different range, a normal launcher having the most and a mini launcher have little range. Paintrocket launchers work the same way grenade launchers do, but go a lot faster and cannot go over anything. Mines will explode if anything that is an enemy goes within the target range, witch is 1 less than the splat range. Old stuff is the coolest =) basically if you have old stuff you know how to use it and all the cool tricks, so I wont go into them here.

Other cool stuff

Here is probably what you have read the above for 🙂 First, game-specific information. In invaders, bots will come out on 2 opposite sides randomly. If you stand in a valley in invaders you cannot be hit by a kamikaze bot unless it goes off right on you. In any game, if you have a cloaking suit (or if not), you can make an alias called fire that the game will run whenever you right-click to fire.

Thats all folks!!! Thanks for reading all this, it is my first try at writing an article

Tyson chats:c-ya all l8rz

Happenings

New Stuff..

New Vaders OH there is a new vaders game invading PbNet. Instead of having a minute to get yourself ready for the bots, they come out as we the players get onto the field. This game will take a bit of adjusting too but have patience and soon we will be as comfortable with this vaders game as we were with the old vaders.

Extra-Large Backpack The new extra-large backpack can be found in the middle store. I hold more than any other backpack but it uses your waist making it impossible to use with certain equipment. If you have something that already uses your waist, you can still use it on your locker!

A Nasty PbNet Bug

A bug is crawling around PbNet as I write this message. Maybe by the time I send this newsletter it will
be squashed. The bug seems to wipe people of their equipment and splat count. Some have said it has
deleted their money and even one character has lost his name. 

To deal with this bug, here is what to do. First stay calm! I believe that most people that have got bitten by the bug have gotten repaired. Email Rm or Dug and wait patiently while they work to fix your character.

I believe that RM and Dug are working on finding the bug and flatting it to a gooey mess. Give them time and support while they fix this. They are doing what they can!

Bugs like this may pop up from time to time. I ask everyone to stay calm when a bug like this does appear and give RM and Dug some time to fix it.

Milestones

Broke the 10k Mark CowboyM 
Broke the 20k Mark Rebel 
Broke the 30k Mark 

Macman 20 Million bonus

Profiles

Team Profile

Team: Chorus

Leader: Handle

No. Of Members: 11

Member List: Handel QtPie (2) Beowulf CowboyM Stephen Gonja Sx Mickey D Shadow Lord Sabot JoseFresco

Motto: ‘We dance, we kiss, we schmooze, we carry on, we go home happy. Whaddaya say?’ <reply by me:CHORUS- I say Dance:<Wiggle~(_/_)~Wiggle~(_|_)~Wiggle~(_\_)~Wiggle> I say Kiss: <smoooch> I say: Let’s not go home just yet!!>

Stats: (CURRENT) BONUS:721000 SPLATS:1196 ACCURACY:37% (EVER) BONUS:16567500 SPLATS:22817 ACCURACY:29%

Requirements: First and foremost you must be a friend of ours. Getting alone with everyone on the team as well as everyone (for the most part) on PbNet. We like those people that are respectful, helpful, kind and generous. We don’t base our requirements on splat count. We ask YOU to join, you don’t ask us. 🙂

Who We are:We are a small team. The power lies with Beowulf and CowboyM and a small part by me. We three play a lot and have created a close nit team that kicks butt. You can usually find the team on Teams Current Top10 as well as Wulf, Cowboy and occasionally myself on the Player current Top10.

Achievements: We have become a consistent Current Top10 team with fewer players then most of the other teams on top10. We reached 20k splats and have become one team that people would like to join. 🙂

Goals: Getting on the Team Ever Top10 is on goal I personally have for the team. But mainly our t eam is about having a happy team that people want to stay on once they get their. (After you quit chorus there is a slime to none chance of being reenlisted.)

Comments: Although it’s Handel’s team, I, Qtpie, have done this profile. I would like to thank all the team members for their commitment to the team. You all Rock!

Tagged: Team Dudes is Tagged…Just got to know why they keep bumping us from the Top10 list!

Player Profiles

PBN Name: Dug

Real Name: Douglas E. Michael (aka “Dug”)

Age: 27

Job: Electrical Engineer

Hobbies: Programming Multi-player games, Racquetball, Net-Surfing.

Team: DigDugs

Stats: Lower than they should be. Ever: Lower than they should be.

Time Played: Since December of 1995, when the game was code-named “Survival Limited”.

Most Crowning PBN Achievements[what have you done that you are proud of?] : First splat ever on another player: Dug splatted Presto, February, 1996.

PB Pet Peeves: People who think that DavidRM and I are the same person.

Fav. PB Weapon: Big Paintball Gun.

Fav. Bot: Kamikazi because it takes out the most players in one shot. Muahahaha.

Fav. PBN Player: Everyone. I appreciate anyone who enjoys playing.

Famous Quotes [quotes you are well known for] : “I WILL REBOOT AFTER THIS GAME.”

Other/ Comments: The newsletters are looking great!

(Your person to Tag [who you want to be profiled NEXT issue] Soundtraxx(Joseph)

PBN Name: Sabot (Among other characters..)

Real Name: Look at the help file.

Age: 20

Job: I am a materials processor requirements facilitator at Boeing.

Hobbies: Pbn, MUME, associating SAMSON with small farmyard animals.

Team: Currently Chorus. Sad to see Wusslings die out so fast..

Stats: Ever: Hell I don’t know.

Time Played: Hmm started around mid Sept ish 1996? (David help me out here)

Most Crowning PBN Achievements[what have you done that you are proud of?] : Well I like the fact that over the years I think I’ve done an ok job supporting the game, but I think I’m proudest of the fact that I’m the only one with a fat wiggler alias =)

PB Pet Peeves: HOW ABOUT I GIVE SOME SAMPLES INSTEAD.

..–!~Insert-()-Annoying-()-Gay-()-Ass-()-Banner-()-Here~!–..

A newbie spam tells you: gimme cash or I’ll spell everything I say wrong and in ALL CAPS. p.s. gimme money I deserve it and oh ya tell RM I GET TO BE THE NEXT 90

And oh ya, RM still refuses to put the old map of days long past back up.

The one with all the 90’s names in it.

Fav. PB Weapon: Fire and Movement.

Fav. Bot: The Sa-bot.

Fav. PBN Player: Ya right there’s way too many to list. I’d forget to name half the people and the other half no one here knows in the first place.

Famous Quotes [quotes you are well known for] : df =) If you don’t know what that means then it doesn’t concern you.

Other/ Comments: mmmmForbiddenDonut out classes all of us in the name picking department.

Your person to Tag [who you want to be profiled NEXT issue] : Spumer =) *cackle*

PBN Name: Macman

Real Name: Chris Maccaux (for those of you who wondered how I came up with the name Macman, it’s the first 3 letters of my last name. Please, stop telling me how much Macintosh’s suck…)

Age: 32

Job: Industrial Electrician for Procter and Gamble in Green Bay, WI. I am responsible for the converting line that runs 65% of all the Puffs facial tissues in the world. I am considering a transfer to Cape Girardeau, MO to help start up a tissue/towel operation there.

Hobbies: Paintballing, collecting toys such as Kenner Starting Lineups, Hot Wheels and Matchbox, fishing, golfing, and playing with my son.

Team: MacLeod Clan

Stats: Ever: Stats for ‘Macman’: (EVER) GAMES:8182 BONUS:19837000 SPLATS:23961 ACCURACY:37%

Time Played: Since May of 1997. My ID# is 12206 according to DavidRM.

Most Crowning PBN Achievements[what have you done that you are proud of?] I’d have to say helping MacLeod Clan get to the top. I was part of an elite organization and am proud of it.

PB Pet Peeves: Keyboard Warriors. You know the kind… They come on to PBNet or any other chat site and act like Mr. Tough Guy. They probably ain’t but 5′ 1″ and 110 lbs.

Spammers. The people that log in and spam until they get shut up, then quickly log off and back on with another name and continue spamming, again and again.

People who don’t have a clue. There are lots of them. They don’t know who they are. Too bad…

Fav. PB Weapon: It used to be a ULUHV loaded with NB ammo. Now, it’s probably this nifty little HV launcher that I tote around. It rocks.

Fav. Bot: Hmmm…. they all kinda suck. Probably the coolest of the bunch would be the Stealth bot.

Fav. PBN Players: Randy Gilbertson. He doesn’t come on often anymore (UO), but he is great. Brockman. When you absolutely have to have it in the morning… Brockman. Shooter. Great competitor, great to chat with. Where’s he been? SAMSON. Cool as they come… Coldiron. Another casualty of UO.

Famous Quotes [quotes you are well known for] : Hmm… Most of the time I run with chat off. I guess there isn’t one.

Other/ Comments: Yeah… Hey one of you wanna-be hackers… Blow up the UO servers. Then maybe we’ll get some of our best players back. =)

Your person to Tag [who you want to be profiled NEXT issue] : Lil Oly… fellow MacLeod Clan teammate and really cool guy.

PBN Name: JAWSATEME

Real Name: Nathan Price

Age: 18 Years Old

Job: Employed by father. Baseball player. (pitcher)

Hobbies: Working to get in good health, playing baseball with friends (and being the ruler :-), programming with friends, playing PBNet with you fellas, and many more that most guys do.

Team: Purple Haze

Stats: Ever: GAMES:6887 BONUS:19457500 SPLATS:31933 ACCURACY:47%

Time Played: I am not sure of exact day but I believe it was sometime in the middle of September 1997.

Most Crowning PBN Achievements[what have you done that you are proud of?] : I share a pretty cool team with 19 other guys and I’m very proud to be the founder of it. Also I have made MANY friends that are just as close as the people in my town.

PB Pet Peeves: I guess I get a little disturbed when I have around 70 splats in a vaderz game and I’m the only person left then while I am big-headed because everyone is telling me how awesome I am….. the last dumb bot gets the best of me… yea.. that is my PB Pet Peeve.

Fav. PB Weapon: I cannot be pulled apart from my ULUHV gun although XDP’s UHV Launcher is a strong runner-up.

Fav. Bot: Having this be the first time I have ever been asked this question… I will have to say that since I have never actually got to “get to know” a bot since they do not like to shake hands… The Stealth bot is my fav because I like Green. 🙂

Fav. PBN Player: I do not have a favorite PBN player. I do have one person in mind that I have come to love to play in games with though and that person is QTPie. Many many many nights we have been the only two people left in games where I was her “Knight” protecting her. I LOVE IT 🙂

Famous Quotes [quotes you are well known for] : “Game Ready Auto…… prepare to die!”

Other/ Comments: Now days I have been learning at home (homeschool) so I don’t get to associate with my friends like I use to on a day to day basis. Sometimes it gets very lonely but ever since I have been playing PBN I have always had friends to turn to. There are around 20 of you guys on during the day that I am close friends with and around 10 during the night. So anytime I ever want to talk with someone you guys are always there. Many people have told me “you can’t have a friend that all you know about them is that of which they type”. I just laugh at them because I know what they are missing out on:-) I just want to let everyone know that I really do have a lot of fun playing and just sitting and talking with you. I have over 100 of you PBN people on my icq list and at least 70 of you send me messages daily.. I love that 🙂 and you sure do make it easy to laugh at those who say your fake people.

Your person to Tag [who you want to be profiled NEXT issue] : BlueAdapt

Closing Notes

Those tagged in this newsletter Team: Dudes, Players: Soundtraxx, Sabot, Lil Oly, and BlueAdapt. Please email and tell me if you accept or decline the tag so I can get the form out to you or find someone else to do a profile.

Thanks goes out to our PbJournalists Matt Williams, Werewolf, Hurricane, Tyson, and Darkman for some spectacular articles and all those the filled out their profiles and sent them to me as quickly as you did. 🙂

The PBNN website is undergoing a major redesigning process. I’ve been accused of being too blah… so I brightened the page up a bit. This issue will be the first issue to feature the new look. It will be posted in about 2 days at <old link>. There is also an addition page indexing
all the articles, stories and profiles so you can browse the old issues easier. 

If you have any ideas on how to make this newsletter more enjoyable, feel free to email me. I might not do what you suggest but there is a chance I will. 🙂

Please PLEASE do not send me any “EVIL” articles. I do not want articles about how awful a weapon, game, or person is. I do not post articles that ask RM or Dug to change the game. I will not accept articles that tell RM or Dug why they should change anything about PbNet.

Thanks for taking the time to look this over and I do hope it helps with your paintballing skills! Have fun everyone!
Happy Splatting 
QT