era's of water warfare

[the oncoming storm]

Reading the Wikipedia article on the CPS 2000 it claims the CPS 2000 started the 3rd era of water warfare. here is how I define era's



Era 1

The age of Squirt Guns and Balloons 1960's-1990

This age was when water fights were just starting to become a hobby, water guns were weak (even by modern standards ) and although their were entertek blasters they were few and far between.

Notable blasters

None

Era 2

The dawn of the Super Soaker 1991-93

Water fights had by now been raging for 30 years with little change in the weapons. The closest thing to domination was the bucket/hose and use thereof was strongly frowned upon. Then the Super Soaker 50 came on the scene with a splash changing water fights forever.

Notable blasters

Super Soaker 50
Super Soaker 100

Era 3

The rise of the XP's 1993-1995

The Super Soaker 50 had been dominating water fights for only 2 years when the nature of water fights changed again, as the Super Soaker XP 300 jumped the gun a full year on the other XP's but without the XP in the name, when the other XP's finally arrived in action they instantly earned the fearsome reputation of the 300, and won plenty of fans.

Notable guns

Super Soaker "XP" 300
Super Soaker XP 250
Super Soaker XP 150

Era 4

The golden age of water warfare 1996-2002

The golden age started off with a bang as the CPS 2000 came onto the field for the first time. Other ages had had their share of Champions, but wow what a gun boasting 30 times the power of the 50. In the next 6 years water guns would be pushed to the practical limits of what kids could wield and beyond.

Notable Guns

CPS 2000
CPS 2500
CPS 1200
CPS 2700

Era 5

Age of Community water warfare 2003-present

In 2003 Hasbro made the dreaded EES line, marking the end of 12 years of constantly improving water guns. It also marked the launch of SScentral.org and Waterwar.net the first real community's. Although their had been a rather large group on "Aquatica" these had disbanded for reasons that only M4 and Isoaker would know of. The Original Super Soaker designers lost their brand recognition, slowly making ground in the market and hoping for a chance to make large guns like the 2500 and 2000 once again. fired by the very company they had built and forced to start over under the name of Water Warriors.

Notable Guns

Water Warriors Blazer
Water Warriors Vindicator
Water Warriors Gorgon
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Anyone with a site feel free to add this, and modify if need-be

[soakinader]

I'm sorry, but I find this both biased and incomplete. Mostly biased.
I think that Isoaker has a better view on this than anyone. If you read the "History of the Super Soaker" article, you will find facts, background information, and some good speculation here and there. There is a reason for everything. I don't think that you can just look at the end of the CPS era and say everything from then until now sucks and gets crushed into one 'era'.

water guns would be pushed to the practical limits of what kids could wield and beyond.

OK now THAT I like. Would be a good sig.

[HBWW]

Any water warfare/blaster related articles on Wikipedia are mostly dated and/or have various issues.

Eras of water warfare do not strictly revolve around stock blaster cycles. We are not in a decline of water warfare because the community continues to iterate and improve on the things we once knew. Meanwhile, misinformation was widespread in what you refer to as the "golden age", and a lot of things we know now were obscure or simply unknown during that time period.

Nowadays, with almost no stock blasters being relevant to our water wars (except for certain WW blasters in special games), we have been left to shape our own future. I think old CPS's will be relevant for us for quite some time before they become too rare (due to breakage or loss), since our community is small enough to sustain the current supply. In the meantime, still need more developments on the homemade end of things but we've made good progress in the last 6 years or so.

It's important to always remember to separate ourselves from the market itself, because our needs are way different than that of non-enthusiasts, and that our needs do not quite align with toy companies' requirement of profit and cost-savings. While the loss of CPS was detrimental to water warfare, we can't simply ignore all the important developments and achievements our community has made since then. If anything, the loss of CPS may have helped push some of us even further than we might have to develop what anyone can access anytime, which is what really matters. We have made great strides in water warfare tactics/combat (well, DX has lol), working knowledge of blasters, ability to repair/mod, homemades and homemade designs, game organization and rules, and community organization since the past decade.

[the oncoming storm]

Well CA99 has a point I edited the 5 era to make it less biased

[isoaker]

While I appreciate the idea, the information present is more than simply biased; some of it is just plain wrong and other parts have not been thought through properly. More than that, the thought of trying to correct the misinformation above would be more work than to just scrap it and start anew.

If you wish to make an article like this, you really, REALLY need to do a lot more research onto the subject. Lumping all water blasters before 1990 together and suggesting that there were no notable water guns back then is really wrong. Some of the best water blaster fights I had were back in the 1980s even though water blaster power was not as good as the better blasters these days. I'd also submit that the true golden age of water wars was probably just after the release of the Super Soaker 50. By the time the CPS 2000 was released, while the community loves them, I found less people engaged in water fights versus the years before.

To call SScentral and WaterWar.net the first real "community's"[sic] is also very wrong. See Water Warfare Community History MiB Alliance was the first community that I am aware of online and it was a great place back-in-the-day. It lost its luster only when its founder reduced posting and the board was left poorly moderated. It was because of the problems at MiB that Aquatica ended up being born. The later communities are good, but haven't reached the level of enthusiasm seen during the height of Aquatica or even the earlier days of SSCentral.

I'm semi-tempted to just lock this thread, but am leaving it open for discussion for now. It wouldn't be a bad idea to try to develop something along these lines on the wiki, but I'd want a lot more initial thought put into how best to divide and/or categorize things.

[HBWW]

This would be a good opportunity for me to update my own WW history page on HBWW and try to bring more non-blaster related history in. Not easy to do since I began in 2006, but I'll consider looking at it later on when other things are done.

[SEAL]

I think a better title would be "Eras of Water Blasters" or something. Like CA99 said, water warfare doesn't revolve around stock water guns. Perhaps two such articles should be put on the wiki; one for water warfare, and one for water guns.

[marauder]

I don't usually go out of my way to correct grammar, but since we have a lot of kids on the board I'll go ahead and throw out this helpful tip. Apostrophes are only used when forming contractions or to denote ownership by adding an apostrophe and then an s.

Examples:

isn't (the apostrophe is used to replace the o in "is not") a contraction
wasn't (the apostrophe replaces the o in "was not") a contraction
he'll (the apostrophe replaces wi in "he will") a contraction
SEAL's CPS 2700 - apostrophe plus an s denotes SEAL has ownership of a particular CPS 2700
the oncoming storm's SS 300 - apostrophe plus an s denotes the oncoming storm has ownership of the ss 300

It's (apostrophe replaces an i in it is) a common mistake to just add an apostrophe before an s at the end of a word.


FWIW water gun fights might have been more common in the early 90s but I'm not sure if there were as many large organized battles. Then again I was probably too little to notice or have been invited.

[the oncoming storm]

What most people here fail to notice is just how closely related the Blaster market is to the Community, According to Isoaker they both peaked at around the same time and it seems to have risen and fallen based on how much interest current blasters can generate among new warriors.

I am strongly hoping for a Gorgon 2 like what we requested to Buzz Bee Toys because it will generate more serious warriors ready for a new revived market, and community.
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Off topic Buzz Bee Toys needs to do some widespread marketing of their water blasters if they are to become "The" big player in the market. and perhaps could include two booklets in the box with guns, one being a list of water warriors guns rather like the one that came with my CPS 1200, and the other being a printed version of their online Water Warfare handbook. to help people become hardcore and drag their friends into it as well.

[HBWW]

The blaster market did its part to bring us to where we are today, but nowadays the market is simply not very relevant to us. It will become more relevant if blasters that can take on CPS 2000's are released, but we know that's simply not going to happen. A Gorgon 2 could take on lighter CPS-line blasters at best, perhaps up to a 4100, but it's unlikely to have the output and sheer power of it. In the meantime, a lot of these blasters are only great for games with specialized rules that specifically prohibit battle-practical CPS's.

Ushering new people into the community and into enthusiast water warfare is different though, but I just don't see the appeal of water warfare amongst the masses that it once had, and even when it did have such appeal, those games were probably mostly limited to soakfests. While the SS 50 completely disrupted the market of Entertech motorized squirters, we're not seeing the same with BBT vs. Hasbro now. The enthusiast market simply does not account for a statistically significant amount of blaster purchases. While bringing high-level blasters back into the game may help spark things back up, we'res stuck in a chicken/egg situation. (Almost no enthusiast market, and no enthusiast-level blasters.) A lot of people who'd be in the enthusiast market for water blasters are instead playing Nerf since it isn't as seasonal or messy, and is a bit more "conventional".

[marauder]

Gorgon was actually up 2 to 1 in my duel with DX before the 4100's trigger broke. I'd say it was definitely an even match, one of the most competitive that we had.

[Budgie]

One thing that I have noticed is that everyone seems to get along with each other these days. I remember quite a few tussles during the Aquatica days, several involving myself.

I think a big problem with Aquatica (the versions before WWN) towards the end was that there was too many chiefs and not enough Indians. If I remember correctly, we probably had 5 or 6 board admins. When iSoaker stepped back, a kind of power vacuum developed. The situation deteriorated pretty quickly, and I think most of us admins were pretty young (I was probably 14 or 15). My recollection is pretty hazy of the events, but it seemed things would be pretty much over unless one of the original founders stepped in. I contacted MaxStar to restore order, but I don't think it really helped. Today it seems there is not much factionalism, perhaps this is a result of a smaller community, and it's probably a good thing. Does that forum still exist? It would be fascinating to have those primary sources.

I think any discussion of eras of water warfare needs to also take into consideration the water warfare community. It is not a coincidence that new websites and membership in general entered into a decline following about 2002. But, as alluded to above, this may not be so bad. What is stopping today from being a golden age for the online community? There certainly doesn't seem to be any flame wars anymore.

[marauder]

The forums still exist, but the yahoo group is locked. I can't get in because I deleted or yahoo deleted the marauder_4 yahoo name. But if you can get in, it'd be cool to archive it visably somehow.

I think a big difference is the age of the members of the board. We had members of all ages when I first joined, but a lot of the 18+ crowd started posting a lot less when isoaker stepped back. When we moved from yahoo to some other board most of the members were 13 to 16. Our younger members also seem to be a lot more mature now. Not sure if that's just because who we're attracting or if it's due to a smaller sample size/smaller membership.

We have the potential to be a larger than we currently are. I've been saying that for a while. Ten, even 8 years ago our websites were the first ones to come up when you did a search engine search for "super soaker." There was a point when Hydrowar was actually 3rd on google or yahoo when you put in "Super Soaker," even though the site was a lot crappier than it is now. Search engines place a lot more emphasis on websites that are sellign products now, along with some other variables that are unfavorable towards us. Youtube is really the way to go now, but it will probably take a while to properly use that channel considering how small our membership is. It's not like we have enough active members where someone will always be free to work on youtube. I would make some video reviews, but my computer is having a difficult time reading my card. I'm going to have to try another way.