WaterWar.net

Frozen Fury 3!

Date: November 28th-30th
Arrival: Friday, November 28th
Full battle days: Saturday, November 29th and Sunday, November 30th
Departure: Whenever you want

Playing Areas:

Cedar Hill
New Haven, CT

Night Rounds:

Fairfield pending police dept inquiry on closing hours

Attendance: (10)

Confirmed (9):
Duxburian
Marauder
Area51
CA99
Tony
Seal
Chief
(Jonna)
(AlphaTrooper Sunday)

Invited:
everyone

House Rules:

Hunting: The hunting rule will apply for the non-objective rounds in this war (OHS, OHK). You must actively seek to engage the other team in battle, when possible. Exceptions include needing to refill, injury, broken guns, etc. You are allowed to run away and regroup at any time, but then you must hunt the enemy as soon as possible. You are only allowed to set an ambush if you can see or hear at least one player on the other team. If you lose sight or sound of them, you must get up and hunt again. If the other team withdraws out of sight distance and you are able to follow them, you must. This part of the hunting rule breaks up standoffs where one team is on a hill and the other won't attack.

Nephew Deaths: Ben's nephews will have different hit rules in this war than in the past due to some improvement.

Their deaths count normally in all rounds other than OHS. In OHS, the value of their deaths is half a point.

Their hits count normally in all rounds other than OHS and VIP. If they hit you in OHS, you are out of the round like it's OHK. If they hit you in VIP when they are the VIP, you are also out of the round. The intent of this rule is to raise their threat level above 0%, where it typically has been in the past. In the extremely unlikely event that this actually happens, please pick up a camera and film the rest of the round?

Schedule:

Friday:
Any time: Arrival and war preparation
Night rounds if desired.
Players may spend the night at DX's house if needed (extra beds: 4, floor space: 9+).

Saturday:

Start time: 9:00 AM

<Fill before arrival>

1. OHK (1 hour) - Ambush Field
Duxburian, Chief, CA99
Marauder, Seal, Area51, Tony

<Everyone refills at Staging Area #1 (The Tunnel)>
<Defending Team brings water to Staging Area #2 (The Storehouse)>

2. Escort the VIP (Up to 45 min) - Main Line to Storehouse
Escort your team's VIP from the top of the map to the bottom, if you can't do it in 45 minutes, then you suck :p The end goal is to get the VIP into the storehouse alive. Attackers have unlimited lives, Guards have 3 lives, the VIP has just 1. Ben's nephews are the VIPs for each team.

Duxburian, Marauder, CA99, Area51
Seal, Chief, Tony

<New Attacking team refills at Staging Area #1 (The Tunnel)>
<New Defending Team refills at Staging Area #2 (The Storehouse)>

3. Escort the VIP (Up to 45 min)
Switch sides

Seal, Chief, Tony, Area51
Duxburian, Marauder, CA99

<Everyone refills at Staging Area #2 (The Storehouse)>

4. Unlimited Flag CTF (30 min) - Badlands
This is regular CTF with 2 bases, but without a limit to how many times you can score. We will use something like flagging tape that you can tear into pieces and bring back to your base. You can still only carry one piece at a time.

Duxburian, Seal, CA99
Marauder, Chief, Tony, Area51

<Everyone refills at Staging Area #2 (The Storehouse)>

5. Unlimited Flag CTF (30 min) - Badlands
Switch Sides

Duxburian, Seal, CA99
Marauder, Chief, Tony, Area51

<Everyone refills at Staging Area #2 (The Storehouse)>

6. OHS (1 hour) - Badlands + pond + high line

Marauder, Seal, CA99
Duxburian, Chief, Area51, Tony

7. The Grasslands OHS (1 hour)

Duxburian, Marauder, Chief
Seal, CA99, Area51, Tony

8. Sunset OHK (Until dark or everyone runs out of water) - Ambush Field
Teams are whatever

If we play night rounds at a school, they will be 1 and 2 flag CTF, VIP, and OHK. Seeing as it gets dark around 4:30, we should.

Sunday:

Start time: 10:00 AM

1. Transfer Platform 1 flag CTF (30 min)

Duxburian, Marauder, Alfatrooper, Area51
Seal, Chief, CA99, Tony

2. Transfer Platform 1 flag CTF switch sides (30 min)

Seal, Chief, CA99, Tony
Duxburian, Marauder, Alfatrooper, Area51

3. VIP transfer platforms to Twins (45 min)

Duxburian, Chief, Alfatrooper, Area51
Marauder, Seal, CA99, Tony

4. VIP switch sides (45 min)

Marauder, Seal, CA99, Tony
Duxburian, Chief, Alfatrooper, Area51

5. Light Towers Outpost (30)

Duxburian, Marauder, CA99, Area51
Seal, Chief, Alfatrooper, Tony

6. Light Towers Outpost (30) switch sides

Seal, Chief, Alfatrooper, Tony
Duxburian, Marauder, CA99, Area51

7. Badlands OHK (up to 2 hours)
Duxburian, Marauder, Seal
Chief, CA99, Alfatrooper, Tony, Area51

8. 2 flag CTF badlands until dark if still time and water
Marauder, Chief, Alfatrooper, Area51
Duxburian, Seal, CA99, Tony

Packing List:
Sleeping bag
Sleeping pad
Pillow
Toiletries
Flashlight
Food
Drinks
Light primaries
Medium primaries
Main primaries
Water bottles
Guns to trade/sell
Tools/parts for repairs/mods
Money if we go out to eat
Changes of clothes
CA99 Edit: DRESS WARM lol

Post reserved for pictures of playing areas.

Woods environment after the leaves have fallen? Meh, much better with foliage. I guess that'll all depend on the viability of the buildings we find.

Paine was fun, but isn't the kind of field I'd go crazy over, especially once all the foliage thins out and provides even fewer concealment opportunities than there already are.

How come we can't use the place with the reeds? Is it too much of a drive?

Can you post some pics of the possibilities? Have the Spangs been to any of these sites?

How come we can't use the place with the reeds? Is it too much of a drive?

Umm, cause we've already been kicked out once? That, and the reeds are gone by November. The Seals have seen Waterbridge in November, it looks like that (the towering reed groves revert to wide open space).

Can you post some pics of the possibilities? Have the Spangs been to any of these sites?

They've been to Site #3, I don't think anyone has been to Site #2 yet. I scouted Site #1 over the weekend, it was not ideal. It would be great as an ambushing place right now, but it won't look like that in November. There weren't enough or large enough abandoned features at Cedar Hill. It also lacked good water - the river at that point is brackish and the pond is contaminated with a cocktail of toxic chemicals. I have lots of pictures, but didn't plan on using the site.

The site search continues...

I actually really liked the warehouse we fought at last year, but we would need to break down part of that one wall and change up the games to make things more dynamic. The Foundry was great last year, but I don't think it would be good for 2 days of fighting. There's only so much we can do there, and it's a pretty long hike for all the people that we've got. 1 flag CTF at the site that was further back will be just as dynamic as last year... but it's also nothing new.. and I don't think everyone will want to do that all day long. That site proved rather boring for standard 1hs. Did we play 2 flag ctf? That might work. The closer site was pretty cool, partly for all the mini hills and partly for how cool it looked, but there weren't too many places to hide except columns. Standard 1hs wouldn't be anything special there, and while Outpost was fun it basically plays to whoever has the most players with endurance and lower body strength to get up and down those hills quickly. For me it's just not worth playing there unless we have no other choice. Paine is great, but not with all the foliage gone.

So, I make a recommendation that seems like it's coming from left field. If we can't find another site I think we should spend at least one day at the Factory. Playing at the Foundry last year was more fun, but the replayability of the Factory is much higher. We really didn't tap into its potential. It would require tearing down part of one of the walls and changing game types up so that people are more aggressive. If we somehow end up with 12 people the battlefield would be perfect for splitting up into 4 teams of 3. If we have 9 people (highly unlikely) we could do 3 teams of 3. If 10 or 11 we could do something in between. To make things more interesting we could bring 3 or 4 different colored engineering tapes and make a game where raiding another team's base results in capturing a tape (that can't be uncaptured) worth so many points. It would be very dynamic, and to make it to where everyone doesn't just gang up on one team we could create incentives for trying to attack everyone, e.g. points for each additional teams you raid. Having multiple teams with smaller # of players would also make bottle necks less likely to happen. Outposts at the factory would also be rather interesting.

I'm with SEAL in that I most want to play long OHS games, but if we can't use the brick factory, it's just not going to happen. Dynamic games with multiple objectives at the factory from last year would be much better than playing OHS games in open woodlands or doing the exact same thing we did last year.

What about Letchworth Village? Specifically the power plant. It's very large and you could easily do a 3+ hour 1HS there, along with whatever objective game. There's also a stream nearby so refilling wouldn't be an issue. Some kind of single-sided, multi-flag CTF would be pretty awesome; put like 10 flags throughout the building, and have the attackers start outside, with the objective being to steal all of the flags. Would be pretty intense. I know it's kinda hard to get into, but I think it's possible if coordinated well. I also found an abandoned chemical plant that's pretty close to Letchworth, but I have to check it out because I don't know if it's safe. It looks absolutely incredible though.

I'm actually not 100% sure I can come to this, and if we're just going to waste a ton of time and only play a few short rounds, that'll make it less worthwhile and lower my attendance chances. I'm only really interested in doing longer, more serious, tactical games in epic locations. ESPECIALLY if you guys want to revive the whole rival teams thing. I honestly don't want to do a rivalry round unless it's like all-day (or 6 hours at least) 1HS in either the power plant or the chemical plant if it checks out (my hopes aren't high, but I still want to explore it). Or if you can find somewhere else where a round like that would work. I have to prioritize, and if the war doesn't look like it'll be much fun, I'm less likely to make time for it.

Seriously? This is the one war I can come to all year and your chances of attending decrease if we play something other than long 1hs? Sam is flying in for this and Scott is driving 5 hours. I would think that you'd want to show up at the very least just to hang out with us.

Always making time to explore, but less so for playing? What is this? How often do you get to do this, and then not want to anymore?

All I need are good battle locations, and you guys haven't failed at that's yet. Dug Hill, Legend Park, and Carderock aren't exactly my type, but they were still fun games. I would rather have more night rounds than anything else, and I'll even risk the cold for it.

6 hour 1HS is up to everyone else. I have no preference for or against it at this point; I'll play it if BOTH teams agree to it. Doesn't mean I'll play well, but I'll play.

I need to invest more than a plane ticket with rapidly rising prices at this point. I have to take another PTO day of which I'm running low of this year due to circumstances out of my control. This event is on everyone: we all put our absolute best into it or nothing at all.

Yeah, $%!+ I would make the trip once a year just to watch old war footage, mod/repair, and play night rounds around Rob's house. You know I like "hardcore" battles, but just hanging out is really fun too.

Tony and Danny are not old enough to handle long OHS yet. A couple hours of maneuver war had Tony literally lying on the ground. It would be very one-sided, like the Paine Island round, is that really what you want to play for 6 hours? I would still do it just to prove the point, but my concept of what would take place given the strengths and weaknesses of my team are very different than what I suspect you are envisioning. Just like WB would not engage the RM in pitched battle in lopsided situations, why would I engage you in pitched battle when I have the nephews still very young and not physically capable fighters? You complained about the island the most, when it was the textbook thing to do with young fighters who barely had enough energy to even walk, which is why my team walked so slowly up to the ledges. I had all my weaknesses covered, my vets at the one vulnerable point, and an infinite water supply. What stops people from complaining about a repeat situation, replacing the island with some other impenetrable position like the HVAC suspended on the power plant's ceiling? What else do you expect me to do with the nephews and Sam? You know what will happen in a pitched battle, everyone does. I wouldn't even be able to evade since they can't keep up yet. The only way rivalry works with the people we have at this point in time, is to do objective rounds, CTF, Outpost, etc. where they can make huge mistakes and learn without throwing the game.

Even in a ruleset where nephew deaths don't count, it still severely impacts what my team is able to accomplish during this period of player cultivation. We, as a community, need to develop our young, new, and existing talent in order to play those kinds of rounds in the way that makes them fun. What makes long, serious OHS fun? Well-balanced teams of hardened veterans, able to fight for extended periods of time, ambush and hunt without getting bored, and able to coordinate clever tactics. OHS is an elite gametype, everyone involved has to be good enough to play it, otherwise you get lopsided battles like some we've had in the past. No one really had fun in those, even on the stronger side. Noobs vs vets is an exception, but the outcome of that is expected and it's intended as a learning round despite being OHS. We need to have the patience to train people up or there won't be enough people to support good wars in the future. Nerfers already joke about how close water warfare is to extinction.

The only part of Letchworth we even stand a chance of getting this many people with equipment into is the power plant. It is easy to slip people in from the road with no equipment, but we'd have to bring the soakers in somehow. Walking down a road with soakers on the last 2 days of November is not normal, it's so much different when we have to get soakers into a place.

I know that places like Northgate and the Factory are no longer exactly fresh, but they have proven methods of sneaking a large group in with minimal risk. The factory has the uniqueness of being totally unable to see in from the outside and Northgate has the advantage of being public recreational property. I've been exploring new candidate sites when I can and encourage everyone to, but the clock is ticking on them.

I can guarantee less time will be wasted this war. I've settled into my morning commute routine, which makes it easy to get up (I am out the door by . When I am actually motivated to get up, it's easier to push the other players to.

I think sometimes we have a difficult time distinguishing between being in hardcore mode and just having fun. I have no problem with Tony and Danny's hits being counted against us, but I also see what Rob is saying. On one hand we have the desire to play according to teams, which at least for Rob and I has some nostalgic appeal, and I think for anyone who has ever played on a competitive sports team there are other reasons why we would like this. On the other we want to have the most fun possible. Guys... this is a good problem to have. This isn't a huge dilemma because we will have fun either way. I've said it before, I am huge on "hardcore" battles, but I'll be the first jumping into a pool with a small AP blaster chasing people around with a pool noodle.

Any water wars with friends are better than none. And hanging out with friends that I don't get to see very often trumps just about anything else I could be doing.

Regardless of what DX said, I WILL play 6 hours of long OHS if I have to. I know what it takes, and I'll put through with it or deal with the consequences if I can't train sufficiently in time. But the question is, aside from the nephews, will Scott play it? You have a choice of ditching teammates behind or carrying them; pick one.

Likewise, we will likely push the nephews out of the hobby entirely with such a round, and while we won't accept that happening, we're already putting both of them on our team and accepting the burden of that in order to put up a game.

What are you putting into this? If 6 hours of OHS is so fun and well for you, a 2 hour OHS should be an easy, flawless victory for you. If the idea of your opponents recovering causes problems, you've lost already.

Regardless, SEAL does have a point. What do we do with the nephews? I almost had to carry Tony on the last game, no joke. I offered to a few times to prevent loosing a point and to loose a future player.

Duxburian wrote:Nerfers already joke about how close water warfare is to extinction.

Except for the fact that this is no joke at all.

Edit: Got ninjaposted by marauder. All I have to say is, community water wars taught me well on where to place intensive vs. casual games. I now host all water and nerf war games with friends in the most casual manner possible. Let them pick the loaners, pick the games and rules, and pick when to play and when to stop. I've spent more time playing friends this year than the last 2 years as a result of this, and things have gotten better. My friends aren't into these games so much, so we play as much as they want to, keeping the rules fun and simple. No 6-hour long rounds, no water wars in the woods. I don't even care, because my friends are good players who provide very challenging gameplay for me, so any chance I can get to play games with them is good, regardless of whether it's with Nerf or water blasters. Unfortunately, some of them have very little interest for their skill level.

Play what you can and appreciate it, because if this comes to an end, you'll have little left to do while all the Nerfers carry on their games. I told Scott this same thing. Even if local friends who play don't move away for college, they probably will for a job.

So, to put it in the words of internet gamers: Less QQ, more pew pew.

Edit: In response to marauder's discussion on games:

What do you guys have in mind? At this point, the only higher dynamic/oddball games I'd come up with hinge around objective games.

There's also another game I overheard from a Nerf conversation: Anyone hit has to play for the opposite team! Won't work in rivalry, obviously, but could work elsewhere. Unfortunately, this requires a reasonably limited battle area to work effectively.

As for objective, I'm kind of over it, but I'd be up to attempt some multi-stage attack/defend sort of games. I prefer to limit the number of accessible objective in one stage, so as to not turn the game into too much of a foot race. The spawning system of outpost is too dependent on one's sprinting ability and energy; I've since not liked that game too much. (Although given how much sprinting is required for games to move between objectives, I should've seen it coming.)

Funny thing is that I've played games twice in the last few months. Once with friends, and once to try what I thought was a time-limited demo. After Soakemore this year, I realized how boring games are in comparison and preferred to focus on real experiences.

There is a delicate balance between getting as many people as possible and having hardcore games. I agree that there is definitely a physical limitation that we experience when Tony and Danny play; but don't worry, Tony and Danny won't be driven out of the hobby if we play long OHS games so long as I'm there. They basically want to do whatever I want to do. The biggest problem for them is that they live in a small apartment complex with not much outside space and don't have a car so it's very difficult to arrange being on a sports team or other activities. Danny actually wants to be a sprinter and they worked out some ride arrangements, but he backed out right before school started because he was unsure of himself. I know Rob is really busy now, but I know he'd totally be interested in talking with you about it.

Our hardcore games are much more like Ridgewood than anything else, but as we increase in the number of new players things can get complex. We usually had a pretty good job with everyone at the Vermin Wars wanting to play hxc, but when you have 15 players per team you can afford to split your team into a very physical squad like the Long Patrol and a squad of skilled players with less endurance/speed and use them accordingly. With less than 8 players per team it's typically not a good idea to split your team in long rounds on a good size battlefield, although splitting a team is perfectly fine when playing on a smaller battlefield. With that being said, this has the makings of being one of the greatest attended community wars since Hydropocalypse. There's already outside interest from old members, friends, and people in the NIC; and that's something to be excited about.

Sorry for the tangent, but the point is that our ultimate objective is to have as much fun as possible, and sometimes that means adjusting. Rob and I want to play using the rivalry teams. Brandon and I want to play long OHS games. This just may not be the best war for that, but it doesn't mean that it will be less fun. Think of all the good battles we've had that weren't long OHs or 1hk. The first CTF game that we ever played was one of the most epic battles of all time. There is a time and place for everything and perhaps we would be better off playing lots of CTF during the day and OHS at night. Brandon and I can still get in our OHS or 1hk fix and we can have plenty of stalking under the cover of night, but Tony and Danny won't have to run as far, and there will be a lot more action. Sam has a point about Outpost, although I still think it's fun. If a majority agree with Sam then perhaps we'd be better of nixing Outpost in favor of more CTF, another objective round, or even 1hk. I really like the idea of a raiding game where you have to steal something from another team's base. Kind of like capture the flag, but you can raid a team multiple times, and there are more than 2 teams. Also, perhaps this would be another good war for veterans vs newer players, with so many potential outsiders showing up. Or we could play something else similar like North vs South (counting Maryland for Dixie). The South would probably still be outnumbered, but we could use larger guns. That would give us some cool team dynamics and mix things up without having Tony and Danny, and maybe some of the friends and nerfers worn out. There are so many good potential games we could play.

CA99 wrote:There's also another game I overheard from a Nerf conversation: Anyone hit has to play for the opposite team! Won't work in rivalry, obviously, but could work elsewhere. Unfortunately, this requires a reasonably limited battle area to work effectively.

We played this at night at Hydropocalypse and it was a ton of fun.


Here's an idea of what we could end up playing. If people like it then we could build off of it. We want everyone to have fun. Throw in your suggestions.

Day 1
Single Flag CTF
Single Flag CTF (switch attack/defense)
Last man standing: Every man for himself 1hk, but you gain a life for every opponent you kill to encourage fighting
Rivalry VIP
Rivalry VIP (switch attack/defense)
Rivalry CTF: 1 flag at each base
1hk
Night OHS: North vs South, south gets bigger guns north gets more ppl
Night Outposts
Rivalry Night OHS

Day 2
Rivalry 1hk for potential tiebreaker
OHS playoff: 2 man teams, winning teams move on to face each other, losing teams face each other in consolation bracket
Single Flag CTF
Single Flag CTF
Long OHS
Night manhunt: hiding have 1 life, seeking have 10s respawn; hiding outnumber seeking (e.g. 8 vs 3), 2 potential bases for hiding to get back to in order to prevent base camping by seeking. Zone of 10m around the base where seekers lose infinite lives and becomes 1hk.
Night OHS: vets vs new players
Night CTF

I've played a different variation of nighttime manhunt with friends. It was 1v7, with everyone taking turns being the 1 player. The 1 player got a head start as well. I think a group of 2 could also work for the outnumbered team, but the point is to get the small team/1 person constantly ambushing and seeing how many hits they can get. It's an intense game, and we lost a lot of Nerf darts playing it.

Perhaps I've caught a bad case of negativity from SEAL, but I never quite notice how many eyes we have on us from the NIC. Perhaps I need to resume making videos, but in a format that's faster to edit and place online. I believe there's people out there who are interested in good games in great places, but just haven't been able to find them.

Either way, we have to take what we have, and with the loss of local games, community games are great for filling that up. We don't and can't always play what I want to, but my taste has expanded and I enjoy a wider variety of games now, because of it. There's so much to water warfare outside of long OHS, and I thought we'd all have figured that out by now after Soakemore 2014.

I am very interested in playing with you guys. I will try my best to make it to at least one of the days.

Welcome aboard! Despite all the drama you saw above, we do have our doors wide open to new members to join our games. Hope to see you at the upcoming games.

Welcome to the forum! Do you have any guns of your own or will you need to borrow some? This is going to be awesome.

Jumpin' , I come back from a long day and everybody's exploded. I didn't mean to offend, I swear.

Okay, first of all, I am a lot more busy now than I was before. I cannot promise that I will be free whenever, because I don't know my schedule this far in advance. I can make time to go exploring because it's on my terms. And actually, I was looking to go yesterday but I couldn't make time, so it's not like I just go whenever I want. Not all of us just sit around all day doing nothing while waiting for the next war. Nobody gets their pants in a bunch when wetmonkey or Belisaurius say they can't come. I will definitely try to make it, even if for just one day. If I have nothing going on then of course I'm going to come (you think I'd just decide not to go?).

What is the difference between playing one continuous game for six hours from playing several shorter games over six hours? Hell, if anything, a longer round would be slower-paced most of the time. It's mostly stalking and sneaking around vs. running and jumping around. Unless we're just planning to play like one round every two hours, in which case I think we need to view the war in a different light. It would be more of a get-together, where the fighting isn't the main focus. We could just go places and f*** around, get wasted, just having fun, and occasionally busting out the guns. Kinda like we did Sunday night at Soakmore this year. That was a hoot.

Casual rivalry rounds just don't work for me. I thought the whole point of having two teams was so we could fight large battles (where each war is one whole battle) that we could plan out for weeks ahead of time with our teammates. Not just doing the same thing but with fixed teams. It just takes the whole competitive edge out of it for me. If you still want to do that then whatever. I don't really have much time to come up with battle plans anyway.

Are we cool?

Alfatrooper: Welcome to WWn! You're from the NIC, right? I think I've actually met you before. Were you at NENO in August? (Edit: Oh, it was July.) Would be awesome if you could come.

Yes, I am a nerfer, and I was at the July and September NENO events. I also remember you. I will try my hardest to come but I may have family issues. I may need to borrow blasters but at the moment I am going to try to buy old water blasters from my neighbor. Thank you all for your warm welcome to the community.