So what happened?

[Peaches]

When I first started playing Airsoft like 10yrs ago the PNW was a power house in the country, I mean I remember for Steel Talon that Top put on people came from Kansas to partake in that event, so what happened in the community that made the PNW airsift scene peter out? BTW since we are on the topic, any one know how to get ahold of Fred so I can get pics of Steel Talon?

[Rentax]

Great question, 10 years ago the PNW community was big, our events were getting great recognition both locally as well as throughout the world, things seems to be going well. There was just one small hitch, we had a number of old guard members who were becoming very jaded, they had no time for new player questions and failures. They were less interested in maintaining a community and more interested in shitting on everything and everyone, and if it didn't fit into their ideal box of "this is what airsoft is" then they had no time for it.
It became increasingly hard to get and keep new members here on AP and then facebook happened.
AP was the community hub for all things airsoft in the Pacific NW, but with Facebook it's a one stop shop, you could connect with people who share the same interests as you, and you didn't need then to even be in your community, you didn't need another login and password, and learning BBcode was a thing of the past. New players aren't shamed for asking dumb questions, that a simple search feature could have taken care of the task, and eventually the old guard also moved on. There are a few of us still around who remember the "good old days" and everyone now and then a discussion about games, gear, or the other pop up on the forums, but it's not like it was. Games are cross posted here and on facebook, and because the community is now on facebook, its more like "community on demand" You don't have to be a part of it to participate, you just have to show up, pay your money, get you gun on and go home...
It's a sad way to exist, but it's where we are.
there are a few people who are looking to make some changes and try and drum up a newer better community, but for some reason there is resistance... but we wont stop trying.

[Peaches]

Facebook can only be blamed for so much. Is their less interest in airsoft in general?

[Rentax]

No, interest is higher than ever, Facebook essentially replaced AP as the place to go to get information, but because facebook is so centered on and catered to the individual looking at it, the community struggles to get any real meaningful involvement from the newer players. They have their micro communities, and don't have interest in becoming a part of the whole. To be clear, I'm not attempting to "blame Facebook", I'm merely suggesting that the world we lived in when AP was at it's hay-day, has a different set of values than the world we live in now, and some of what we see now has a lot to do with how people are interacting with each other on facebook.

I'm also not writing this as a passing thought, I have been an active member of AP since 2005. I watched AP grow, was here through It high points, through the dark times, and out the other side as AP was purchased and is now under new management. I have been a player, a host, a member of several local teams, and am an advocate for community growth. I have been a part of many conversations on this topic with community individuals as well as attending community events where we have talked in length as a group about the community at large and how to attract a more active members into our ranks... I'm not looking to lay blame on any one or anything, it's just where we are right now...
This is what happened.

[Variable]

Besides the technical/media problems there's been a shift in *where* games happen and thus what kind of games happen. 10 years ago it was the norm for people to put together fairly big games in National Forest space and now, pretty much just paintball parks and such. Fear of litigation is a thing.

[Nocte]

10 years ago it was the norm for people to put together fairly big games in National Forest space and now, pretty much just paintball parks and such. Fear of litigation is a thing.

Pretty much this, combined with too many folks trying to cash out by selling tickets to a market with a time limit. High school kids graduate and move away for college. Guys in their 20s eventually start a career or a family and run out of time/space/energy. Some paid games were little more than skirmishes held at a field and the host was just a gatekeeper with a cash register to grant access. All the BLM land ran out and there were no other places to play at, so airsoft became a baby-sitting service for a younger and younger crowd, who don't tend to play fair, and only encouraged those with one foot out of the door to move on. Indoor mil-sim airsoft (outside of special events) was a lost cause for insurance and space - there was never enough (mil-sim) players willing to hit the same facility week after week that would generate the revenue to break even, much less profit.

[Wris1997]

The building relationships with other growers in your area you can learn from their experience while gaining insight into current issues and trends.

[dom186]

Wow it’s sad to see this community slowly fall apart. One of the big reasons I stopped participating in the community was so many older guys and some vets treating young people such as myself (at the time) like shit. I’d ask questions or get excited and show my new gear. One of several confrontations with these jerks was when I showed off my new the Magpul AFG when it came out just to be totally shat on by an older marine guy and resulted in several back and forth replies. Basically just got publically shat in and nobody came to my defense because this person happened to be pretty well known with the community leaders. Turns out they were wrong and Magpul was onto something and there’s been advancements in weapon handling from then, but you can’t convince a desert storm marine vet that there might be better methods than just holding the mag well. Later I was pulled aside at a game by a friend telling me I should stay in my lane because they were afraid I could get banned from attending events or from the forum for standing up for myself and not taking shit from older dudes. It’s sad they decided to create toxic culture and push out people with their impatience and who were trying new things, even something as simple as a freaking grip, how insanely stupid. Whatever, can’t say I’m surprised people started leaving nobody wants to be talked down to like that or treated like shit just cause some old guys are ego tripping.

[Blue]

I feel like It's a combination of a bunch of things. The attitude of some of the older players some elitist attitudes in conjunction with the invention of FB drove fresh players off to new communities. In part because it was easier, but also because they felt ostracized from a hobby they were enthusiastic about and then got shit on by the older players. The rise of the You tube "You Burned my patch", "Headshot montage" and "Airsoft fight" videos did nothing but hurt the Airsoft community as a whole.

What do you think is easier to scroll through text in either FB or a forum or watch videos of how people are depicted as playing. A lot of the teams that used to host games have disappeared and games for the most part have defaulted to people who own property hosting games. I feel hosts have mostly gotten complacent of correcting bad behavior. I tried to host two Carlton Skirmishes and first one no one showed up. The second one three people showed up. It is kind of crazy to me no one wants to show up to a free/ 5 dollar donation game. It shows just how splintered we are.

[Tian Nam]

Well, here I am. 29 years old laying in my bed in Orlando, Florida randomly thinking about what happened to Airsoft Pacific. Very interesting seeing how Airsoft has evolved and reading the comments here. I remember being in middle school/high school going to games all the time. I was so proud and thankful to be living in the PNW during the height of Airsoft and proud that it was one of the premier places to play.

Since then I lived in Utah and got back into Airsoft in 2018 with a few buddies. Their community was pretty big and dedicated, but all based on Facebook groups. Events were fun but never as crisply organized and executed as AP events and Ops back in the 2000s. Now I’m in Florida and haven’t had the opportunity to go to any games but have joined a few Facebook groups and the community seems to be pretty big with great places to play.

Anyways, it was cool reading some names in this thread like Nocte. I remember guys like Kendodude, K-Bar, Knuckles who were older than me and looking up to them a lot and appreciating letting 15 year old kids join in their games. I’m just happy that got to be a part of my childhood and will forever be grateful for it.

[pdxmark]

I am now 46. I have one(AA) Milsim'ish field now in my area that post a schedule. Sniperzden seems to have fallen off. My favorite field layout is in Lebanon at The Swamp, an hour and 15 minute drive south. I will only go there once or twice a year now due to having more responsibilities. OA indoor is a 25 minute drive to my west, I go about once a month. Good workout, wish it were closer to me, don't care if my opponents are more agile(younger). Everyone calls their hits when I go, I've seen no blatant cheating since the crowd has dwindled by more than half over the last two years.

In August I was camping in NE Washington. Had found on the net there is/was a game at Nitehawk Paintball & Airsoft. The only field around here with that much cover going on is The Swamp, but it's a MUCH BIGGER field. The two towns are massive big. Met the owners grandson who is an Afghan Vet. Him and his friends are great guys. Soldered my wires when they separated from the deans plug. I have that place on video at my channel. FUNN!

I don't use FB, so I don't know the extent of just how declined the channels of airsoft event and community shaping has done over there. Though, I knew close to a decade ago that FB was going to be a primary tool of division.

Since the 'big scam', 80% of the people I know that made up the group of gun-gamers of the Portland-Vancouver area, that play(ed) indoor and outdoor(almost religiously), have dropped off airsoft, and/or their internet presents on Instagram, and including the few of them that only used the forums. About 15% of those truly addicted gun-gamers jumped to speedball(another one of my loves) because the love of gun-gaming, and more fields and teams to play against. Thunder-Dome gave our area the taste of an indoor urban environment, but the scam closed that! And, it's likely with how expensive insurance and space is in Oregon, that a complex four to six times the size of our current one is unachievable. The realities of the situation with the dollar do not provide incentive for future indoor battlespace infrastructure.

Two fields I can go to in my area, the obstacles in the environment are situated so that people who know how to set up their AEG's and gas-blow-backs are going to set up their platforms to shoot .28-thru-.36 nice and straight, while renters buy a gun, then get frustrated with its OEM build quality and lack of performance after going to three games and getting blasted, watching their BB's fly other than straight. Then to find out that a lot goes into getting an AEG or GBB to work well, and many don't have the space to shoot for tuning. Where they can just buy a paintball gun and the accuracy is close to the same as everyone on the field; unless their barrel is garbage. Though, the smart buy a CCI pump gun and dominate the field.

Am I ranting... Yes!

September 16th, after not playing an indoor game for almost 7 months because of schedule and other things, I went to the only indoor on a Friday night. Threw down an insta that I'd be there looking for a fight from 4pm to 8pm. I have over 170 players from my area getting notifications form me. It's the 24th and only 6 people in my area have scrolled over the post on either my profile, or over the #portlandairsoft & #oregonairsoft hash(thank you analytics). Insta was the main connection for getting people together to play indoor going back to 2016. And people that played outdoor too gave attention to those hashes. Not so much now?

One thing that is nice, the only indoor of the area is going to move the kids games into another section of the complex, so there will be more schedule time for airsoft...

I'll come back and add more later, few chores to do.

[Norseman]

I am now 46. I have one(AA) Milsim'ish field now in my area that post a schedule. Sniperzden seems to have fallen off. My favorite field layout is in Lebanon at The Swamp, an hour and 15 minute drive south. I will only go there once or twice a year now due to having more responsibilities. OA indoor is a 25 minute drive to my west, I go about once a month. Good workout, wish it were closer to me, don't care if my opponents are more agile(younger). Everyone calls their hits when I go, I've seen no blatant cheating since the crowd has dwindled by more than half over the last two years.

In August I was camping in NE Washington. Had found on the net there is/was a game at Nitehawk Paintball & Airsoft. The only field around here with that much cover going on is The Swamp, but it's a MUCH BIGGER field. The two towns are massive big. Met the owners grandson who is an Afghan Vet. Him and his friends are great guys. Soldered my wires when they separated from the deans plug. I have that place on video at my channel. FUNN!

I don't use FB, so I don't know the extent of just how declined the channels of airsoft event and community shaping has done over there. Though, I knew close to a decade ago that FB was going to be a primary tool of division.

Since the 'big scam', 80% of the people I know that made up the group of gun-gamers of the Portland-Vancouver area, that play(ed) indoor and outdoor(almost religiously), have dropped off airsoft, and/or their internet presents on Instagram, and including the few of them that only used the forums. About 15% of those truly addicted gun-gamers jumped to speedball(another one of my loves) because the love of gun-gaming, and more fields and teams to play against. Thunder-Dome gave our area the taste of an indoor urban environment, but the scam closed that! And, it's likely with how expensive insurance and space is in Oregon, that a complex four to six times the size of our current one is unachievable. The realities of the situation with the dollar do not provide incentive for future indoor battlespace infrastructure.

Two fields I can go to in my area, the obstacles in the environment are situated so that people who know how to set up their AEG's and gas-blow-backs are going to set up their platforms to shoot .28-thru-.36 nice and straight, while renters buy a gun, then get frustrated with its OEM build quality and lack of performance after going to three games and getting blasted, watching their BB's fly other than straight. Then to find out that a lot goes into getting an AEG or GBB to work well, and many don't have the space to shoot for tuning. Where they can just buy a paintball gun and the accuracy is close to the same as everyone on the field; unless their barrel is garbage. Though, the smart buy a CCI pump gun and dominate the field.

Am I ranting... Yes!

September 16th, after not playing an indoor game for almost 7 months because of schedule and other things, I went to the only indoor on a Friday night. Threw down an insta that I'd be there looking for a fight from 4pm to 8pm. I have over 170 players from my area getting notifications form me. It's the 24th and only 6 people in my area have scrolled over the post on either my profile, or over the #portlandairsoft & #oregonairsoft hash(thank you analytics). Insta was the main connection for getting people together to play indoor going back to 2016. And people that played outdoor too gave attention to those hashes. Not so much now?

One thing that is nice, the only indoor of the area is going to move the kids games into another section of the complex, so there will be more schedule time for airsoft...

I'll come back and add more later, few chores to do.

I was the one who introduced Dale (Nighthawk) to Airsoft.

Look, the Pacific Northwest model of Airsoft WON? Milsim West IS Pacific NW Airsoft…. I used to Namsoft with Josh and Brian. They along with Jason simply picked up where PSAC left off. Which was John and ScottJ.

Operation Gallant Saber 2 was the first milsim large scale game I’m betting in the country. GS1 was cool but not to the same scale. Using blank fire, in this case a M2 propane fired MG on a M3 Scout car was a first there. And a APC too!

What do I see that changed? We have splintered. In the day I knew most airsofters from Seattle to Portland to Missoula. I also see paintball creeping in. Airsoft mainly plays at paintball fields and runs modified paintball rules. That’s because of insurance. There is also event insurance. Like civil war re-enactments. This is better insurance for milsim but doesn’t lend itself well to a week to week field.

I miss all of the friendships. I miss one regional event a year everyone goes to. I miss milsim. Or immersive Airsoft that requires more of you than just firing your rifle. Teamwork, tactics, higher higher on the other end of a radio, etc.

Every serious Airsoft game should have a command structure and some training at the beginning. Some patrol work, hand and arm signals and some radio protocols. Slowly as a community we will suck less. And it will also weed out the paintball style player. That doesn’t want participate in that stuff.

Im 52 and have a bad back. That stops me from going to Milsim west events. If I was younger that’s where I would be. But there is still room for regional milsim games! And maybe growing a milsim community that can’t travel to big events.