Board history

[deathbydanish]

I got bored late one night and decided to peruse the boards. When I saw barely anything new posted, I was about ready to just close the tab in Firefox. But I figured maybe I'd look through some old posts and see what gems I could dig up. The first person I saw online just happened to be Paco so I went through his profile and went to his oldest posts.

What I didn't realize was that his posts stretched all the way back to 2001, when AA was on a different board system altogether. It was pretty interesting seeing what AA was like back then, as I looked through the posts it appeared that AA's membership was barely 40-50 people when everything first started up. Eventually the membership began to boom and more bandwidth was required every month.

What was more interesting was all the talk about an op called "Crimson Dunes", apparently Mikey went to it and it turned out to be a dud. Also I was surprised to see that Lion Claws I didn't have very many if any Arizona players attending it. Of course afterwards, AA became regulars at the John Lu ops.

It was also very interesting to see a different set of regulars posting, guys like Ninja,Harley, and Legs. I also remember seeing a lot of the current regulars and their initial AA posts, I remember seeing MAD SARGE's intro post as well as seeing azsarge just getting into airsoft before he joined the Army.

To me at least it seemed like everything was more light hearted, I didn't see very many outright arguments back then, if at all. It looks like the smaller size of the community enabled everyone to know everyone both online and offline.

[Vince]

The mean age of the board was higher.

The signal-to-noise ratio was better.

[XavierMace]

The mean age of the board was higher.

That seems to be the fall of most airsoft boards.  ASR has a few good older members (plus the mods/admins), but 95% of the people on there are 12 years olds who think Cyma is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[deathbydanish]

It was only until 2006 that I started to see a lot of controversial threads regarding minors in airsoft. Then Paco's posts started to taper off, the only reason I even know he exists is because I had to ask him a few questions when I first joined up and more recently about the boards and the old AA store.

[seanm028]

I seem to remember that when I started coming to the forums about 2-3 years ago, I was really afraid about the age limit.  Somewhere when you're signing up, it says (or used to say) that you have to be 18 to join and I was almost paranoid about getting banned if I stepped out of line, since I "technically" wasn't supposed to be here anyway.

Maybe a little extreme, but at least it kept me from posting whenever I felt like it.  (Although I did what you did and looked back at my oldest posts - wow.  I had forgotten about all that.  It's a good reminder for when I want to criticize the younger people for making stupid posts.)



On a different note but still speaking of board history, does anyone have any screenshots or archives of the old forums?  I remember when the switch was made that the new forums looked a lot different, but I have no recollection of how the old ones looked.  I'm curious.

Edit: Did a little searching and found this, wasn't expecting it to be there but it was!  Take a trip down memory lane...
http://web.archive.org/web/20030321151726/www.airsoftarizona.com/forum/default.asp

[Paco]

I'm still here.  

[Farslayer]

Hey Jason!

I started playing (and posting) right after CD.  team FE had just came back and I joined their team.  We went to an ASOC weekend game up in BT....man what a blast!  I was hooked.

I miss the old timers like Harley (john), Poncho (frank) and a few others....heck those dudes are all older than I am!  Now, Vince could be my son.... :x

[Raven1]

Those Were The Good Ol Days!

Now a days I Lurk more than participate and to be honest the level of play at the games isn't where it used to be,,,

[-MAD- SARGE]

Those Were The Good Ol Days!

Now a days I Lurk more than participate and to be honest the level of play at the games isn't where it used to be,,,

Yeah because you stopped being Mark's Mexican Body Armor  

[deathbydanish]

Those Were The Good Ol Days!

Now a days I Lurk more than participate and to be honest the level of play at the games isn't where it used to be,,,

: This sort of makes me feel like AA is going through some kind of Dark Age when you say that. And Paco, early on I noticed you used to play a lot, but I understand that life does happen. Was it just that a lot of the old regulars just aren't around anymore?

[Airsofter1]

Those Were The Good Ol Days!

Now a days I Lurk more than participate and to be honest the level of play at the games isn't where it used to be,,,

: This sort of makes me feel like AA is going through some kind of Dark Age when you say that. And Paco, early on I noticed you used to play a lot, but I understand that life does happen. Was it just that a lot of the old regulars just aren't around anymore?

I dunno about that...  some people always seem to confuse "BS on the forums = BS on the field".  This isn't always so and isn't for me because I choose not to live vicariously through the internet.  I look for the games with the good people and good play.  I may not always find it, but I don't let it bring me down.  I'm not going to set fire to my airball gears because of one bad apple.

I have seen the ups and downs.  I have those come and go and come back again.  I have seen the good and bad growth of airsoft in Arizona since the beginning.  The good being the responsible and die hard few who are into airsofting for more than just the shooting each other part.  And the bad being those that are just into the shooting each other part.

Sure some of the old regulars have disappeared from the scene, it can't last forever for everybody.  Some moved, had more kids, work weekends now, or found something else to do with there time.  Airsoft isn't the end all be all past time for everyone.  Their voices were loud and continue to echo on the forums because of the magic of the internets (and the search function).

From my perspective the level of play hasn't changed as much as people have changed.  Old players going out, and new players coming in asking the same question us old timers did.

[deathbydanish]

Yeah I know what you mean, I found equivalent topics for most everything that maybe asked on say the AEG forums. There was even an old "minors in airsoft" thread, of course that one was a lot more civil than the recent ones we've had. It just seems that everyone was more civil (aside from the banter with busta) back then. The only real serious incident I came across was the Ricky/FLASH incident.

[Raven1]

Yeah but I'm talking about the level of committment and enthusiasm as well.  Like when mark and I tried to get the whole US Airsoft thing going.  When any and all were welcome to come hang out with the airballers to do stuff.  Seems like it just became too exclusive and certain circles were formed.  I just remembered how much fun it was to walk out on the field and forget about all else and sling the plastic around.  Then sit around after scenarios and guys would ask how they got dropped and what they could do to not let that happen again.  When people were really into the thinking part of the game as much as the mechanics of play.  The kewl feeling of spending the day with like minded individuals with some true comraderie.  And on the ride home really feeling like you were taking something else home with you because of the company you were in.  That just isn't there as much anymore unless it is a Big Op.

Take it as you will, I love the game, never stopped.  It's a mistress I just can't give up!  I'm leaving for Japan in a couple of weeks and look forward to playing with my boys from First factory.  And EXACTLY What I'm Speaking Of Is What I'm Going To Get There AND I Can't Hardly Wait!  Going Home To Japan, "It's My Mexico,,,,,"

[Vince]

I think that Mikey has hit the situation on the head. I have been on this board for a long time and, like with anything that gets bigger and more popular, things changed. For the better, and for the worse.

You can apply the paradigm of more people equaling more problems to pretty much anything. Countries, schools, roads, airsoft.

Unfortunately, airsoft is no longer the strange, underground hobby it used to be, and along with that increased visibility comes exposure and popularity, almost universally for the worse.

To have expected this forum and community to stay 'as good' as it was is unfortunately, an unrealistic fantasy. Again, nothing that gets popular and big is ever as good as it was when it was unknown and small. McDonald's, In-n-Out, hopscotch.

It's not all darkness and emo though, there's new stuff that's good too...I disagree with Hector, I think games have generally gotten better, with a higher skill level as time has gone on. It seems that only the forum has really atrophied, where as games have gotten better. Turnout is better, the camaraderie is there, and the fun is there. I enjoyed the couple of BT games I went to in 2004. I don't think anybody played more than me in 2005. I played a lot in 2006 too. The quality of games has been on an upturn. We have our dry spells, like the summertime, but when it's good, it's good.

Airsoft is still fairly like pizza, with even the bad airsoft still being pretty good.

[Raven1]

Mmmmmmmmm  Pizza!

Then lets get some more local games going and have a 'hot list' of sorts by either email or txt messaging so we all know what's going on.  I don't live on the computer and find it hard to stop in a few times a day everyday.  I wish I had your schedule Vince, that would be really sweet,,,