I truly had an awesome time in the field this year. So many things set 2008 apart from the rest, it's impossible to list all the highlights:

- HvZ @ conn coll was wicked twice this year, half my House played in the fall.
- Effeminate battles with zombies - they actually cut the power in Park House to lure humans out of their rooms. Hallway battles in Morrison, Branford, sieges of Lazarus, Cro, Fanning Hall, and Harris were no less intense.
- Realizing the potential of HvZ players to form a real group with regular wars.
- Co-hosting an awesome war in the state of Connecticut, something not done for as long as I can remember.
- Becoming one with the Maxshot and killing more proficiently than ever before.
- Gem shot of the year: A seemingly impossible arced shot fired from the top of a cliff that cleared the entire ravine and hit my target in the hair on the opposite hill.
- 4 wars in a 3 week period.
- Hallways, stairwells, stone ruins, sheer cliffs, open fields, dense forests, light forests, rocky forests, 2008 had more terrain variety than ever before.
- Meeting cool new people on the field of battle in 4 states, from New London CT to Coplay PA.
- Target practice on Echnalaid at BCNO.
- The double playground battle at BCNO was wicked while it lasted.
- Apoc having huge turnout for the 2nd year in a row - it's grown more than 3fold since my first one.
- ORANGE TAPE - 'nuff said.
- Keefer's storied and dramatic personal life.
- Dave's antics at ECNO, especially the craps between nearly every round.
- NO BEES showed up at BFNYII.
- Nightshift's got the best Outpost game around.
- Community-wide advances in modding and homemades.
- New members stepping up and promoting the hobby.

Cons? Fuck 'em!


Aims for 2009:

- Build up Conn's nerfing base - currently around 15, but potentially over 50 people who already like to play, but don't know there's organized wars.
- Host regularly out of New London and convert Connecticut from a backwater to a hot spot.
- Get a car in order to attend more wars further away.

December:
[url=http://nerfhaven.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=24595] 14th [NY] Tristate War[/url]

90' level? You called it "decent range" in the first sentence and then later stated 90', which is way more than "decent" for a modded gun. Many people here would believe 70', but not 90' without some solid proof.

Additionally, I will state again that there is no such thing as an "accurate gun." Accuracy is a user-based stat in Nerf. Real guns can factor in non-user based accuracy variables due to recoil, but Nerf guns have very little recoil. What recoil is present can be controlled by an experienced user, or not controlled well by a novice, which would make it appear that the gun is inaccurate. But if you really take the time [10 seconds] to think about it, the user is making the gun accurate or inaccurate. You control how well you aim, how you hold the gun, etc. The gun only fires the darts. You have all the control of where it fires the darts. It is kind of like using a video or digital camera. The camera is not causing a blurry image/shaky footage, it is you.

I really think "accuracy" does not belong as a universal stat, like other true gun-based stats like range, because of the above reasoning. No one seems to challenge the accepted, if the accepted appears to be flawed, and I don't understand why. Same for the lack of widespread and progressive innovation. There could be a lot more homemade designs out there if people took the time to come up with unique designs out of general interest to advance the current technology. Also, instead of building exactly what is posted, people should improve on those designs to suit their own local wars and conditions.

How much has this really been stress tested?  I wouldn't recommend anyone use a 3D printed 4B trigger until they've put it through thousands of shots of testing in cold weather as well as warm.  I honestly don't think these will last a year.

It works the same way you would normally return carbonated soda and beer bottles.  Most grocery stores have a room marked "Bottle Return" or Bottle Deposit" near the entrance doors (outside the store itself).  In 2016, it's all automated with machines for different types of bottles, it will say what each one is for.  Simply insert the bottle, the machine spins it to read the information, and then it is either accepted and crushed or rejected and returned to you.  When you are done, the machine prints a receipt.  Collect the receipts, head into the store, and redeem them at the customer service desk.

Depending on the store, you can get an attendant to accept some of the rejects, as well.  They are more likely to do this if their store sells the brand that was rejected.  If you have brands that aren't sold in New York, they will probably be rejected (out of state bottles cost the store money).

Credit Unions work *if* you live near their few branches. The best one in my county is a 40 minute drive without traffic. The only credit union with a branch within 20 minutes has worse terms than my community bank. I haven't tried to use Coinbase with my community bank, yet.

Personally, I'd only take BTC through Ripple, for its 2-5 second clears, ability to trade in/out of BTC in the same amount of time, and substantially lower TX fee. I'm not sure if the Bitcoin Bridge is still functional, but there used to be one where you could send BTC directly to a Ripple address.

The problem with paypal (in my experience) is that people who have never used it before often make mistakes and send payments that have fees attached for the seller. This can be a hassle in many cases, as it takes longer to complete a transaction.

This is NOT a mistake. If you send a transaction as a gift "for friends and family", that transaction is irreversible. If something goes wrong with the transaction, the buyer is now out their money, you can't file a case for that. You can't demand that people send as a gift unless they really trust you. If 2.9%+$0.30 is that big of a deal, just build it into the item price or draw it from extra funds in your self-insurance fund (because you are self-insuring, not relying on carriers' near-worthless shipping insurance, right?). Paypal's fees are slightly annoying, but there are things it doesn't charge for that others do and lacks some limits that others impose, like minimum transfer/withdrawals.

Paypal's cashback debit card should not be overlooked. You can use it to ATM your money out of Paypal as cash, which you can then spend or deposit into your bank account. If you can find a free/in-network ATM, this is the fastest and best way to make your Paypal balance usable (don't have to wait 3-5 days to ACH it to your bank).

I had to send in scanned copies of my drivers license and birth certificate or something in order to verify my identity. I'm not sure if they still do this, but I remember it being a pain in the rear.

It was never like this. If you live in the US, there is automatic/instant eVerify. Nobody needs to send documents, if you have a phone and a bank account, you can get a Paypal account in seconds.

A small con I just found is that venmo does not do international payments.

Small? That's a major con. More than half of my transactions are international. US buyers have falling disposable income, while many international buyers don't know what to do with all of theirs. There's a small export boom going on now that companies across the country are slowly realizing this. We're going to crash really hard if the current business model continues much longer. Firms are trying to squeeze too much profit out of what they can in the short run and are screwing everyone's long run prospects. Increasing salaries and wages are not matching increasing profits. Something like 70% of our economy relies on consumption, but consumers aren't getting enough disposable income. No income, no consumption, no economy. That's not politics or even economics, that's common sense. We can expand manufacturing, have the government spend more, pay people more, or export. I don't see the first three options happening, so it's not surprising that more and more people are exporting. It's a symptom of a serious problem looming in the future.

You need access to those international markets unless you're in an industry that services the wealthy or provides something that people always need and will prioritize paying for. Obviously, this is beyond the scope of a payment processor for Nerf blaster sales, but it's relevant in that businesses and individuals alike, are all looking for the best processors with the lowest fees. Everyone collectively decides why something like Paypal rises or falls, so you have to look at the big picture or you'll just be swinging away at a whole forest with one axe and wondering why it doesn't fall. They care more about businesses anyway, try calling Paypal customer service and find out how much you matter as an individual.


If you really want no fees, use Payeer, which has free Payeer-to-Payeer transactions and can't freeze your funds. Nobody other than Russians and eastern Europeans really use Payeer, though.

There are the cryptocurrencies, which require a greater degree of trust to use since all of their payments are irreversible. Bitcoin sounds like a good idea until you try to convert it to USD (try to Coinbase BTC to USD and deposit it to a linked bank account, you will get warning letters from pretty much every major US bank, they hate it). Then, there is Ripple. You can send anything of value as payment on the Ripple network for a TX fee around $0.0001, but getting an address and a gateway account up and running is even more of a hassle than Paypal. The problem there is that trust governs value, so you can have the same asset, but at different values because one gateway is more trustworthy than another, so its USD is worth more than another's.

That's something important to bring up, once in digital form, USD are not all worth the same value. The most trusted sources with the widest acceptance have the strongest values. Because USD.Paypal can be used online, in credit card terminals, and ATMed as cash, it has one of the highest acceptance rates and among the highest demand. If you ever need to use a money exchanger, you will quickly find that they categorically shun US service, so USD.Paypal might be the only thing you can use in trade.

TL/DR: Unless something drastic happens, Paypal is not getting replaced. We're the informed users, too, the less informed ones definitely aren't moving. Most of the users on this site won't be able to move to a different processor even when informed, due to trust issues or parental control of/influence on, their finances.

How consistent is the ID of PEX? Other than its cheap cost and widespread availability, CPVC's main advantage is its wild variability in ID. It's possible to fit all size variants of micro dart foam (fattest beige to light blue to stock foam to thinest gray) using just CPVC. If a Nerfer can't find/afford brass, aluminum, PETG, etc. for the wider fits, they can use magic CPVC in its place. All the PEX I've encountered was really tight. I've found that versatile barrels are better - a wide one allows you to shoot every dart on the field. The looser darts won't shoot *well*, but they will suffice when you are running out and need to scavenge while holding off multiple opponents in the late game. Using wider darts as your main supply also lets you use wider weights (like #8 washers) without exposed metal and less problems with melting the sidewalls out when putting in hot glue. Obviously, everything is personal preference, but those tight barrels that only take thin foam really limit players for no good reason.

If Tim's ok with it, we can try out some of these things tomorrow. Since BCNO rounds are so fast, it's a good testing ground.

It's great to have NH back, thanks for fixing it.  When NH goes down, modding goes back to 2005...the social media groups and channels are NOT a replacement for NH guides and write-ups...

I might be able to make it, since I will be in Massachusetts on the 19th. However, Chatham might be a bit too far. I'll also be in Boston, Norton, and Duxbury at various times, so whether I can come really depends on the timing of other day trips. If it turns out that I can indeed make it [might as well flip a coin], there's a good chance that I could also bring a pair of friends.

I personally would sell them now, but it really depends on your age. I haven't played Magic in 6 years and no longer have any cards. At least here, no one in my age group really plays Magic anymore.

I did search my friend said that he had a account on nerfhaven and I know it had the word squid in it and alien versus squid was the thing that I thought I remembered him saying.

Well, if the name is not on the member list, then it doesn't exist. Simple as that. I wouldn't continue if I were you, you're only digging your own grave. Quoting myself:

the best thing to do is to stop responding. [I realize my post is therefore hypocritical, but the topic is not worth more posts, which usually happens if someone doesn't say something].

There was far too much anger in your first post

Nobody else made a second post here. You do realize that you are being critical of an admin, not the smartest thing to do given the style in which it was presented and the location. Plus, the volume of stupid questions that get posted on this site is a burden on the admins and therefore the will and/or energy to hold back insults/flames/whatever was sapped out long ago. On a perfectly utopian forum, all responses would be polite, and all users would be intelligent. But it simply doesn't work that way. I wouldn't pick apart an admin's style of carrying out their affairs unless they have clearly given that right to common members.

This topic should not have happened in the first place, but we can't do anything about that now, so the best thing to do is to stop responding. [I realize my post is therefore hypocritical, but the topic is not worth more posts, which usually happens if someone doesn't say something].

I suggested that people let the topic die 13 and 15 posts back. Then again, many of the posts were by admins, so those ones are excusable. I'll quote myself a 3rd time:

the best thing to do is to stop responding. [I realize my post is therefore hypocritical, but the topic is not worth more posts, which usually happens if someone doesn't say something].

Well, I did say something, and 15 posts later, maybe people will listen..

UNCERTAIN

My clan is 17-18, is that too young [I know most participants are in college]? We may be young by your standards, but take our wars very seriously. We're the type that will crawl through thornbushes to get in an ambush position or jump down a steep hill to avoid being hit.

The clan is technically 20+ strong, but I doubt I could get many to come, even myself might be a challenge. Depends on how long of a drive it is from Bergen County [have no idea where Mill Creek is]. I also have some homemades, which I assume would have to be cleared before use at the war. I don't have the right size foam for them, so I've only been able to test stock micros.

I'll try to get as many people as possible, if I myself am clear for the agreed date and time.

Just confirming: Sunday, August 6th at 10 AM right? I'm assuming that we will be meeting near that road in the middle of the park on Google Maps.

Status Update for me: UNCERTAIN --> CERTAIN

I'll be in Normandy Beach for that weekend, which is perfect since Mill Creek Park is just across the bay. What times will APOC start and end at?

Seems that we will have perfect weather for this event - cooler temperature, no rain, lower humidity from the front that will be passing through later in the week.

I haven't had much success mobilizing a clan that is 3/4 away on trips, so it looks like I'll be alone. And despite having a homemade, I'm probably still going to need to borrow a good modded gun, preferably one compatable with micro stefans.

Now for the quoted comment above. I'm really not a nice person so I'm just gonna say it; Dux, you have a lot to learn. In my opinion positioning is EXTREMELY important in Nerf. I think the difference is that you're used to taking a defensive position where as in Nerf you want a more offensive position. Cover is great, but you also want to have room to move, dodge, and charge in if the opportunity presents itself. The Horsemen are planning on hosting a war sometime in late September, early October and I'd really like to see you there. We'll put you through the paces and show you how the game is played. If you're really lucky we might even throw you to Vacc and have him show you a few things Piccolo-style.

Oh I know I have a lot to learn. I also should have said positioning is important, but in a different way than I'm used to. A lot of it was the guns. Mavs are totally ineffective against long range guns, and it took me most of the day to get used to a long range gun. I will definately be back, but next time with a Longshot, and/or a crossbow if I can locate one.

That was my first major Nerf war. It was great fun, although it took the better part of the war to get used to single shot, long range guns. My clan and local wars don't have any crossbows, longshots, or the such. I shall now be searching for said guns.

Moving around and darting in and out of the woods was a display of non-Nerf tactics adapted for Nerf. I have a fluid fighting style that I guess needs losing of some of the fluidity. When I would back off or move away, even when not in immediate danger of being hit, that was natural instinct developed from fighting water wars in miles of forest. Positioning appears to not be as important in these wars. In water wars, I use a whole park as a fallback position or an attack approach. EVen with all the intensity, large Nerf wars appear to be very laid back.

Now knowing what to expect in wars like this, I shall be back with a better gun.

LBI is not that far...in fact I made it to last year's Apoc because I was in Normandy Beach instead of at home in Ridgewood.

Confirm me for this year. I don't know if any friends can make it yet.

Flaming and a ban in a war planning topic, and APOC at that? Disgustful.

Anyway, I have marked it on my calendar. The question is not whether I am coming, but how many friends I can convince to come along too.

Is there any chance that someone could give my friend and I a ride back to Bergen County after the war? We have a ride to Deal, but so far no means of returning. Spending the night is not an option, we've got to be back in Ridgewood around 8pm.

Don't take the eye protection recommendation lightly. I'm sure that most of you heard about Nibordude in the first BCNO - a crossbow shot directly to the eye. He's fine now, but he couldn't really use that eye for several days.

I'd just like to say that the masses need not act like idiots between rounds. Just shut up and listen when someone with authority wants your attention. It's that easy, we come to Nerf more than to babble. I'd also like to remind everyone to treat this park with even more respect than your own home turf, if you're like me and haven't ever been to Deal before. Let's not have it look like the aftermath of BCNO, with bottles and shit everywhere.

Popatachi would probably endorse "Bandage" Park.

I won't be able to make it, but I'll see you guys at Apoc.

You are really good at hiding with the camera shadow - not sure how people accidentally shoot you

I almost shot him several times - he kept popping up near me and the camera sure looked like a gun during those moments.

I also figured the credits would be screwed up.

The spelling of my name was...interesting. You have no idea how many people have absolutely butchered my name, but that one was new. Usually its the "urian" part that ends up with extra u's or e's or god knows what. Hence why my name is "DX" - people may not be able to spell "Duxburian" when it's right there on the computer screen, so "DX" makes it easy.

Other than that, great job on the video!

Oh, would any of those converted darts happen to be the ones that Vacc and I kept asking for at the end of each round but never managed to find any of?

I gave you and the piles the ones I found after each round. Many just sat in the piles round after round, I noticed because I'd always look in there, then leave in disgust after not seeing my own darts.

I actually didn't find all that many of yours afterwards, maybe 10-15. I'll return those to you at the next war i am able to attend. It's not my fault that I sweep for darts while others talk.

Edit: "Perhaps hundreds" was an exaggeration - I just counted 137, of which 14 are horsemen darts.

That definitely beat Apoc 06 as the most fun war I have attended.

What went well:

-Surviving a "30v30" round with all of my lives
-Leading a long Staggered Defense in a forest round that saved us from sure death [we nearly won that round]
-Snapping my 9 consecutive rounds of being on the tape team streak
-Representing the LCM after they all died in the Effeminate clan round
-Running circles around Nightshift when they kept saying they should kill me and then send one person at a time
-Picking off someone from Nightshift every ten minutes or so and not dying until just before the whole round was done
-Finding perhaps hundreds of converted darts after the war - I'm easily set for my next three wars
-Not passing out - I was designed for extremely cold weather, not extremely hot weather

What didn't go so well:

-Running down Evil, having my crucial shot miss, and feeling his shot find my neck
-Getting shot in the head during the second Civil War round
-Being careless with my last life in the first forest round
-Missing great opportunities with my wildly inaccurate Longshot

My only suggestion for the next Apoc is to not host it on the surface of the sun again.

I don't particularly care where I get placed. I have a history of getting stuck on the most random teams in Apoc clan rounds...Mass...Ohio...most recently Canada...and I'm the only person from the freight elevator never to fight for a freight elevator team. So wherever works. Maybe resurrect "orange tape" for the 4th team.

@Jigglypuff: You'll only get your ass kicked if you lose your cool. Aim straight, dodge fast, stand your ground defensively, and be aggressive offensively. The formula does not change regardless of who you are fighting. If you come into a round thinking about how badly it's going to play out, well you already lost. Unaligned nerfers tend to do fine...the last survivor of the Ohio team wasn't from Ohio (wink).

Round
1 - 4 Team Deathmatch
2 - Deathmatch
3 - Full Roster Deathmatch
4 - U3 Objective
5 - 4 Team Deathmatch
6 - Deathmatch
7 - 4 Team Deathmatch
8 - Full Roster Deathmatch
9 - Deathmatch



I've got to try just one little round that isn't a deathmatch...and I miss the Great All-American Gorefest.

Benbo231, if you have a souped up Longshot, just use that as your primary. Reserve the Stampede for specific rounds where low range, high ROF would come in handy. It would just make a lot more sense that way. An LS, depending on how it's modded, would be competitive, while you'll have trouble hitting anything with a stampede. Most east coast nerfers use homemades now, you'd be taking a stampede against pumpbows, RBPs, SNAPs, and the such. You can still do it, but it might not be all that much fun.

Any of them also work for me.

Me and clan TBH are ready.

^Your butt holes will be pretty loose after the Twinkies are through with you Clan war anyone? I'm in.

I only jumped into the last picture in that set, which I think was on someone else' camera.

I'll definitely be there if it's a FADDLE BATTLE!

I had to head to my uncle's place to take care of his dogs today/tonight, so I was unable to get more PVC. I only have 18 sticks with me.

^ Can you please bring the remnants of Max?