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[The Infinite Shindig]

Long Range Nerf Wars are as Dead as the Concept of the Nuclear Family, Now Shut Up and Get Over It

Preface:
Shit how do I begin this......you guys are all dicks! No wait that wasn't it......This is my first article on Nerf in quite a while. I have developed a reputation for being swallowed by matter and spacetime itself for a while, coming back guns blazing for a while, rinse and repeat. This I admit. As to the "why" of this, I could yank out a 8x6 foot flowchart describing in detail the effects of "flakyness" and "full time college student", as well as "girlfriend", but none of you give a damn. Therefore, I'm NOT going to make any promises of community involvement this time, I'll just do what I have time for. I guess you'll have to just suck it down and grin. BTW, today (May 28) is my 19th birthday. Thank you, thank you, fuck you all.


Get On With It Already!:
Not since I proclaimed the South Park movie to be the coolest thing since smore pop tarts have I felt so passionately about something. For years local Nerfers I played with, especially those who attended the infamous LANO's knew me as a consummate long range fighter. My heavily modified Crossbow Ph33r (pronounced "fear" for the non-l33tified) commanded the utmost of respect. When I made it, it was the first modified Crossbow of it's kind, with the barrel extension it held the distance record for quite a while, and I bet you anything that even today it's still the most accurate. However a funny thing began to happen......

After a while of doing this I discovered to my horror that I had lost my skills (or, sk1zz0rz), and instead relied on my superior weapon to do the fighting for me. Sure I was still ok, but nowhere near where I used to be, back in the good old days before super modified Crossbows sans rifles. This disturbed me to no end, and I tried to find a cause for it. What I came up with came in a sudden realization about a year ago. I realized that for me, Nerf was just plain not fun anymore. The "coolness" was gone, the "action" was gone, all that was left was competitiveness (I'm not competitive by nature believe it or not), and lameness. "But why?" you ask...well try to imagine (you know, that thing network tv tells you not to do) a modern Nerf war with modified weapons. Everyone's got their modified Crossbows out that can shoot 80 goddamn feet, and what happens? Everyone fucking stands around and picks their asses, that's what happens. In 90% of the wars I've been in that's what happens. Now many of you will say "Oh no, not the way WE play......" like your friends oand you are the fucking lords of excitement and action. My response is yea freaking right. Maybe you all made a little pinky swear that nobody would just stand around and that's just dandy, but toss a bunch of random Nerfers together and they'll be frozen in place like ice cubes when the big guns come out. The reason for this behavior is pretty easy to understand. When you have guns that accurate, long range and hard to dodge, nobody takes any chances. Nobody wants to get hit, and so everyone thinks "I'll just wait until someone ELSE goes" and then like a classic collective action problem, nobody advances. Instead we see the all too familiar back and forth "advance and retreat before I get shot" shuffle. If you call this fun, god help you because this is about as fun as getting your nads caught in a bear trap.

"Stop whining you bitch" you're all probably saying, "if you don't like it then don't play", yea well fuck you. Aside from that, I believe that this kind of stand-off war is and SHOULD be a dying breed of war. Lets face it, as Vacc has pointed out in the past, Nerf will NEVER make a gun like the Crossbow again. They've learned from their mistakes, they browse our web pages, and believe me they'll do whatever it takes to protect themselves. Hell you know that warning on Nerf boxes to not modify the guns? That did NOT used to be there, not until about a year ago. Do you know why it's there now? Because of US. Now then, Nerf has decided that Airjet is the future, and you know what? They're right. The Crossbow is dead. The Lock 'n Load and Sharpshooter 2 are dead. You people who buy a Crossbow off of Ebay for $100 or more dollars are both sad and pathetic. Was the Crossbow a great gun? Absolutely. It was the finest gun of it's time. Notice I said IT'S time......The simple and unpleasant truth is that spring loaded guns, especially easily modifiable ones are no longer going to be made. Stop dreaming, Nerf will NEVER re-release old guns in any recognizable form. Guns such as the Crossbow or Arrowstorm are becoming more trouble than they're worth. They range from difficult too practically impossible to get a hold of, they require extensive modifications and upkeep, and to get maximum range you have to make your own goddamn ammunition. They're simply no longer worth it and it's time for us all to MOVE THE HELL ON WITH OUR LIVES.


Now I'm sure that I'll receive shitloads of "constructive criticism" regarding my previous point, but that's ok. If you choose to ignore the facts that's fine by me but ask yourself this question: If long range heavily modified weapons aren't dead yet, when will they die? They can't last forever......already you can't buy the guns, and already you can't find the ammunition, so that basically screws any new Nerfer. Why keep blasting poor kids with Blast Fires away from 50 feet with a gun so powerful it leaves welts when they have no hope of ever matching your firepower? Is that fun for them? Is it really that much fun for you to be a walking turret? I say no. Do me a favor; try to remember your very first Nerf war. The one that turned you on to Nerf so much that now you're reading this dippy article. It must have been one hell of a fun war in order for you to love it so much, and I bet that in 90% of your cases, there were NO super modified long range weapons. What characterized your first war? Was it standing around behind the corner of a building staring at a guy just out of range and waiting for someone to make the first move, or was it you and you're friends running and diving around, blasting each other with no prejudice whatsoever? I'll bet my magnificent 10 inch penis that it was the latter.


What am I getting at with all this? I'm trying to show you that long range wars the MAJORITY OF THE TIME (there are always exceptions) are just plain not fun and/or boring as shit. Is that why you Nerf? It sure as hell isn't why I started Nerfing all those years ago. So we're left with a quandary. We're all very attached to our precision high power weapons of fishing weight tipped dart death, and it's very hard to relinquish control of the most powerful foam weapons ever seen in creation. But we must. Airjet is the future. Rapid fire is the future, micro darts and close range warfare are the future and do you know why? Not because they're "better" guns, but because first off they're the only ones being made, and second off because they make the war more fun. They facilitate movement and action. Their range isn't too great, so you need to get closer. They have multiple shots so if you miss you don't have to run away. They're sometimes fully automatic because it's oh-so-fun to run by strafing your friends. Many of us oldies who were around back in the first days of Nerf used to long for a truly semiautomatic pistol, or a truly fully automatic gun, because we inherently KNEW the tactical possibilities these would give our wars, we KNEW how much fun they would be. Well guess what? Now we have them...and yet instead of embracing this new technology and reveling in the awesome action you can have with 4 guys with Powerclips, we are simply clinging to our aging creaking spring powered rifles and sidearms, secretly scared to death that if we let go of our weapons, we will no longer be the best. Nerf isn't about being the best. It isn't about whose gun fires the farthest, it isn't about who can pick off a clueless newbie from the furthest distance. Nerf is about fun. Nerf is about getting together with your friends, taking over a house or a park, running around and blasting the unholy hell out of each other. This is why we all started Nerfing, and this is where we have all gone astray.

Conclusion:
So what am I saying? I'm not saying those old wonderful guns were bad, far from it. I'm saying their time has passed, and we all need to let them go. I'm saying the time of stand-off wars has passed, and we need to wake the hell up and smell the butt-juice. Put down your super modified Crossbows, put down your super modified Sharpshooter 2's and LocknLoads, put down your Arrowstorms, and realize the fact that now that Larami is in charge of Nerf gun production, we're seeing some pretty freaking fantastic weapons, and we need to revel in that. Watch John Woo films, THAT'S how Nerf should be......Nerf is not fucking Counterstrike or Rainbow 6, Nerf is not about losing, Nerf is about action. Armageddon 2001 is coming up, and Vacc and his goons are brining their Crossbows, but I'm not bringing mine. I loved using Ph33r, but it's just not fun anymore, I long for action and I long for rapid fire. I'm tired of worrying about losing Stefan darts and I'm tired of spending hours maintaining my guns and hoping to god they don't break. Sure at first I'll get my butt shot off as I charge the Horsemen with my Powerclip, and that's ok, but I bet my toe-jam that after a while, they'll throw down their spring loaded weapons too. It's time for us all to return to Nerf. Not super modified long range warfare, but Nerf, in it's purest and most exciting form. That's why we started playing and that's why we continue to play to this day. That's why no matter how hard I tired, I just could NOT stop Nerfing for very long. Long range stand-off warfare is dead, that is a fact we are going to all have to accept. The old guns were great but they're not around any more, and we need to face the music of Airjet weapons and embrace them for the exciting opportunities they bring to the table. You are all welcome to send me your comments at spoon11@home.com but there's no guarantee I'll actually read and/or care about them. Nerf on or fuck off, and if you're gonna Nerf, Nerf RIGHT godammit.

Spoon