[Janus]

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

It's more popular, but it's also more fleeting of an interest.
In the old days, everyone knew everyone because there was only about 50-200 people in a main community. We all played milsim and scrims, everyone was mostly on the same page. We weren't too hardcore into one or the other. People came and left, but for the most part you'd recognize at least 3/4 of the people at a game for years in a row.
There was more dedication required to start as well, as the cheapest gun you could get was the one everyone else was running and it was $600-$800.

Now it's way more affordable to get into airsoft. You get a $200 gun that's actually half decent, spend $50 on a chest rig, and off you go.
However, we also have way more people dropping OUT of airsoft. People are in it for 2 years, get sick of it and leave.
The people who are in it for just the 2 years tend to love the run and gun pace of basic scrims. And there's nothing wrong with that.
But the milsim crowd is slowly dying off in many places, and unfortunately, milsim really IS what made airsoft great in the first place. The only reason we have vehicles, pyro, huge 300 person games, and actual organization at those 300 person games is because of milsim.

Scrims are great every now and then, but the LARPing is really what keeps people IN. And I think a lot of new people don't realize that.
Maybe there's a reason why someone does it for a year and quits, and some other guys have been doing it for 12 years.

We're running out of milsim, and it's a real shame. Because shooting people is what gets you into the game, but doing stuff OTHER than shooting people is what keeps you in.
You can have the same experience of shooting people in clever ways every weekend, but once you get into night games, and objectives, and organized teams, it's a whole new game.

Eliminating the last few guys on a team in a deathmatch is cool, but single handedly winning the game without ever having to fire a shot is amazing.
Actually 2 of my proudest wins, and coolest games in all my airsoft career were both games in which I never shot my gun.

Agreed. One of my favourite games was one in which I stepped out of the CP just to see what's going on and another was where I fired my pistol like... six times over the entire day.

I think the ability to transition between the technical to the tactical is vitally important because we all love those crazy low on ammo firefights but it is equally cool to see supply lines of reinforcement/replenishment develop.