Milsim Content Rating

[Okto Eight Milsim]

One of the biggest problems with milsims is that an ever increasing number of sites are offering them and the content varies from a skirmish with the word milsim in the title through to the full hardcore 36 hour games run by the likes of Sterling/Tier1/CAG etc.

 

The problem is that its quite hard for the customer to know what they are getting unless they make a detailed study of the game on offer which is both time consuming and not so easy for some people.

 

Some of the milsim organisers have agreed to use a kind of score chart which provides a total rating for any game.

 

It measures the "milsimness" (if that was a real word) of any game and is not a measure of an organiser, the quality of the game, the quality of the location or about how well it's run.

 

Its about CONTENT not QUALITY - the latter being quite subjective.

 

It's not infallible, but it means that skirmishes pretending to be milsims will score low, milsim lites will score mid range and proper/hard core milsims will score at the higher end up towards the maximum rating of ten.

 

We rate 8.5 for Operation Gate Guard, losing points because our games are only 8 hours long on the Saturday and 8 hours on the Sunday and because we don't use a military training facility to host our games.

 

Other organisers that seem to be joining the scheme so far are Airborne Airsoft and Task Force Corinthian.

 

[proffrink]

It's a good idea, but do you not feel there may be some degree of conflict of interest if it's the milsim organisers rating it themselves. Who are these 'some' anyway?

 

Maybe it'd be better to set up some sort of rating systems from players instead. A website could quite easily do such a thing.

[Okto Eight Milsim]

The 'some' are the organisers that have decided to measure themselves and post the rating of their various games.

 

The organisers do the assessment themselves but its against some very black and white publicly visible hard criteria so any player going to a game and finding for example that high cap magazines are allowed when they have said in the assessment that its mid caps only would soon be found out and milsimming is a small world.

 

The problem with player assessments is that its post-game, subjective and as you will see if you ever read reviews for retailers or things like Trip Advisor, they can vary a lot. As we all know, people can also write bad and biased reviews when they dont get their own way or are looking for retribution for some reason.

 

Remember the rating is only about game content not quality.

[proffrink]

Hm, sounds like a reasonable idea in that case.

[Jedi_Master]

Expectations are always difficult to manage. Having been there, seen it, done it, and bought the T-shirt, I hope for more content and quality.

 

I recently went on a milsim lite day at Longmoor run by Airborne Airsoft and personally I found it to be just another outdoor skirmish set on a good site. I would rate that Airborne day as 5/10 for content. There were no special bits of kit, pyro or props used.

 

Having access to a good MoD site is one thing but decent milsim day could be held at The Mall. Instead of team colours (wearing arm bands) the two sides were dressed as NATO in MC/MTP and rebel Vendetta in anything else but it was still a blue team v red team with background story. The event ran for 5.5 hrs without any breaks, and medic rules were in place. However, that was not a lot different from when I went to UCAP Sandpit. Everyone was supposed to use low/mid cap magazines and only have max 600 BBs total on person with any speed loaders and extra BBs kept back at regen, but players did turn up without mid-caps and were allowed to use 2 hi-cap mags instead.

 

Marshalls are key, need to be there to direct flow and add valueto how event is run. The day lacked real game structure, as a milsim I would expect the organisers to use their military experience to provide proper team briefings at start of day and make it feel real.

[Baz JJ]

if it was a milsim lite game then you did well. Some milsim lite games have a lot less. Many milsim lites have hi-caps, armbands and green vs tan. It sounds like you are ready for something more.

[lafta]

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but you contradicted yourself I think.

 

You mention the rating not being based on location, then go on to say you lost points for location?

 

Nice idea though, hopefully you can get a sufficient number of organisers to join in and make it worthwhile.

[Okto Eight Milsim]

Kind of. The rating isnt based on how large or good a site it is, but it does differentiate between using a MOD training environment and just an ordinary airsoft site. A lot of milsimmers like playing on MOD sites. We lost a point because we dont use MOD sites. Ironically our site at Tuddenham is an ex RAF airfield which was decommissioned in 1963.

 

The number is growing, Its only being used on a milsim group on FB at present, but organisers may use it generallly if it clears the mists of confusion.

 

 

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but you contradicted yourself I think.

You mention the rating not being based on location, then go on to say you lost points for location?

Nice idea though, hopefully you can get a sufficient number of organisers to join in and make it worthwhile.

[proffrink]

Seems like slightly bonkers criteria to knock a point off for MoD sites - who on earth thinks they don't just do a lot of their training/shooting naughty people in a woods/desert/open field somewhere rather than a load of buildings or training areas? Madness.

 

Your mention of people just self-rating themselves seemed like a better idea, but maybe logistically that wouldn't work as well as a set of rules. Issue is, who decides what attracts the more hardcore milsimmers and therefore what the criteria should be? I certainly wouldn't see playing at an MoD site to be any more impressive (milsimmy) than a properly run patch of woodland or anywhere else.

 

I can't help but feel as an outsider that I'd be more focused on the rules and objectives than the setting.

[Okto Eight Milsim]

Dont know how that game would have scored using the MCR format, but if it only scored a mid range score out of ten when it was posted by the organiser, would it have made you think twice about booking ?

 

In fairness to Airborne they did assess themselves today on a future game they are planning and it scored 8.5 and they posted up their assessment calculation so players could see how the rating was arrived at.

 

We think that honesty and transparency can only serve to help manage expectation.

 

When we do our weekender games, of which we do three or four a year, we only do proper milsim, not milsim lite. We leave the latter to our cousins at Gunman.

 

Mind you the Milsim Taster is a bit of a special activity and isnt a milsim, so if we attempted to score it using the MCR it would come out very low. The same can be said for hardcore training days.

 

So, in summary, the MCR principle is only really suitable for battlefield type games.

 

 

Expectations are always difficult to manage. Having been there, seen it, done it, and bought the T-shirt I hope for more.

 

I recently went on a milsim lite day at Longmoor run by Airborne Airsoft and personally I found it to be just another outdoor skirmish set on a good site. I would rate that Airborne day as 5/10 for content. There were no special bits of kit, pyro or props used.

 

Having access to a good MoD site is one thing but decent milsim day could be held at The Mall. Instead of team colours (wearing arm bands) the two sides were dressed as NATO in MC/MTP and rebel Vendetta in anything else but it was still a blue team v red team with background story. The event ran for 5.5 hrs without any breaks, and medic rules were in place. However, that was not a lot different from when I went to UCAP Sandpit. Everyone was supposed to use low/mid cap magazines and only have max 600 BBs total on person with any speed loaders and extra BBs kept back at regen, but players did turn up without mid-caps and were allowed to use 2 hi-cap mags instead.

 

Marshalls are key, need to be there to direct flow and add valueto how event is run. The day lacked real game structure, as a milsim I would expect the organisers to use their military experience to provide proper team briefings at start of day and make it feel real.

[Okto Eight Milsim]

The weighting is loosely based on what milsimmers seem to value. Believe us when we say the dyed in the wool milsimmer likes to play to MOD sites. We think they are expensive, restrictive in the rules that have to be adherred to and the MOD can bump you off at the last minute if operational requirements dictate.

 

You can argue the weighting and there will always be controversy. However, the point is that the MCR is calculated on hard facts and players can ask to see the calculation. Its got to be better than taking a chance and coming away disappointed.

 

Seems like slightly bonkers criteria to knock a point of for MoD sites - who on earth thinks they don't just do a lot of their training in a woods somewhere rather than a load of buildings? Madness.

 

Your mention of people just self-rating themselves seemed like a better idea, but maybe logistically that wouldn't work as well as a set of rules. Issue is, who decides what attracts the more hardcore milsimmers and therefore what the criteria should be? I certainly wouldn't see playing at an MoD site to be any more impressive than a properly run patch of woodland or anywhere else.

[proffrink]

Sorry, I added some edits pretty late that may clarify my point - I dunno. I'm not saying that because you put sites into the scale that the rating is now useless, lol.

 

The thing is, I'm still not sure why the site factors in because surely that's something that's obvious. What you're trying to rate here is not the not-so-obvious. I mean your most casual romp on an MoD site now gets an extra point simply because it takes place at a particular locale, but your hard-core shooting of naughty people in the forest now won't get that point even if it's run as a very strict milsim experience.

 

It just seems a little inefficient because now you have to explain to milsimmers that actually the rating factors in location and a lot of them may have to deduct this point mentally if they aren't so bothered about it being an MoD site or not. I really can't imagine people would expect that when they're looking for the way a game is managed as well as the location it's set in - the two just don't seem hugely compatible and perhaps even a little misleading if you're approaching that score with the expectation that is only encompasses game rules, which I think it really the largest problem that you're trying to tackle with the rating system in the first place.

[Guest PT247]

using an MOD site does not a milsim make, all it does is give you an awesome site that will work just as well for skirmish as milsim.

 

 

Have played at Rype Village a couple of times and it is an amazing MoD site but neither were milsim even though the second visit was advertised as one.

[Baz JJ]

The rating also addresses things like whether the game allows the use of high caps, the use of two tone IF weapons, whether radios are used as an intrinsic part of the game, if props are used, if vehicles are used, if there is a story behind the game, the use of specific camo loadouts instead of armbands, if there are medic rules in place rather than just hands in the air and back to regen points, whether people can walk out of the game at anytime to go back to the safe zone/car, ammo limits, the duration of the game and a whole raft of points like that that define the shape of the game to be played.

 

It doesnt define how well its marshalled or how well organised it is because thats subjective and would be the subject of a normal player review after the game, be that some sort of formal review or just a comment on a forum or FB group.

[proffrink]

Er, isn't that what was said already in the OP and the reply to my first post, or am I missing something?

[BrightCandle]

I certainly agree Okto that is about 8.5. It does away with much of the physicality issues and 24 hours and realistic ammo count aspects but it does just about everything else.