Are We Still Playing With Toys? | Ep. 11

[@Scoop_Phase]

I feel like the desire for practical features in a blaster inherently pushes the design space into more firearm-like silhouettes. I’m all for blasters looking bright and safe, but having a functioning sight, comfy stock, and box mags are all features today that I couldn’t run a blaster without

[@GucciBodyBags]

Theres room for both toy and realistic designs. I play on private property, my neighbors all have firearms, none are remotely bothered by both our airsoft and nerf games. I see it as a bonus to have both aesthetics attract more players to grow the hobby even further.

[@mantic3]

Did Beret just uno-reverse the audience by telling THEM to "just play airsoft/paintball"?

[@classicforreal]

You should just airsoft or paintball

[@kagenlim5271]

If it aiant vanned

[@mattorama]

As somebody who came to the dart blaster hobby from the firearms hobby, blasters take a more realistic design because that's the most functional design. You stick the mag in here, you have a pistol grip there, some Picatinny rail up there, buffer tube stock back there, oh wow hey my blaster looks like an AR-15. Having orange at the front of it and funky colors all over is a good idea, but what would somebody do if they wanted to hide an actual firearm in plain sight? Yeah, they'd make it look like a dart blaster.

[@FormulaFox]

Agreed, and indeed it has already happened: Back in 2021, a felon illegally in posession of a Glock pistol painted it and a Roni carbine kit in Nerf colors. He obviously still got caught because it was taken seriously despite the colors. Its definitely a fine line we tread. Things like the aforementionrd Glock help me to appreciate things like the giant motor housings on my Gryphon that help to exaggerate the shape in order to differentiate it from a real rifle. The perfect blaster, IMO, is one that feels and looks like a real steel gun ergonomically, but has a MASSIVE amount of tiny little details that add together to make it obvious its not a real firearm. I think, because if this, the best blaster design currently out there might just the SLAB.

[@kingkorva5720]

Context is key. There is a place to use a PewPew and there is a place to use a Nerf blaster half the size of my entire body that tosses darts about 30 feet. I hope we can all understand the difference and this not become more of an issue.

[@EmeraldCoasttt]

My hot take is that people who are tired of 3d printed blasters and high performance stuff vs modding cheap toys should try subscribing to more than 3 KZbinrs. Your perception is your reality

[@derkaiser9881]

Oh my god for real. I happen to like that kinda stuff, so I look for it. If I didn't, I'd look somewhere else lol

[@thefogiscomingthef0giscoming]

Admittedly - a lot of 3d printed shit sucks. It suffers from quality control issues, constant malfunctions, and just general ergonomic issues. Blasters like the harrier, swift, viper, and diana are very good, very reliable blasters. As long as those options persist to work, will continue to use them. Disagree? Dont care.

[@derkaiser9881]

@@thefogiscomingthef0giscoming I'm confused why you would even comment if it's not to engage with other opinions.

[@gabrielnotgabriel9572]

What are you even saying “tired of x vs y”. I just want to better understand your argument before making my own.

[@derkaiser9881]

@gabrielnotgabriel9572 Often people in the foam flinging hobby say they're tired of 3D printed blasters, high FPS blasters, etc. The problem is, they've got a very narrow view of the hobby and aren't actively looking for KZbinrs and other sources that do regular "modding cheap toys" content. It's like being super interested in camping gear but the only videos you watch cover high-end tents, packs, and tools. Then one day, you complain "why does everyone ONLY review high-end tents, packs, and tools? I hate those!"

[@TWDragonflyTommy]

The realistic design part is so true, that's why i'm so excited about the SCRD project sometimes instead of only the muzzle, i'll make the entire front part of my blaster orange Also we seriously need more orange BCAR

[@legoboy-ox2kx]

I got into Nerf because of the huge variety of play styles, blaster options, ammo types, etc. as well as the variety of game types and the generally fun and non-serious attitudes of players. There's a place for realistic blasters, but it's not events held in a public setting where they could be dangerous. For example Ragnaroktoberfest is held on a school campus during summer when hardly anyone is there, they really don't need to have such strict rules on blaster silhouette as long as blasters aren't too dark and have an orange tip, it should be fine. For my local events we allow just about anything as long as it isn't all black or dark grey and we've been going strong for over a decade with no major incidents.

[@jmgerraughty]

@@legoboy-ox2kx It's funny, because 3d printing has helped designers figure out what the Platonic Ideal of the pump-action springer is, and ever since, springers have all basically looked the same. It's all Form Follows Function. I've only been in the hobby since April, but I can see how nerfing used to be like Street Fighter, where it was like, "WHAT IF A BOXER FOUGHT A SUMO WRESTLER?!!!!!" But now it's like MMA, where every fighter has optimized their fighting style, they all look the same, fight the same. I can see how designers like Sillybutts et al. yearn for a bygone era...

[@legoboy-ox2kx]

@jmgerraughty Definitely. I'm a big fan of fun blasters and loadouts, I'm even designing some of my own blasters that are pretty unique, but I'm currently still learning FreeCAD because I kept having issues with Fusion 360 and didn't want to pay for Inventor.

[@dangermaus9253]

Mazo Factory exists

[@GhostC10]

Our group bans realistically painted or looking blasters, we play in public parks so that's not going to work for us

[@maritimefoam]

I do think there is a case for some ammo limiting in some HvZ scenarios lol. But lots of rules and balancing are hard to enforce for big events.

[@Galaxy613]

What are your thoughts about UMBC? The first two missions are stuck with 6 rounds max per magazine/blaster

[@kittenclaws5775]

Some people: no nerf blaster should ever look realistic! LARPers on private grounds: Okay, but also no.

[@jmgerraughty]

1:48 I don’t think it’s a hot take at all to say that any hobbyist needs to be at least a part-time evangelist and part-time referee for the hobby. If we want to stand out from the more toxic end of combat sports, we need to be welcoming to the public as well as weeding out bad actors.

[@thetwofacedassassin75]

12:21 at my college, since we are too broke to afford a chronograph, we use a completely different metric to cap a blaster's performance: pain at close range While it is a bit archaic and subjective to opinion, its really easy to use and doesn't require cumbersone split fps caps, since we are moreso measuring kinetic energy, and not just velocity

[@dangermaus9253]

My group did a similar thing in the past. Did it again recently when heavier darts came out to try and determine the felt difference with blind tests. Have since done lots of ranged crony testing at different distances and darts to determine drag figures and the like. Ended up with a simple program to roughly calculate joules at impact to create MED brackets which funnily enough are all basically the same amount of energy at the point impact that was determined to be OK from that initial subjective testing. ~1.8joules / 200fps 1g dart point blank.

[@dangermaus9253]

Australian here. While blaster appearance can be an issue with some states being worse than others it's not really a problem unless it's an accurate copy of something real. A brightly coloured harrier doesn't draw any more attention than a brightly coloured alchemist.

[@jmgerraughty]

I wonder how many of us in the US base our entire viewpoint of the Australian nerf scene on Bradley Phillips' videos; a guy in camo every video, toting an Apex Prime and only interested in ~300fps nerfing. Is he actually representative of Australia's scene, or is he just who's making content?

[@dangermaus9253]

​@@jmgerraughty I would say he represents a small part of the community and some people dislike him due to a video he did when gel blaster laws changed in his state.

[@classicforreal]

Hot take (that used to annoy me to no end): if you're afraid that 3D printing will just turn into another hobby, just buy a Bambu

[@Willis00788]

the split FPS caps actually has a really simple solution: KED

[@FormulaFox]

I am fairly new to pro Nerf, joining when a club was formed locally in part due to collapse of the airsoft club(because its head was a scumbag who put in a rule REQUIRING members to engage in stolen valor), but I have been from the start trying to balance my love of real firearms(which I respect too much to treat like toys) and my childlike love of the ridiculousness of foam blasters in my loadout. So while I love my AR-like Gryphon, MP5-esque Nexus Pro X, and Roni-like Venom Pro carbine, I sm always conscious about them nit hetting too close. I will never paint a blaster all black. I will always make sure there's a BIG splash of orange up front. And even I'm not using a blindingly bright color, I akways make sure its something that will pop out. The purple on my Nexus Pro X is the darkest dominant color you will ever see on one of my blasters, and IMO everyone should take a similar approach. Since this club in part is replacing an airsoft club, I"ve gotten resistance to it, but as more kids joined late in the season most have been starting to come around.

[@jmgerraughty]

How does someone require people to engage in stolen valor? Did you have to wear ACUs or fake ranks or something?

[@FormulaFox]

@@jmgerraughty He added a rule requiring participants to wear as close to real world gear as they could get an assert they were actively part of whatever unit the patches you could get were for. He insisted it was only for while everyone was on the field when 90% of the group told him to F off, but a few months later he and literally everyone who didn't quit got in legitimate legal trouble for posing as veterans in an effort to get VA benefits, so I suspect that was just a desperate attempt to keep things from collapsing. The only thing left in my area airsoft related is an indoor target range in a summer resort area.

[@jmgerraughty]

@@FormulaFox wow, that's messed up!

[@FormulaFox]

@jmgerraughty Yeah, you can see why it soured a lot of us on airsoft. The only issue we've had with the Nerf club is a crazy old bat who tried to accuse us of training school shooters. .... Before anyone under the age of 20 had even joined the group. We had a good laugh at her expense.

[@mattbatesteacher]

Ice Cold Take: Those of us into NERF are the people who did not take COD so seriously that we gained 300 lbs and became part of the fabric of Mom's couch.

[@Alexcursus]

Airsoft are also toys. There is also a push to make Airsoft in bright colours and less realistic. At the end of the day, it's the irresponsible use of actual firearms that hurt the hobbies, not the other way around

[@scarletthunder3783]

This, and also the country we are in, this is only such a massive problem because we don't have shit gun control

[@REZrblde]

I would pay money for Nerf to bring back their Dart Tag lineup and velcro darts too. Love the designs(especially the Snapfire) and it would be perfect for some small-scale family fun basement wars

[@Kotekoko_pl]

the motorised spring blasters like nerf stampede nerf halo needler are under used

[@derkaiser9881]

Those are AEBs and they're actually starting to become more popular. They're... getting there more less.

[@robotmunkee]

Toe jibbitz. You need some for your nerf crocs! ( the ones with hair on them :D )

[@niksitera]

For fps caps i think that while it isnt perfect I think we could use joule caps.Because a bigger projectile will have to travel at a lower fps to have certain amount of force.The only bad think about it is the calculating you have to do.

[@polybius1381]

While the safety of the hobby is impossible to overstate, I have to be honest here, I feel really mixed about realism in the nerf hobby. On one hand, I frankly don't like the idea of telling people that they shouldn't be allowed to make their Gryphon MP5s and realsteel Zincs. I do think that there are fundamental similarities between more "realism" oriented hobbies like Airsoft & Paintball, that telling people "No, nerf isn't about milsim!", regardless of intent, puts a chilling effect on the creativity of the hobby and would shun people from those groups that would otherwise be interested in Nerf. But at the same time, I do think people who enjoy milsim in Nerf, should only do so exclusivity at private venues, or otherwise a place where Absolutely Everyone knows that they're using toys and not firearms. I know it can be frustrating, but I ultimately think the moderator of a public game should have the final word of what should be allowed at a venue. It's not worth risking the safety of the people there, let alone the reputation of the hobby.

[@scottjs5207]

irony is nerf darts are most ballistically and logistically similar to real steel. Unidirectional flight paths, we use a variation of rifling to create better accuracy, and magazines are extremely limited by their shape and size, though unfortunately double stacked mags aren't the greatest.

[@scottjs5207]

Just remember.... Uin13... a very early modder and youtuber was selling a painted Longstrikes for like $400 back when Elite wasn't even a thing.

[@trash4491]

Hottake: best angle to film nerf gameplay is placing your camera right on your nose between your eyes. If camera on your helmet - its too high, on chet - too low. I film my videos on mask, where my gopro right in between my eyes, look what angle i have in my videos.

[@gbot94hitachi]

Hot Take: Speaking of FPS. Getting hit by MegaXL speeding at 100fps is funny af 😭

[@lukeiannello6190]

I want to clarify my last point about modifying branded blasters. I feel like the golden age of modifiable blasters on store shelves has passed us, and now alll the best ones need to be found second-hand. This comes with the caveat of being in Australia, which makes getting anything Dart Zone difficult - we have a small selection that is only available since a couple of months ago. Pro blasters are often just too expensive to be worth it, with all the import markups and such. What drew me into the hobby was buying and collecting different blasters, mostly Nerf, and modiyfing them in one way or another. At the time when I got into the hobby, Nerf had a decent string of blasters on store shelves that I bought for the sake of modding. To name a few in no particular order: the Modulus Mediator, Battlecamo Roughcut, Recon MKII, Shellstrike, Delta Trooper, Rayvenfire, Mega Motostryke, these are all blasters that I own and have modified after purchasing them in store. As time has gone on, I've turned from new releases on shelves to second-hand releases that I never had the chance to buy new, because that's where the interesting blasters are. Now I feel like I'm needing something new to work on, but not sure what, with all the offerings from Nerf in the last couple of years being mostly Elite 2.0 and Ultra, or brand tie-ins I don't care for, and most of X-Shot's stuff not really exciting me all that much. The exception here is the X-Shot Ranger X8, which is the first branded blaster to hit store shelves in a few years that I actually felt interested enough in to want to purchase, everything else has been "meh". I am one of those people who bought a 3D printer for Nerf, after realising how expensive printed parts from both hobby-specific sellers and generic 3D printing servers can be. The lucky thing for me is that I found plenty of other things to do with it, so 3D printing became another hobby entirely for me, but I still dislike that a lot of the hype blasters recently are 3D printed options. Looking at KZbin from creators like Walcom, Captain Xavier, Out Of Darts, and looking at the subreddits, there's much less hype for new releases from brands (aside from Pro blasters), and more hype for new community designs. It's completely justifiable, as branded releases aren't as exciting anymore, but I just wish that they were.

[@copium2]

my hot take is sonic red is the best transparent color scheme in nerf. its done so well unlike the sonic series which looks too flashy.

[@Silly_Werewolf]

DISCLAIMER: I do not live in america. while i do not like realistic blasters, avoiding the concept all toghether shouldn't be the way. The m4 replica and the dinosaur shooting darts out of it's mouth are blasters that should be seen at the same event (of course with all safety stuff and in the correct contex)

[@tetsucat13]

I have seen people painting real guns, blue and yellow to look like a nerf.

[@beretnarf]

yeah we don't like that

[@RastaBot]

Yep...seen that too.

[@litebulb2699]

So many people here who should just join a LARP. Nerf is ideal for larps since they attract people with all manner of pain tolerance, and their bulky silhouettes make for great bases for all manner of paint jobs from realistic to sci-fi to goofy. One of my friends on an enemy team made a caveman-like character who uses a cosmetically-modded blaster from the dino-themed line (their team is based off of the War Boys from Mad Max), while a guy on my team who considers himself not artistically inclined gets good mileage with his solid black + silver accented strife (I think? It's solid black and I never really looked at it) to match his cyborg costume. A few years ago, one player rigged like 3 or 4 Triads to fire all together in one abomination of a blaster.... There was a rule made to prevent that and the confusion it caused by the next game. You can have it all, you just have to play with dweebs like us.

[@SodapopperAnimations]

Idk how hot this take is but bradley philips has the best dart and blaster test/review type videos.

[@beretnarf]

only one more video to post this comment on again

[@SodapopperAnimations]

@@beretnarf yeee...

[@Senrath]

I got into the Nerf hobby by way of 3D printing so I'm all for 3D printed blasters. But I also don't think it makes sense for most people to get into them unless they own a printer themselves, or at least have a friend who has one they can regularly use. If (or more likely, when) something breaks you then have to deal with the support from wherever you bought it from which at the bare minimum is going to take longer than if you had a printer and just printed a new part yourself, even if they ship out a replacement for free. Not being able to print my own replacement is also why I don't care for blasters that you can't at least buy the files for. Also, buying 3d printed blasters instead of just buying hardware and printing your own is really expensive. It makes sense, since these things take forever to print and a decent number of them also require a non-zero amount of post-processing, but at the price that some of these blasters go for you can easily buy a 3D printer and save money after the second or third blaster you print. And while some technical knowledge is needed, the latest generation of printers is so close to plug-n-play that I feel that anyone interested in buying a 3d printed blaster should at least look into getting something like a Bambu Labs A1 before pulling the trigger on buying printed parts.

[@akagainesy]

Foam alliance are trying the whole gathering locations of groups so people can find ones in their local area thing. Not sure how far along with it they are but they have Cap X and Al the Geek put out videos on their channel. Also have videos on what they want to do and links to website etc.

[@00goop43]

I wish we had production darts that worked in hopper clips. I miss using those.

[@jamesayars591]

How does everyone feel about the design of the dart zone striker and the nexus pro being fairly realistic looking ?

[@camelm3istr]

When I tell someone I’m into nerf blasters they think I’m a kid trapped in a 30 year old man’s body, implying I’m too old for these plastic things. I think that’s mean to say it your head but hearing it out loud is even worse. I haven’t modded anything because I feel like I need a mentor to help.

[@xinixini1826]

NYC considers gelblasters "Airguns" and illegal in the city. Police shot a kid to death who had one at a water war during a very hot summer day. It's not a matter of time... it has happened more than once. Back in the 80's I was warned while playing Lazer Tag to not point it at anyone off the property especially police unless I wanted to take a dirt nap in a wooden forever box. It seemed like common sense to me BEFORE I was warned that if you point something that resembles a gun at a distance or in the dark... you may just be in serious trouble. One of the neighbors ignored this warning. They had one less mouth to feed.

[@Demonanimator]

It's hard not to call a toy a "toy" when some in fact can look like a real firearm.

[@legoboy-ox2kx]

I feel like a lot of people in the hobby get too freaked out over the possibility of bad press from playing in public spaces, but as long as you either have permission, or you're allowed to be play somewhere based on the rules or laws of the area, then just focus on making your events better for the players. There's always going to be Karens out there who will freak out over other people just having fun, but they're a tiny minority. It you just double down and ignore them they'll give up.

[@legoboy-ox2kx]

I also disagree that there shouldn't be any "realistic" designs in the hobby. I think there's room for both, as long as players and event runners have some common sense. There are very few blasters that have appearances close enough to firearms that I would be worried about a PO mistaking them for one, like the Zinc 2.0, but those blasters still have plenty of places they can be used, such as private or secluded venues.

[@NateBenson-s6i]

I know an eye doctor who has told me people come in not infrequently with eye injuries from half darts. Never has it been put in the news, I think the general awareness of the fact that blasters you buy on store shelves are dangerous is being spread.

[@legoboy-ox2kx]

@NateBenson-s6i That's fair, but most of those blasters already have warnings, and a lot of them also come with safety glasses.

[@jmgerraughty]

My concerns are from bad actors on opposite ends of the issue. On the one hand are the Karens who, when little Bentleigh, Brixton, or Becca get hit with a half dart going 200 fps, even when told that's what's going to happen, or worse, when they blame Walmart for carrying Nexus Pro X's next to Nerf Butterfly Kisses. Then on the other hand, we have the (very rare) dudes who show up to events ignoring FPS caps, rules about point-blank shots (if there are any), and generally pretending to play real-life Call Of Duty. I'm grateful that most of those guys don't find Nerf hardcore enough, and prefer airsoft and paintball. I said this in my own comment, but I think we need to be our own PR, because we're such a small hobby, and I think the potential to stand out from other combat sports is there. I think what you're getting at is that there's room for all kinds of nerfing, and if your group wants a certain kind of event, make a *good kind of that event,* instead of a mediocre blend of four kinds of events because we feel like we have to include X, Y, and Z as well. If that's what you're saying I'm with you. I just want to make sure there diverse nerf events happening all over, representing all the different kinds of stuff that's going on in the hobby.

[@scottjs5207]

Saying FPS isn't a good metric is weird, because you can calculate energy if you have the mass of a dart just fine. I've seen airsoft fields using energy charts that do the work for you... you just get the fps checked after declaring the ammo weight, and look at those two values and boom... you have an energy number... But also split caps play into roles... that guy with an SBF absolutely has an advantage over someone running a +Bow. The whole split cap for ammos is based on math to figure out the energy from muzzle velocity like in the first section. The secondary reason is balance and even some level of light larping.

[@dangermaus9253]

My group has no FPS cap just MED brackets based on an acceptable joule limit. We tested fps at different distances to get some data and make a basic program that graphs joules over distance. Makes for a good mix of different blasters and play styles without getting hurt.

[@danielcotton2019]

Not a hot take: Always use an orange muzzle in public to legally signify AND identify a toy in the US!

[@danielcotton2019]

Also, don't use a pre-compressed energy source and only fling foam. There.

[@Volpurr]

@@danielcotton2019guess my Boomco stuff goes back in the bin then 😔

[@NerfAutist]

We need the john nerf

[@BobOBob]

These are some of the biggest reasons why I'm out

[@OrdemDoGraveto]

I really don't see a reason to make a nerf gun looks like a REAL GUN. There IS airsoft for that if that's what the person is looking for...

[@williamadams5081]

On the 3d printing route, I hate that looking up basically any mod guide on KZbin produces something like “here’s everything you can put together yourself and here are the motors I used and make sure you use this very specific 3d printed motor shiv and 3d printed flywheel cage”. I hate that in order to put together mod guides these days you need either own a 3d printer or find someone to 3d print some small parts for you.

[@derkaiser9881]

You don't need a 3D printer for anything--they're just used 'cause it's obviously more convenient to have one. You CAN still make an ancient PVC blaster if you'd like to. I actually recommend starting with the kind of system Matt Yuan uses for his "sten" blaster. It has some 3D printed components, but it'll help you learn the actual mechanical operation of many blasters.

[@vampire847]

"The slow creeping in of firearms design and aesthetic" Thats called ergonomics. Also calling it morally wrong is just absolutely ridiculousness. Also using Australia as an example of how it's "dangerously legally" is also wrong. That isn't a problem with the hobby. That is a problem with the insane Australian government. Also if you want bright colors and funky shapes.... those still exist. Nobody is taking those away from you. How about you not take away peoples ergonomics and tacticool colors? Oh and for anyone talking about police shootings... Kids have been shot for holding friggen Wiimotes... The issue is police not having better training.

[@dangermaus9253]

The Australian example is wrong because it's not an issue unless you do something stupid like paint your Diana black and then go and wave it around in a servo.

[@LiamHamelly-fr4my]

Hot Take: there is nothing wrong with realistic-looking nerf guns as long as you exercise common sense. Don’t take a super realistic nerf gun into a private park or anything like that, keep it for private games. I also agree that part of why these hobby guns are starting to look more realistic is because firearm controls are practical, and people want practicality in the hobby.

[@Frissdas1207]

I do not care, I play on private property. Bending to a sensistive society helps no one.

[@JessGoodman-t4h]

dart zone neads to stop nerf neads to stop worker needs to not make blasters

[@maritimefoam]

Huh?

[@NateBenson-s6i]

Hmm what? Maybe a closeted x shot fan who wants all the competition to go away.

[@beretnarf]

Jess wants the hobby to burn

[@jaxinthebox27]

First

[@Salamander2-i6c]

nice i got first on drac's new video

[@calebhebert2733]

Who sees a bunch of kids shooting each other, doesn't hear gunshots or sees people dying, and just assumes the worst? Susan I think that might be a game of some sort. Why would paramilitary organizations being having firefighter in a backyard in broad daylight? I get it. Still.

[@NelsonKNelson]

Best reactions of the series! Toys are TOYS, and instead of making them into sporting goods, how about just keeping them TOYS? And really happy to see you take a stand on trying to make a toy look like a firearm. HORRIBLE IDEA. I won't use any blaster that even has a silhouette that looks firearm-like. I'm running around my yard being chased by my 5-year-old and his neighborhood friends (up to about age 10) and we're blasting the Dickens outta each other with kid-friendly-speed colorful blasters using Elite full size darts, Rival balls, Mega and MegaXL darts. All wearing safety glasses and not aiming at faces. LAST THING I want is somebody mistaking me for chasing down children with a firearm. I want stuff to look big and goofy and bright and absurd - like TOYS!!!

[@JessGoodman-t4h]

moded gun bad nead more 70 fps 100 200 300 fps bad

[@Gamingmonkey81]

100-150 is perfect

[@dangermaus9253]

*Adjusts reg 400fps it is!