I am not new to field games, mainly did melee games with bows and swords (not larp, much more aggressive ruleset and players, like pre-SCA) for over 10 years. Wanting to switch into airsoft, but after reading the bad reviews here and coupling that with how the games I have played in melee were plagued with favoritism, overbearing refs, and general ego problems from staff that needed to be neutral I can easily relate to various people's experiences they had in this type of environment without having to actually have participated.
Honestly, it may be worth my while to skip this place and maybe open my own field since I have a great deal of experience in how to correctly pick neutral refs and workers without having buddy-buddy issues arise that unbalance the playing field. We had to overcome cheaters before, and it never really fully goes away, but we had it down to just 1 person who was cheating and we made it VERY uncomfortable for them to stick around to the point they complained that they were friends with refs and the rental supplier and it didn't make a lick of a difference so they opted to leave forever.
I would like to come observe their staff and field managerial process as a spectator. It sounds like they may need to consider seriously shaking up their way they go about things from both the store end and the field end. Since there are some obvious satisfactions happening when it comes to general social skills for customer service in the initial process, it shows there is at least some commonalities for good initial onboarding. Purely from reading, it seems everything goes a bit unstable after that for the experienced folks. Inexperienced customers may think that it's common practice and since there are no other local comparisons this is the only relatable experience in their minds, naturally giving to favorable reviews due to no broadened horizons.
Again, I would like to see how they run the place to see if I would even consider jumping in and playing. If it's overbearing and unreasonable, may need to shake things up in the rules and competencies of refs and such. If it has a flow that can be flexible enough to allow for a variety of playstyles and maneuvers that make sense (or somewhat don - i.e. controlled chaos) I would very much be interested. Everything is a learning experience, after all. If it kinda falls flat or is forced to be a dull experience, then there is no point. I'll probably take a trip down there soon to see what's up.
