NZ Paintball Message Boards

NZ Paintball Message Boards, also known as the NZ Paintball Message Forum or NZPaintball, was an online discussion community dedicated to paintball in New Zealand. Associated with New Zealand Paintball Online, the forum provided a national platform for discussing tournaments, teams, playing fields, equipment, clubs and paintball organisations.[1][2]

The community was originally hosted on ezboard and subsequently migrated to Yuku. Archived records document activity from the early 2000s through at least May 2010.[1][3]

The forum is a source of historical information about New Zealand paintball, particularly tournament results, regional clubs and competitions for which few other contemporary records survive.

History

Establishment

The forum's ezboard community profile recorded a founding date of 6 June 2001.[1] This date was retained in later archived versions of the community, although the original establishment has not been independently verified.

The message boards were associated with Paintball.co.nz, an early New Zealand paintball information website that also maintained articles, tournament information and a directory of commercial playing fields.

The forum provided discussion areas for recreational and competitive players throughout the country. Its structure included national discussion boards alongside dedicated sections for regional clubs and paintball organisations.

Archived forum indexes from 2004 preserve discussions dating back to 2003, including references to the Kiwi Extreme 3 tournament series, the Southern 3 Man competitions, the Wellington Cup and other regional events.[4]

Growth during the 2000s

The forum continued operating throughout the mid-2000s, documenting the development of competitive and recreational paintball in New Zealand.

By 25 December 2005, the community's ezboard profile reported 984 registered members and 53,016 posts.[5]

An archived homepage from 22 February 2007 recorded 1,227 registered members and 66,973 posts.[1]

By 10 April 2008, the platform reported 1,521 registered members and 84,025 posts.[2]

These figures are historical statistics displayed by the hosting platform and have not been independently audited.

Migration to Yuku

The community moved from ezboard to Yuku by June 2008.

An archived Yuku homepage dated 1 June 2008 preserved the NZPaintball community name and its discussion sections, including tournament, recreational, equipment and regional club forums.[6]

The Yuku-hosted community remained active during 2009 and 2010.

On 23 May 2010, its homepage recorded 1,927 members, 5,387 discussion topics and 138,431 posts.[3]

The archived records do not establish the forum's final operating date.

Forum structure

The NZ Paintball Message Boards contained multiple discussion sections covering different aspects of the sport.

General discussion

The general sections included:

New Zealand paintball discussion
Tournament paintball
Recreational paintball
Off-topic discussions and polls

These sections allowed players to discuss developments within the sport, organise participation and exchange information.

Tournament and event discussions

Dedicated sections covered the New Zealand Paintball Players Association (NZPPA) tournament series, other competitive events and recreational paintball gatherings.

Surviving discussions include tournament announcements, entry information, results, divisional standings and accounts from participants.

The forum documented competitions including:

Super 5s (New Zealand)
Kiwi Extreme 3
Hawke’s Bay Triples
Southern 3 Man tournaments
Nelson three-player tournaments
Hamilton three-player competitions
Northland Open
Big Boys Toys paintball tournaments

The extent of the surviving documentation varies between events and years.[4][7][8]

Regional clubs and organisations

The forum maintained dedicated discussion sections for paintball clubs and communities in several regions.

These included Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Tauranga, Wellington, Timaru, Canterbury and Dunedin.[1]

Separate organisational sections were provided for the NZPPA and other tournament organisations.

The regional forums documented club activities, training sessions, tournaments, player recruitment and local playing opportunities.

Equipment and playing fields

Additional sections covered paintball markers, accessories, equipment suppliers and second-hand trading.

The forum also provided regional field directories covering the upper and lower North Island and the South Island.

These discussions and listings are potentially useful records of paintball businesses, equipment and playing facilities operating during the period.

Tournament records

The NZ Paintball Message Boards preserved contemporary accounts of competitive paintball in New Zealand before centralised online tournament results became widely available.

Super 5s

Archived discussions document the Super 5s series from at least 2004.

The forum contains event announcements and results from multiple seasons, including final championship standings for 2006 and individual tournament scores for 2007.[7][8]

The surviving records identify teams including Menace, Legion, XXX, Sinista, Solid, Nemisis and Seven Deadly Sins.

Regional competitions

Earlier forum indexes preserve references to three-player, five-player and seven-player tournaments held around New Zealand.

Discussions from 2003 and 2004 document activity associated with Wellington, Auckland, Rotorua, Christchurch and other regions.[4]

Later archives include discussions concerning the Nelson 3 Man, Hamilton 3x series, Hawke's Bay Triples and regional competitions during 2005 and 2006.[9]

Not every discussion survives in full, and the presence of a tournament announcement does not necessarily establish that the event took place.

Historical preservation

Parts of the NZ Paintball Message Boards survive through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Archived copies of the forum retain discussion titles, historical posting dates, tournament results, team names and other information that may no longer be available from the original websites.

The archives are incomplete. Some forum indexes were preserved without the corresponding discussion pages, while other threads remain accessible in full.

The surviving material provides primary-source evidence for researching New Zealand paintball history. However, individual forum comments may contain errors, incomplete information or personal recollections that require corroboration.

References

External links