Welcome, Nerfers! This is a place for Nerf, Modifications, Homemades, Assassins, Office wars, Humans vs. Zombies, BoomCo, Off-brands, Water Blasters . . .
We're intended to be like /r/nerf except not dependent on reddit.
Are you new to Lemmy? Please click here to expand.
Lemmy is a lot like reddit. For most purposes you can treat it as if it is reddit.
The main difference is that when you view your front page or search for other communities, you have a choice between "subscribed" (what you've already joined), "local" (a small subset of communities) and "all" (every community that this server knows about).
discuss.online is one of many Lemmy servers and many of the communities that you see here originate on other servers - but this networking is handled behind the scenes. This decentralization makes Lemmy resilient but you can still use it just like reddit.
A longer explanation can be found here.
We have some idiosyncratic rules. Please click to expand and take a minute to read them before posting.
Don’t spam (post excessively) or excessively self-promote. That means at most 1 post per day, and less than 1/10ths of your posts and comments each may be self-promotion.
No low effort content.
Only post thrift finds on Thursday - where "Thursday" starts at 1AM GMT-07 and runs for 24 hours. This corresponds to daylight Thursday for most of our readers.
Don’t recommend or show dangerous practices, such as these. There is to be absolutely no deliberate weaponization, even as a joke or against nonhuman targets.
Pirated/knockoff versions of hobby-made designs should not be shared; don’t give pirates free advertising.
Respect community standards (below) and stay on-topic (further below).
We maintain a higher standard of civility here than an average forum. Please be nice, and be forgiving: the other guy might be literally a kid.
We have moderate post quality standards here; nerfchatter is very lax. If you'd like to ask a question, please try googling it first.
It’s “blaster/dart,” not “gun/bullet” - because the latter can lead to things that we'd rather avoid. This is a common mistake, but it is a mistake. Similarly, it's good to be clear that realistic blasters shouldn't be used in public spaces for the benefit of our young readers.
3d printing questions not specific to nerf should go on 3d printing communities.
You can buy/sell/trade/“what’s it worth?” on /r/nerfexchange (though we may make an exchange Lemmy community later).
No scripted battle footage. We have to ban this so that we don’t get flooded with it. This is very easy to find on YouTube if you for some reason want to see it.
No memes/jokes; there may be rare exceptions for discussions of ongoing events. Again, we have to ban this to not be flooded by it. Memes/jokes are very welcome at Nerfchatter.
Tagging makes your post easier for people to find.
You can tag a post by including a tag (including the square brackets) anywhere in the title. As a rule of thumb, we suggest that tags higher on this list take priority if more than one could apply.
Resources
[help] - Asking for advice.
[download] - A 3d printable blaster or accessory that's ready to download and print.
[guide] - Writeups (and occasionally videos) describing how to do something.
[review] - Reviews, usually of blasters but also of mod kits etc.
Playing
[event] - An upcoming game looking for players.
[LFG] - Looking For Group.
Showing off
[completed] - A completed project: paintjob, performance mod, integration, etc.
[WIP] - As above except not completed but still something you want to share.
[selfpromotion] - Do you have something to sell? Is this a link to your own YouTube channel? We’d appreciate it if you’re completely upfront about it.
[thrift] - "Hey, look what I just found for cheap in a thrift store!"
[armory] - A picture of your entire collection.
[conceptart] - Concept art for hypothetical blasters, often wit weird and wonderful operating mechanisms.
News
[availability] - Did an anticipated blaster just get released early? Did Amazon accidentally list the DZ Tomcat for a few dollars again?
[1stparty] - For hobby news such as announcements, press releases, and leaks from major manufacturers.
Discussion
[theory] - Ideas, usually on the technical side of the hobby, that you'd like to discuss.
[meta] - Information about this community.
DartSweep: A system for finding games and groups with more features in development.
(old) Map of Active Nerf Groups
BritNerf: A traditional forum catering to British foam flingers.
Nerfy Discord Servers: There's tons of Nerf servers on Discord.
Blasted.de: A German forum (and mostly German-language, though English is welcome too).
NerfHaven: A 20+ year archive of information. Not accepting new members.
Lipo battery guide, charging, safety tips
One of the best Nerfing Youtubers out there and my personal favorite. Sadly, it felt like this was a long time coming.
It gets me wondering when we're going to start seeing more Youtubers retiring. Even ignoring the challenges of generating a sustainable income, producing good content is a lot of work. I imagine a lot of these creators have considered changing careers.
This is just a theory but I believe that one potential reason for Frank's departure could be in part to the drastic change we've had on the hobby the past few years. Frank has mentioned before that nerf was always seen as an indoor hobby for him and fast paced. On one of the high fps blasters that he reviewed, he asked us to comment how many of us were playing that type of nerf. There was also another video where he talk about the shift to more marksmanship as oppose to the faster run and gun type of which he enjoyed. I don't think Frank is against these higher fps blasters, he just preferred the simpler times when we were all playing with stock blasters. This in part is also why he loves rival so much due to it's fast pace nature. Again this is just my theory but Foamblast also disliked the militarization of the hobby. Our hobby has been constantly evolving and changing rapidly to where there are so many different types of it. I don't think this was the only or main reason Frank has decided to leave but it could be a part of it.
I think Frank has been considering ending the channel for a very long time. Even some of the Q&As from a long while back had me wondering how much mileage he had left.
I don't think the nature of the hobby was a factor. In fact, many new blasters are right up his alley. We're in a golden age of not only performance but tactically optimized blasters and I think the Frank of 5 years ago would have been absolutely excited. It might have even revitalized him. Plus there are competitive play-styles, like SpeedDart, that emphasize run-and-gun.
I'm sure there are personal reasons he's never going to divulge, but I also think he's just lost his passion for the hobby. I can't imagine doing his job for as long as he's been doing it.
Coop's content did seem to become a lot more formulaic as time went on (though the content itself was far from bad), I don't even think this for lack of trying but more being controlled by the algorithm essentially Pidgeon holing him into just review content in a predictable style. Along with the other personal issues he's had in recent years while we may not know the true reason(s) based on the reasons we do know it is very understandable him leaving foam content creation. As someone who started watching his content around 10 years ago it is sad to see him go but I wish him all the best on his next projects.
he just preferred the simpler times when we were all playing with stock blasters
Coop came from a background where he was an integral part of an oldschool modding scene where the FPS COULD end up being as high as 250, and used glue or fishing weight Stefan darts which would definitely be felt on impact. He slowly moved away from that into limited internal mods/cosmetics and eventually became a reviewer of stock products.
These stock products began changing, and I think that and the years of passionate energy for what his younger self enjoyed waned (along with the realities of getting older).
He might come back at some point, but it makes sense to control the formation of a time capsule now (at a relatively high point) - remaining a tribute to a period in your life, rather than run on, emotionally desolate, into eventual irrelevance.
I was literally crying when I saw that video :(. Coop's uploads were what I was looking forward to every few days. I can only imagine all the future blasters we will never review or the funny skits and stereotypes.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
An end of an era, and a graceful exit. Thanks for all the fish.
For a good while Coop was the only Nerf content creator I have followed. I'll definitely miss his videos.
Sad to see his channel coming to an end, but it's not super surprising given the landscape of the hobby these days.
Damn this sucks man. He’s who got me into the hobby in the first place. I wish him well.
Coop's been a huge part of getting a lot of people into this hobby, including myself. I hadn't had blasters since I was a kid until I started watching his videos in about 2015.
I hope that he finds happiness with whatever he does going forward.
Back in 2018 I found Frank's channel and have loved his content throughout the years, I've even watched every video he's posted that were available. Countless memories and giggles that Coop has brought me. I'm truly thankful for everything he's done for us and wish him luck wherever he goes next.
Coop has been one of the better Youtubers for a long time - he can do goofy fun, he can do helpful reviews, and he knows when to do each. Even this exit has been handled gracefully.
On the off-chance that you end up reading this Coop, thanks for everything. You were the first one to show me that integrations can be incredibly good-looking - better than the component blasters - as well as functional. You will be missed.
The one thing I didn't get from all of this is whether or not he'll still be active in the hobby as a participant. It's sad to think that being a consistent content maker could ruin your enjoyment of a hobby on your own time, but at the same time there are are parallels in my own life that would make it understandable.
I'm saddened by this news. I've watched Frank's content for years and I always enjoyed his humor and ability to make a blaster review fun without needing any unnecessary filler. It's unfortunate that we won't get to see any more reviews, but there comes a certain point in life where you just have to throw the towel in and move on to something new.