Rant: Vortex shoots discs. Is this really that bad?

It shoots discs. far.

These days most common question in the toy blaster world is ‘what are the ranges’. . Less than a year ago, fans screamed for a new clip based, automatic blaster that came with innovative attachments and utilised a direct plunger mechanism. Nerf answered with the Stampede ECS.. and people still complained due to its “decent but not awesome” performance. Disregard aesthetics, build quality, innovation- ultimately, distance is king- the message now is get a blaster to shoot further and you’ll have everyone lining up with their wallets stocked with cash and a gleam in their eye...or not.

Nerf’s new upcoming Vortex range is just another example of the old saying “you just can’t please 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time”. From what we can see, these blasters look TRICK. They’re distinctly Nerf, and even come compatible with N-Strike tactical rail attachments. They have some very innovative looking firing mechanisms but they’ve now again listened to the fans and accommodated the big win factor-These new Vortex blasters appear to shoot really really far. So you’d think with this all in check, fans would be stoked. But they’re not.

Me thinks next time the fans scream out for more ranges, they need to be a bit more specific and add “more ranges.. WITH CLIP DARTS!”.

The thing is.. People don’t like change. Once their mindsets are fixed, it’s very difficult to get them to open their minds to new things regardless of evidence or innovation. I recall getting royally panned for suggesting the Alpha Trooper was a great blaster out of the box, with many people writing me constantly with a barrage of “Nothing beats the Longshot”. There were those who just went “it’s a crappy version of the Raider”. Now.. it’s well regarded as one of the best blasters Nerf have released.

Soo.. why are we making such a big deal out of shooting discs being THAT bad? From what I can see from the videos, they seem to be pretty accurate. And although there’s the preconceived notion that they’re slow.. they actually don’t really look that much slower (if at all) compared to a long range streamline dart flying through the air. We haven’t seen them fire under close quarters conditions, but I’d assume they’d have to be decent in power? It’ll be new ammo.. but most of us pretty much have multiple darts anyway (bags of them)
Or is it just speculation and that “fear” of adopting anything new? Still wanna hold on you your trusty modded Longshot and refuse to consider anything else that’s new or different?

While I don’t discount the importance of good ranges, I do find there’s a lot more to my choice of blaster than performance alone. It’s pretty obvious that it’s always better to have a toy blaster that shoots accurately and far vs one that doesn’t, but given the fact I spend most of my battles indoors and in an apartment setting, the extra ranges are most of the time lost on me. I also tend to not really care about what it is I’m shooting- as long as it hits the target- (the fact that I’m a fan of laser tag, water blasters and even the odd marshmallow blaster suggests this)

SO yeah, I for one am actually pretty keen to get my hands on these new Vortex blasters- I personally am attracted to innovation, design and build quality; a blaster that is well made, unique and with cool aesthetics out of the box will always get my hard earned cash:) Sure it’s not what we’re used to, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I'm interested to see if Nerf's rivals opt to release disc blasters too?