Brass Eagle.org History

The earliest origins of "Owners Groups" as they relate to paintball can be traced to the Stingray Toters Internet Group web mailing list. This email list connected Stingray owners across the world as early as 1996. Quake, founder, webmaster and owner of STING, then began the STING website and this is the earliest Brass Eagle related owners group on the internet. It has evolved from STING to BEOG over the past eight years.

BEOG Was started, when in late 1999 the Raptor Owners Group, Rainmaker Owners Group and Stingray Toters INternet Group created the Brass Eagle Owners Group Webring. This seemed to be a huge success and people were going back and forth between our respective websites. Around that time, the primary host of the respective Owners Groups started placing "Pop-Up" Ads on their forums, in addition to banner ads at the top and bottom. So, all the Owners Groups chipped in and bought a "Pop-Up" Free board and thus the BEOG was started around 2001.

This worked marvelously for over almost two years. But by the end of that time, our host, EZBoard had hiked rates from $15/6 months to over $250/6 months to keep the forums we used ad-free. This was too much and we had to look for another solution. The option of independent hosting seemed like the best idea and we went with it. In May of 2003, www.BEOG.org launched its own internal forums by Ikonboard and a new era of BEOG had begun. Because we had our own piece of web-space, we were able to launch this part of the site, the "Informational Half." It has provided thousands with information about Brass Eagle, View Loader and JT Paintball Markers and Products. Later that year, in July, BEOG sponsored a team traveling to the International Amateur Open, using all Rainmaker Paintball Markers. This trip was a huge success and was the beginning of more to come. All players on that Rainmaker Owners Group team were members of the BEOG webboard, and only a handful had met each other prior to playing in the games.

The format of the old site became archane and it was time to upgrade not only the static information half, but the forums as well. From Ikonboard to Invision Board and from HTML to PHP, Brass Eagle.org was launched in the middle of July, right before the 2004 International Amateur Open. BEOG is also poised to coordinate and sponsor the inaugural Owners Group Division at that IAO.

The history is still being written in your words...