[Yuxi]

Originally Posted by Scarecrow

I would suggest that if you have money, experiment, but listen to those in the community who've been doing for a while and who have already thrown a pisspot full of money away trying to find the right 'stuff'.

My opinion lies somewhere in the middle.

Is authentic gear the shit to have? Absolutely, and in an ideal world where we all have the disposable income to pull it off, bravo, look the part you want to play with authentic gear.

In the meantime though, there are some gear makers like Phantom, etc, who make some *reasonably* good knockoff stuff at a reasonable price. Will it save your ass in the sandbox? No. Will it survive the continuous abuse of airsoft games? No, it will fail eventually. If you can accept that and you do your research on the look you want and match it to a reputable replica gear maker, kudos. Once again, buyer beware there is a lot of bad stuff out there as well.

As far as looking like a bag based on your choices, I've seen guys wearing $4K worth of awesome stuff and they look like bags anyways. Then I've seen some guys wearing minimalist well thought out replica gear that look 10x better. I think those who make the effort to research and listen to those with experience will be less likely to look like bags.

I can tell you when I started I looked like a total retard. Then I hung out with some really switched on folks, did a lot of reading and browsing and looking at photo albums, absorbed some wisdom and formed my own opinions. I now have about $10K worth of stuff in the closet - way more than I ever needed - some of it real some of it not.

Ultimately formulate your own opinion and then use your budget to meet your needs.

This is the voice of reason right here, in a perfect world, the thread would lock after this post.