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PAX EAST 2012 SUGGESTIONS THREAD
Posts
I don't think that would work since this is a weekend event I have never heard a expo going late into Sunday night and early Monday morning. Plus nobody to little amount of people would attend the panels if they went into Sunday night. But about the swag, it was gone by late Saturday I tried getting a shirt for max Payne at 3 pm Saturday but was told that ran out.
I was supposed to run a Learn to Play Session at 11 AM with Wizards of the Coast and if people were able to access that area, I may have been able to do so. It also might attract more interest to table top if it was a third choice at opening between Keynote and Expo.
It would also be nice if there was shuttle running to South Station and/or North Station.
I agree with you on the queue line/tabletop separation. Sunday I wanted to go to the L2P and it was either a choice to wait in the queue line or wait till stopped lining up which honestly wasn't an option due to the constant stream of people coming in even after the opened the Expo Hall.
As far as the shuttle goes, the Silver lines run often enough that I don't think they would consider that.
One of my hotel roommates made stuff with chainmail including lanyards and I bought one off of him; each ring in the chainmail intersected with several other rings and then I connected my PAX East badge with a keychain split ring, intersecting that with three of the chainmail rings. I had abosolutely no worries about losing my badge and I highly suggest trying to pick up a chainmail lanyard from where ever you can.
Perhaps organizers could make a suggestion/plea to developers that since media badge holders can make an appointment to demo a game (I'm honestly ok with that), it would be nice if that courtesy could be given to medical badge holders, as well.
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Not to nitpick, but it's less than a mile from the BCEC to South Station, and there's already a bus line that runs up and down Summer Street. South Station is one of the busiest transportation hubs in the city, and there's not really a good place for a shuttle to constantly pick up and drop off their either.
As far as getting to North Station, people in south Boston have been trying to figure that out for 100 years.
I wouldn't have minded finally getting some practice in with an arcade stick since I can't really afford a good one right now but it wasn't much fun getting bodied by people over and over while I reworked my muscle memory, and other people were waiting for a turn to play.
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That lanyard style is definitely a liability, especially in Tabletop where the clip gets caught under the table when you bend over and pulls apart the jumpring as you get back up. I've gotten a nearly identical Behemoth lanyard at every PAX I've attended (2010-present), so this isn't a new issue at all - just one that has repeated itself. I've helped dozens of people fix their lanyards (there's a quick and simple fix that resolves the issue and prevents it in the future), so it's not the end of the world... but I'd love to see a different style of lanyards in the future that don't have this single-point failure, even if they're still from Behemoth.
I gave up on one of my cab rides when the driver missed a turn and didn't appear to know where he was going after I had given him the location, general area, and address of a bar.
As I am not very familiar with the area, I cannot confirm any cabbies took the "long way", but it certainly felt like it at times. In the future I will make sure to note the cab information if there is an incident. Good advice!
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Yes, yes, the food was overpriced, but that's its own issue. I was just happy I could always find something to make myself full without having to wait more than a minute or two to get it.
I guess my only suggestion for next year would then be to keep it up. If it's at all possible to recruit some of the local food trucks in the city to set up in the back area, even better, because the Boston food truck offerings have really improved in the last couple years.
- Layout was way worse than last year. I don't know why they blocked off entrances to get to the Tabletop/Board Gaming area and the Intel PC area. It was really annoying and from speaking to a lot of people they didn't even know how to get to the Intel area. I believe this caused a lot of network congestion and made it so much worse than it needed to be. The Queue Line / Cafeteria area is literally like a third of the floor space but after the convention officially opens for the day it is just a waste of precious space. Move it back some more next year. Riot Games had arguably one of the most popular booths but the worst location. I don't know what that long booth area was directly behind them and I felt really bad for the smaller booths to the side as you couldn't watch or stop by without disrupting people and getting in their way. Totally unacceptable.
- Companies/booths that are going to be doing raffles need to have their own dedicated area. As much as I like winning free, expensive things this year it was really disruptive to attendees. Small, dinky booths would have entire hordes of people showing up in the afternoon and crowding around this tiny booth to win some free stuff and it would block off the paths around there and cause more congestion. Next year I think it would best if you grouped these companies together and put them in the corner or make a dedicated raffle area.
- Swag bags totally had the ball dropped in terms of distribution. Not sure what happened but during the queue they started handing out bags to people in line and then halfway through they decided to stop and didn't tell us why, just to come back later. Throughout the rest of the day there was a line there and defeated the purpose of showing up early. If people getting more than one bag is a problem, next year do a stamp or a punch-hole on the badge to prevent people from getting multiple swag bags.
- Media presence needs to die. Multiple times that I saw people from companies (mostly smaller, unknown ones) that would totally circumvent the line by flashing their media badge. I thought PAX was supposed to be for gamers by gamers, why do the media get special treatment here? They have E3 and GDC, fans have PAX. Don't know why each year it seems to get worse in terms of media special treatment. I also was speaking with some Gearbox representatives after playing the Borderlands 2 demo and kept getting harassed by some X-Play crew members which was not only rude but disrespectful. I didn't sign any contract or waiver to not be in sight of the camera while you're trying to record your shitty show.
- Enforcers need to have more accountability. I missed out on the Magic Panel on Saturday because whoever made the whiteboard sign for where the line began wrote down the arrow in the wrong direction and wasted time waiting in a line that apparently didn't count and the Enforcer who told us and then changed the arrow didn't offer any kind of sympathy or tried to help us getting seats due to THEIR mistake.
I still had a blast and PAX is my favorite convention but as always, there is room for improvement.
- If the layout stays the same, is there any way the airwall between PC and TT could be opened at the end? It really was odd having to go up and around through the food court to get between those two.
- More prominent directional signs. I thought these were great this year compared to having a bunch of world maps, but the locations of them meant people really couldn't see them the vast majority of the time and didn't know they were there. Is there any way to hang them from the ceiling or something similar?
- Aaaand finally, I really wish throwing crap into the hordes of people was banned. Two PAXes in a row I've damned near been mauled because I happened to walk past a booth as they decided to chuck T-shirts at people. I doubt there is any real way to police this, but it's really aggravating because it stops all traffic on the expo floor as well as makes people crazy.
Sounds like one /more/ reason to get rid of the media badges
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It solves the annoying problem of waiting in the Expo hall line to get into Tabletop Friday morning.
However, it would also make Tabletop some sort of isolationalist country far, far from the buzz of the Expo hall. I, for one, enjoy when curious videogamers get sucked into tabletop demos and freeplay and would hate to see the separation of these two worlds grow even wider.
I second the idea for a separate entrance into Tabletop queue for the morning.
2) More "WTF am I?" signage would be good. I was mildly lost at times.
3) Some tweaks to the tabletop area to find games would be nice. Thoughts at http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/158763/ttlfg-tabletop-looking-for-group-improvements
Not a big deal I guess, I might just be overly sensitive to exhaust. Too many years in construction.
I also wouldn't want to see the beanbags spread all over the convention center because I like the quietness of the handheld lounge, especially compared to the overwhelming noise of the rest of the convention. I'm a bit hard of hearing and it was the only place where I could really start conversations and talk to people.
I was wondering the area while my son battled Pokemon hoping to find an open Kart room but never managed to find one - makeshift signs would have been great.
This will not be a popular comment but I strongly disagree. VGO is interesting and talented and I enjoyed them to an extent the first year but after that it lost any charm. There are some hardcore Video Game soundtrack fans out there who I am sure really enjoy listening to what felt like 10 different yet wholey the same Final Fantasy songs, but I am not one of them. I definitely see the appeal and welcome them to play at PAX but I certainly don't need to extend there time...
Paul and Storm did feel a little shortened but I enjoyed the joke in the middle and all in all didn't feel cheated. Really I was just waiting for JOCO to hit the stage. Now his performance felt short. I would have loved to have heard a lot more from the new album.
I thought that VGO has improved vastly with every PAX. At least they change up their stuff each time. The Mario Flute Beatboxing? SO GOOD. This year had a very different setlist than any other time I've seen them. I stopped watching P&S and JoCo since they're basically exactly the same each time. They're fun, but they have a schtick and stick to it. Anyhow, I totally get that not everyone likes the same acts, but that's why there's a diverse set of acts that play. They don't change much from PAX to PAX, but they're all very different from one another.
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I know that PAX is a fairly hardcore gaming crowd, but I agree that VGO is losing it's charm with me. I love it when they do classic NES games like Mario, Zelda, Castlevania, etc but when they go into long Square marathons they lose me. Additionally, as an opening act to lively acts like P&S and Joco when they go into these sweeping RPG songs it just doesn't feel like a "warm up" to the main act for me. Unless things have changed, their setup/take down has always been pretty painfully long too.
Their setup happened pre-omegathon round 3 I think, so I didn't notice any issues with that, and I left right after they were over so I can speak to their take down. They did about half and half vocal songs vs. non-vocals this time. I guess the only reason I'm posting a couple times here is that I felt VGO was very different this time than in previous iterations, and they actually had JoCo on stage with them at the end, doing still alive (which sounds way better with more instrumentation than joco doing it himself). Anyhow, if you didn't see them this year, maybe give them another try
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for real. it makes me sad that they don't do this. there are certainly plenty of other performers out there that would appeal to a gaming crowd, and pax would be a great way to showcase and promote new acts. it just feels like such a missed opportunity to have the same acts over and over.
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As great a time I had in that elevator, I also drained half my phone battery just sitting on the phone with the safety division (the elevator phone would disconnect after a couple minutes or so), I and all the others would have much preferred to not have to wait 30 minutes for the tech to just get to the building. PAX is a big show, I think we deserve an onsite elevator tech for the weekend.
Also, for the record, the guy on the phone said the tech would be there in 10 minutes. That son of a bitch LIED to us. I honestly believe if we had been stuck much longer, people would have started passing out.
PAX Dice.
Preferably as swag, but would be good merchandise to sell.
d20s EVERYWHERE.
Easier way to get to the pcfreeplay it was blocked off and there was only one stairway to get to it in a way it kinda made it difficult to go from the expo hall to the food court because of the massive walls in the way
I mean...Chessex. And Foam Brain Games. Lots of d20s for, like, 20 cents. But I wouldn't mind free dice in the swag bag.
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These were my observations from this PAX East:
Hard to find information. I have examples: A) Trying to find information for events outside of the satellite theatres (BioWare room, Kickstarter room) was hard. I missed many events because I simply did not know about them prior to leaving for PAX East. B) Trying to find the queue room on Friday morning was easy for me as I knew it from last year, but did not see signage along the way. We had to direct many people to the Main Theatre line as they were being directed to the queue room by staff. C) Tabletop Theatre was new this year, as far as I can tell. Trying to find the information about what it was and be able to adjust my schedule was difficult. Overall, better tools for making searches more effective and better signage across the convention would be helpful.
Tighter review of panels. Whatever the reason, I went to one panel that was comprised of some light discussion and a lengthy attendee-driven Q&A session. My expectation is that when I wait in line to hear experts that they offer valuable content related to the topic.
More support for Enforcers. I saw Enforcers looking tired (can't think of a way to say it) as early as Friday, and noticed they were more likely to talk with themselves than engage the crowd during line management, when compared to last year. It also seemed like this year they were more purpose driven and had less time to enjoy the event and interact. There is likely a reason that is unknown to me, but I wanted to offer that observation. It's my opinion that Enforcers make the show work, are invaluable and that we should support them even more. I offered them (packaged) snacks when I thought it helped, but was told they were taken care of, which is great.
The Riot booth was a disaster. I couldn't even get inside all weekend. Also, I felt sorry for the poor indie devs on the bad side of the booth. Loadout was my favorite game on the floor this year, and most people didn't even get a chance to see it.
Why is the tabletop section BETWEEN the queue room and expo hall?
Where was the entrance to the PC Freeplay? I never found it. The map said I could get there through the expo hall. The map lied.
The panel schedule was pretty lousy this year. I kept having to choose between multiple panels (X-Com and Magic, for example). But then there were 5+ hour stretches full of panels I wasn't even remotely interested in.
Someone stole CCFP's server. WTF?!?!!
If a company wants to sponsor swag bags, they need to provide more than enough for each day.
The live raffles need to stop. None of the booths were big enough to justify the crowds they caused. Also, stop throwing t-shirts! Some people were throwing them into other booths on Sunday.
Media badges. It seems the increased requirements just made the people who got them bigger dicks. I saw people laughing and bragging about how developers let them cut lines just because they had a media badge. Also, some people just used their early media time to get in line at the Riot spin-to-win thing.
The BCEC staff were actively making fun of PAX goers all weekend.
Panels running too long (Bioware), forcing other panels to run short.
Boston cabbies are still the worst. Other Boston drivers almost as bad.
Why put screens in the queue room if you aren't going to do anything with them?
Pros:
The indie devs make the expo hall awesome every year.
The match game panel was hilarious. I need a .gif of Russ Pitts removing his sunglasses.
Even though I wasn't really into the game, the World of Tanks booth was full of friendly, helpful people. Tera, too.
The Enforcers were obviously understaffed, yet they still kicked all kinds of ass.
Adding a dinner trolley was fantastic!