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PAX East 2011 Suggestions Thread
Moe Fwacky
Right Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModerator Mod Emeritus
Right Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModerator Mod Emeritus
Have a suggestion for next year's PAX East? Post it here!
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Acquisitions Inc. Live! - A live version of the D&D podcast would be awesome. The main theater seems to lack love for tabletop gaming, or perhaps I just missed a panel or two somewhere.
Speaking of D&D.
D&D - It would be cool to have D&D in a blackjack/vegas style setup. You put a bunch of tables equipped with licensed DMs and anyone can sit down and play a module with either a premade character or their own character. I am aware Wizards sets up events and stuff but I would like to be able to sit down and play just like that without a sign up. Perhaps this is more something to submit to Wizards.
Screens on both sides of queue room - I only got to play the get in line games once, tonight waiting for the closing ceremony. And that was because usually my getting there early for events to happen in the main theater and not the expo hall ended with me being too far out of eye sight of the screen. I realize that it wasn't something done on purpose, but if next year when we move to the bigger hall we can have everyone participate that would be super.
Take a Picture booth - I was actually sort of half joking when I said this to Robert outside the book signing, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. If its possible to setup some staging area where people can pick up their photos from a previous photo taken, similar to in a theme park (by whoever, most likely an enforcer) for [insert amount] dollars, I think it would be very cool.
Shuttle buses - From what I'm hearing about the expected site for 2011, there's no hotels around, or not many. So shuttle buses of course would be a good idea if its at all possible.
This is all stuff that came to me this weekend. I've got a long train ride ahead of me so plenty of time to do more thinking.
Besides that, I'll do some more thinking about it later, but really. Get NDI a much, much bigger theater, so that more people that want to see them can do so.
More panels -- somebody mentioned in another thread that competing panels would help make it less obligatory to be in a line 1.5+ hours before the panel (if you want a half-decent seat) -- e.g. we went to Mega64's panel at least an hour prior to the panel, and the line was already humongous. We nearly didn't get in, and this was probably our most anticipated panel. We would have came earlier, but we simply didn't expect so many turnouts for such a niche panel in comparison to some of the other panels
D&D needed more DMs, but I'm sure that Wizards are aware of this. Also, it felt a little unorganized, as we had signed up preemptively via e-mail but we couldn't find any representatives that knew where we were to go. We basically got a table through chance (and ended up having fun regardless!)
Will post more if I think of them!
Everything else was great. I was VERY impressed by how well the enforcers handled queuing up and telling everyone when the line was full.
First, to possibly alleviate lines, although it probably will piss people off, is to guesstimate popularity of panels and place those that may be popular in similar time slots. Epic choice dilemma, but would probably spread the crowds out between the different sessions.
The second and better idea would be to utilize more TV screens like the message tvs for panel time changes and use them to let everyone know if queue lines for the panels are still open or closed. Just a listing of the panel and a red light or green light should do. That way if you run and can't get into one panel you can see what still has space available and jump into your 2nd or 3rd choice.
Hope this helps!
It would not be as good as being there, but it would have been great to at least watch the Keynote or Make A Strip Panels from a monitor. There were already those giants one's set up in the queue room.
Everything else seemed great. People were well-behaved, there was plenty to do, and it was just a lot of fun.
I also like the idea of a smaller cap on attendance. I know it's moving to the larger center next year, so it obviously doesn't need to be less than this year, but proportionally anyway...
1) Being able to get into panels. Being a first timer I hadn't a clue about getting to things early. I learned fast and got into line for something 1 1/2 - 2 hrs early on Saturday. This may be an issue regardless of the size of the venue based on popularity of the panel, but I'm not sure.
2) The size of lines often wrapping around various places was confusing just from the perspective of I wasn't sure what the line was for. Though enforcers were always present / and PAX goers alike answered any questions
As for other thoughts:
1) More of the "design panels", I missed the "Design an RPG" and the "Naughty Dog" one, but those seem like really great ideas and should continue if not have more.
2) More visibility on the signs. I know that there were signs all over, but in the packed hallways you couldn't really see the signs until you were right on them. So maybe in this kind of layout, hang the the sign from the wall (kind of like a street sign?).
All in all I had a great time and will DEFINATELY go again, I thought it was well organized (especially for the first time on the East Coast), the enforcers did a great job, especially in crowd control (aka making sure people got into the correct lines, and making sure the lines stayed optimally formed
Thanks,
Mike
Item the second: Volume control. I had to bail on the friday night concerts 10 minutes in. If its so loud that its physically painful, ITS TOO LOUD.
Item the third: More rpgs in the tabletop games. I was looking to forward to playing some Shadowrun, and never found anyone else playing a tabletop rpg.(The D&D run by Wizards doesn't count.)
Item the fourth: Adjust the wait times for the panels. Having to show up a bare minimum of a half hour(and more frequently an hour+) in advance sucks the wet farts out of dead pigeons(the 4th level of suckatude).
Corolory to item the fourth: Iron out the problems ahead of time. Waiting an extra 30 to 45 minutes for events was not fun.
In case anyone was wondering...
Level 1: This sucks.
Level 2: This hoovers.
Level 3: This sucks big hairy donky balls.
Level 4: This sucks the wet farts out of dead pigeons.
Shit! Too much paprika!
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH VOMIT IN THIS HAT?!
I would really enjoy a larger focus not just on panels but on tournaments as well.
By and large the only tourney that me and my friends heard about from the PAX crew while we were there was the Omegathon (the last round was great btw). However, there were a lot of tourneys at the event and a few of them were absolutely massive. I myself participated in two of them - TF2 and SS4. I was knocked out of the first round in both of 'em. Regardless, I still had a blast. Participating in a tourney is not something I get to do often and I was really excited just to talk to other people who love these games and see other people play that weren't all douchebag Ken players.
My big issue with these tourneys however was the lack of spectating. I realize the reason for this - too many people in the small console tourney room and it's going to be a huge sweaty mess; too many people in the PC tourney room and you have issues with stealing and a huge sweaty mess.
There was a lot of issue with set up time and waiting just to play these games, I had several other friends with me who don't play these games; instead, they had to sit outside and wait for me to finish (they did find other stuff to do). They were both pretty bummed about not getting to watch me compete and I felt equally as bummed not having them there to cheer me on.
I just feel there should be a larger room dedicated to these tourneys, especially the console tourney room which felt way too small. Being able to watch these tournaments (or at least some of the bigger matches of these competitions) would've been a lot of fun for me and my friends. Competitive gaming is a blast to watch. Put a game in front of me with two people competing in a heated match and I'll watch it, even if someone absolutely sucks at finding coins on the Super Mario Brothers.
PAX East was, from the start, an experiment. It was created to try and ease tension on Prime, as well as to attempt to meet an as yet unknown amount of consumer demand. The fact that badges sold out 2 months in advance, at a convention center that is over one third smaller than the one used at Prime , showed that there was certainly consumer demand there. However, I imagine a lot of the developers, or rather their publishers, wanted to wait and see what happened at PAX East. Setting up a booth, giving out swag, and hosting panels is a very large time and monetary commitment, and one that most would not take lightly.
Having said that, I expect next year to be much, much bigger for developer panels/booths
As for volume, if its too loud you're too old.
(We did, however, get to participate in mass Bohemian Rhapsody.)
I agree that the panel rooms were too small in proportion to the convention size, but the larger venue next year should address this. (Is it going to be Bayside, or Boston Convention & Expo Center?)
I agree that more spectating facilities for tournaments, particularly fun-to-watch stuff like fighting games and awesome stuff like Steel Battalion, would be really nice.
1.) I feel like WotC had an admirable but omnipresent aura. I actually think they did some of the best merchandising in the whole show and wouldn't ask them to tone it down or change it for the world. That being said, I feel like other developers (namely, White Wolf, but there wasn't a whole lot of Steve Jackson either, or other lines) weren't properly represented. (NOTE: This has almost nothing to do with PAX planners, since it's up to developers to spend money and get their ass out here.)
2.) The swag left something to be desired. I feel like a lot of the developers (both of the video and TT gaming variety) were really cautious about overspending on a new venue. Again, it's not up to PAX staff to get Intel to give out better prizes or do something a little bit more memorable, but it can't hurt to mention it to them either.
3.) I would love to find more middle-ground items, between complete freeplay areas and huge panels. More directed activities scheduled officially or semiofficially would be ideal.
4.) Tournaments left something to be desired, particularly the Rock Band tournament but the LFD2 Tourney was epically plagued with issues. To be more specific, though, (because technical problems are really sort of unavoidable) I would like to see more skill levels represented. I think we did pretty well in the RB2 Tourney despite sucking it up next to the more professional bands, but that means there's a huge gap between people who are capable of churning out nigh-perfect scores versus people who are too timid to even try a tournament. Informal tournies would be a lot of fun.
5.) I loved the RB lounge. I would love to see more themed rooms likes this that are available all the time.
6.) No LARPs available despite literally tens of thousands of attendees.
I want to stress these are not really complaints; these are things that, if I were pressed to come up with improvements, what I would recommend. I also understand that the planners don't really have full control over many of these factors; you require participation from the companies, too, and you can only do so much courting. But I have to envision a perfect world, and these are the sort of things I see in that world.
2. A bigger convention building
3. More major exhibitors.
4. More days, a week is not enough to see everything at PAX but I would settle for four days.
These are pretty minor complaints the convention was unbelievably awesome and next year can't come soon enough,
I'm Jacob Wilson. | facebook | thegreat2nd | [url="aim:goim?screenname=TheGreatSecond&message=Hello+from+the+Penny+Arcade+Forums!"]aim[/url]
I got up at 6am to drive to Boston. Many others got up even earlier to drive or fly. I really wanted to see Frontalot, but by the time he got on (at 1:30am) I was knackered. I still stayed there for 5 songs but I had to leave (10 hours sleep int he pasy 80 hours FTW!)
Id suggest shortening the set on the first day to accomadate all the travelling folks are doing - travelling is tiring. specially in regards to the energy in the crowd - everyone was blatantly tired as hell during metroid metal's set
as for the 2nd night of the concert...keep it going for as long as possible. luckily everyone was well rested enough to stay AND be energetic.
ps: anamanaguchi were superb, I really enjoyed them (I missed The Protomen)
You could tell that everyone there just simply loved games. It didn't feel like I was being sold anything, or marketed to. It just felt like I was there with people who loved games, and wanted to condense all their gamer geek excitement into one giant nuclear explosion of geek sauce all over Boston. Mission accomplished.
I have no really strong complaints, but I will give my two cents on each aspect of the con just for the sake of helping to improve in any way I can.
Music:
Gaming:
Panels:
Expo Hall:
With all that said, I'll reiterate that they are VERY minor complaints. Most of it can potentially be chalked up to my noob status as far as conventions go, and there just being not enough room or time to have everything openly available. There was so much to do and my only real feeling was being overwhelmed. I am already planning to go to PAX Prime in September, and every single one of them after that. Good show everyone, and thank you SO much.
Messaging areas. Find the most remote corners of the convention area and provide huge whiteboards, or bulletin boards. Then it'd be easier to leave messages to say "pickup game of Munchkin @ 2PM in X room" or "John D. w/ lost you, meet at location X @ 3PM".
PC tournament signup. Too many steps this year, and they were too far apart. I'd open team signup via a intranet page, then have a single check-in closer to the tournament start time. We got stuck waiting in line to sign up, waiting in line to sign in 2hrs before the event, waiting in line to play.
Steve Jackson Games had a fairly large representation in the tabletop area. It was busy the half-dozen times I walked past, I even stopped next door at another company whose name I don't remember and played "Ticket to Ride." I may have to buy that one!
At least one more panel room would be great, as well as larger console and classic console rooms. More classic games would be fun too, there were a lot of great titles that would have been very popular.
First off, this was my first PAX and it was an amazing time! Thanks to everyone who made it something that I will remember forever.
I agree with the quote above. I was so overwhelmed by running around to see everything that by the time I went to get a shirt and scarf, they were all sold out. That's an idea... maybe an option to order a shirt when we order our 3-day passes online? Just add that to the bill and mail it to us with our tickets?
The music before and after some of the panels was too loud. Louder does not equal "cooler". I know I had a few more ideas, but frankly I can't remember them right this second. I'm still reeling in the greatness that was PAX!
P.S. - I don't suppose there's some super secret warehouse with a few left over PAX East shirts and scarves in it for those of us who were awestruck and missed out?
The green line stops are closer together than you probably realize. They're only about half a mile apart. Personally my rule of thumb even when there's no traffic is that I don't take the green line at all unless I need to go at least two stops (unless it's rainy or really cold). Friday afternoon I passed through Kenmore Square and saw hundreds of people waiting to get on jam-packed trains to Hynes. I'd say if you've made it as far as Kenmore you might as well walk the rest of the way. Same with Copley coming from the East.
1) bigger place, bigger place, bigger place. I went to PAX09 in Seattle and this place dwarfs the size of seattle.
2) I really like having keynotes or other panels or at least panels in the main theater on some type of TV. this allows people who missed it or when they ran out of space to see the address (hopefully not as bad an issue with issue 1 taken care of)
3) Bring more "special" items to the PAX merch. It seems the PAX shirts and this time the PAX scarfs sold out so quickly. At least in the past they would last until saturday but by friday night the scarf were gone?!!?!? I was sad
4) Bring VGO BACK. Just please pretty please
There were a couple of things that I would increase:
1) The amount of tabletop RPG’s being played. Not just the volume but also the variety. I would have loved to try Eclipse Phase, but they were only at one table and it was full. I would love to see an indie showcase of Tabletop RPG's just like the one that you had for the indie designers from Boston. I am sure the designers would make the trip... mainly because they want word to get out about their product. More and different RPG companies would be great!
2) The way people were getting let into seminars: We sat in line on Sunday for well over an hour and we were pretty much at the beginning of the line, until the Enforcers moved people from the back of the line to form a line next to us... all of a sudden, we were at the back of the line, and we were all let in at the same time. While we managed to get seats, if we hadn't because of the way they changed the line, I may have been peeved.
That being said we had a blast, and I am really glad you guys came to Boston for PAX East. Let's hope it continues for many years to come!
PAX EXPO
Somewhere with free parking would be nice.
A bit too small.
Not many high-profile booths made the booths that were high profile very overcrowded.
"Telecasts" of the panels would have been helpful.
BYOC
The biggest problem I came across was organization.
Specifically, we were told there would be local Bad Company 2 servers. There were, but there were no instructions on how to connect to them. We ended up having to collaborate with the hosting company to get instructions posted to the intranet website; and then people didn't even know there was and intranet website. Finally, once we could get people connected and playing: the map wouldn't change. It was stuck on the same map the whole time! There were probably 10 BC2 servers and they all had the same map.
Announcements were not able to be made until Saturday because there was no mic or speakers. When they finally did get these items, whoever would talk into the mic would never speak up so you could barely hear them, especially if you were actually playing a game with headphones on.
There needs to be some sort of projector screen like what LPANE's Nor'Easter events do to convey information to BYOC attendees. Upcoming tournaments, teams looking for players, players looking for people to play an obscure game, and the intranet address can be put up on the screen.
The internet was too unreliable to hold contests fairly. For example, the Wikipedia page hunt relied entirely on the internet working properly, but I know at least two people that could not connect at times.
It would be nice if, in addition to contests, there were occasional raffles for stuff.
2. More events, period. I felt there were a few "dead spots".
All in all, a very well run show that kicked a serious amount of ass. All the other pieces I would change are things that aren't really the responsibility of the show promoters (more exciting things at booths etc.).
My biggest wish for future tournaments is just some way to have more spectators. Though the console tournament areas were crowded, at least you could get in to watch. It seemed bizarre that the PC tourneys were entirely closed to spectators--if a gamer wins a tournament in the woods and nobody is there to witness it, does it make a sound?
I know space will eternally be an issue for these Expos, but to at least have the final match of each tourney put on a big screen in a theater I think would be really cool.
On another note, I thought the console, classic console, and classic arcade cabinet freeplay sections were handled extremely well. Everyone seemed really well behaved, there were lots of machines and games available, and it was relatively easy to walk around and see what everyone was playing.
So suggestions:
- Please do An Evening with Scott Kurtz again, that was simply fantastic and I haven't laughed that hard in ages
- Outlets. It's essentially a video game convention, people are walking around the expo floor with netbooks and DS's and PSP's and smartphones and it was so hard to find a free outlet to charge anything. It would have been super awesome to have charging stations near the sumo bags, so you could manage to chill out for a few minutes and charge your phone at the same time.
- And the last one I know you probably can't do anything about, but three rackin' frackin' dollars for a lukewarm bottle of water? Ouch. It was nice to have the water coolers inside some of the rooms, but other than the stray water fountains on the expo floor if you needed water you were reduced to spending a small fortune.
More arcade games. I can't thank the staff from ACAM enough for bringing a bunch of great classic games, most of which I had never heard of. The same but more would be awesome.
The program seemed to be a little spotty. Smaller events, like the Steel Battalion tournament, were left off completely.
Sumo bags in the Queue Room. Concrete floors are not kind to my butt.
My NES blog and my Pokemon Snap tumblr.
Provide some spectator area for tournys. I like gaming but I don't enjoy competitive play as much, I do however enjoy watching others play. Some spectator areas even if they're just being viewed on a monitor elsewhere would rock.
Loud speakers, seriously there were more then a few times I WISHED the enforcers had these. I'm kinda deaf and having a loud speaker makes it MUCH easier for me to hear someone trying to yell over a din.
Bigger Expo hall, seriously self explanatory, I want to see more exhibitors and cool stuff in the hall!
Some newbie stuff. I'm kinda a weird nerd, I don't get into card games and I don't play table top RPGs. This doesn't mean however I don't want to try them. Some time slots for newbie introduction to common nerd games would be awesome or even a room for it with time slots dedicated to certain games.
And I'm going to mention the need for outlets again, perhaps portable charging trees like some airports have sponsored by a company? I felt at time like a wanderer in a desert looking for a drop of water to drink when trying to find a free outlet.
And also, why didn't I see Child's Play a bit more prominently? Sure I saw the cookie brigade collecting money for donations with a cookie, but there wasn't even a place I could go for information (besides a panel), or to make a donation. Even a small table in the front area would have been great, especially if for the convention they were collecting donations specifically for a local children's hospital. Maybe there is a reason why this wasn't done but I for one would have happily dropped more cash, or amazon gift cards there to help out.