Line Kudos and Line Chaos
Luxo
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The Best :
Rockstar : People kept telling us how long we had, how the line worked, and what to expect, and thanked us for waiting so long. Bravo well done ! Roughly 1 1/2 hours.
The Worst :
Star Wars ToR: First off, Im gonna buy the game. They are not gonna sway probably half the gamers one way or another. This line is crazy. I have heard 3 to 4 hours easy ! I tried it the first day. It was chaos. Tiny queue areas that hold about 20 people, with another huge line circling those areas. Not for the faint of heart !
Rockstar : People kept telling us how long we had, how the line worked, and what to expect, and thanked us for waiting so long. Bravo well done ! Roughly 1 1/2 hours.
The Worst :
Star Wars ToR: First off, Im gonna buy the game. They are not gonna sway probably half the gamers one way or another. This line is crazy. I have heard 3 to 4 hours easy ! I tried it the first day. It was chaos. Tiny queue areas that hold about 20 people, with another huge line circling those areas. Not for the faint of heart !
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Then some of the community managers showed up and started passing things out.
If I wasn't so interested in SWTOR I would have definitely changed my mind about buying the game all together.
EDIT: The Portal guys were really nice and moved things very quickly and were informing people how long the wait was as well.
It was a 45 minute long demo each person played in a expo that has as far as I heard, over 60,000 people. It really makes me question BioWare Austin's common sense.
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In total agreement. The only way to get in that line was to show up at like 8AM in the morning and also be at the front of the queue line, or be media.
Event/panel lines were great, though, other than them telling us to smush close together when we were obviously all going to sit down anyways. You can't make 1000 nerds stand for 2 hours.
Suggestions for next year:
1- A better queue system. No more wrapping around the booth. Use a sort of barrier similar to what an amusement park would do.
2- Make sure Enforcers are actually keeping the pathways clear to walk around. Too many time they just walkd by a congested area and kept on walking. DON'T wait until it becomes a cluster fuck to clear t up.
3- Have a booth employee at end of lines. They can inform people of the estimated wait time or temporarily stop people from getting in line until the line clears up a little.
4- Make the companies have shorter demos. The amount of time some of the demos took was amazingly long. Portal 2 half hour, BF3 half hour, L.A. Noire half hour. If you gonna do a half hour hands off demo use the theatres ...
5- If a game is not a demo or on a timer put a employee at each station. The Homefront demo was crazy. One guy infront of me took 25 mins of play before someone went to get the one employee for 6 stations.
With 60,000 people coming you need to make sure lines move.
With that my PAX experience was 10x better than last year and can't wait for 2012...
I was disappointed to see so little involvement from the Enforcers. Every line in was in, it was all security, maybe one enforcer at the doors or working the line. Makes it less friendly and more restrictive and oppressive. To my knowledge, there wasn't an issue last year. I thought things went VERY smooth then. So I'm not sure why the beef up in security was necessary. they were somewhat rude, oppressive, and didn't care for anyone's comfort, just shoving people back to front like sardines for 2 hours in a line.
For a cheer, I'd say the line for the 3DS at the Capcom booth was amazing. They kept it going, let people play as long as they wanted, really, but then kept it very orderly, were polite, and genuinely seemed to care that everyone got a chance to play. Even Sunday, when the weekend had been so long and stressful.
I really thought they did a great job running the crowd there
Last year, some goon ran off with the Xbox 360 that had the 'Breach' demo build in it. Probably one of the few reasons, actually..
PAX East 2011 [ x ]
PAX East 2010 [ x ]
NOT one of then cared about the people there waiting for house in one spot. All they cared about was keeping people moving and that "fire lane" cleared.
I went into one open theatre to get a cup of water from the numerous water bubblers and I was "spoken to" and asked to leave the room. Wouldn't even let me get the water. Said if you want water go buy one at food court.
Also was TOLD (not asked) to move along as I was reading a PAX banner schedule at one of the theatres.
One last note. PLEASE PLEASE next year have more directional signs. I was going in circles the first two days trying to get my bearings straight. The maps where kinda confusing to me as they did not seem to line up well with the actual expo center.
Oh come on, I'm sure the $3.00 water bottles were worth it!
PAX East 2011 [ x ]
PAX East 2010 [ x ]
I don't think people realized they could play the 3DS at the Capcom booth... which was fine since I got to try both games enough to know that
A - The 3DS "really does fucking work."
B - Mercenaries is a game that I do not want to buy.
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Who the fuck did these two things? You mean the MCCA security? Maybe I'm just a trouble-maker, but I'd ask for their supervisor. "I'm reading a sign with information, and your employee rudely told me to keep walking." What horseshit.
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Yeah...on the first day I had to ask like five different people where the IGDA Dev Center was before one pointed me in the right direction. At least two enforcers were helpful enough to tell me to just look at the map, which was good enough to at least get on the right floor I suppose.
I was disappointed to see so little involvement from the Enforcers. Every line in was in, it was all security, maybe one enforcer at the doors or working the line. Makes it less friendly and more restrictive and oppressive. To my knowledge, there wasn't an issue last year. I thought things went VERY smooth then. So I'm not sure why the beef up in security was necessary. they were somewhat rude, oppressive, and didn't care for anyone's comfort, just shoving people back to front like sardines for 2 hours in a line.
For a cheer, I'd say the line for the 3DS at the Capcom booth was amazing. They kept it going, let people play as long as they wanted, really, but then kept it very orderly, were polite, and genuinely seemed to care that everyone got a chance to play. Even Sunday, when the weekend had been so long and stressful.
I really thought they did a great job running the crowd there
The Portal 2 line was amazingly well run, even though it did go around the booth twice (!). The 3DS booth on Saturday and Sunday was well run too (Why did they not have barriers on Friday?) The concert line Saturday night seemed smooth to me too!
Yeah it was MCCA. All I can say about them was Power Trip ... give someone a plastic badge and a police hat and they think they have power
I actualy have no issue paying the $3.00 really. As far as these type of events go that price is on par. I live in Boston and goto Fenway Park so prices seemed normal for an event in Boston
I did find some prices WAY off the mark though. Why does a Burger (if that's what that cold brown disc was called... the lettuce was warmer than the meat
The fancier eatery there (one with the bar) had better food. Why is that?? Is the food from a different place??? The burrito was actually pretty good and filling for the price.
OK back on topic .. the lines for food where OK
Also, while I suppose the main escalator pairs were set to be 'both up' or 'both down' for traffic flow reasons, it was sad to see people with disabilities struggling up the long stairs because they either didn't know there were up escalators elsewhere or because it would be just as difficult for them to wade through the crowd to get to the other pair.
Valve had a good system with having their booth actually roped off, in stead of making people stand in the open, like Capcom did day 1. While there was the mix up with the exit being in the middle of the line, at least the booth was well organized, and nice to look at. It's a shame the actual Portal 2 video was boring and short. We didn't get to play it. Hell, they didn't even demo it for us. The entire hour 1/2 wait was not worth it, in my opinion.
On the other hand, LA Noire and the Deus Ex Panel were both completely worth the wait.
Luckily, all of the big publishers did well in moving along the lines for their games. Sony allowed people about 15 minutes of Socom gameplay before bringing in the next group. With Gears of War 3 and Kinect, each person got about 5 or so minutes of play time, which seemed like an appropriate amount of time. Nintendo did great by allowing people to play for as long as they want, but by having bite-sized demos, there was no way someone could hog the game for all that long. Even Ocarina of Time was limited so everyone could try it.
But without a doubt, something needs to be done in the future with games like Homefront, Section 8, and El Shaddai. People shouldn't be able to play till their heart's content; only so they get a taste for the actual game, which really is what a demo is: a small snippet of the larger picture.
Anyway, Pax was great. There was a lot of great games there. Already looking forward to 2012's.
PAX East 2011 [ x ]
PAX East 2010 [ x ]
At the same time, I was actually impressed how quickly some of the other lines did move. As others pointed out, the Nintendo 3DS line wrapped around the booth and along the wall, and I still think it only took about 20-30 mins to get in there. The Portal 2 line wrapped around the booth twice, but was surprisingly fast moving as well. There were a number of others that I think took maybe 15-20 mins to get through.
I agree with some of the other suggestions. I think a barrier system would be nice. Everywhere I went that used them (GOW3. Red Faction, FEAR 3. MK, Portal 2, etc) kept things very organized and less confusing with whether this group of people is part of a line or random spectators. I also agree that 30-45 min demos are just...no. Especially if you're only moving small numbers of people and your line has wrapped around the booth and the wall. And someone definitely needs to keep an eye on the demo stations or set up some sort of time limit. Today, I saw two dudes play at least 2-3 continuous matches of MK while nobody was paying attention. Its not an arcade, guys. There's a line of people literally right next to you waiting to play.
The water coolers in the meeting rooms are for the presenters, and exhibition staff. They're not there for attendees.
If you wanted free water, you should have gone to one of the water fountains in every bathroom in the place.
Really? Because there were no signs on them, and that still doesn't excuse the security guard from being an asshole.
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How would anyone have known that?
Should really be common sense. Maybe I'm just more used to conventions / meeting halls than most.
I wouldn't have known that at all. I used them multiple times during PAX.
yeah, also i was specifically told by an enforcer (who i didn't even ask, he just offered) that i could go fill my water bottle from the water coolers in an empty room. so yeah.
If you used them, cool. If you were told not to, then ok. It's not like you couldn't have walked another 30' to a bathroom water fountain or something.
I didn't really have any problems with panel lines this year. I can see where people have an issue with them asking up to compress the line and getting closer together. I may be in the minority but I thought panel lines were organized much better than last year although part of it may be from me not missing panels because of it being a bigger venue.
Best lines for me were
Mortal Kombat - only about a 10-15 wait at the most. The line went fast cause they had 6 games going at once and it was 2 people in, one fight and then you're out.
WWE All Stars - I got second place in a 8 man tournament they held for this game. Most fun ive had with a wrestling game since Wrestle Mania 2000/No Mercy. Even people who hate wrestling could have fun with this game
and smaller games like The Dishwasher Vampire Smile - Cant wait till this comes out.
Worst lines were for the Nintendo 3DS and Star Wars
Yup. I had no issues with anything.
I don't see what the huge deal is with having people condense in a line. People spread out a TON if you let them.
And I can't really speak for most of the lines since I only played Mortal Kombat three times. That line was like 10-15 minutes long. It was nice.
I asked an enforcer where the main theater was the first day and was helped within seconds. The security was nice as well.
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I stopped by on Sunday about an half-hour before the floor closed. There was an open space into the booth and there didn't seem to be a line so I just wandered in and started playing. After leaving and going around the back, I saw a line of about 12 people behind the back wall of the booth waiting to be let in at the other entrance. I had seen the lines the 3DS was getting earlier in the convention so I wasn't expecting such a short line. So to those 12 people I cut in front of, I apologize. (I also apologize to the guy who's card I picked up while he was playing the AR game. I thought it was a business card and I had no idea it was related to the game he was playing.)
There. I feel better now.
He asked what I had done so far and I admitted at that point I only had hit the keynote, Pokemon booth and Nintendo booth - which was the truth. The highlight of our conversation is that he's shipping a surprise from Nintendo to my 6 year old son in a few weeks after we move. Anyone with a kid can tell you that kids LOVE getting mail to them, mail from Nintendo will be mind-blowing for him.
I don't expect a response and I'm really not sure why it pisses me off so much but I felt like telling someone.