PAX Prime Suggestions Thread

RolandDeschain

Seems like my entire point is lost/not being interpreted. <leaves forum>

jonxp

tsrblke wrote:

zerzhul wrote:

yes he was being sarcastic

Sorry, bad week. My sarcasm meter is totally broken. (And that's not sarcasm). I rescind my comments there-abouts. And apologize for my gut reaction (seriously, really bad freaken week).

It's OK. Poe's Law is pretty applicable.

arsonisfun

RolandDeschain wrote:

If you can barely afford it after a year of saving, frankly, I only have one thing to say: stop working only 20 hours/week at Burger King.

*smirk* I spent a little under $2k on pax this year. While it certainly is possible to do it for less, it's still a significant sum of money to attend PAX. The real point you were supposed to take away is this - raising ticket prices would do little to enhance the pax experience, but it could act to deter people. it's a bad idea unless there is a legitimate need to raise the price.

BigRed

RolandDeschain wrote:

Seems like my entire point is lost/not being interpreted. <leaves forum>

You want PAX to have fewer people so you don't have to wait in line very long for the things that you want to see and so you can see everything at PAX.

You think this can be accomplished by:
1) Raising ticket prices by 200%
2) Splitting PAX up to buildings that are very far apart
3) halving the attendance at PAX


No... I think we get your point. Doesn't mean that its correct. PA has top men working on PAX. Considering it is now the gaming convention to go to I am pretty sure they are doing it right.
You aren't listening to us though and aren't seeing what your suggestions would do to PAX just so the experience of a few (not the many) can improve. Let me retort.

1) by raising ticket prices you are alienating PAX'es main audience, the average gamer. This goes against why PAX was created. It is not a convention that is for the wealthy or privileged gamers. Its for all gamers. Keeping the prices cheap accomplishes this. Those people making 20k a year at burger king are still gamers. So are us that pull down at least 3x as much in higher end positions. PAX will still sell out if this was the case and you are right back to square 1.
Yes, PAX Is trying to appeal to all gamers, and no the convention center cant let another 10-20k people in cause that would violate fire code. PAX Prime is maxed out for the most part.

2) This would kill 1 building or another. You must not go to many conventions like this but ones that split up so far apart really have a poor experience (walking far, trying to get to other scheduled things in the other building, etc). It will also kill the atmosphere of the show. If you can create a transporter/portals to make this into one building then that suggestion would be viable for large sections of the show.

3) Why would this possibly improve anything? This would kill support of developers and anger a lot of attendees.

You want to see everything at PAX and threw out suggestions that go against why there is even a PAX to begin with. You are now ragequitting because you think you are right and nobody else sees it that way.

Long story short you can't see everything at PAX. This isn't a small convention where you can do that. Back when PAX was a small convention you can see/do everything there was at PAX. That was a long time ago. PAX is now an industry leader and its huge. You need to pick a short list of things you MUST see and go see them. PAX isn't getting any smaller. There will always be lines for the major things. If its truly that important to you, then you can wait in said lines, or you can propose to those companies to do what blizzard does. Have its own convention for its companies' products if thats all that you want to see.

courtneyj

All this "not enough space" makes me not want to fly from Seattle to Boston to PAX East. I'll take my PAX Prime, and I won't crowd the other side of the continental divide. I really hope this "the answer is more PAXes" thing comes true.

zerzhul

@courtneyj except there is still an overwhelmingly large amount of extra space at East

Liger

RolandDeschain wrote:

Seems like my entire point is lost/not being interpreted. <leaves forum>

Seems like your latest point is that you have something against low income households, because all the other points have been countered in detail. There is already plenty of separation between the classes in the US, we don't need to encourage the gap to grow with higher ticket prices.

If you want the booths to have more demo stations, email those companies. If you want PAX to have a larger venue, donate some of your vast wealth to the city to build a new convention center. If you want to see everything at PAX, well... You can't get everything you want. Unless you know how to build a time machine, in which case I strongly suggest you rent your own booth space so you can show it off. Be sure to expect long lines for it.

hml151

PAX is a wonderful experience and I have been able to come five with working two jobs and going school full time. I had very little money because I pay my bills and my loans for school. I work really hard to get the best deals and split it between friends. I spent $350 this year and probably will continue even with a full time job now. PAX gives the experience to all groups. And I love the opportunity to meet everyone, thank you.

Beker

Double the cost of the tickets, get a lot more space, and have the top few MAJOR games setup significantly more computers. (The major games are pretty easy to predict even a year in advance, by and large.) Nobody wants to find out a line for playing a game is closed for the whole day 20 minutes after the place opens. (SWTOR on Saturday)

I did SWTOR Saturday. I got off my shift at 2pm, met some friends, walked over, stood in line for about 50 minutes and played the game. They were pumping 20-30 people through every 15 or so minutes i'd guess. They do have a maximum number of people in line at any one time, because basically it can wrap around the booth once, and thats it. Any more and it interferes with other booths or trafic flow. They tell people when its full, usually thats an enforcer since rarely do booth planners budget someoen to manage the end of the line. But its full temporarily, not for the day, i'm sorry that the message got confused. You could come back in a half hour and find there is space in line again. Pretty much all lines for the popular booths where they didn't plan a place for the line work this way.

Sorry they had a bad experience. Hope this helps future people avoid that. Also, there are a thousand other wonderful things to see. I understand the fan boy urge, but don't let a bit of disapointment ruin PAX for you.

TOGSolid

Sucks to be them but if they flew into PAX for one day to see one thing then they are doing it wrong. PAX is about variety, so much variety in fact that we are all forced to make tough decisions on what we can fit in and what we must sacrifice. This is truth. This is known. They chose to make the investment to fly cross-country for the busiest day of PAX specifically to see what was destined to be one of the most popular games so that was a risk they decided to take.

Pretty much. There are ways around these mega-lines if you're experienced in the ways of PAX-Fu. Otherwise bring an E-Reader, or PSP, or whatever and get comfy. Even with jacked up prices, those lines are still going to be crazy long soley because of what they're for.

Besides, usually those huge game titles are going to either be coming out soon, releasing a demo soon, or going into beta soon. I'd rather wait a month or two and play the big stuff in the comfort of my PJs and a glass of scotch leaving my PAX time open to checking out all the awesome smaller titles and hanging out with the superbros off of this board.

Yuritau

RolandDeschain wrote:

I guess if the guys in charge of PAX want to follow the Blizzard "appeal to the most common denominator" methodology, there's nothing that's going to cause a philosophical change to make the experience better for the people that do attend. You guys might as well sell another 10-20k badges since the quality of the experience is a lower priority than number of badges sold.

You claim to be proud of allowing a ridiculous number of people into PAX via low badge prices; but what about the people that want to be able to actually experience everything at PAX, not just most things excluding the most popular?

You seem to have completely missed what PAX is about.

BigRed is right, you will not EVER be able to experience everything at PAX. Look at the schedule. There's at least 10-15 things going on simultaneously, for the entire convention.

zepherin

I'm not sure if this is the right place to suggest this because it is universally good for east and prime, but to cut down on counterfeiting it might be advantageous to have enforcers mediate badge transactions on site. I'm not sure if that would put too much strain on enforcer personnel but if you only have a few people who are counterfeiting and selling 100 badges, it would cut down on the 99 other badges they are selling and put the counterfeiter under suspicion if there is an enforcer on hand to say "yeah that badge is legit."

Also they should probably make badges in a way that is hard to replicate with home printers. Using a transparent plastic. They already use more the expensive pvc cards for badges, If they use transparent instead of white the cost is a little higher, but you can see through the letters and surrounding as opposed to seeing white. It can be used for an awesome badge design and without industrial printers it is hard to replicate.

dyaballikl

zepherin wrote:

I'm not sure if this is the right place to suggest this because it is universally good for east and prime, but to cut down on counterfeiting it might be advantageous to have enforcers mediate badge transactions on site. I'm not sure if that would put too much strain on enforcer personnel but if you only have a few people who are counterfeiting and selling 100 badges, it would cut down on the 99 other badges they are selling and put the counterfeiter under suspicion if there is an enforcer on hand to say "yeah that badge is legit."

I had a few people ask me if their badge was ok when I walked by outside, but we cannot endorse scalpers, thus we won't be stationed outside to help them sell badges.

zepherin

dyaballikl wrote:

I had a few people ask me if their badge was ok when I walked by outside, but we cannot endorse scalpers, thus we won't be stationed outside to help them sell badges.

Fair enough, but I was actually referring to the badge sales done through PA that are face value. Although I guess it would be hard to determine which transaction was done at face value and which was scalped

Unknown

This content has been removed.

zepherin

mcdermott wrote:

It would also make it impossible to mediate the large number of transactions that happen prior to PAX. Even among people that don't live in Seattle. If selling off my PAX badge means I have to fly to Seattle so an enforcer an bless the exchange, I may as well...just go to PAX?

I was just giving an option, but to be fair many of the badge transactions were arranged in advance and took place physically in front of PAX. I'm not saying all enforcers have to bless transactions, I am saying that counterfeiting can be cut down if enforcers are available to mediate a transaction. And if that service is available who is going to want to buy tickets any other way?

tsrblke

zepherin wrote:

mcdermott wrote:

It would also make it impossible to mediate the large number of transactions that happen prior to PAX. Even among people that don't live in Seattle. If selling off my PAX badge means I have to fly to Seattle so an enforcer an bless the exchange, I may as well...just go to PAX?

I was just giving an option, but to be fair many of the badge transactions were arranged in advance and took place physically in front of PAX. I'm not saying all enforcers have to bless transactions, I am saying that counterfeiting can be cut down if enforcers are available to mediate a transaction. And if that service is available who is going to want to buy tickets any other way?

Buyer Beware and all that. As far as the forum passes, I'm guessing that there weren't many of those that were fakes. Firstly, there weren't all that many (The thread had what 30-45 posts?) and secondly you have to pass off a lot of personal info the to buyer.
Plus these aren't done by PA as much as PA gives people who don't want to be arsehole scalpers a place to quickly sell their passes. Also, for passes sold by a specific time it was possible to change the address in the registration to have the passes mailed by the fulfilment company to the buyer (thus fixing the problem in the first place.) So I'm not really sure that's needed. It's a good idea in theory, it's just got way more strings to make it work than possible.

zepherin

tsrblke wrote:

Buyer Beware and all that. As far as the forum passes, I'm guessing that there weren't many of those that were fakes. Firstly, there weren't all that many (The thread had what 30-45 posts?) and secondly you have to pass off a lot of personal info the to buyer.
Plus these aren't done by PA as much as PA gives people who don't want to be arsehole scalpers a place to quickly sell their passes. Also, for passes sold by a specific time it was possible to change the address in the registration to have the passes mailed by the fulfilment company to the buyer (thus fixing the problem in the first place.) So I'm not really sure that's needed. It's a good idea in theory, it's just got way more strings to make it work than possible.

I'm brainstorming and while the logistics of that idea may be a bit much for the enforcers to handle, I actually think the use of transparent plastic is a better idea because it is hard to make a convincing forgery without ID card printing gear and that stuff runs in the thousands of dollars, while the companies that make the regular passes can use transparent instead of white and the cost increase is minimal. Maybe even no cost increase. The passes will just look different. Hell if they could overlap holograms and transparency so that it is noticeable in the light it would take serious gear to counterfeit. Something like this only with the cardboard tube samurai or some other thing.
http://www.idhologram.com/index.php?action=buy&id=66

Honestly though I don't know how much it would cost to incorporate. Other more complete solutions would be harder to implement and require each badge to be scanned, or 70,000 people lining up at will call (uggg). What you want is something easily visible from a distance. They already hold off on sending them out till about two weeks out. And forgeries seam to be a minority of transactions, but it is something to nip in the butt with changing designs and anti-counterfeiting technology.

Tango

Countermeasures to badge counterfeiting are already under consideration.

jaberwockynmt

zepherin wrote:

70,000 people lining up at will call (uggg).

Closer to 28,000 people, but, regardless, this sort of large scale on-site pickup won't be happening since it is considered to be a poor attendee experience. The badges will get mailed out similarly to now and they will have anti-counterfeiting countermeasures on them.

MJPM

All those on the east coast who are not willing to go to 2 PAXs a year and went to Prime, I encourage you to go to PAX East going forward. Those of you like me who go to both, stop copying me .

zepherin

Tango wrote:

Countermeasures to badge counterfeiting are already under consideration.

Fantastic. I know you guys have this in hand but I thought I would throw my thoughts out there just to make sure. Someone who is counterfeiting badges isn't stealing from PA because the event sells out PA has their money. The counterfeiters are stealing from the community. They are in effect stealing from us, but since this is well in hand the only idea I have is maybe add a list of local restaurants with the program within walking distance of Pax East. The food at the convention center was only ok.

TOGSolid

Tango wrote:

Countermeasures to badge counterfeiting are already under consideration.

If it involves a brute squad, count me in.

hml151

zepherin wrote:

Tango wrote:

Countermeasures to badge counterfeiting are already under consideration.

Fantastic. I know you guys have this in hand but I thought I would throw my thoughts out there just to make sure. Someone who is counterfeiting badges isn't stealing from PA because the event sells out PA has their money. The counterfeiters are stealing from the community. They are in effect stealing from us, but since this is well in hand the only idea I have is maybe add a list of local restaurants with the program within walking distance of Pax East. The food at the convention center was only ok.

There is a food forum each year with us past PAXers listing the goods, price range, and distance but no app as far as I know.

Tango

zepherin wrote:

I know you guys have this in hand

For the sake of accuracy, I should point out that PA are the ones making the decisions on this, not Enforcers. Although a couple of us who have some professional knowledge of security/counterfeiting have been in touch, it's always Robert et al. who make the big PAX decisions. (We just get to make the thousands of small ones that would otherwise need there to be 600 Roberts. ;-) )

MarySue

Tango wrote:

Although a couple of us who have some professional knowledge of security/counterfeiting have been in touch, it's always Robert et al. who make the big PAX decisions. (We just get to make the thousands of small ones that would otherwise need there to be 600 Roberts. ;-) )

A clone army of Khoos. That would be awesome.

zepherin

Begun, the Clone War has.

MJPM

Less David Jaffe, more Jane McGonigal.

Nullzone

MarySue wrote:

Tango wrote:

Although a couple of us who have some professional knowledge of security/counterfeiting have been in touch, it's always Robert et al. who make the big PAX decisions. (We just get to make the thousands of small ones that would otherwise need there to be 600 Roberts. ;-) )

A clone army of Khoos. That would be awesome.

I think you mean terrifying; don't you realize the Judgment Day scenario this would cause wherein the Khoos realize they no longer need us and glass the planet to make way for their new world order?

MarySue

Nullzone wrote:

MarySue wrote:

A clone army of Khoos. That would be awesome.

I think you mean terrifying; don't you realize the Judgment Day scenario this would cause wherein the Khoos realize they no longer need us and glass the planet to make way for their new world order?

That would be EVEN MORE AWESOME. Well, other than the burning and the dying.

aliceandstuff

Hi! My only suggestion is more of a plea to please use the Paramount again if you can. The sound quality was much better than past year's concerts and the venue was large enough that even with a full line there was still plenty of room down on the floor.

CuvisTheConqueror

aliceandstuff wrote:

Hi! My only suggestion is more of a plea to please use the Paramount again if you can. The sound quality was much better than past year's concerts and the venue was large enough that even with a full line there was still plenty of room down on the floor.

I do agree with this. I wasn't at the previous years, but the Paramount was a great venue, and I'd love to see more concerts there.

Speaking of concerts, any chance of getting 2 Skinnee J's to play next year? They'd be a good fit for the general musical stylings of the evening. I know they're mostly an east coast band, but I'm mostly a west coast guy.

Maruneko

TL;DR: Cosplay gathering area for cosplayers/photographers (so I can get good shots in good light and NOT block the hallway)

PAX has such a high quality of cosplay that it's so hard to resist stopping in the middle of a hallway to chat and snap someone's awesome costume--but this creates traffic and annoyance. Also, I want the best light source--which is on the 4th floor or wherever the PAX merch tables were--I believe that was the 4th floor with the big glass windows and lots of light. I would like to suggest a part of the 4th floor area near good light as a place for cosplayers and people like me who love to hunt for great costumes with my camera.

Examples: These were all shot on the 4th floor near the escalators/PAX merch tables.
1. Dr. Gordon Freeman
http://picturingkipi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/dsc_0997-copy.jpg

2. Jon Snow/ Game of Thrones
http://picturingkipi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/dsc_1008-copy.jpg

3. Princess Peach
http://picturingkipi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/dsc_0675-copy.jpg

See my post on PAX Prime (Cosplay) here: https://picturingkipi.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/pax-prime/

mrt144

hml151 wrote:

zepherin wrote:

Tango wrote:

Countermeasures to badge counterfeiting are already under consideration.

Fantastic. I know you guys have this in hand but I thought I would throw my thoughts out there just to make sure. Someone who is counterfeiting badges isn't stealing from PA because the event sells out PA has their money. The counterfeiters are stealing from the community. They are in effect stealing from us, but since this is well in hand the only idea I have is maybe add a list of local restaurants with the program within walking distance of Pax East. The food at the convention center was only ok.

There is a food forum each year with us past PAXers listing the goods, price range, and distance but no app as far as I know.

Seriously, I dedicated a lot of time and money towards my contribution 2 years ago. I'm pretty much of the mind that if you can't find something, anything to eat within short walking distance of PAX you're not trying at all.

And on top of it all, it is sad to see people mention boring and country wide chains because we have so much more to offer here!

mrt144

On another note, if you want PAX to have more space, please please please support any legislation that comes down the pike to expand or build never convention center space. We tossed around the idea of an expansion back in 2008-2009 but the state of the economy and the state of the state being what it is, that failed. I could easily point to this thread as an example of why we need more space and it does cost us money in the long run to not capitalize on attracting even more people, but your own voices matter.

Melcene

Sorry to necro this thread, but couldn't find a more recent one. I have a suggestion maybe someone could bring up to some vendors? In particular I'm thinking SteelSeries, though probably applicable to some others. SteelSeries products are pretty awesome (though I may be biased as I type this from a MercStealth), and the hubby and I were quite disappointed that SteelSeries wasn't actually selling any products AT pax last year - just giving out discount codes. Don't get me wrong, we made use of our discount codes by picking up a couple spare keyboards and mice, but still... was disappointing not to be able to buy from their booth. Maybe a higher-up can talk to vendors about bringing along SOME merch to sell?