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I was disappointed in the "DISCLAIMER" panel. It seemed like it wandered and wasn't very coherent.
The passion into profit panel was a lot of fun and the panelists provided some excellent advice & insight into starting an online business, while the web video panel seemed to drag on & on with technical issues making learning anything from the panel difficult. :?
Enforced: West 2015, West 2016
Acquisitions Inc. was cool, but at a point it droned on because of a few overdone jokes by the audience. Sadly, that's to be expected in big panels. I think I'd just prefer to watch it on a stream at home.
Strip Search panel is what I expected it to be, which is good, but some people during Q&A couldn't handle themselves. Also, two hours was way too long for it.
Finally, the Nvidia panel was just bad. About 10 free things were given away, which is super cool. However, the audience was comprised of swag whores going solely for the purpose of snatching up the free stuff, and it was obviously that they'd go to any length to get it. I wish they would leave the graphics discussion part of the panel and the "FREE STUFF!!!" part of the panel separate.
Trade me pins, yo: https://www.pinnypals.com/pals/Lazorz
"Designing, Shaping, and Examining Online Player Behavior", Best Panel of the Weekend.
If anyone's looking to learn how to moderate a panel, Grace (gtz of fatuglyorslutty.com) is a shining example of keeping the conversation interesting and focused, without using bullet point questioning.
It seems in the last few years there's been a sudden awareness from the triple A studios and system houses that there's occasional (every day) harassment in online gaming. The first reaction to this behavior tended to be of the stick variety, punish the player until they wise-up or move on. Then there's the carrot variety, reward the player for good behavior. Slowly, the conversation has become about what kind of environment the players want to be in and tailoring different spaces for different players.
Davin Pavlas of Riot discussed using player tribunals to determine if a behavior would be welcome in the League of Legends community and that players were much more harsh with their responses than moderators would have been.
Jason Coon of Microsoft talked about different spaces on XBox Online serving different communities. Likening the plaza to a movie theater lobby, a space where children and adults can share the space, versus the R-rated movie theater where the environment is more permissive.
Kate Welch of ArenaNet explained how Guild Wars 2 was explicitly designed around player collaboration, so when you ran into someone in the world, there wouldn't be a fear of kill stealing or griefing. In fact, that random person was encouraged to heal you or help complete an event because they would be getting the same rewards.
And Chris Hecker of SpyParty discussed the way players of a 1v1 antagonistic game hang out afterward to discuss strategy, much like chess players would, to improve their own game and improve the experience of playing it.
There's so much more I could talk about with this panel!
Disclosure, I work with Kate at ArenaNet.
Worst Panel:
"Testers vs The Game: The Life of a Game Tester"
A tweet I sent about this panel, "4 dudes, no ladies, in industry since 90's, not best group to give advice on getting started today."
Yeah... So I'm a tester, I know what the life of a tester entails, so I was hoping for a nice discussion about what problems we find in being a tester and ways we can make our profession better.
Unfortunately, all the guys on the panel had made it far past the entry level world and have bought into the current modus opporandi. Start at a low wage and work as hard as possible to impress the higher-ups who look for hard work and quality.
I wanted to stand up screaming that these were 4 white guys making it in gaming at a time where money was flowing like water in the studios where they were working. And maybe making the same wage now as an entry level employee as they did 10 years ago wasn't the best way to encourage quality.
Hungry? The Cookie Brigade!
PAX Prime 2013 Buttoneer! Main Design! And the Creeper is still waiting for you...
Slytherin House Elf for the Order of the Phoenix!
Just because we're arrogant, doesn't mean we're (completely) evil.
I enjoyed Acquisitions Inc, Strip Search Reunion (though I skipped out as soon as the audience Q&A started - "sign my lunchbox for luck" WTF, go see them in Bandland you git), Khoo Interviews Mike & Jerry, and the keynote. The CAH panel was fantastic as well, on multiple levels.
I wish I had gotten into the NES panel and had time to go to the pinball game panel.
There seemed to be a lot of "Break Into the Industry!" panels this year, which were redundant and overdone IMO. I'd love to see interesting things about the industry, but I have no interest in going into the industry, so I think those should be kept to PAX Dev. I'd love to see panels about voice acting, gameplay design, and so on WITHOUT discussion about getting into them as careers.
I also wish people would keep in mind their questions for the Q&A at large panels. Getting up to ask a dumb question, or to ask a favor, or to say "you're so great" isn't entertaining or fun for the rest of us, and it means you're an attention whore. Save the favor requests and gushing adoration for personal visits at a signing event or table, please.
PAX Prime Attendee since 2006, BYOC Attendee 2008-2012, Buttoneer 2010-2014
https://www.pinnypals.com/pals/alegria
Just a quick note about this, to get in to PAX Dev, you have to either be a student with plans for the industry or already in the industry. I think these panels are intended to target people who are maybe not already in that path but want to figure out how to get there.
I like how Rothfuss ran his Q&A. If it wasn't relevant to the audience, he moved on to the next Q. If it was a story and not a question, he would call the person out for not having a Q at a Q&A.
As always, the Retro Game Roadshow panel was great. Always bring that panel back to PAX. Its interesting to see what valuable games people have to show.
PAX Prime / PAX Dev 2014
PAX Prime 2013
PAX Prime 2009
StripSearch reunion panel was full of laughs! Such a great bunch of folks. So many laughs seriously! I was worried about the 2 hours length and as I wasn't attending Monday that meant that it was cutting off my final Expo time early and it was completely worth it. I didn't realize how badly I just needed to sit down and relax for a little while after the go-go-go of Expo and code hunting and the crew really delivered.
It was really the most bittersweet thing.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
A relevant quote from Mike: "If someone from Kotaku asked me that, I'd tell him to fuck off and I'd leave!"
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
I especially liked the localization panel and Bad Games. I thought Making of NES Games could've used a bit more historical focus, (what was workflow really like in the NES days?) but obviously it's easier on the panelist to go over his experiences and there was plenty of delicious technical info. I went to the Everything is Sexist panel and it felt more like a lecture than a discussion. Which is fine, but I would've appreciated a Q&A session. Maybe next time they can tell people upfront if it's a discussion panel or a lecture. It's possible there were other women in gaming panels that would've scratched my itch, but I only had time to go to one so I picked the one with the best name. Such is life!
How was the crafting panel? I wanted to go to that, but I decided to prioritize screwing around with friends. No regrets, but I'd like to know what happened.
The CAH panel was really filled happiness and at the same time brought tears to my eyes as it was a panel partially dedicated to Ryan Davis, and they had guests sharing their favorite videos of Ryan over the years. It was fine until John Vignocchi got on stage and lost it and cried. It was just really bittersweet to see and know that Ryan is loved by many but he's no longer here with us. oh and Max Temkin provided free pizza for us after the panel. That was awesome too.
This year was the 10th year for Mega64, a milestone! That panel is always fun.
AS for the good, Mega64 and Giant Bomb did amazing. And Roberts interview was the highlight of my PAX this year.
We also attended the Final Fantasy geekout panel. It was fun, but they should have cut the fight scene music that played for THE WHOLE PANEL. Also, Makeout: Wakka, Marry: Jecht, Meteo: Tidus.
My least was Best Female Characters in Video Games. There were a lot of weird characters on the lists - Catherine and Katherine from Catherine, Bayonetta - who made several appearances with little to no commentary as to their inclusion. There were too many categories for too much discussion of every inclusion, and a lot of pushing on The Walking Dead.
I appreciated Destructoid's doing a whole panel on HUGE, but the tone of the panel was almost one of caution and perhaps schilling or potentially apologetic. It lacked the energy and amusement that Dtoid has presented in years past, most notably in 2011 for Destructoid Live 2, a 90-minute extravaganza that featured cake and burgers (and supposedly got them in trouble). The Destructoid.TV panel was much more familiar in tone, and was a frequeny hilarious panel that felt more like I expected. And, not to sound like a swag whore, but their swag defaulted to shirts. That wasn't a big deal, but the change in the tone of the Dtoid panel was reflected in that.
And, I want to know why Keiji Inafune was over at the Hyatt. That was a small-ass theater, and Inafune's panel was in high demand. If he wasn't going to be in the main theater, he should have been at one of the huge theaters in the Sheraton. I and my friend were really saddened by missing his panel. I know scheduling is always a juggling act, but that seemed like a bizarre call to me.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
This was my first PAX, so I can't compare to the others (anyone link previous videos?) but I liked the keynote. Maybe it's because I have been a fan of Bullfrog since Populous 2, or I was hoping that Molyneux would make some outlandish claim, but for me it was a good insight into why he made the things he did.
Nusquam Findi Factionis
My Digital Pin Lanyard
One of my favorite parts was how they baseballed the swag at the audience. Just whipping those copies of TLoU out into the center of the crowd.
The giveaways was one of the moments in my life where I truly HATED being short
I agree. The keynote was just a chance for Molyneux to plug his game. I guess the keynote speakers can do whatever they want for their presentations but I prefer them to be about gaming as a whole. This was definitely one of the weaker keynotes. Ted Price's keynote for last year is an example of a good keynote. I also liked Ron Gilbert's back in 09 and Will Weaton's in 07.
They said that it would be streaming on Twitch, but not simulcast in a different room even. Which, don't get me wrong, is great for the people who didn't get tickets or weren't able to go. But, I'd have had to go home to watch the presentation. Which...lame. It's a bit my fault for not having gotten there early enough, but I didn't realize the Kraken was so tiny this year. Which, booo...
Yup! CAH's panel was at capacity at 8pm. Line started at 7pm. The panel was at 9:30pm lol! Apparently 500 people ish?
Yay Enforcers!
Probably didn't help that they went 30mins over lol
As for bad panels, I hate to say this because the presenter was such a nice guy, but the Why Role-Playing Games Matter panel was really, really boring. One person delivering a lecture consisting mostly of very dry history, without anything to make things interesting at all. He said he wanted to make it more of a "community panel" and have the attendees share their own thoughts and stories, but there was so little time left after his lecture that that simply didn't happen. I'm sure the book is great, it definitely sounds like he did his homework, but I was having flashbacks to my worst high school classes. The panel was a good idea, but if it's run again next year, I would strongly suggest additional panelists and more focused lectures.
Gearbox panel was good but I felt like we dodged a bullet when they ran out of time for the Q&A. With an audience consisting of people begging to see the original Borderlands 2 trailer in full when it was brought up, I know we were going to get a lot of fans who were just ready and waiting to slobber the guys with praise. Still enjoyed it though.
Anyway, Giant Bomb and Acquisitions Inc were my favourites. Twitch was ok because I discovered them at last year's PAX Prime and wanted to know ever since how they came to be. The Spelunky challenge didn't hold my attention like I thought it would and while Game Night was fun it took way too long.
Someone in the front row recorded the panel, which I believe is going up shortly. I loved every moment of it, and will go out of my way to prioritize attending future panels with these participants at PAX from now on.
"Serious Fun: Playing Games in Class Sounds Great...But Are They FUN?" wasn't bad, but was less about the classroom than I had hoped based on the description. It didn't help that one of the panelists spent most of the time on his phone.