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PAX Prime 2013 Ideas, Suggestions and Feedback
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You couldn't find Scotland Yard because it wasn't in either library, sadly. In the past, the PAX TT library took loans for the weekend from Enforcers, to bolster the permanent collection. But too many Enforcer games were getting damaged/losing parts, and the PAX permanent collection was becoming large enough to stand on its own. Scotland Yard was previously an Enforcer-loaned game that we haven't had a chance to add permanently to the library.
Over in the general TT info thread here on the forum, we tried to get the word out about the Olive 8. We just need to continue spreading that word. We also maintain a list of what is available in the library (viewable at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/paxtt?own=1&subtype=boardgame&gallery=large&ff=1) - and this will be updated before PAX East.
Dew/Doritos XP: I have mixed feelings about the promotion. I figured it as a time waster right from the go. I came to Seattle for PAX, not to run around Seattle for four days trying to gain a slim chance at an Xbox One. I didn't like the way it was touted as soon as the goon started shouting about it with the microphone in the queue hall on Friday. But on the other side, it probably helped keep lines in the expo hall a little shorter with folks running around after QR codes.
Enforcers: Great job done by most the crew as usual. Sorry to draw attention to one bad experience, but why did I get directed around the queue room when it was empty? I was trying to make my way to the WotC Magic card unveiling one afternoon. It's held in the far corner of the queue hall, so I came in by way of the merch booth side to get there. I was directed away from the giant empty room and forced to go thru the expo hall to get to the other side. Seriously, I had to go thru the freaking crowded ass expo hall just to pass by an empty section of the queue hall about 100 feet from my destination. It served zero purpose, and I could even have walked right up behind the enforcer that made me go all the way around. It only seemed to be so somebody could throw their weight around. Frustrating at the least. But every other of my interactions with Enforcers were great.
The Penny Arcade Staff: I can't say anything bad here. This was my first time ever even noticing the PA staff thanks to Pinny Arcade and appearances in Strip Search. Every time I asked to trade pins I was kindly greeted and always asked if I was enjoying PAX. Even when he was dead tired from working until midnight at the merch booth, Brian still asked my wife and I if we were having fun. Superb staff.
Random aka Megaran: So glad to have a new artist in the concert line up! Megaran was awesome in his solo performances, but the backup band he had with him sucked the fun right out of the room.
Expo Hall Booths: Much better job with the noise control and line management! Twitch had a boxed in booth this time, which was a million times quieter then at PAX East. Most booths did a good job with line control too. Nintendo is the only ones that did terrible in this aspect. They put their demo rigs right up to traffic lanes, and left it to attendees to manage the lines themselves. Terrible idea. And that line for Windwaker HD? Cutthroat at best.
Pinny Arcade: Love it. I'm just not the biggest fan of how some of the pins are distributed. Hidden Path pins were a pain in the ass to get. You had to play either their Minecraft ripoff, or extremely boring tower defense game. This earned you a token to let one of their employees spin a weighted wheel to decide a prize for you. I ended up with a stack of beta codes for two games that I never want to play again. Thankfully I was able to trade for a Jin pin, and the wheel spinner person took pity on me Monday afternoon and gave me a Juggernaut pin after a half dozen times of playing Defense Grid.
Smoking Areas: Any chance of getting the WECC staff to enforce the smoking ban right near the exits? Nothing like stepping outdoors to get a breath of fresh air only to instead be greeted by a face full of smoke from the 200 people that light up right next to the doors. Seattle has a 25 foot smoking ban near exits, if this could be enforced it'd be a start.
I only use an ecig so I wasn't stinking up your air though :smugdog:
MegaRan: YES -Protomen: YES- Bit Brigade: YES- MC Frontalot YES- Adam Warrock: YES- Super Commuter:YES -Hideo: NO - The Doubleclicks: NO-Supergiant: NO-Super Guitar Bros: NO. And please bring back Freezepop -Anamanaguchi And Paul and Storm. And try to get Mc lars . And if possible Can you bring back the 2 AM close the 12 AM close was too early. And please kick league of legends out of the convention center . And please bring back jam space
From a non-MMORPG perspective, I think I'd want the two MMORPGs with a homebase together, while having the theaters in the WSCC was kind of nice. Plus, the LoL situation seemed fairly crazy and the E's didn't seem too thrilled with the crowds. I dunno if the LoL would be better handled in the Sheraton.
On the other hand, the Cookie Brigade can't work the lines in the WSCC, so that's a bummer for line waiting.
That's just my two cents.
And LoL's pretty far from an MMORPG, so I'm a little confused.
I do think it'd be nice to move LoL to the Benaroya, but I get that Halo was there this year and in a previous year Halo had been creating the same issue since it was in the Annex instead of Benaroya, so I don't know where'd they'd go. Since Halo doesn't have the pre-release hype any more though it might be okay to move it back into a smaller part of the main Convention Center.
I didn't have any real problems with the heat outside of the Queue room and actually unless I was outside in the sun, but that was just due to the layers of my costume.
I actually kinda thought it was a little cooler inside than in previous years because it seemed a little less packed/condensed. It was still hot and sweaty times, but never bad enough I felt ill.
-Noise levels from LoL and on the show floor were much better this year. Whatever rules kept the noise levels down are keepers.
Cons:
-Too many merchants, particularly the non-gaming merchants need to go. How many forms of caffeine/sugar for stimulant use were being sold?
-Indie Megabooth was mega-crowded.
Suggestion:
I see a lot of people suggesting LoL move to an outside venue. If it does, it might be nice to have it be an event where PAX badges can get you in, but separate tickets are sold and maybe it will provide some relief for PAX badge sales. Anymore it takes industry connections to get badges reliably and anything that could free up more for those without would be an improvement.
Blizzard had a big booth at PAX East this year (to reveal that stupid WoW CCG), but I don't recall ever seeing them at a Prime.
And LoL is a MOBA, which is not an MMO.
The Olive 8 was a nice location but we also encountered a lack of space issue there. The only time we didn't have this problem was EARLY in the day. Once the afternoon hit space filled up fast.
Wow I never thought of that but man you bring up a great point! Your suggestion is a wonderful idea and I do hope it is taken into consideration.
I think it's a cool idea, but I can't really think of any particular booths where merch really created that much of a problem. Bethesda's had some crowds, but they wrangled everyone so that they were still inside the Bethesda booth rather than out in the aisles. In fact the only times merch buyers were in the way was when they were at merch-only booths, since they didn't have any place for them to stand other than in the aisles with everyone else. Though I guess if they were all together they'd probably be able to partition the space better I hope.
You're right, I was thinking of Bioware, not Blizzard. I dunno why I kept reading the Bioware theater as Blizzard base. But, in my head, all weekend, I was thinking oh, Blizzard. Yay reading comprehension.
Plus PG always just has honestly a too-tiny booth for the amount of traffic they get...
That said, I'm all for the stimulant vendors getting the boot. I really don't like seeing that stuff being so heavily pushed, especially when a lot of people grabbing it might not be used to that level of caffeine or other stuff. I think we've dodged a bullet thus far that someone hasn't needed medical attention for over-consuming some of that stuff.
There were a lot of great panels. My daughter enjoyed the focus on LGBT and women's roles in games and gaming. I really liked the Fallout: Nuka Break panel
I don't mind the merchandise booths at all, they were easy to avoid if you want to.
Similar to some other posts, here's my suggestions:
1) More room for the Indie booths. Some fun stuff in there, but great googly moogly, way too cramped.
2) I was perplexed as to the point of the Comcast/Xfinity booth. Maybe relevant to content delivery, but not in any way really pertinent to the point of PAX.
3) I'm not a big LoL fan, so I would have no problem moving with that activity to Benaroya or other peripheral site.
4) I liked the extra day. My son's girlfriend could only get a Saturday badge and with the extra day, I could loan her mine for a while and not feel like I was missing out.
5) The Doritos/Dew QR thing was a big meh for us. Looked like a lot of people were photographing the codes and sharing them that way.
6) Didn't mind the swag bag process this time around, it was still possible to get a bag into the afternoon.
In all we had a great time and we are looking forward to 2014, if the Pass Gods are smiling on us.
I was sad to see all the people swag dumping in the swag room, it made the place pretty trashy at times. I get that most of the stuff in the bag is effectively garbage, but don't leave it on the floor. It's naive to expect people to do this, so in the future, maybe a couple simple signs or having the closest Enforcer educate them a little. Just some little nudges to encourage good behavior.
My final complaint is about the PAX web page. I think that PAX as an organization does an astonishlingly poor job of distributing information. People new to PAX that don't know that the forums are the best way to get information are likely to miss out on so much their first time. At the least, I'd like to see links to the online version of Guidebook, the full sized maps, front page items being removed when they are irrelevant (like the call for Enforcers), a general guide to finding X (where X is one of the many things spread about like Tabletop being in Olive 8 and the PAX 10 being upstairs and not in the main Expo hall). Or just make it clear that if you want info the forums are where to look.
I think this is extremely valuable input and right on the money.
Nope. Nothing has changed in the WSCC policies, the Brigade has just gotten more Ninja. And with PAX spreading out to more and more locations outside, it's easier to find alternative distributing locations.
That's all the news that's fit to print.
But they were demoing one of the most anticipated racing games on the horizon, The Crew. Plus they gave away a freaking car to one lucky PAX goer.
At the least I don't think that a media company like Comcast has any less of a place at PAX as caffeine pills or Mountain Dew.
I think part of it is that it seems that a lot of people (myself included) didn't realize they were actually there to show a game. I thought they were just hocking their wares like the the caffeine people. After I saw it was a racing game I understood more why they were there but I still refuse to step foot into their booth because of their distasteful business practices. I steer clear of shady companies no matter what industry they are in.
Sometimes I want to know what I'm in line for: Particularly, there should be a clearer definition of what is a demo, and what is going to be a presentation. Ubisoft was particularly bad about this - gathering some of the longest lines on the floor for a live presentation of their biggest titles. Not a demo mind you - just a Ubisoft representative playing through the game to a crowd. If I had waited in a line labeled "Watch_Dogs" for well over an hour, only to be presented with something I could have easily just watched online in my own time. I think Infamous: Second Son was guilty of the same thing. There really should be a designation in the guidebook for what portions of the show floor are going to be for unplayable material. But on the topic of Ubisoft, note how I said "If I had waited"...
FastPasses should be the standard when applicable: While I didn't like Ubisoft's "demo", I didn't feel too cheated - because I ultimately spent less than ten minutes waiting for it. The day before, Ubisoft allowed UPlay users to reserve "FastPass slots" for a scheduled demo time. You just walked up at your appointed time, flashed the confirmation email to a representative, and they gave you a lanyard to take you to the front of the line. Now obviously this model wouldn't work for all demos. Part of the fun of PAX is exploring the floor & seeing new games - scheduling out your day weeks ahead of time, rushing to keep demo appointments.. that's not enjoyable. But for cases like Ubisoft, where there's a presentation - or a group demo, like Killzone: Shadow Fall - it'd be nice to have a few seats reserved for people who plan ahead. If those appointments aren't met - fill 'em with the main line. Hopefully if such a system was used on a conference-wide level, we'd see shorter lines as a whole in an already crowded conference. Speaking of crowding..
Move League of Legends. Or the Indie Megabooth. Or both: LoL was huge at PAX this year. It seemed like the entire top floor was dedicated to the region event, and not even that was enough to hold the massive audience - who later filled the hallway outside the stage as well as the overflow area below. And the following is only going to get bigger. If Riot wants to stay at PAX, I think it'd be in everyone's best interest to put them in a new venue. As for what to do with that now vacant half of the top floor - the Indie Megabooth needs space to breathe. It's one of the best parts of the show, but I felt like I was suffocating everytime I walked through. Move the Pax 10 into the space formerly occupied by the IMB, the IMB into Riot's zone, and LoL into another ballroom in one of the neighboring hotels. Maybe it's obvious - but I hope it's improved next year.
On Enforcers: I'm not even sure if this qualifies as an issue, but it's something I feel the need to bring up. While in line for the Giant Bomb panel, there was an Enforcer interacting with the crowd, playing a guitar & singing songs. Fine if he wanted to lighten the mood of a crowded room - but afterwards, he handed out business cards advertising his soundcloud page. Which felt all too close to an abuse of power. I'm sure it's already a rule - but Enforcers really should not be able to use the position to hock their own wares. I'm sure he had the best of intentions - but having the cards just took it over a line for me.
I do wish they'd cut down on the amount of non-game booths, or at least non-gaming. It's better than that one year they had all those NOS girls giving out free samples, which made me wonder if that was before their booth babe policy went into effect or if they had some loophole. Hell, they could've just been pretty gamer ladies, too. :P
I get that they probably don't turn booths away unless it's something they really personally despise, but you'd think a gaming company would want to and be willing to pay more than an eyedrop company for space at a gaming convention. I think the caffeiene guys out by the Queue room, while a little loud, were at least using space that would've otherwise probably gone to waste. But premium space going to none-gaming booths just seems really odd.
Is Comcast actually sponsoring or helping develop that game? Maybe that's why.
I will admit that it's by no means something that's been getting out of hand, and the amount of vendors who were selling something other than vidyas or tabletops could be counted on one hand. It's just something I don't want to see expand much, either.
I love the idea of publishers rewarding their loyal customers that attend PAX. Sony doing the Last of Us signing? It was a hugely popular and very limited. But anybody that follows Sony's Playstation twitter account or PSN blog knew to grab a ticket/bracelet first thing in the morning to get the signed print later in the day.
The Elder Scrolls Online food truck? Same thing. Attendees that follow Bethesda knew when and where to get a free lunch and some sweet swag to boot.
Pointless signature checklist [x]
I doubt that story is true, at least as told. There's not really such a thing as a temporary medical badge. Once you get one, it's yours.
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
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.
It would be possible for someone to cheat the system like this. We ran out of Medical Badges during this Prime (I think that means we distributed 500, but it might mean 1000). I'll escalate this and maybe we'll adjust the policy somehow in time for East 2014.
"We know that the moment we slip, it will be taken away... and so it is of the utmost importance to be worthy of it constantly."
PAX will always be held on the best weekend for PAX. Sometimes that will be a bad weekend for you; I'm sorry.