Pinning PAX AUS (general thoughts, photos, stories and AUS newbie welcome thread)

fishfishmonkeyhat

Obviously we have a whole forum for PAX AUS, but I wanted a thread just for pin pals and their thoughts.

The food PDK brought to the dinner on Thursday night:



@luckycharm also gave me her DSB to keep safe there, so I kept it safe.




Didn't get my pins onto my bag until Day 2, so didn't do much trading the first day.




Because of the awesome view of the convention centre from my room...



I was able to deliver up to the minute line updates to the pinnypals chat:




Staff trading was awesome as usual:



I randomly found @Beker and @PRD at the designated trade area in the queue room at some point and got to try to guess Bek's mystery bag pin challenge. I failed. While there I believe @luckycharm traded me this very rare pin:

LOOK @TheAggroCraig I FINALLY GOT ONE!




Got a cheap commission from friend of pins Kris Straub:



Also a vine because he is a cool dude and on my cool dude list now.

Panel went well, @Dabe made a powerful enemy and I got all the pins for my US pals. I could also probably put usernames to faces of like, 6 of you now!



I'm sure I'll have more thoughts later.

fishfishmonkeyhat

Come on, I know other people have stories and photos to post!


I ran into @grgemonkey at one point and he showed me all the Helix pins he'd been trading for, so myself and @Tubby2877 decided to follow him on a trade-run to the trade area in the queue room. On the way we made a few people happy with trades they thought we wouldn't be interested in and got hugs all up in our bizniss.

I told a few people I'm sure, but I wasn't after any hard to get pins for myself like I was last year (East '13 set), and I realised it was incredibly freeing to be trade someone a LE pin like the new year one for a common or two, just to make their day. That also gave me the motivation to try for some of the harder pins my pinpals wanted that I hadn't been planning on getting.

I traded a person that had been at our panel last years AUS shield for a Helix and thought that would probably be the only one I would get (I had no interest in getting one for myself). But the next morning on the way down in the elevator I asked a girl in a twitch shirt with pins if she was trading her Helix. She said yes and traded me for last years East Kemper (I double-checked she knew how hard her pin was to get, she knew ). So since I had 2/3 and happened to be around the twitch booth at 2pm, I followed the swarm of people trying to get to the person handing them out and actually managed to get the last one I needed. So complete set for my pals made me feel pretty good.

The End?




EDIT: Also because the twitch girl was so nice to trade with I'm downgrading it from "Fuck Twitch!" to "Meh, Twitch".

Ayefkay

I suffered severe physical trauma that I may not ever fully recover from just to be at the queue on time....

fishfishmonkeyhat

"You're honor, my dancing career is over!"

*sobs from the jury*


You should post the photo!

Ayefkay

fishfishmonkeyhat

The pinlyfe isn't for everyone.

Olerhead

Thank you to whoever we sat behind at the Make-A-Strip who gave my fiancee and I the Khoo and Taylor Swift pin. That's a cool little thing and felt like being initiated. I tend to get tunnel vision focused solely on Pinny Arcade pins but that and the wooden Cookie Brigade dropbear pin were among the highlights of PAX for me.

I made a promise to myself not to spend all my PAX chasing after Pins. I did it last year and while it was fun, I always felt like I missed out on some panels or other things I wanted to see and do. I especially couldn't line up early for a Helix pin on the Saturday since it was the day my fiancee came with me and she was in no mood to wait in a queue for several hours. Can't fault her on that.

All the same, I got a Helix for myself, queued up for a second on Sunday and traded one of the Exhibitors for a third while I was waiting in line. If any of you are looking for Helixes, I'd be happy to make that happen.

My favourite moment though involved Aus Chandra from 2013. At Aus 2014 on my first day, I bumped into a guy with an East scarf just covered in pins who wanted to trade for Chandra. Somehow, I ended up with another through online trading after 2014.

On the first day this year, I ran into yet another visitor from overseas (Canada, I think) who wanted Chandra and since I've never been very big on the MTG pins I traded it.

The real Magical (pun) moment came when I was waiting in the photo booth on Sunday to get my Nissa pin. A lady was waiting there with her baby and ended up having to leave the queue because babies will be babies. She came back shortly after and asked me what I'd trade for the Coffee Kemper on my lanyard. I looked through her pins and saw the Aus 2015 set and, surprise, Aus Chandra. I made the trade.

I swear that pin is magic. I'm thinking next year I'll go out of my way to trade it and see if it comes back again.

Overall, I had a lot of fun and thanks to the few people I traded with. I realized today I love the trading much more than the simple acquisition of pins. I really enjoy being able to trade somebody a pin that they really, really want.

Ayefkay

The full story btw for those that havent heard my cry on slack, on Sunday on the way to PAX, the taxi driver started closing the chair lift with me and my chair still on said lift..... It got to a certain angle before he realised what he was doing and stopped, but i was already too far forward and i fell out of my chair.

Twisted leg and ankle, and that cut on my forhead you see before you. No broken bones luckily, wouldve been way worse if he didnt stop and my chair fell ontop of me.

With my mum hysterically yelling at the driver, and my brother helping me back up all i could think was "FUCK, IM GOING TO BE LATE TO QUEUE"

Madkine

Speaking of nice twitch staff, late on Sunday I traded the series two staff Corgi pin for a Helix with one of the Twitch girls.

Also happy to have met (and traded with) so many of you over the weekend.

fishfishmonkeyhat

Olerhead wrote: »

Thank you to whoever we sat behind at the Make-A-Strip who gave my fiancee and I the Khoo and Taylor Swift pin. That's a cool little thing and felt like being initiated.

I'm gonna guess @agentcooper?

agentcooper

fishfishmonkeyhat wrote: »

Olerhead wrote: »

Thank you to whoever we sat behind at the Make-A-Strip who gave my fiancee and I the Khoo and Taylor Swift pin. That's a cool little thing and felt like being initiated.

I'm gonna guess @agentcooper?

If that same bastard was rude and left before the end, then yeah that was me :P

PS. I had to get to the Pinny Panel and prepare 8-)

misskass

I'll come back and post pictures of how messy my floor is tonight (oh god, the pins, the patches), but I wanted to say that the Twitch woman became relatively aggressive over the weekend with her trades. She knew exactly what the Helix was going to be worth in $$$ terms based on eBay listings, and she was insisting on eBaying everything beforehand to make sure she was getting the better end of the deal. For someone who gets all of these Helixes for free, I felt like asking for two or more pins from people wasn't enormously fair, but hey, I traded her anyway, so I guess I'm the sucker.

Other than that I had a super good year. I got all of the pins my Pals wanted and everything I wanted, with a few Nissas and Helixes spare for future trades. I also can now put faces to some of the names here, which is awesome. I'm struggling extra hard with post-PAX depression this year, I'm at work at the moment and all I want to be doing is wandering around the convention center.

ALSO BEFORE I FORGET @grgemonkey is the best man, who waited ages for his Handheld Lounge Gabe to come to the con with me from @Lazorz, then turned around and traded it to me. My first pin trade has returned to me. The dream is real.

Capt Wasabi

I had a blast.
The only negative was not running into you guys enough.
I had a few things on most mornings and non-pinny crazy people staying with us, so making the Merch Lite line was no really doable after the first day.
Despite this when I did go past at 10.30-11 they still had Polys!!!!!!

It was great to meet a bunch of you on Thursday! Thanks for coming.
The panels were as usual great.
Played some great games including X-wing tabletop for the first time!

I only needed 3 pins to complete my collection. But I did a heap of trades anyway. (Trading away spares from other PAXs for this years stuff)

I managed to make it to the Friday 2pm Twitch handout, but I missed it on Saturday, however I actually have a nice twitch story! I got there and asked only to find out I was too late. But a group of Twitch staff were still hanging around, they asked me if I was a pin collector or if I used Twitch too, I told them I watched all the US Pax streams on twitch. Then they noticed the kappa on my lanyard and found a spare Helix and gave it to me. (Meaning I had enough for my pinny pals)

Later that night I spoke to Beker and asked if he knew of anyone with a Rayman pin (I had not seen any so far and it was one of the 3 I was still hunting) It turned out he had one that he traded me!!!!!

Sunday as usual was too short, but the Child's Play auction was fantastic. (I could not afford the pin set or the games night with PA though )

On Monday I had work, but did a trade on pinny pals for the last 2 pins I needed to complete my collection!!! (not including Armadeadon)

grgemonkey

I met a tonne of people!

You were all great! Honestly so much happened I can't even begin to pick a story. Obviously @fishfishmonkeyhat @misskass were awesome but there's no surpises there, @Tubby2877 also helped me secure another Helix with his Twitter checking skills, honestly I break out in to a rash if I look at social media. All the panel members were awesome but they know that

But I'll tell the story of the guy (@SyamaMishra but he's not on here) who asked "What do you think of the trade of an Aus Kemper 2013 for a Corgi staff pin?" at the panel.

I think most of you would answer "WHAT?!", anyway so the start of that story begins where all good pin stories start. With grgemonkey doing laps of the exhibition centre.

On my rounds I noticed a couple sitting happily, they had lanyards on so of course that meant their relaxation was to cease immediately. Upon jumping at their feet I blurted out "Heytherewouldyouliketotrade?!?!", to which they said with caution "Maybe...", "...what, what pins are you interested in?". After doing an expert 2 second scan of their lanyards, I deduced the Aus 2013 pins were going to be my attempt. "These!", I pointed to the logo and kemper. He looked down and nodded, "Well the kemper is already promised but I can trade the logo".

"Good enough for me! Do you mind me asking what you're trading the kemper for?", almost sensing an imbalanced trade, I had my spiel at the starting gate, ready to whip. Little did I know he was going to say something as grievous as "You know that little corgi p...". "OH SWEET BABY JESUS! Is it too late to back out?! These pins are terribly rare, the kemper especially is crazy sought after.....huge value....eBay!...and that's how you build a canoe with a plastic spoon". After my 20min attack, he simply said, "thanks for the info but what if you just like the person, want to make the trade and have a chat?".

....

"Well, yeah, I suppose in that case the trade is perfectly ok". I made a mental note, "Let people speak before you shout at them at length".

Anyway, so then I turned my efforts back to the logo, I said "Ok so for the logo, you can pretty much have any pin I have with me today and then some". He seemed totally disinterested, I thought well that's ok, 99% of Aus 2013 attempts don't eventuate. Instead he offered, "Why don't you come with us to meet the kemper trader, we can all chat and you can tell her what a deal she's getting! We can probably work something out for the logo.". So they took me up the exhibitor secret lounge where I took this photo, we chatted about an assortment of things then eventually got to trading. The kemper trader was great and was a pleasure to meet, we made a trade between us as well.

If you're wondering, I got the logo and I don't really remember what for, a whole bunch of various kempers and other pins they liked. They weren't really fussed and just chose pins they liked the design of. Then I saw the Kemper exchanged for the Corgi and let out a small I hope inaudible sigh haha

We all said our goodbyes and I said "Hey you should all come to the panel tomorrow!", they all agreed politely and come panel day Q&A, our story wraps right back around to the first line

Moral of the story is, How do you get an Aus 13 logo? And the answer is, make a friend first Despite that being incredibly cheesey, that's precisely what happened.

#IFuckingLovePAX

Olerhead

Capt Wasabi wrote: »

I had a blast.
The only negative was not running into you guys enough.
I had a few things on most mornings and non-pinny crazy people staying with us, so making the Merch Lite line was no really doable after the first day.
Despite this when I did go past at 10.30-11 they still had Polys!!!!!!

I noticed that. I only waited in the Merch Lite queue once and still got my allotment of Polys ... provided I went immediately after going to Twitch, crashing my boat into the nearest enemy boat and getting my Helix.

It wasn't quite as heartbreaking as getting shields was last year.

misskass

Oh man, it was so damn difficult to lose at Timewasting Warships game. After waiting the maximum allowed time to get matchmade into a game, it took me minutes to even get my shitty ship over to the enemies. They couldn't explode me fast enough.

Olerhead

By the second time I was a deft hand at it.

I knew the fastest ship and where to go. I died in record time.

Though I also noticed people who played it until the pin was on the desk then they just grabbed it and wandered off.

Thankfully on the first day they handed them out in line ... though I felt too guilty not to stay for Timewasting Warships.

Senno

ok, some of my stories:

1.While working as a Cookie Brigadier near the tabletop area on Saturday night (about 7.30pm), one of the persons I was giving a cookie too (and getting a donation from) asked where the money was going. I stated it was going to Child's Play, and then informed them about the charity (jokingly stating it had nothing to do with the movie). One of the nearby vendors heard me, asked me to wait a minute, and then gave me a copy of a board game (I'm not sure which one, I think it was Mouse Trap - it definitely had mouse figures). I actually had just emptied my basket, so I went back to HQ, told them what happened, and Erick came by later to pick it up.

2. On the Sunday, I was checking out PAX Rising, having got everything for my pin pals. I found out about the Surprise Attack stamp quest, and immediately attempted to get all the stamps. I did so, and then rushed to the Twitch booth, in order to get the 2pm pin. Funniest thing I've seen all PAX, is the hundred or so people milling about who raced to the area as soon as the twitter message came through. I didnt bother reading it - I raced with the crowd, and snagged one myself. In the rush though, I lose my stamp quest paper, and had to do it all again. Still, that got me a game, and I knew where they were, so it was a lot faster.

3. Playing Cards Against Humanity on Friday night, there was a group of 13 of us. The creators had placed a "bigger blacker box" as a reward for the chosen best answer of the night. It actually went to a new player, who had answered with: "I asked my Genie for BLANK and all I got was BLANK." Her response was (and she won the trick) "I asked my Genie for A BIGGER BLACKER DICK and all I got was THE BIGGEST BLACKEST DICK."

Senno

4. After the mad rush on Sunday, I pleaded with the twitch guys for one more pin (I came up one short for my pin group), and while they didn't have one - they traded me a Kappa pin for a Polygon. So that was nice of them.

5. But I also had an incredibly rude twitch encounter. A lady at the twitch booth was willing to trade. She was interested in the Zane and Mercy pin, asking me all about it. She brought up the info on her phone, and asked how to get it. I told her it was a Kris Straub pin. She didn't realise that it was able to be purchased at that very PAX, and her rude attitude kept me from saying anything. She kept tugging at my lanyard without asking to go hands on. Eventually, we made the trade, though she went behind the counter and produced a pin from the company, so she essentially got the pin for free.

6. On the friday night I didn't have much on and I decided to go to the Fallout trivia panel. The people on the panel weren't much chop, and the audience seemed to really know their stuff. On one of the audience questions, I put my hand up and I was chosen. The question was: "Who is the creative director of Bethesda Game Studios?" I knew the answer to be Todd Howard. However, the microphone was also passed to another person, so we both got an item, though mine was delayed, as initially they only saw the other person. I got a vault boy plushie for my effort, which felt nice.

Senno

7. On the sunday afternoon I attempted a go at one of the bullet hell games in the PAX Rising area. Surviving for at least 10 seconds awarded you a prize, and you only got 10 attempts. Surviving for 3 seconds was a miracle, the game was notoriously difficult. I got to 10.07 seconds on my second try, and won a lovely looking character cushion.

8. About two weeks ago Kotaku stated that CG Spectrum, a new startup staffed with amazing talent like people who worked on Game of Thrones, Darksiders and Batman: Arkham City wanted to make a character during the course of PAX Aus. http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/10/help-create-a-video-game-character-at-pax-australia/

Unbelievably, mine was chosen. http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/10/someone-is-creating-a-kotaku-inspired-game-character-at-pax-australia/. I had actually forgotten about this and probably would have missed it had it not been for my looking up Kotaku on the Saturday night. I made it my mission to check it out as soon as I could on Sunday, where they thanked me for the character design idea, and showed me illustrations and a rough 3D model. I took a business card and gave them my email, and they said they'd keep in touch.

For the benefit of those not clicking the link, my description was: I’m thinking a chubby sheriff, white skin, many chins, four foot tall, holding a whiskey bottle and a two barreled shotgun over shoulder. Wearing a vest, small feet, large prominent badge, mouse tail (human scale) and buck teeth like a rabbit.

---

I will be uploading pictures to facebook later today. Mostly of cosplay. Some of me. I'll link them soon.

Olerhead

I also accidentally saved @Duckie from being hit in the head with a beach ball on Sunday. But I didn't realize it was her so I didn't think of asking to trade ... which I probably would have. I didn't trade half as much as I would have liked.

fishfishmonkeyhat

Can someone that got the story behind this pin explain for everyone else please?

A lady gave it to me after the panel but I was slightly distracted and didn't take any of the details in.

Duckie

Thanks for that @Olerhead, I remember that moment very distinctly, haha! I'm terrible at asking for trades, I just try to make it obvious that I trade pins and hope other people ask me :P
You'll have to ask me for a trade next PAXaus ^^

Ayefkay

yes she gave all us panelests one i think. Thanks random stranger!

agentcooper

I believe it was her brother's bunny, and he lives overseas (maybe Japan?), maybe was coming but couldn't make it?? The rabbit is wearing a PAX Aus Scarf.

The lady was an Enforcer as well, I met her while picking up a sample bag. I gave her one of the Khoo/TayTay pins.

She mentioned it was relatively good value and not too much trouble (but not easy) to make the pin itself.

Was a real surprise and an awesome gesture

Duckie

She and her brother (?) are both [e] and went in 50/50 on a run of pins, they were both giving them out. The design is based off her brothers rabbit which she would baby(bunny?)sit for and kind of became their mascot.

I was hanging out with her in the line before Omegathon finals and she was very tickled about my proposed collective noun for enforcers ^^

fishfishmonkeyhat

Which is?

Duckie

In keeping with the irony of enforcers having an aggressive sounding name/title but being super nice I went with "An Enragement of Enforcers" :P

fishfishmonkeyhat

That is acceptable.

Rod.H

That's just too much pumpkin.
I spotted @Ayefkay (+ his mum) at the MTG booth on Sunday as I completed the last requirement to get the Nissa pin. After of cause standing in the mini-merch queue to get my rda of poly pins. Seeing the ticket cost recovery pricing on ebay for pins has me half-regretting not buying more sets of fodder when I’d the chance, but then again I’ve a CCG habit to fuel.

Huh ‘Timewasting Warships’? If it’s what I think it is, I don’t believe that they had any pins available at PAX aus, unless they all went on Friday morning.

fishfishmonkeyhat

I believe that is the game you had to play at twitch to get their helix pin.

misskass

It is indeed the game you had to play at Twitch. Whatever we had to play at East (Heroes of the Storm?), while it was a MOBA and therefore evil, was way more entertaining than World of Warships. I'm just not into the World of X games.

Olerhead

misskass wrote: »

It is indeed the game you had to play at Twitch. Whatever we had to play at East (Heroes of the Storm?), while it was a MOBA and therefore evil, was way more entertaining than World of Warships. I'm just not into the World of X games.

Agreed. I thought I liked games that did realism but plodding along in a battleship for ten minutes before I could do anything was just so dull. But I felt too guilty to leave without playing it through to the end ... which probably explains why I didn't go on Saturday.

It occurs to me that I probably met almost everyone in the Helix queue at one point or another. Or at least saw them briefly and pondered about how I could talk them into a trade.

Beker

Senno wrote: »

1.While working as a Cookie Brigadier near the tabletop area on Saturday night (about 7.30pm), one of the persons I was giving a cookie too (and getting a donation from) asked where the money was going. I stated it was going to Child's Play, and then informed them about the charity (jokingly stating it had nothing to do with the movie). One of the nearby vendors heard me, asked me to wait a minute, and then gave me a copy of a board game (I'm not sure which one, I think it was Mouse Trap - it definitely had mouse figures). I actually had just emptied my basket, so I went back to HQ, told them what happened, and Erick came by later to pick it up.

It was Krosmaster Junior, It will be at our Dinner Auction most likely.

Ayefkay

Tycho read out my question at the Make a strip panel and said he would contact me directly to talk about it I'll give him about a week for him to get back home and I'll pester him on Twitter for a response :P

Senno

Beker wrote: »

Senno wrote: »

1.While working as a Cookie Brigadier near the tabletop area on Saturday night (about 7.30pm), one of the persons I was giving a cookie too (and getting a donation from) asked where the money was going. I stated it was going to Child's Play, and then informed them about the charity (jokingly stating it had nothing to do with the movie). One of the nearby vendors heard me, asked me to wait a minute, and then gave me a copy of a board game (I'm not sure which one, I think it was Mouse Trap - it definitely had mouse figures). I actually had just emptied my basket, so I went back to HQ, told them what happened, and Erick came by later to pick it up.

It was Krosmaster Junior, It will be at our Dinner Auction most likely.

Thats the one. Awesome.

InterestingMix

That's funny about the Age of Empires Pin. I traded mine to Coffman for his staff pin, I hadn't had much interest in it (obviously)

Ed: Corrected Dave's surname as autocorrect didn't like it the first time

Rod.H

Ah right. Most of the time I was wandering the expo hall like a rudderless ship hunting PAX XP QRs and the mythical something of interest to do without a queue.

Rayner

PAX was busy this year for me.
First year in a Pin group, so running around getting pins for my Pals was hectic, but fun.

Highlights for me, was the Pin Panel, it was awesome. Got to meet Duckie and Coop. Bumped into Fish a lot of times, didn't say hi though.

The Helix Pin was fun to get. Got to the twitch booth at 2 (at the suggestion to my Pinion) and was just refreshing twitter, but saw two twitch staffers scurry off with a bag, a hoard of people just followed them. It was kinda funny like seagulls smelling food.
My staff sets are almost complete, only need The Gavin's Hobby, and Josh's Head, thanks to the staff Trading.

The PAX XP this year was really annoying, but got it done on the last day... before me and my other half went to the zoo.

fishfishmonkeyhat

NOBODY BUMPS INTO THE FISH AND DOESN'T GIVE A PLEASANT HELLO!

Rayner

I should have said hello, You did exchange words with my partner though. Think it went along the lines of "we are hard to miss" he's tall as well.