[PRIME?] Need help convincing friends to go to PAX

Doctor Wang

Hi. hows things. i need some help. (sry if this makes no sense)

I need to convince some friends (about 5 of them) to go to PAX. right now none of them feel very interested since none have gone to PAX or really heard of it. but only 1 of them reads PA regularly.

a couple of them are into d & d and a bit of warhammer (but dont play any atm) nor do i know much about table top games.
3 of them play wow. big blizzard fan boys.
2 of them own ps3.
im more of a mmo person/ pc gamer.

i guess we havent been playing any console/pc games recently so i dont know what new games they are into. anyways we are in edmonton and i cant seem to convince them to go. they looked at the website and said theres no info and no "guests".

I tried telling them its to play new and old games. but i dont even know what games are being shown. Ive never been to PAX so i cant really just tell them its awesome.

im very sure it is awesome from what i read but how do i convince people to go?

thx for reading, any help would be great.

JUST normal PAX (whatever that may mean).

Dewin

There was an entire second building set up across the street from the convention center last year for tabletop and card games, including various tournaments. That should satisfy the D&D/warhammer types by itself, and there's still the entire convention.

Blizzard will be there and might even give out goodies -- thouhg I think they save beta key giveaways/etc for their own con (Blizzcon). I was hoping for a WOTLK beta key last year and no such luck.

There's a huuge floor with bajillions of booths from all sorts of game publishers and developers, and "Game" isn't always prefixed with "Video".

The open computers have several games preinstalled for your enjoyment too. (This is how my wife and I got hooked on the Precipice of Darkness games, due in part to them somehow not having WoW installed (blasphemy!))

Basically, think your local tabletop/card game store, fused with your local video game store, add lots of freebies, goodies, and cool people, and multiply by Awesome squared.

Oh, did I mention that you sometimes get to ask developers "Why the heck didn't you do X?" and get an insightful reply.

And even this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Moe Fwacky

Are you talking about PAX East 2010, PAX Prime 2010 or the PAX10 independent games showcase?

chibidani

What he said ^

Do you mean PAX Prime or PAX East when you say "PAX10"? Cuz there will be both in 2010. And I think you're crazy to do east... Edmonton is a whole lot closer to Seattle than it is to Boston. Come on, its 14 or 15 hours to drive to Vancouver, then another 3 to Seattle. I don't even know how long it would take to drive to Boston, but i know it would be a lot longer than that.

Anyway, reasons I love PAX: the feeling you get being with tons of ppl who love the same stuff you do, the free stuff, the panels, the concerts, the celebrities (Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, etc) that are just as big of geeks as we are, raising money for Child's Play (the Cookie Brigade), and many other things that i can't think of right now.

oh, and Penny Arcade is awesome, you should tell your friends to read it more

Doctor Wang

ya sry. i meant just regular PAX.

the one in Seattle. south of Vancouver as i know it.

I put pax10 for some odd reason thinking it was the upcoming max.
I didnt know there was moer kinds.

I was looking up videos earlier about the show and found some on gamespot, showing 2008.
It seems pretty good. I need something to wow them.

I forgot to mention that these friends of mine go to comic book and anime conventions and have travelled to las vegas to see them.

We are planning to go to Toronto for the Fan expo later this year. But they are totally bypassing pax.

Doctor Wang

Dewin wrote: »

There was an entire second building set up across the street from the convention center last year for tabletop and card games, including various tournaments. That should satisfy the D&D/warhammer types by itself, and there's still the entire convention.

Blizzard will be there and might even give out goodies -- thouhg I think they save beta key giveaways/etc for their own con (Blizzcon). I was hoping for a WOTLK beta key last year and no such luck.

There's a huuge floor with bajillions of booths from all sorts of game publishers and developers, and "Game" isn't always prefixed with "Video".

The open computers have several games preinstalled for your enjoyment too. (This is how my wife and I got hooked on the Precipice of Darkness games, due in part to them somehow not having WoW installed (blasphemy!))

Basically, think your local tabletop/card game store, fused with your local video game store, add lots of freebies, goodies, and cool people, and multiply by Awesome squared.

Oh, did I mention that you sometimes get to ask developers "Why the heck didn't you do X?" and get an insightful reply.

And even this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Dewin, That sounds pretty cool.

Im thinking everyone whos reading this has gone to pax before. It says they double in space every year on wiki. Is it planning to be bigger than it was last year?

I was checking the numbers for pax and it had 50k plus which was bigger than fan expo (fan expo is the biggest convention in canada i believe).

This is all good stuff. More info to fuel the fire. Ah i gotta get them onboard somehow.

I saw a pic of DS's in an crowd for a concert. anyone have that a link to that pic?

Moe Fwacky

So are you trying to talk your group into PAX for this year or next year?

PikaPuff

Youtube has a lot of videos of PAX08

Doctor Wang

trying to get them to go this year. why is it already sold out? lol

thx for the youtube link.

Moe Fwacky

No, I ask because your title says PAX10

Doctor Wang

ya i have no ide how to change the title

nvm i figured it out. woot

CuZZa

Tell them it is so awesome, that there is this guy from FREAKIN AUSTRALIA who travels TEN THOUSAND FREAKIN MILES to attend. And this year he will also be flying across the country to join TEAM AWESOMEVAN and ride in the 48 hour marathon road trip that is the Cross-Country SuperTrip.

This is why PAX is awesome and your friends should go to it. If the Aussie guy goes, they have no reason not to.

Moe Fwacky

In fact, if you check out the link below, you can show them a sampling of how far away people travel from to attend PAX
http://www.communitywalk.com/pax09

Liger

If you and your friends are of the belief there are no girls on the internet - you're right. They're at PAX instead.

Rogue_hunter

Liger wrote: »

If you and your friends are of the belief there are no girls on the internet - you're right. They're at PAX instead.

Okay, but if theres are any girls there, I wanna DO them! /Dead Alewives

Darc

Rogue_hunter wrote: »

Liger wrote: »

If you and your friends are of the belief there are no girls on the internet - you're right. They're at PAX instead.

Okay, but if theres are any girls there, I wanna DO them! /Dead Alewives

Apparently that was 2006, you missed the bus.

Pinder

Just turn to them and say, "Hey, you know those 50,000 friends you didn't know you had? Yeah, they're going to be at PAX."

b0wser

Other people are going from Edmonton! You can all meet up and travel together!

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=81442

Sazira

If your friends don't like the idea of pax, just go alone and enjoy it by yourself.

I've made friends do things they didn't particularly want to do or go, and it went either extremely well, or horrible. Moreso horrible than well though. As previously said, show them last year videos, and if that alone isn't enough to make them want to go, don't force them. grumpy friends are never a good thing! 8-)

KaitouAyashi

True, Sazira - and everyone has that story of the year they brought someone who was less than stoked to be there. They all wish they hadn't. Hang out here, meet new friends instead. =D