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PAX East 2014 Constructive Feedback

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Posts

  • cprincipecprincipe Registered User regular
    The BCEC is proving itself unable to handle an event like PAXEast with any level of competence.

    Rude security/facility staff.
    The bathroom fiasco. I felt sorry for any female attendees.
    Bag check on Saturday morning was hellish.
    Laughable wifi that was actually preventing independent vendors from using Square to process payments. I wonder how many sales vendors lost because of it.

    Personally I think PA should break its contract with BCEC, even if it costs money, and move PAXEast to a city that knows how to properly handle a convention.

  • X3R0 9X3R0 9 Registered User regular
    Pros: lines were orderly and well labeled/set out! Panels about mental health and sexism in gamers and gaming were great! The afk lounge was an awesome addition, and I would love to see safe and quiet spaces continue to be offered.

    Cons: LADY'S BATHROOMS. This is the first year I noticed a lack of women's bathrooms. On the main floor alone in the tabletop area, there seemed to be ONE women's bathroom and THREE for men. One floor had signs to direct to the lady's rooms since they weren't just paired with the men's rooms. I kept being told all weekend that "this IS a gaming convention" and that the ratio of men to women warrants this bathroom inequality, but I don't accept those answers. As far as I noticed in the past, an equal number of bathrooms always worked out just fine, and unless the male to female ratio is ridiculous, I call sexist shenanigans.

    Aside from that, I was disappointed about The Protomen not attending (though I understand how busy they are), but otherwise it was a great year! Lines and panels went especially smoothly.

    The lack of lady's restrooms was a decision by the City of Boston that PAX had no say about. I don't entirely buy their decision that it was a "gaming convention" and the ration of men to women warranted this. I honestly think PAX East needs to have a rotation of cities on the east coast. I love Boston, but I'm starting to get the feeling that PAX overstayed their welcome.

  • Le_GoatLe_Goat Frechified Goat Person BostonRegistered User regular
    Wow.. did people really not enjoy PAX this year? I admit that I've enjoyed other PAX Easts more, but I still had an amazingly good time. Sure, bag check seemed a bit pointless, but I had my bag open/ready every time and never was given attitude. In fact, most of the bag check people were very appreciative that I was ready and not giving them trouble for it. I mean, it was there, there wasn't anything we could do about it, so why not just comply and get it over with?

    As for Enforcers getting louder and less patient, well yeah... because people aren't listening to them.

    The swag bags "free for all" approach was abused terribly, and it's sad to hear that people didn't get any. The only solution to this would be to punch a star/hole in the pass of each person who gets a bag so that it's one per person.

    This year definitely seemed more PC oriented (which is fine by me), with a heavy notion of MOBA. I get that it's big (to a degree), but it seemed like overkill. Still, I appreciated the indie booths and thought flow on the floor was pretty normal by convention standards.

    In sum, another successful PAX followed by a depressing year of waiting for the next one. Thankfully we have gaming to tide us over in the mean time.

    While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
  • yuttyutt Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    I'm always more negative with these, but this year I'm not going to try to balance it with positive. I will try to move from objective problems to personal issues.

    Positive:
    1. Acquisition's Inc. was amazing.
    2. See any of my past comments, PAX is still nearly as good as it ever was.

    Negative:
    1. The amount of people on the show floor was ridiculous. Moving was difficult. Almost all lines were permanently capped. There needs to be more for people to do, or less people. This is simple poor flow design. The queue room is and almost always has been underutilized. I don't know who is in charge of flow, or if no one is, but this needs to be fixed if you want to keep selling too many tickets. This might be related to 4, but you have the data not me.
    2. Enforcer line management for the main theater was obnoxious. I don't know who is telling them we need to be packed together like human sardines and not allowed to sit, but it is extremely annoying. I wish that someone from the PA staff or paid by PA would attend PAX East and try to do normal things so you can see the problems. Being forced to stand in line for 2-3 hours unable to play tabletop games anymore isn't cool. Is it making your headcounts easier? I don't care, that is your problem, find a better way.
    3. The Q&A was run as if designed by a robot. I don't mind that there are less, but removing human interaction was a terrible idea. EVERY meaningful occurrence in past Q&As involved Mike and Jerry interacting with the audience. Who the hell thought this was smart? Was this more bullshit to play damage control with journalists? Worried that Mike or a fan might dare say something they didn't whitelist?
    4. Panel quality is dropping. I've attended every PAX at the BCEC. The panels used to be amazing, with dozens of panels of developers talking about designing games! Now there are far more panels (maybe even a majority) of West Coast journalists telling us how we need to fix ourselves to behave more like they want us to. Every human interaction is a problem that requires radical social engineering to address. I'm not sure how people on the East Coast interact, but I'm from the Midwest, and I cannot relate in the least. Penny Arcade is working hard to appease game journalists for some reason. We have less and less developers attending, and more and more journalists running panels talking about issues only loosely related to gaming. I want developers talking passionately about their creations, not pseudo-enlightened 20-somethings with creative writing degrees lecturing me on how to be a human.

    I am a progressive, married 30+ year old and attend PAX with my wife and sister. Neither of them has felt any level of fear or exclusion due to their gender at PAX. This isn't a real problem that needs fixing. It is a manufactured issue that needs ignoring, so you can deal with the very real issues of line/flow management. You're worried about your image, while PAX is still selling out in minutes. Why? Clearly the majority of people have no problem with PA or PAX, stop catering to ideologues.

    I'm not sure if there is any point to doing this as I've never seen criticisms from past threads responded to. The only problems addressed are those where PAX doesn't align with the Kotaku/Polygon editors political/social ideology, in which case Penny Arcade does backflips to fall into line. Maybe my upcoming How Congestion on the PAX Show Floor Hurts Diversity and Women in Gaming article will help.

    http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/10/5599196/pax-east-2014-rebuilding-trust-in-penny-arcade

    This seems to be all Penny Arcade is concerned with. Despite the fact you CANNOT appease these sorts of people, they will turn PAX into a soulless amusement park experience while trying.

    TL;DR - The best thing Penny Arcade can do to improve PAX is fix the serious flow issues. Second to that, ban Kotaku and Polygon and stop responding to them. You don't need them, they feed off the controversies they invent, just like tabloids always have. Trying to fix PAX in response to a Polygon article is like Tom Cruise trying to change his behavior to get the National Enquirer to write nicer articles about him. I mean, read that fucking article. You folks have gone above and beyond to try to fix a non-issue, and Polygon's response was to shit on you.

    yutt on
  • hsuhsu Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Not sure what all the fuss about bag check comes from. I doubt I waited more than 10 min in the bag check lines any of my 3 days.

    I thought it was handled as well as a good Celtics or Bruins game, where the staff has had years to figure out how to handle bag checks quickly for NBA/NHL crowds.

    hsu on
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  • techiemikeytechiemikey Registered User new member
    First year leaving a review but it was a blast.

    Pros:
    Tabletop had a great selection, and while the game I was looking for was not available at the time, there were always other games to play.
    The indie section was amazing.
    I just found out about the afk lounge now, but I know of several people who didn't attend because of fears of being overstimmed, so please keep it around for next year.
    Food outside the convention hall seemed more available then years past, so it feels like the local area is growing to handle large conventions (if They might be someone overwhelmed from a full hall.
    Handheld lounge was a great place to relax.
    Bag check wasn't bad whenever I arrived (just after opening the expo hall twice, and once around 9 or 930)

    Cons:
    [insert common complaint about restrooms, and big booths at the entrance]
    Someone only looked at my badge once
    Didn't really look at any of the mainstream booths because the lines were crazy.


    Saw another comment suggesting to change cities. I just wanted to say I disagree.

  • Le_GoatLe_Goat Frechified Goat Person BostonRegistered User regular
    While I agree that the quantity of the panels which I wanted to attend dropped, the panels I did attend were 100% awesome. It's obviously more about what you are in to, and they can't please everyone.

    While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
  • yuttyutt Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Le_Goat wrote: »
    While I agree that the quantity of the panels which I wanted to attend dropped, the panels I did attend were 100% awesome. It's obviously more about what you are in to, and they can't please everyone.
    Would you mind mentioning which you attended? I went to the Blizzard Heroes of the Storm and Mike and Mike, both of those were great. My wife, sister, and myself scanned the schedule many times trying to find panels that sounded interesting so we could get away from the overcrowded floor, but it is definitely possible we missed something. At previous PAXes I could just hop into any panel without caring and be guaranteed an interesting discussion, but the focus was video games, which I care about, not social engineering.

    Oh, we also went to everything in the main theater, and that was all great, but I categorize those separately from the other theater panels.

    yutt on
  • beetnemesisbeetnemesis Registered User regular
    Overall I had a good experience, but the Omegathon final round was... underwhelming. Cornhole is a fun game to play while you are drinking outside with friends. It's a profoundly boring spectator sport, though. Most of the rounds were boring, and the actual win felt anticlimactic.

  • WolfieeWolfiee Web/Graphic Designer and Illustrator MARegistered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Oh, few more things:

    I say this every year - WHY does the expo hall close at 6PM while events go through all the night? It USED to close at 7PM (except Sunday), which was still super early, but 6PM is insane. Have it close on Sunday earlier for enforcers/devs and keep it open much later the first two days. I feel like younger kids and parents and that type of crowd will have left, leaving a little more room for others.

    And this isn't anything PAX can do, but did anyone have trouble getting the room they booked at the Hyatt Regency? I booked a TWO BED room because there was four of us. Got to the hotel to check in and she said they were all full and could only put us in a room with one bed and a cot. Um, what? I booked that room months ago. I guess they ask people if they would like to upgrade to rooms with double beds (or people ask them), and they let them, taking away other reservations. Sorry, but that's not cool. I got $100 taken off our bill for that one.

    Wolfiee on
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  • H3YDH3YD Game Designer OhioRegistered User regular
    This was my 5th PAX (First PAX was in 2007) I've attended, my second in Boston.

    I had brought 7 friends with me to Boston, all of which hadn't attended a PAX before, and they all LOVED every minute of it. I had a blast as always and wasn't ready for it to be over when it was.

    There were some great panels this year, and even some panels I had been wanting to see for some time that made it to the show that hadn't previously, but there was definitely a feeling of some missing elements this year as well.

    1.No Jonathan Coulton / Paul & Storm was a big surprise for me since I had never been to a PAX without them, and my friends were letdown a bit because they are fans and I had talked up the JoCo concert quite a bit, as it has always been an extremely fun part of the PAX experience.

    2.No keynotes. I really hope that this doesn't stick around, even though at the make a strip panel Tycho had said something along the lines of they were trying to "step back" from panels and be on the floor more. Personally, my favorite part of PAX every single year has been the panels, and more specifically, the ones with Gabe and Tycho. This was one of the biggest hits to the PAX experience for me personally, and it just felt as if the expo was more about showing off games, and less about PA.

    3.No Q & A during the Make a Strip. This was an interesting twist, but it just didn't feel the same as the floor being opened up to attendees.

    Overall, for me personally, this PAX felt as if the attendees were being distanced from PA, almost as if we were being weened off of Gabe and Tycho, and being pushed away. Don't get me wrong here though, the entirety of PAX East was awesome as hell, and if this had been my first PAX I had ever attended I still wouldn't want to miss it for the world, but I like the old layout much MUCH more than what was tried this year, and I just wanted to voice that to try and be constructive as a lifetime fan.

    Thanks so much for a great time as always, and thanks for listening to my thoughts!
    Mike Cook

  • SupagoatSupagoat Registered User regular
    I thoroughly enjoyed my fifth PAX East.

    Pros:
    - I liked the format of make a strip with questions that were pre-submitted. It takes way too long for people to tell their personal stories, set up their questions, rub Jerry's head, etc. That said, I my favorite MAS was last year's strip search one where they actually had to come up with the strip. I realize that the idea is that Jerry runs the Q&A while Mike draws, but I could do with less Q&A and more of them being creative in front of us. It was a lot of fun last year.

    - Unlike some, I found all of the bag check people to be quite friendly. Maybe it helps that I approached them in a friendly manner with my bag open and ready, but all of them had a smile and good wishes for my day at PAX.

    - I was worried the bag check would take hours, but the lines were quite quick. If we have to have a bag check, this is the way to do it. I agree, if someone wanted to do something bad then the particular bag checks we went through wouldn't stop them, but then I'm also not worried about that sort of thing too much.

    - I'm not super excited about AAA games on the expo floor because A) they're well publicized so I already know about them and B) I have no interest in waiting in a line to watch a video that I'll see on the internet. I'm glad there was a strong indie presence and although I keep pretty well on top of the indie scene, there were still some there that were new to me. And of course I always love meeting the people who are working hard to make their dreams come true.

    Cons:

    - Cornhole was a pretty boring omegathon finale made even more boring by the PA staff being unable to score enough points in their demo game and making it drag on.
    - MTG had too much space in tabletop and their speakers were way too loud. They made long announcements every 15 minutes that completely drowned out everyone not playing MTG trying to talk to each other
    - The queue room should be used for tabletop once all the queuing for the day is complete.
    - I would have liked more tabletop exhibitors and vendors
    - It's been a while, but yeah buying both badges and hotel rooms was absurd this year. I'm hoping PAX South takes the pressure off of East somewhat, but On Peak in particular needs to increase their capacity.

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  • LimondLimond Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Another awesome year. I really dove into the indie stuff this time and it was amazing. I think the longest I had to wait was 5 minutes for one of the games. I've given up entirely on going to any of the well known booths due to the waits (even just the PA Merch booth or Roosterteeth)

    Secondly, I know the Giantbomb panel has to be one at night since they can not be contained into a single hour therefore it can't be in the main theater because of the concerts but something needs to be done about that, they need more space. People were arriving 3.5 hours early to line up for that panel and the enforcers just couldn't handle that amount of people. The Giantbomb panel queue should start in the main queue room because we were standing in line for ages packed in like sardines. The queue room would give people a place to spread out some and have some personal space. I could hardly even turn around with my backpack off.

    Third to go along with the line situation above, more room needs to be given. At previous PAX East I met tons of people playing line games and sitting around for an hour waiting to go to a panel. With what seemed like outlawing sitting in lines (due to everyone always being told to move closer) it seemed like a less friendly place. The only people I met were the guys I met out drinking after con hours.

    Fourth, more trash and recycling cans. Especially outside along the hotel shuttle row. I didn't see any there and felt that they could have used some.

    Fifth, I thought it odd that at times the AFK theater was locked. I saw some people trying to enter but doors were locked. Not even a sign out there or an enforcer to tell them what was up.

    Sixth, one enforcer at the albatross theater who was just being a power hungry cunt.

    Seventh, grab bags need to be dispersed other ways. Maybe punching a hole in your badge to mark you as obtaining one. Prevents people from just walking around and around in the loop grabbing more. Or people just taking the ziplocked bindles of 20+. Also the bags were a bit disappointing. Previous years that had games in the bags were awesome like RIFT and Magicka.

    Eight: The table top area should be labeled like the expo hall area on the map.

    Nine: Guidebook Recommendation: In the exhibitor hall map, when pressing the button with the company name and booth number a blurb should pop up about what they are showing and what their company does.

    Ten: Some booths don't need as much room as they were given. Quick example was the booth with the Sennhieser headphones. So much wasted space for. Don't get me wrong I love their headphones but they could have used a booth half the size.

    Some more positives
    + All things Giantbomb related. Holy crap those guys are amazing. Even if you aren't a huge fan do not miss out on their stuff. Plus they were the guys who did the PWNmeal Commerical.
    + All the enforcers (save the one above) who helped out. Got my problems solved in a jiffy.
    + I found my favorite bathroom to use when not having a close by hotel.
    + The hotel shuttle system. Loved it (though on friday route 5 had a party bus that held half the capacity of the normal ones and turned into a sauna)
    + Jason and Greg who I met at The Whiskey Priest. Those guys were awesome.
    + Even though I've been to every PAX East I'm still learning more and more to have better and better times year after year.
    + All the indie stuff. Loved everything about it. No lines and people who actually know the games they are showing because it is their labor of love!


    Comments on new policy of bag check/bathrooms.
    Bag Check took no time at all. I don't think I waited more then 2-3 minutes each day. I did notice women asking where bathrooms were, I hadn't noticed what was up until day 2 when I saw stuff covering womens restroom signs. Boston kind of fucked that one up.

    Limond on
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  • WolfieeWolfiee Web/Graphic Designer and Illustrator MARegistered User regular
    edited April 2014
    yutt wrote: »
    I am a progressive, married 30+ year old and attend PAX with my wife and sister. Neither of them has felt any level of fear or exclusion due to their gender at PAX. This isn't a real problem that needs fixing. It is a manufactured issue that needs ignoring, so you can deal with the very real issues of line/flow management. You're worried about your image, while PAX is still selling out in minutes. Why? Clearly the majority of people have no problem with PA or PAX, stop catering to ideologues.
    I am female and I could not agree with this statement more. 1000% agreed. 10/10, would agree again. 5 stars.

    PAX has always made me feel welcome and safe and never made me feel "excluded" as a female gamer. Even if they did, this is not a real issue, as you stated. The real issue is most certainly the insane amounts of people they let attend and the way it's organized.

    Edit: And in response to your thing about panels - also totally agree. Mentioned it in my earlier post and I mentioned it last year too.

    Wolfiee on
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  • MidnyghtChildeMidnyghtChilde NYRegistered User regular
    I want to note that the Q&A being screened and not at the microphone was strongly requested via this very thread of constructive criticism last year, due to the quality of questions having decayed into "I love you please sign this!" and "Heres my life story and some neat thing I made you!" instead of actual questions. I rather enjoyed the new format, they had some interesting discussions and questions to talk about.

    I forgot to include in my post that the hotel we stayed at (booked through the system) didn't have a shuttle. Mildly annoying, but driving was probably easier anyways. It would have been nice to have known in advance that we didn't have a shuttle, since it was implied that pretty much all of the hotels had them.

  • SelnariSelnari Registered User new member
    Overall, this year was probably my favorite PAX East, and I've been to all of them.

    Pros: Pin trading. I have never had so much fun or talked to so many people before. I have really nasty social anxiety, but by Sunday I was happily chatting away with other traders, volunteering information on where to find certain pins and trading advice, and actively seeking out the pins I was hoping to trade for (I will find you Australian Kemper). Everyone I traded with was very nice, and no one got nasty when I said no to a trade. I did get one kinda snarky comment along the lines of "If you're not trading it, why is on a trading lanyard?" but that was the very rare exception. Even the exhibitors with pins were great, especially Behemoth and Sony. The two hour trading session with Mike, Jerry, and the staff was great too. Much better than trying to hunt down everyone or take up a space at the signing just to get a pin. Also, the way they let you trade for pins others had traded to them allowed me to grab a few really neat ones from sets I didn't have.

    Acquisitions Inc. Hysterical. Totally worth the long wait in line. Was also very glad to see a female up there.

    The concerts. As sad I was not to see JoCo and Paul and Storm, it was nice to hear some new stuff. The Double Clicks were amazing.

    Indie booths. I loved getting to see games I would never hear about otherwise. One of my favorite moments was going to the booth of a game I backed on Kickstarter and being thanked profusely by the developers, who were very friendly and just so happy to be there and meeting people. It's always nice when booths are run by people who know/love the game, not hired help.

    Enforcers and the Cookie Brigade.

    Cons: I think this was a Wizards thing, but the lack of D&D. Major kudos to those who volunteered to DM so I could play my first game.

    The swag bag problem. Skipped Friday figuring I'd get one Saturday when my schedule opened up. Nope.

    Ladies t-shirts. Went just after lunch on Saturday and all that was left was XLs. I don't know if this is because of more ladies in attendance (yay!) or a serious lack of planning on someone's part.
    As a suggestion, NYCC has the option of pre-ordering some of their merch when you buy your badge. It's not unlimited, they were out of shirts when I bought my badge last year, but I was also buying it well after registration had opened.

    I'd complain about not getting a 10th anniversary pin, I understand how limited edition works, but it would have been nice if there were a way to enforce limits on buying them. One guy had six and would only trade one for a Leeroy Jenkins, no negotiations.

    I didn't have any problems with BCEC staff, though my brother says he was charged two different prices for a slice of pizza at different locations and some of the vendors got cranky at night.

  • capnjackcapnjack Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Well, I took my little brother to his first ever PAX this weekend. He and I had an amazing time. Lines were a little long, and we skipped most things that had a long wait. That means I didn't do anything that was AAA or some of the big panels, which was fine since he wanted to spend a lot of time on the Pokemon League. A lot of people complain about the lines every year, but they haven't seemed to change much in my opinion. And everyone keeps going, so it's obviously an issue that is here to stay, and people will keep coming regardless. Not much they can do except lower the max attendees, which they won't do (and probably can't, to keep the costs where they are).

    As usual, almost all of the Enforcers were awesome, with only a few being either stressed or annoyed, from what I saw. Not sure if they needed more Enforcers or if a few people just weren't a good fit, but some of them seemed pretty tired and I felt sorry for them. I'm actually considering volunteering next year and spending more time on that than being an attendee.

    There seemed to be quite a lot of special interest panels, and I'm interested in knowing if they drew large crowds or not. The last time I attended was 2010, and there were a few panels there for minority groups, but I noticed this year that there were many more. I guess that's good if the demand is there. I didn't see that many panels that I wanted to attend though, not sure why.

    Too many discussions about bathrooms for my taste. I think it was silly. Every day @Official_PAX had to respond to it and it just seemed like unnecessary drama. Set it and forget it, stop changing them each day.

    Convention Center Staff, as always, and at every other convention I've ever attended, were rude and surly and best left alone if at all possible. So, I know what to expect from them and didn't poke the bear.

    Humongous shout out to the PAX Pokemon League. I'd buy you all dinner if I could, you were all awesome and made it a great con for my little bro. And they were quick to respond to questions and tweets. Very awesome organization of an otherwise chaotic endeavor, kinda like herding cats. :)

    If they are ever looking to move PAX East, please come to Philadelphia. We love you, it's the city of Brotherly Love after all. And it's not nearly as filthy as people would have you believe. And we have cheesesteaks and Italian pork. And we have our own cons and flower show every year, so we have people with the know-how.

    Finally, I want to say that I understand that people get emotional when they have a bad experience with something that costs a lot of time and money like PAX, but some of the posts in this thread are downright inflammatory, rude or misleading. There's a few people trying to bring it down with insults and snarkiness. Please try to just be constructive, thanks.

    Edit: One more thing...please fix Onpeak. They were not ready for Prime Time when passes went on sale. It was very confusing and frustrating.

    capnjack on
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  • Le_GoatLe_Goat Frechified Goat Person BostonRegistered User regular
    edited April 2014
    yutt wrote: »
    Would you mind mentioning which you attended? I went to the Blizzard Heroes of the Storm and Mike and Mike, both of those were great. My wife, sister, and myself scanned the schedule many times trying to find panels that sounded interesting so we could get away from the overcrowded floor, but it is definitely possible we missed something. At previous PAXes I could just hop into any panel without caring and be guaranteed an interesting discussion, but the focus was video games, which I care about, not social engineering.

    Oh, we also went to everything in the main theater, and that was all great, but I categorize those separately from the other theater panels.

    My favorites in this order were:
    1. Case Modding
    2. Rise of the Geek Bar
    3. WildStar

    EDIT: As I said before, the panels are very niche-specific. I was totally shocked by how many people were at the Case Modding panel; the panelists were blown away, too. Sadly, I had about 5 or 6 panels that I wanted to check out, but they overlapped with the ones I had to check out. But such is the way of a giant convention. I've gotten to the point where (at PAX) I'm more interested in the panels than the showroom floor.

    Le_Goat on
    While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
  • JayeEmmJayeEmm New HampShireRegistered User regular
    edited April 2014
    If the bathroom situation is the same next year, pro tip (and by pro tip I mean we figured it out halfway through Saturday): most, if not all men's (or ladies' made into men's) rooms had one or two "family" bathrooms near the entrance which were a separate room with a door. We just used those, I don't think I ever had to wait for one. So yeah, it looked like I was heading for the men's room but I really wasn't.

    JayeEmm on
  • zerzhulzerzhul Registered User, Moderator mod
    Wolfiee wrote: »
    Oh, few more things:

    I say this every year - WHY does the expo hall close at 6PM while events go through all the night? It USED to close at 7PM (except Sunday), which was still super early, but 6PM is insane. Have it close on Sunday earlier for enforcers/devs and keep it open much later the first two days. I feel like younger kids and parents and that type of crowd will have left, leaving a little more room for others.
    When did the expo hall ever close at 7?

  • smantz0rZsmantz0rZ BostonRegistered User regular
    Pros: The crowds were large (largest PAX ever?) but everyone was extremely friendly. Every enforcer I met was as well.

    To be improved:
    -The layout was rather sad, there was a lot of space between the indie developers and the tabletop which would have been better served by spacing out the hall more to allow for wider traffic flow. That, combined with the large booths cluttering the entrances makes me wonder if the people who designed the layout had ever been to PAX before.
    -The issue with the bathrooms was not the fault of PAX, and I'm resolved to walk down to the Mayor's house tonight and leave him a note saying how this affected business. He will respond to me :)
    -The "pre-order our game for swag" model is absurd and so contrary to the values of PAX that this should be banned, outlawed, shunned, and any developers who even consider doing this should be flogged.
    -There didn't seem to be a lot of significant major announcements this year, just a lot of vendors talking about stuff they'd already produced. My fear is that with PAX South 2 months in advance next year, this will mean less announcements next year.
    -Lack of some of the more 'classic' booths ie. Nintento

  • craiolacraiola MARegistered User regular
    -takes a deep breath- I've tried my best to condense my feedback into this post. I may have forgotten some items, but hopefully this provides a good snapshot for everyone. My experience is in no way reflective of anyone else's, but I hope my feedback can help improve PAX East even more in the future. This was my 3rd time attending the show and I had an absolute blast as always :)

    Pros:
    Enforcers- especially Lunchbox at the Rosewill Raffle. Lunchbox (I think that was his name!) was awesome! He was able to keep the large crowd calm and orderly. His booming voice also made it so that everyone could hear as the numbers were called. Awesome job!

    Having some exhibitors in rooms instead of on the expo floor- Bioware, Rosewill etc. I know it’s something that won’t happen due to the attractive idea of having everything in one place, however the Expo floor is so overcrowded.

    Moving the Nvidia raffle to the queue room on Sunday- This helped immensely. It was away from the congested expo room floor- stopping the fire hazard, and they were able to get a microphone set up so everyone could hear. They should honestly do this with all of the raffles.

    Bag Checks- this went smoothly each day. The staff was really kind to my group and I, I was also sure to be kind and polite to them as well- so maybe this had an effect. I understand that people feel that the bag checks don’t do anything, but with the Boston Marathon Bombing last year, and being in a space with so many people, I’d rather be safe than sorry.

    Indie Games- I had a lot of fun playing different indie games and talking to the developers. It’s probably one of my favorite parts of PAX each year. I love finding new games that I never knew existed.

    Space to sit in the Tabletop area- I was pleasantly surprised to find space to sit in the tabletop area. I recall last year all of these tables were taken or reserved. It was nice to have a place to rest my feet from time to time.

    Wolfenstein Part- Bethesda threw another stellar theme party. My group had so much fun mingling and dancing. I was really impressed with how they carried out everything in German. I also liked how they had demo stations set up at the party. My group was able to try The Elder Scrolls Online like this last year which saved us tons of time on the expo floor.

    Cons:
    Layout- lots of wasted space- There was a lot of space outside of the floor that was unused. The space could have been expanded a few feet out from the perimeter and it would have made a big difference. Lack of women’s restrooms (as many others have voiced).

    Couldn’t find shuttle for Wolfenstein party Saturday - I talked to people from the BCEC and Enforcers and they had no idea what the “north east atrium on the first floor” meant. In the end we ended up walking and it worked out, but that should have been better organized.

    Swag Bags- was swindled out of a CAH pack in the oatmeal. Granted that was my own gullible fault. I figured the con provided a cool breakfast items, and that people were poor and I was being generous. Then I later found out that people were grabbing swag bags 20 at a clip, taking out the oatmeal and league skins and throwing the rest out. A lot of my friends didn’t get swag bags.

    The Westin- I enjoyed being close to the con but the staff was very rude to my group. Especially when we checked our bags on Friday and Sunday. As a paying guest I’m just as entitled to quality customer service as everyone else. On the other hand I really enjoyed the gaming that they had there all weekend.

    Lines- Some of the lines were ridiculous- I know this is because of the AAA titles, but there has to be a better way to do this. One booth had you scan a QR code and fill out a form. They would then text you when your time was up.

    Raffles- don’t throw stuff into the crowds! This happened at the Rosewill raffle. Some of the guys were so aggressive and were jumping on people to get tshirts or sunglasses. Why not just hand items out instead of encouraging the mob mentality? This was probably the only time I did not feel safe at PAX. There were even people who got hit in the face by the items being thrown( I’m not just talking tshirts, I’m talking sata cords and sunglasses, items that actually hurt when they are thrown in your face!)

    Panels- I only attended one panel on Friday morning at the bioware booth. It was disappointing for them to have a panel about a game only to basically say they couldn’t talk about anything because of spoilers. I also had a hard time finding events that interested me- or they were so popular that I would have to wait over an hour in line. I know PAX is also linecon 2014, but I found my time better spent on the Expo Floor talking to the indie devs.

    Destructoid Karaoke- it was moved from Friday to Saturday. When my friends and I showed up at 8pm (per their blog) no one was there and no one had any idea of what was happening. Way to not show up to your own party guys!

    Suggestions:
    Crowd Control- Why not have all raffles in the queue room. Make exhibitors sign up for times- then they are not competing against each other, and it prevents the fire hazards on the expo floor.

    Swag Bags- I think the group has collectively proven that they can’t be trusted with the honor system which means it’s time to add structure. Why not hole punch everyone’s badge when they get a swag bag? One of the booths did this last year and it didn’t add a lot of time. It should also be noted that the swag bags should be more secure. This could have been a case where there were not enough enforcers.

    Spread out exhibitors and decrease foot traffic to the Expo Floor by moving Riot or Twitch to a theatre- Something that might help would be giving booths like Riot or Twitch their own rooms. However, I know a theatre of that size simply isn’t available, and I’m sure those companies wouldn’t want to be away from the action of the expo floor. (At the same time having a League of Legends “theatre” where people could constantly come and go and watch matches while picking up swag would definitely help relieve the congestion in the expo hall. Another idea would be to have the tabletop and magic moved to another area of the convention and use that space for an expanded expo hall. It might be nice to have the expo floor organized by type. I liked having the indie booths together, why not put the hardware booths together, and the vendors together, etc etc.

    Swag Swap- Just like there is a Pinny Arcade Swap, why not have a Swag Swap each day. Attendees could then trade for the CAH cards they want without having to resort to hoarding swag bags. It could also be overseen by enforcers to ensure fairness at all times.

    Speed Dating- This was recommended by a single friend. It would be fun to have a type of speed dating event where instead of having quick 5 minute conversations over appetizers and drinks, singles could mingle by playing games together.

    Parent/Child oriented programming- I noticed a lot more children at PAX East this year which is great. Kids are awesome! But I also felt that there was a lot out there that wasn’t appropriate for a child to see. Why not introduce a line of programming geared towards kids and their parents. I can see a lot of minecraft activities and panels being popular, and even pokemon. It would also be a great opportunity to exhibitors to showcase their educational software. Then both parents and their children can experience PAX without worrying too much about inappropriate content. (A friend of mine was appalled by a 12 year old demo-ing an M rated game whose every other word was “Fuck!” Was no one checking ids?) It might be interesting to offer some sort of quiet area similar to the AFK room where parents and children can get away from the overstimulation. This would also be a good opportunity to provide space for nursing mothers.

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  • rascrushrascrush Registered User regular
    this was my 1st year at pax and i loved it.

    pros

    . the lines seemed to go pretty quick i did not stand in the big lines for evolved or stuff like that but did stay in the line for the evil withen and it only took about 45min not bad.

    . the enforcers were great and very helpful whenever I had a question

    . the parties and the people there were amazing sanshee in perticuler

    . bag check went very fast

    . the people even the bigger companies like ubisoft were really cool. honestly the people at ubisoft were the nicest people I met and I hungout with them at the sanshee party and was getting free drinks all night

    cons

    . i found that the people who worked for the center and not for pax in genereal were kinda asses just maybe my personal opinion.

    . the taxi line could have been better listed like were to stand if you needed a taxi i did not see this at 1st and that is when the other people seemed to be asses to me

    . bring dif types of games. I understand that this year a lot of the big people did not show sony which would have been a huge draw for me was not there. Having dif types of games there I think would be great but i get this is something you can not control.

    . Only 3 days sadface

    . food prices and lines for food was kinda crazy expecilly the line part.

    ideas

    . make pax happen twice a year I know people hate waiting. I hate waiting as well and this is only my 1st time ever going

    All in all it was a great time and I for sure will be trying to get there again next year

  • capnjackcapnjack Registered User regular
    craiola wrote: »
    Swag Swap/Speed Dating
    These are two things I can't see going great at the con, but someone in the community should definitely organize this! Maybe in a hotel space or something. Not sure about the dating since many of us are from around the country/world, but maybe someone local could organize something.
    craiola wrote: »
    Parent/Child oriented programming
    I took a 12 year old with me, and we went to the keynote, Minecraft panel, Minecraft youtuber signing, and concerts. He loved all of it. Other than that, the expo hall, ACAM and Pokemon kept him entertained. I think kids don't want to go to too many panels, but Minecraft youtubers was a really big one for them. I'm not sure what else could be done for kids, but I'm all for it. I think one or two more things would be really nice. Maybe a 3DS friend meetup to trade friend tags with other young gamers? Or...a kids-only session in the PC gaming area? Kids-only Rock band hour? Lots of ideas, now that I think about it. Pretty much any game could have a one-hour kids-play session.

    Q: "You are in the garden. You see a rose bush. You have a fishing rod. Exits are North, South and IN."
    A: "What do you want from me?!?!?"
  • stardust462stardust462 Leominster, MARegistered User regular
    Fantastic time. So sad it had to end.

    I feel like I saw fewer enforcers this year. They all did awesome work though.

    I agree with some of others who said they didn't experience any rude BCEC staff. Everyone I talked to was at worse a bit surly, but not close to rude. I think it helps to have your bag ready, and to say hello and thank you to them. The bag check experience was surprisingly painless. I just wish the lines were managed a little better, because during the crowds Saturday morning I noticed some lines split into two lines, one some lines just stayed one the whole time. It didn't take more than a few minutes though.

    Classic consoles should double in size and equipment. Bummed on Friday night there was only one available NES because one was being used for a Super Mario 3 challenge (which was cool to watch), especially because there were tons of games available. On the other hand, there were a bunch of SNESes available, but not a lot of great games to choose from.
    craiola wrote: »
    Spread out exhibitors and decrease foot traffic to the Expo Floor by moving Riot or Twitch to a theatre- Something that might help would be giving booths like Riot or Twitch their own rooms. However, I know a theatre of that size simply isn’t available, and I’m sure those companies wouldn’t want to be away from the action of the expo floor. (At the same time having a League of Legends “theatre” where people could constantly come and go and watch matches while picking up swag would definitely help relieve the congestion in the expo hall. Another idea would be to have the tabletop and magic moved to another area of the convention and use that space for an expanded expo hall. It might be nice to have the expo floor organized by type. I liked having the indie booths together, why not put the hardware booths together, and the vendors together, etc etc.
    I support this idea as well. There are some pretty big ballrooms in the Westin. If you go straight down both escalators and go right, they're that way. The prefunction space there is really big too. I'd love to see these rooms used for something, but I'm afraid PAX may be too big and it would be unpredictable to anticipate how many people would flock to those places. But yeah, Riot and/or Twitch in their own theater would be great. Or maybe all the merchandise booths moved elsewhere so the expo hall is exclusively just exhibits would clear up a little more space.

  • LimondLimond Registered User regular
    rascrush wrote: »
    make pax happen twice a year I know people hate waiting.

    Umm it has been happening twice a year for 5 years now. It is going to happen 4 times next year.

    One clip, one kill.

    I am a monster truck that walks like a man.
  • MarsDragonMarsDragon Registered User regular
    I really liked the indie minibooth and spent a ton of time there. I really wish I had found it earlier, because I missed the first couple of days. (then again, I didn't go to the expo hall much this PAX) It's a great idea and I hope to see it in future PAXes.

    But I have to agree with the complaints about flow control. The expo hall is always terrible to navigate, and better organization there would help a lot. For PAX East I would've liked splitting off the indies from the mega publishers a bit more; I prefer PAX Prime's method of having a lot of indies in an "indie hall" and then having a smaller subset on the main show floor. I realise there are just plain problems with the building at that point, but tabletop was split off from the expo hall nicely. I did like having a nice big open space for table topping instead of having to run around a lot of smaller rooms like at Prime.

    I mostly liked the panels I attended, especially How Arcade Games Influenced Home Console Gaming, Localizing Japanese Games, and The Mythology In and Of Games. Though I felt a little sorry for the Mythology guys when they ran nearly to the end of the panel and then every question was incredibly in-depth. (I was the intellectual property question girl, so not like I was helping)

    I honestly didn't notice the restroom problem, but it sounds like I just got lucky. I was a little bugged by the gender-neutral restroom. Not that it existed, but that it was a "men's and gender neutral" set. It would've been fine if both those restrooms were gender-neutral, but as it was it felt a bit like tossing women away as unimportant without considering changing anything for the men. (also I have no idea how it works in men's rooms, but I ran into two guys who forgot to lock the stall door while peeing in the neutral restroom and that was awkward as hell when I was trying to find a free stall. Men, please, just lock the door.)

    Arcade freeplay was great, with lots of rare games. I regret not spending more time there. I also very much appreciated the field of beanbags right outside. Classic console was a bit small and I was disappointed in my attempts to play Keith Courage in the Alpha Zone and Tempest 2000, but it seems there were some troubles with the guy who normally donates his collection and I understand that.

    Final complaint: the freeplay band stage was not actually available for my friend and me to run up and start acapellaing the Metal Gear Rising soundtrack :(

  • macrogeekmacrogeek Registered User regular
    Had a great time. BYOC was excellent this year. Wish the BYOC stage was easier to see in all of the Intel and BYOC stations, because you can't always see the screen.

    I think they need to have booth guidelines for the vendors. They should include anonymous examples of good and bad booth layouts. IE, if you are doing broadcast or stage or large video presentations, you need to have audience space inside the booth like Wildstar, not in the aisle like Evolve. Large format booths need buffered by smaller booths nearby. Small booths with demo screens or stations, need to allow "x" feet at the edge of the booth to hold the customers using the stations. Keep video demos short enough that x number of people can get through the demo per day.

    I think there should be a "how to PAX" informational video that runs in the queue room. Include helpful suggestions like, don't stop to take selfies or discuss your next group destination in the center of an intersection. Such a video is also a good chance to remind folks of the rules of PAX, show the schedule, remind them of the AFK and Diversity Lounge areas.

  • DolarrahDolarrah New JerseyRegistered User regular
    zerzhul wrote: »

    11 Years Ago :)

  • PugglesPuggles Registered User regular
    I didn't have any problems. I didn't wait in any of the huge lines but I don't feel like I missed out on anything. Even with the huge crowds I felt it was still pretty easy to get around. All the enforcers and employees I talked to were super nice.

  • sigma8sigma8 Registered User regular
    Pluses
    + Last year I complained that there were fried dough stands everywhere and the whole PC area (and beyond) reeked of fried oil. This year, I don't know what happened (there seemed to be fewer fried dough places?) but the air in PC/BYOPC and Tabletop was a lot better! Thanks!
    + The bag checks were a drag, but I understand them. I'm not sure how much of it was security versus "security theater", but on the whole I appreciated the fact that they were fast and surprisingly friendly.
    + I love the chairs in BYOPC (and I think they're the same in PC and Tabletop and pretty much all over). They are very comfy to sit in for long durations--perfect for PC and tabletop. The mesh seat and backing is comfy and well ventilated.
    + Enforcers were, on the whole, nice and on the ball.
    + Internet/LAN in BYOPC worked well
    + Fun times!

    Minuses:
    - Limited edition merch. The badges were hard enough to get. Anyone in there who wanted something should be able to get it. Heck, to give you money for it. I realize you don't want a huge stock of unsold goods, so do rainchecks/IOU's and then produce a secondary run of only however much you need and ship it.
    - The Oatmeal CAH pack was, as a friend mentioned, funny the first time you tore open a pouch of oatmeal to get it. Each subsequent pouch was just more work for the poor, beset MCCA cleaning personnel and any city-employed cockroaches or mice.
    - Show was too short. In 2013 my purchase got me 41 hours of PAX, this year the price went up yet it only bought 37 hours of PAX. It's also ironic that when Boston finally decides to keep the T (subway) open until 2:30am (instead of 1am), PAX cuts its hours to midnight. ( http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/default.asp?id=6442451913 ) Having late hours was also great for squeezing in more activities after the expo hall closed. More table-top, more PC/console gaming. That said, if PAX East went to a 4-day format like Pax Prime, I would instantly stop complaining about the midnight closure. 4 days would be great!
    - BYOPC spring water -- two years ago, it was great. There were at least two (I think three?) poland springs water dispensers. One of which had its hot water spigot working. This year, they only had like two 5-gallon jugs of water to last all of Friday (it was gone by, like, 3pm) and got a couple more jugs on Saturday and Sunday. I'm not sure what sort of union hurdles need to be cleared to get water in, but I'd be happy to bring in 5-gallon water jugs on my own dime if it was legal. And please make sure the hot spigots are working (they were...I'm just emphasizing the desirability of that)!
    - Expo hall was so crowded that I practically avoided it this year... I haven't attended panels for the past 2 years, but I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to move some of the more congestion-heavy booths to level 2. Bioware had its own room up there, and Kickstarter had one on level 1. Having popular things spread out like this does a good job of distributing the crowd a little bit, and it would have been nice to have SOMETHING on level 2 other than panels... The only time I spent on level 2 was when I came in via the Westin entrance bridge (which I used sometimes to avoid the big bag check line); I wonder if PAX should take a page from Disneyworld and institute a Fastpass system for admission to popular booths.
    - Tabletop was missing a decent LFG system. The #ttlfg was not well-used this year, and there was nothing to replace it.

    re: Bathrooms:
    I'm a guy, and I will say the queues for the men's rooms were long and annoying. I don't know if the women's rooms had lines (I realize I can't necessarily see far enough into them to see if there's a queue by the sink), but the speed at which my female companions could use the bathrooms implied they did not. Based on that knowledge alone, I'd say the gender ratio is still skewed towards male...and so it would be logical reassign certain restrooms.

    HOWEVER, in agreement with many other people here: despite these changes I didn't notice any improvement over last year. In fact, it seemed worse. Somehow, the MCCA or PAX or an insidious amalgamation of the both of them managed to inconvenience women without making things any better for men. I did see the one gender-neutral bathroom and thought that was a winning idea. Not just for PAX, but for society.

  • hsuhsu Registered User regular
    craiola wrote: »
    Speed Dating- This was recommended by a single friend. It would be fun to have a type of speed dating event where instead of having quick 5 minute conversations over appetizers and drinks, singles could mingle by playing games together.
    Did your friend not get phone numbers? Because I got phone numbers. Just be friendly and talk; you'd be surprised at how many of those cute girls were single.

    iTNdmYl.png
  • craiolacraiola MARegistered User regular
    hsu wrote: »
    craiola wrote: »
    Speed Dating- This was recommended by a sing
    - le friend. It would be fun to have a type of speed dating event where instead of having quick 5 minute conversations over appetizers and drinks, singles could mingle by playing games together.
    Did your friend not get phone numbers? Because I got phone numbers. Just be friendly and talk; you'd be surprised at how many of those cute girls were single.
    oh he got numbers. But he also mentioned that a lot of girls there werent single and he felt awkward about getting shot down so many times.

    DXLJjjr.png
  • Pure DinPure Din Boston-areaRegistered User regular
    Wolfiee wrote: »
    yutt wrote: »
    I am a progressive, married 30+ year old and attend PAX with my wife and sister. Neither of them has felt any level of fear or exclusion due to their gender at PAX. This isn't a real problem that needs fixing. It is a manufactured issue that needs ignoring, so you can deal with the very real issues of line/flow management. You're worried about your image, while PAX is still selling out in minutes. Why? Clearly the majority of people have no problem with PA or PAX, stop catering to ideologues.
    I am female and I could not agree with this statement more. 1000% agreed. 10/10, would agree again. 5 stars.

    PAX has always made me feel welcome and safe and never made me feel "excluded" as a female gamer. Even if they did, this is not a real issue, as you stated. The real issue is most certainly the insane amounts of people they let attend and the way it's organized.

    Edit: And in response to your thing about panels - also totally agree. Mentioned it in my earlier post and I mentioned it last year too.

    I disagree that the issue is "overblown", because to me what makes PAX awesome and unique is the community. If there is sexism, homophobia, etc, then I can see the argument for nipping that problem in the bud before it has a chance to trickle down into the community.

    However, I think people tend to feel like these issues are less overblown when they're implemented in ways that clearly benefit the majority as well. For example:

    -- The booth babe ban because it both makes women feel more comfortable and for everyone else it keeps the focus on the games.

    -- It's too bad the city of Boston rejected Khoo's suggestion of switching some of the women's rooms to gender neutral rather than switching them to men only, because that would have been both helpful for the transgender community and made more restrooms available to men while giving women the option of using a more close by restroom (while still having plenty of men and women only restrooms for people who feel more comfortable with that option).

    -- I went to a panel this year on the language of board games, and one woman talked a few minutes about being a mom and how teaching her kids to play games has affected her ideas on how people talk about board games in general. As someone who is not a parent, I would never go to a panel on parenting, but I was able to learn something new because it was just a few minute aside of a panel I was actually interested in.

  • QumadenQumaden World's Mightiest Mortal Registered User regular
    This is my second PAX, my first was Prime 2013. Maybe it was because Prime13 was 4 days this year, but by comparison it seemed so much more crowded. Here's my break down:

    -Pros:
    Pin trading. I'm a bit of a Pinthusiast, and I saw a lot of people trading pins, love that sub community.

    Small games: if you weren't trying to listen to league of legends destroy your ear drums or wait in the Blizzard line for half the convention, there were quite a few little gems here and there.

    Pwnmeal: awesome idea, hillarious little Easter egg by CAH. Unfortunately, people can be selfish and I even heard several people talking about how they got a full set of CAH to sell on eBay. Because of that one thing a lot of people missed out on the swag bags(even though there was no real swag, but they are a staple of conventions).

    Enforcers: They are volunteers who help facilitate PAX. Everytime I saw one, I thanked them for what they do. A lot if times they have to be the bad guys, and they do a great job trying to balance enforcing the rules while still trying to help their fellow fans enjoy their experience. Any enforcer who reads this, thank you.

    Aquisitions Incorporated: I got to see my first live AI game(missed it at prime because I only had passes for two days). I for one am happy to see a return to the root. Just some good people playing D&D. All the theatrics and over the top silliness I didn't care for.

    -Cons:
    Big games overpowering the convention. LoL was just a huge eye sore and seemed to get in the way of everything. It's likely however, that I feel this way because I don't play it, and that the fans may have loved it. In which case, you do you man.

    Merch: I realize that people are trying to make a living on this merch, but it seemed as if the merch lines were souly motivated by one limited edition pin. While I feel accomplished by scoring one, how many people didn't have my level of fervor/time/resources that may have wanted it even more than I did?

    Leeroy Jenkins: most anxiety caused by "what if I can't find him and get that pin!?" ever.

    -Constructive ideas:
    Big exhibits vs. Small: Blizzard, LoL, and the like are always going to be huge. I realize they purchase specific amounts of space, and that the lines have to be capped on everything due to safety restrictions. What I would like to see is more easily identifiably and distinct lines with those that are doing multiple products/demos. Sure you can just ask "hey is this the line for X?" But half the time people seem to not even know what line they're in.

    I understand that the venue can only be arranged in so many different ways, but prime felt so much neater than east did. You know certain lines are going to full all day everyday, is that planned for?

    All in all, the staff know what they're doing, or else these events wouldn't be so popular, and I know that they word hard to make it better everytime. Hopefully see folks at PAX south in 2015!

  • Paxman90Paxman90 Registered User regular
    First ever PAX so I'll leave my thoughts as well. Went all 3 days.

    Pros:

    -Bag check went without any issues for me. Never waited more than 3-4 minutes in a line.
    -Panels I went to were interesting and the lines were decently managed (I skipped some of the bigger ones like Gearbox and Make a Strip though)
    -Good areas to sit and take a break from the hustle and charge my phone.
    -Some friendly vendors who actually didnt have crazy high prices!

    Cons:

    -Enforcers I met seemed to know what was going on 5 feet in front of them but not much else. I couldnt find the BYOC desk on Friday and I asked 3 enforcers, none of whom gave the right answer. One said it was in Expo Hall, One said it was on level 1 in the corner and One said it wasnt even in the BCEC! I also had problems getting proper direction when asking where certain theaters or freeplay areas were. They need more education on the BCEC itself!
    -$3 per item Bag hold at the BCEC? Really? I saw a lot of Enforcers standing around in some areas (Expo Hall needed more I'll agree) but it shouldnt have been difficult to have 2-3 enforcers handling that for free. We pay enough to get in the building after all, should be able to hold our stuff for free if we want to go get a meal or drink and not carry everything around the city.
    -No shuttle to/from North Station? The hotel shuttle seemed to run well but a lot of PAX folks came in from North Station and it would have been nice to have a shuttle running on that route as well. Surely one of the hotels must have been close to North Station so this could be remedied for next year.
    -Some Expo booths had terrible line management and structure, definite hazard for people walking around (Riot, Bethesda, I'm looking at you)
    -Tabletop had way too many areas reserved for MTG that werent being used. Also maybe this was just bad luck but I kept trying to find a game of Catan and everytime I asked somebody if they had an opening I was greeted with rude looks and snarky comments. Very displeasing.
    -Sam Adams Pub ran out of good draft beer on Saturday morning! Thats just inexcusable.
    -Swag Bags. Like many others I think it was poorly handled. I missed them on Saturday completely. Hearing that people got 20+ is just beyond stupid especially when its so easy to control (I agree with the hole-punching idea).
    -Parties. Any of the RSVP parties were way overbooked. If you're only going to let a certain amount of people in, then dont let 1000+ be able to get tickets! Waste of time for everybody. I had 3 friends experience this with the IGN party alone Friday night and know several more who had that happen with NVIDIA, ASUS, and others.
    -Bathrooms. Agree with the others about women's bathrooms but even men's bathrooms were a pain.
    -Classic console freeplay was a mess. Lines were way too long and supply way too short. Something about this needs to be addressed.
    -Queue room line management was not good. I went to the Mass Effect photo session Saturday afternoon and in a span of 40 minutes the line moved 2 whole people. That is downright unacceptable.

    All in all, I enjoyed PAX but will probably just go one day next year.

  • upstateny-danupstateny-dan Registered User regular
    Am I the only one that didnt think the expo hall crowding was an issue? It actually seemed less crowded than NYCC with some more room to move lol. Granted the lines, the I think that was due to demos taking so long.

    I think the weekend was a nice welcome to PAX for me and my wife. Now that I am able to go to conventions, I am glad to add PAX to my list.

  • DanQDanQ Registered User regular
    Wow did nobody here play in tournaments? Haven't seen anyone comment on them yet. That's practically all I did. I thought the expo hall had as good traffic as could reasonably be expected. Not sure what the complaints were about. Expecting it to be as walkable as the hallways is being unrealistic. Also as a man I had no problems with the bathrooms. I also didn't notice any double men's bathrooms, but I did see the women's rooms detours. I probably would just be confused by the changed up women's rooms since I didn't see any announcements ahead if time. My biggest gripe is the lack of group finding for tabletop. Console freeplay had a sign and a room specifically for LFG. Why not put a banner stand for people to stand at and pick up tabletop players? Not everyone understands the standing box display rule and many are just too shy anyway. I seen a bunch of people stare at my box but wouldn't approach until I actively asked them to join. Also disappointed it ended at midnight. My best memories last year were if late night tabletop and the late night dance stages. Late night joust on Friday was also awesome and got cut way too short. Its a different atmosphere after 9 pm.

    As for the tournaments, they went well enough in general. I had some of the fastest games of Carcassonne and dominion I have ever played. People knew what to do. Also loved the last minute warioware addition. I came specifically intending to get a game going and was super excited to find an actual tournament. Please do it again next year. My favorite is the Saturday night random board game showdown. Its my second year and both years we played jungle speed. And even though it scales nicely, is real quick and the rules are simple, I don't think it makes a great game for the tournament. People unfamiliar with the rules keep needing rules clarified and lack of round tables means it is a bit uneven. I didn't have too much of a problem letting it slide when rules were broken, but I'd probably be more annoyed if it cost me a game. Its not really an issue with games where everyone is familiar with the game, like dominion, but where you get people entering games they are unfamiliar with, having someone oversee as a referee would be nice. Tsuro and zombie dice were definitely solid additions. I was totally unfamiliar with tsuro but was able to pick it up no problem at all. The finals for the Saturday night showdown ran into a time issue, we couldn't actually finish, another reason for staying open later. While I personally would have preferred a different game for the finals, one where set up decisions weren't so critical (need time to understand game strategy), I'd say it was a pretty good choice and it was cool to have the designer on hand. I like how the finals substitute the short games for a long one and it is generally a game nobody has played before. I could do with more quick, short ridiculous games as well though. I am also satisfied with how they handled the running out of time issue by giving us all medals. I would have definitely lost so I can't complain and it seemed as if nobody felt too upset.

    Last thing is my thoughts on the omegathon ending. First I'll point out did anyone else notice how the one woman got more applause pops than the rest of the contestants when she wasn't any more charasmatic than the rest of the contestants? It seems like this sort of thing is why PAX has the negative sexism stigmas attached to it. It definitely struck me as the woman getting attention because she was a woman. Not sure what the organizers can do about this. And while I found the finals to be rather lackluster to watch, I attribute that more to bad luck. It wasn't the right contestants for the game. I would have liked less of a focus on the penny arcade guys though.

    Oh and because someone mentioned it the fact that the diversity lounge was advertised in rainbows, and the quick glance inside, it kind of felt like the LBGT diversity lounge. I fall into several minority groups but felt as if it wanted targeted towards me since I don't fall into the LBGT category. I understand its for anyone no matter what but it kinda felt like a fail at welcoming all minorities when it used the symbolism associated with a specific minority group.

    But overall it was super awesome. Really, what makes PAX for me is the crowd and that didn't disappoint. So thank you everyone.

  • Le_GoatLe_Goat Frechified Goat Person BostonRegistered User regular
    edited April 2014
    My buddy and I were going to do the X-Wing tournament initially, but as the date closed in, we decided not to. 10-8 for a tournament that we could jump in on at the local shop in a month or two just didn't seem like something worth "wasting" a whole day of PAX. It's totally a personal option.

    Le_Goat on
    While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
  • gamerman1227gamerman1227 Registered User regular
    edited April 2014
    Last thing is my thoughts on the omegathon ending. First I'll point out did anyone else notice how the one woman got more applause pops than the rest of the contestants when she wasn't any more charasmatic than the rest of the contestants? It seems like this sort of thing is why PAX has the negative sexism stigmas attached to it. It definitely struck me as the woman getting attention because she was a woman. Not sure what the organizers can do about this. And while I found the finals to be rather lackluster to watch, I attribute that more to bad luck. It wasn't the right contestants for the game. I would have liked less of a focus on the penny arcade guys though.

    Hey, I'm not afraid to tackle the elephant in the room. At an event like this that skews male (almost overwhelmingly so), many of whom are otherwise socially awkward in their normal lives and may not necessarily have regular social relationships with females, this is the behavior you will get. Yes, I hate to generalize, but I hate dishonesty even more. It's not something that you will be able to change, it's just the fact of the matter, and you either need to be willing to accept it or live with it, or just stop going if you're going to take issue with it.

    As for Jonathan Coultan and Paul & Storm, If you can remember last year, both of their sets last year were almost 95% identical to their set the year before. Coultan in particular seemed to be very disinterested in his PAX set, so it wouldn't shock me if he declined an invite this year, while Paul and Storm may have bowed out for a year until they work out some new material.

    gamerman1227 on
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