As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Prime 2014 Pin Trading Feedback
Beker
Child's Play Program DirectorSeattleRegistered User, Penny Arcade Staff regular
Child's Play Program DirectorSeattleRegistered User, Penny Arcade Staff regular
*puts on attendee/pinny pal hat*
I had some thoughts, and thought some of you may have had some as well. To be clear while you may have seen me at the official event, i'm in no way in charge of that event and won't be making the decisions of what a future event might look like.
What I thought went well at official event:
- Sending in groups at a time. It kept people focused, 20-30 minutes seemed more then enough to get the staff pins needed. Any further trading could just as easily be done outside.
- Trading in the line was great, and several people got what they needed there and never needed to go inside at all.
- Setup seemed to flow better then at East, half circle of tables rather then tables sticking out in a hallway sort of setup.
Ideas for next time:
- Devise a snaked line so that as it moves you find new people to trade with near you.
Other Pin trading thoughts:
- I liked the pin trading area near merch, but having better signage for known times would be good
- Having spur of the moment "i have 30 minutes" drop ins was great as well.
- In addition to the official event, perhaps a designated Pinny Pal meetup would be great. Something that is set ahead of time, similar to what the buttoneers do. Not everyone is hooked to twitter during the event.
- Monday, word from management cut down on #e pin trading while on shift. Assuming they allow it in the future I will probably adopt a policy of strict 1to1 trades while on shift. Leaving the more complicated trades to off shift times.
*note* everyone's thoughts are valid. Please don't attack. Please keep on topic. etc etc.
If you have more general PAX feedback please put it Here
I had some thoughts, and thought some of you may have had some as well. To be clear while you may have seen me at the official event, i'm in no way in charge of that event and won't be making the decisions of what a future event might look like.
What I thought went well at official event:
- Sending in groups at a time. It kept people focused, 20-30 minutes seemed more then enough to get the staff pins needed. Any further trading could just as easily be done outside.
- Trading in the line was great, and several people got what they needed there and never needed to go inside at all.
- Setup seemed to flow better then at East, half circle of tables rather then tables sticking out in a hallway sort of setup.
Ideas for next time:
- Devise a snaked line so that as it moves you find new people to trade with near you.
Other Pin trading thoughts:
- I liked the pin trading area near merch, but having better signage for known times would be good
- Having spur of the moment "i have 30 minutes" drop ins was great as well.
- In addition to the official event, perhaps a designated Pinny Pal meetup would be great. Something that is set ahead of time, similar to what the buttoneers do. Not everyone is hooked to twitter during the event.
- Monday, word from management cut down on #e pin trading while on shift. Assuming they allow it in the future I will probably adopt a policy of strict 1to1 trades while on shift. Leaving the more complicated trades to off shift times.
*note* everyone's thoughts are valid. Please don't attack. Please keep on topic. etc etc.
If you have more general PAX feedback please put it Here
-Beker/Erick
Beker on
0
Posts
Snaking line would really have been awesome.
The trading area near Merch was useful. Problem was the overflow for the Merch queue often hid it. Maybe put the overflow on the other side of Merch?
Pinny Pal organised stuff can be done. Getting it co-ordinated between the Official stuff and the Community is something that I tried to do, but Time. Hopefully by next year we have a system in place.
[E] trading was only an issue in the Infobooth, since having Enforcer personal collections alongside the Take A Pinny was causing some confusion amongst new people.
Nusquam Findi Factionis
My Digital Pin Lanyard
I feel bad for a lot of people in the line, it took a long time to move people through the Paramount and I can only assume that many, many people in that line never made it in to trade with the staff that evening.
This isn't an absolute, but my wife had the impression that almost all of the enforcers were "pin sharks", so the community board at the info booth was always full of lookouts. It's a good idea, but needs some type of regulation.
My wife also observed two guys almost get into a fist fight, and push/almost knock over a girl at the merch booth trading section when a Tiamat was put on the table. I would strongly recommend to the staff manning that table that they deny trades for people demonstrating that type of behavior in the future. According to my wife, one of the aggressors even had one or two Tiamats hanging from their lanyard. I know it's a desirable pin, but come on. You can't teach class, but you can choose to not reward it's opposite state.
Dinotimecopforce.com
Interesting, thank you for sharing this. I'd be surprised if even 20% of the trades with that board were from enforcers, who also are held to the 2/day rule when trading with staff and the board. There are certainly sharks out there, but I don't think the enforcers have a higher percentage of them than the attendees. The pins on the board were actually fronted by myself and 2 other enforcers from our private collections, and even through we were at times tempted, we made a strict pact that us 3 at least would not trade with it and would only collect what was left over at the end. We started with 30 pins, at one point I counted 35, at the end I think we had 25, as you would expect, pretty much all lookouts and age of empires. It was an interesting experiment, did not have the desired results, and if others had your wife's impression may have even been a negative for our image, but it did give good data. If we do it again it will for sure have some changes. Probably only come out for bits at a time or on request for one, which is what Disney does I think.
The trading event was neat but there was surely a lot of aggression going on. I only needed like three staff pins so I got in, traded them and got out. I feel like the East version was much less chaotic, but every PAX sees more and more pinthusiasm, so it's to be expected.
Thankfully I wasn't there to see the above mentioned child endangerment both for my own mental health and for the sake of not being banned from PAX forever.
I like the staff playing games like, roll a D20 and such for pins, adds something for people who aren't pin psychopaths like me to make it interesting. Personal lesson learned, I don't think I'm going to wear any pins that I'm not willing to just give away because I hate telling people no. The best part of PAX for me was being able to help people get pins they weren't able to get otherwise, and the worst was having to tell someone I couldn't trade them the pin they wanted because I was too greedy to part with it.
Check out my YouTube Pinny Arcade Videos!
On the pin trading event:
I am in total agreement with the table spacing and making an opportunity to do more line trading.
I was in the first batch of people let in to the Paramount for the pin trade event and there was just about zero trading between other pin pals, so anything to increase that would be awesome. Everyone was huddled 3 or 4 deep at every table waiting for their chance to get a new staff pin or that new Age of Empires pin that was EVERYWHERE.
Maybe next time I will make a sign that says "I am looking for pin X, Y, and Z!"
It wasn't at the trading event, but I saw a woman who was wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm looking for a Hanna Pin", oddly enough, I talked to one of my friends who was helping collect pins for our Aus Pin Pal and he had an extra Hanna he traded to her. So, advertising works!
Check out my YouTube Pinny Arcade Videos!
As far as the trading event went: I didn't see any pal trading going on inside, just staff trading. I think part of that was because there was really only enough time to do the staff trades. At least there was plenty of pal trading happening in the outside line.
Also, because people were going down the tables from both ends of the semicircle, it was harder to see the pins and make trades at the middle table where the two streams of people crossed over. Still, the trading event is a great way to get all the staff pins without relying on random encounters.
But I digress.
Rudely? You need to learn sarcasm brah, that was hilarious.
Trade me pins! - https://pinnypals.com/pals/TheAggroCraig
The "Take/Leave a Pinny" board was great, and didn't seem to be entirely Lookouts until Sunday. If there was a way to refresh it when it got to that point (or perhaps nightly?) it could easily solve that problem. Knowing now that it was fronted by personal collections is a testament to the generosity of the Pin Pal community. As it was, my pin goal going in to PAX was to get the Lookouts logo (without having to buy the whole set) and I traded for it on Friday from the "Pinny" board; my boys made more than a few trades there as well.
I also think that other similarly-priced 6-pin sets would help to resolve the density of duplicates, if for no other reason than because the community would be using different sets as trade fodder. We went to PAX with only the Twisp & Catsby set that I bought when it was first released (which wasn't for trade), and returned home as Pin Addicts. Had I known/planned ahead I would probably have ordered a few Lookouts sets to bring with us.
Having more than one "value" set available to purchase for trading would be great, and it would be ESPECIALLY good for introducing new people! On two separate occasions my boys benefitted from generous Pin Pals excited to see their interest in Pinny Arcade; I would love to see this continue with others and would gladly hand out pins personally to newcomers (it would just be great to have more variety/less upfront investment). Cheap blind boxes could work in a similar way, if they kept the per-pin price down (e.g. more pins in the box if they are commons and fewer for uncommons or even a single pin for rares).
The other thing I learned (and saw mentioned above) was that I removed all of my "untradables" from my lanyard before going to the Pin Trading Event, choosing only to bring definite trades and possible trades to avoid confusion/disappointment when trading. In the end I pretty much just gave pins to my kids as they traded away their "trade" pins, so I didn't really do any trading personally.
Not being in line (we arrived after the line had been "hard capped") solved the "limited partners" problem others have mentioned. Walking the line after going in would work for the early groups, and perhaps taking turns saving spaces in line to allow others to wander around a little would avoid the need to reorganize the line into a more trade-friendly, but significantly more restrictive, snake line.
More than one Pin Event would also be helpful as pinthusiasm grows, as has been mentioned by them regarding their multiple signing sessions for people only getting single-day passes. From what I saw, the small groups idea worked really well, and could even possibly be expanded to smaller groups with less time. If trading in line was easier for everyone then trading inside could be exclusively with Staff, so less time should be ok since there is already a 2-pin limit per person.
Check out my YouTube Pinny Arcade Videos!
Also I was curious to opinions on people trying to cut into a trade so they can get the 2nd/3rd/ect of a pin over someone that does not even have 1 yet, especially when that person is getting the 2nd/3rd/etc for a pal from another area.
Had a situation at Pax that was kinda dishearting, though with some amazing people at the Acquistions panel line, I was able to get the certain pin in question. Actually ended up with a 4 way trade with 4 different people, where everyone got a pin they needed.
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda, Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace, 1999
I had on a second lanyard the first day with non-pinny pins. I did make one trade off it early on when somebody spotted one of Scott Kurtz's regular pins. I traded a combination of pins for (if I remember correctly) an east '13 pin. To me and him it was a fair trade. Later on I just spent more time explaining about them than I cared to do so I left it at home after that.
As far as trade sniping, it's rude. If the trade offer has been fully rejected, then the next offer can be entertained. Just common courtesy.
Check 'em: My Pins!
We all know it's going to get harder to get 4 of everything. I notice at east it was super hard for me to get everything alone. At Prime I noticed it was a 2 man job or have a pin group of friends that can also wait in lines and try to please everyone. The hardest part was waiting in line in the morning for the 10 year pin and on Monday I woke up super early and still get extra for 2 people who couldn't wait in line for it.
Pinny Pal since PAX Prime 2013
Always looking to trade.
East trading event was at Saturday evening and Act inc was Sunday day
Pinny Pal since PAX Prime 2013
1) Some of the hardcore traders can be very brusque and dismissive when asked for trades. I could describe the worst offender, but I'll leave it that he is an [E] and should know better. It's one thing to be cheerful about saying "No, sorry, I'm not trading that pin" or "No, sorry, you don't have anything I'll trade for that" - it's something different to sneeringly look up and down the offered trading lanyard and say "Nothing I want." Not all hardcore traders were that way, in fact I had quite a few pleasant and cheerful encounters with another [E] hardcore guy that never ended in trades but always ended in smiles on both sides, but that one guy has ensured I will never, EVER, speak to him again about pins. Perhaps that is his goal.
2) I also kept my non-trading collection hidden away in a bag, along with the rarer trade fodder so that I wouldn't lose it. It's always super fun to have your cool pins out for display, but if you absolutely won't trade it then please don't get annoyed if people are asking about it. For me, it's much more pleasant to be willing to trade anything I have out on display!
3) If you have a rare pin and you will ONLY trade it for something specific, please just say that up front. I was looking for the Leeroy Jenkins pin on Sunday evening in line for the pin trading event, and multiple people would say "Sure, mine is for trade, what do you have?" and then after seeing my offerings state "Sorry, I'm only willing to trade for AUS pins." If that's the case, that's totally fine - but why not just say that up front so we can both smile and move on?
Finally, I had the most wonderful pin trades randomly with some [E]'s at BYOC on Sunday night. Both of them wanted the purchasable pins I had on my lanyards and were willing to trade Tauren pins for them, and we all left happy and excited about our new acquisitions. That's how I want to pin trade - with smiles, excitement, and "oooh can I trade this for that?" with acknowledgement of time/effort tradeoffs for different pins, but no nastiness on either side if it's not a perfectly equal trade.
I also made a shadowbox of my permanent collection on Tuesday.
PAX Prime Attendee since 2006, BYOC Attendee 2008-2012, Buttoneer 2010-2014
https://www.pinnypals.com/pals/alegria
1) Yes to @Beker's suggestion about a snaking line for the pin trading event. I was part of the group that was let into the theater around 9:00pm for the official pin trading event (stopped 2 away from being in the earlier group, but it let me witness the little kid getting his Zombie Tycho pin, so worth it). Standing in line for 2 hours and only being able to trade (or look at lanyards) from about 10 people was a bit disheartening. It was definitely a wasted opportunity.
2) Pin trading area near merch was awesome, especially on Sunday and Monday. I was able to snag a second corgi pin without the "Jamie Hunt of 2014" that took place earlier. Better signage (any signage?) would help a lot.
3) Loved the idea above about a "pin pal" meetup at the Dance Central area or something. Meta-discussions like above are always intriguing to me, and the people who were talking about "possibly trading their 2nd DLC pin for a bunch of AUS pins" might not know what us mere casual pinthusiasts are looking for.
4) Discussion question: I was in line to get the Moonrise pin and was happy to see there was some pin discussion going on in line (I was able to tell a couple where to hunt down Jamie to get that elusive corgi). It was here that someone mentioned it was their 5th time in that line today, and they were just bouncing back and forth between that line and Age of Empires to get as many free pins as possible for trade fodder. I personally don't like this. I know it's 100% okay rules-wise, I was just curious as to other people's thoughts on this since perhaps I'm missing some other perspective on it.
2015 PAX Prime Omeganaut (I will forever hate Katamari)
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda, Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace, 1999
I personally did this. I traded in line at Moonrise and really enjoyed the game as long as I was on the far side to play the demo. The reason I say that is you could PVP on the other side, and so I had fun interactions with other people playing it, and got the pin.
Age of Empires got to know me very well. I probably went through the line 10-15 times in total for the weekend. It started out about the pin I'll admit(and the Scarves, my gf loves to put them on OUR corgi), but it became about the game after a few goes. I wanted to hard to get on their leader board, though I got 77% once and the bottom was 82%, so I never made it on there.
I understand why people wouldn't want it, but for those who ran out of fodder and are hardcore traders(and who brought an expired credit card and had to watch money) the free games were a good way to get pins. Plus, Age of Empires was encouraging me to come back each time. That may have been because they knew I also enjoyed the game, but every time I finished they told me to make sure and come back and play again.
Yes I did, thanks for asking.
PAX Prime Attendee since 2006, BYOC Attendee 2008-2012, Buttoneer 2010-2014
https://www.pinnypals.com/pals/alegria
I think it was me that traded with you, I remember you saying something about aus pins, and I said it was not what I wanted. If so glad to see it worked out, my buddy told ya I had one for trade cause it was in my binder.
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda, Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace, 1999
Always looking to trade.
In those two specific examples that you've outlined I don't see a problem. At the end of Monday, the Undead Labs dev said they didn't run through all of their pins (no idea how many they actually brought). They mentioned they may do a giveaway to promote their game through some other channel via their website or twitter or something. Age of Empires still had pins at the end of the convention as well, so I can only assume that they had an unlimited supply hoarded in an inter-dimensional tear at the bottom of that messenger bag.
With Age of Empires in particular, since it was a scoreboard type situation with 6 minute hard timers on each demo they were actively encouraging you to return and play their game. This was the shortest line for a pin demo at the entire convention, and in my opinion the most fun BECAUSE of the game format. It's cool that MS can cover the funding for the pins to enable that, but I imagine that not many other vendors could have covered the same volume going out. And as stated above, they actively encouraged and wanted you to return as many times as you possibly could.
Basically, the exhibitor is responsible for distributing their own pins and I don't think the community needs to police how many times someone wants to get in a line. for example, I didn't agree with Sony's arbitrary distribution system at The Order booth, but I'm not mad if people were willing to queue up for a 1.5-2 hour line multiple times. I think as a community it is worthwhile to self police hyper-aggressive physical bullying and predatory trading on new traders.
Dinotimecopforce.com
I agree to an extent. I believe Moonrise and AoE did a great job managing how their demo was ran and the lines that went with them. Granted, their lines were nothing compared to the Warlords of Draenor line. With that I was initially concerned that people were going to just be cycling through the line to get the pin, but from my whole 2 data points (once in line for myself, the other holding a spot for a friend), most people were there for the beta key.
I suppose what I dislike really is the concept of some people being unable to get into line for the first time, while others are there for their 7th time. In the end, though, that's an issue with lines and capacity more so than it is people who want their 7th pin of something.
2015 PAX Prime Omeganaut (I will forever hate Katamari)
I highly doubt that anyone who was at PAX and wanted a Moonrise or Age of empires pin went without.
Check out my YouTube Pinny Arcade Videos!
Yep I think so!
~~~~~~~~~
By the way I forgot one comment - for the staff pin trades, I think that a simple line format may be necessary in the future to improve throughput. Sure, it was fun to see what other people were putting down, but I'd have been happy just to go down a line in order and swap buttons as I went. Maybe a line for staff like that, and then a space for other pin trading?
~~~~~~~~~
Oh, and here's my pin display if anyone's interested in seeing it.
PAX Prime Attendee since 2006, BYOC Attendee 2008-2012, Buttoneer 2010-2014
https://www.pinnypals.com/pals/alegria
Check out my YouTube Pinny Arcade Videos!
It would be nice to have a way to funnel people faster through the event line. I showed up about 30 minutes late and was told the line was capped. So, I left. Seems like it changed to a "soft cap" later? Either way, it sucked - but so goes PAX: lines. (lines for lines, in fact).
Trading sniping is just rude. I think I called someone out for it since I was in a conversation. However, in another instance, the attempted snipe becomes a 3-way trade... so my only suggestion is to speak up when you think you have been wronged, but dont be too agressive either, because it may just work out.
RE: The Order... I was mentioned how non-random the "randomness" appeared to be to the merch guy (Brian?) he said that there were rumblings and he was going to look into it. I think that was Sunday. By Monday, I heard that the process changed. I guess we should have spoken up sooner?
While I struck out at the event, I think making as many lines snake as possible is a good idea - not just the pin one.
I suppose this goes against the intent of the staff pins, but having all staff seeded with a few other staff pins might help. Or if all staff had a few random times each day that they announced whatever availability they had would be awesome. I know that the only reason I found Kenneth is because another staffer ratted out where he was "hiding"
This is a good point. We should speak up if we think something isn't right with the way the hobby is going, as for all intents and purposes, it's still new! PA is most likely looking for feedback on how the Authorized Pin Dealers are treating it as they try different pin distribution schemes (looking at you Leeroy). We've seen a fair amount of different approaches and they'll want to know what has worked and what hasn't.
That's fine, but did you bring more booze?
I agree that getting Staff Pins would be easier if they were mixed, but a large part of the appeal is the interaction with everyone. I love that we get a few minutes with them all, and I know that it helps nervous people break the ice. Before PAX I was at Card Kingdom for the Childs Play tournament they were doing, and I got talking to a guy who wanted to just say hi to Jerry and express how much he enjoyed his writing. He was too nervous to approach him, and I ended up steering Jerry his way because otherwise I am certain they would never have talked. If there had been Pins at the event it would have been a good excuse for this guy to get within talking distance and begin an actual conversation.
If the Staff Pins were all mixed together, some people might not have the courage to say hi. What might help is if the Staff were more prolific broadcasting their locations when they know they will have five minutes or so. Some at PAX were great at that, some not so much.
Nusquam Findi Factionis
My Digital Pin Lanyard
++For better use of broadcasting / Twitter / etc. Just tell me what to pay attention to, and I'll pay attention.
Twitter has been the best avenue historically. Kristin, Brian, Jamie and Erika are usually good at saying where they will be. The rest, it's a little hit and miss.
Nusquam Findi Factionis
My Digital Pin Lanyard
Not only is it inaccurate, it can be off-putting to brand new collectors who don't yet have the vast hoards of convention pins to draw on.
I never call them trash pins, I call them trade fodder.