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Very long lines this year
Not sure was is going on but the wait for major companies this year is getting ridiculous.
For Artifact yesterday, I lined up at 8am at the Annex and ended up playing the game around 1pm. Today I lined up at main entrance at 8am again at main entrance for Nintendo and it's almost 1:30pm and I'm still in line. Not only that the Nintendo booth is set in a way where there are small line once you make it in! I was hoping to catch the Anthem panel but that plan is down the drain.
I don't remember any previous years having these ridiculous wait times. I have a PSVR demo at 3:30pm and I'm not even sure I can get any food before I head there from Nintendo.
Anyone has an idea why this the case? I can't blame show sold out or more tickets per day because on both days I was one of the first people in. I'm just chalking it up for bad plant on demo timing and lack of respect for people's time.
For Artifact yesterday, I lined up at 8am at the Annex and ended up playing the game around 1pm. Today I lined up at main entrance at 8am again at main entrance for Nintendo and it's almost 1:30pm and I'm still in line. Not only that the Nintendo booth is set in a way where there are small line once you make it in! I was hoping to catch the Anthem panel but that plan is down the drain.
I don't remember any previous years having these ridiculous wait times. I have a PSVR demo at 3:30pm and I'm not even sure I can get any food before I head there from Nintendo.
Anyone has an idea why this the case? I can't blame show sold out or more tickets per day because on both days I was one of the first people in. I'm just chalking it up for bad plant on demo timing and lack of respect for people's time.
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If I were you, I'd try to explore the indie megabooth and the whole of the 6th floor as you will find some awesome games around those areas without the line to wait to see them.
Yeah been like this since like 2011. At least nowadays all the major booths are open floor plan, so you can see things without waiting in line. The big boxes with walls were the worst.
Omg. The 2-3 hour line, to get into a closed booth and watch a video, to be shuffled off to another closed booth. The worst. I don’t remember the game, but I remember one year being shuffled between like four closed boxes, on top of some ridiculous wait time. It’s like what is the point of this?
Bethesda last year did that for The Evil Within 2. I only did the demo because I had to get a stamp for it to get something that I don't even remember what I got now... The wait time for those Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR though... that was harsh!
PAX PRIME 2018 Status: Badges [√] Room [√] Waiting [ :x ]
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Naughty dog did this with the last of us. I mean I got a cool tshirt out of the deal and learned about one of my favorite games.
I lined up at 730 and was able to get in
That being said, they don't seem any worse than previous years.
- Valve's booth had Artifact only as a glacially slow tournament (~4 hour line wait) rather than splitting tournament and demo - if you could even get into the line, because it was instantly capped; they also could have just scanned your badge and sent you a beta code
- Nintendo's booth had people playing six games for an hour, resulting in a similarly slow queue and constant line caps, and apparently only had 250 diablo pins for 35,000 attendees; they closed their line early in the day as well (2pm on Monday?) because it was so slow and people couldn't make it through and still have time to play a game; they blamed Blizzard, PAX, and the enforcers
- Square Enix had reserved time slot cards for Kingdom Hearts 3, but gave out all of them instantly at the beginning of the day - I never managed to get one in spite of rushing there at 10am; it looked like you still had to wait in line even if you miraculously managed to get a card
Those are just a few of the lines that I rushed to at 10am (or 10:01, 10:02, etc. after finding out the previous line was capped already), kept checking back on, and failed utterly to get into, over multiple days. There were other awful lines that I didn't even try because they always seemed capped and people told me they had been waiting for hours already. Popular games should really have more demo stations, and they should think about trying to get people through the line faster (i.e. don't have everyone do something that takes an hour.)(After attending PAX multiple times I still need to remind myself not to try to do this expo hall line thing, even if it is a game I'm excited about playing. Almost anything else is better use of your time!)
PAX also opened some panel lines very early - 3 or 4 hours in some cases. Who wants to spend that kind of time waiting in line when you could be doing more fun things at PAX?
For Acquisitions Inc., they also compressed the line very early on, which meant it was a lot harder to play games with people while you were waiting.