Best/Worst panels at PAX 08

GameTrades · August 2008

Long time lurker, first time poster. So, which panels did you fellow PAX attendees like or dislike? Anyone catch the Code Monkeys or the Casual Games Killing Core Gaming panels?

KaitouAyashi · August 2008

I thought NCSoft's Aion presentation was less than thrilling. Enjoyed The Gamers: Dorkness Rising tho - the last 20 min of it that I caught anyway.

The_Reflection · August 2008

I was at the code monkeys panel.

Adam De Le Pena didnt make it due to not having valid ID when he tried to get on his plane, But we got to watch the unaired orginal test pilot "Dave and Jerry vs The World"

It was super graphic and offensive, meaning it was awesome.

dyaballikl · August 2008

i definitely vote code monkeys as one of the best, that once in a lifetime look at the pilot was top notch!

Manitcor · August 2008

Managing Online Communities = The Lame

Haikufrenzy · August 2008

Code Monkeys was great, just wished it was a little longer though. Since the pilot took up a lot of it's time.

alostcheshirecat · August 2008

Code Monkeys was the best, hands down! I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. That pilot was better than anything that's made it to G4.

stochastic · August 2008

The 1up Yours live show was amazing. People were super enthusiastic; it was like a football game with people cheering. Plus, Garnett was drunk, and the crew rotated the 4th seat with some interesting guys!

Morphix · August 2008

I went to From Pencil to Pixels: Designing Virtual Worlds, with Ed and Dave from Red 5. That one was pretty decent from a design perspective. Main takehomes were that every game designer in the world made boardgames at one point, and that video games should value your time, so things you do in games (especially MMOs) should have an impact that remains instead of just resetting every 20 mins. Expect to see something like that from them eventually.

Also went to the Destructoid panel, which was _hilarious_. There was profanity. There was obscenity. I saw testicles. Posted here.

My girlfriend stopped by the Sisters in Gaming panel, and while I didn't see it, she said it had descended into a man-hating bash, and was about ready to tear Amber Dalton a new asshole. So I take it wasn't the best panel.

tenchikaze · August 2008

As expected, Beyond Dungeons & Dragons run by Rym and Scott of GeekNights was fantastic, and I think most people who were at the panel agreed. After it was done, they invited everyone to come with them to the Annex to participate in and watch demos of The Burning Wheel with Luke Crane (the game's creator), and I think almost half of the Walrus Theatre accepted the invitation. And those demos were awesome all around. Oh my god, that panel and those demos completely made my trip to PAX.

Jaiden · August 2008

Morphix wrote: »

My girlfriend stopped by the Sisters in Gaming panel, and while I didn't see it, she said it had descended into a man-hating bash, and was about ready to tear Amber Dalton a new asshole. So I take it wasn't the best panel.

I was there for about three minutes, and that alone was enough to make me fear for my testicles. I figured one of them was just going to hop the table and start eviscerating the junk of the first guy they could get their hands on. :P

GertBeef · August 2008

This is Atlus.

I really enjoyed the Harmonix panels. What a great group of guys/gal. They answered quite a few questions and gave quite a bit of info about the company before Rock Band consumed them. It's a shame I didn't manage to get their shirt due to me not having a guitar hero shirt to trade in.

Morphix · August 2008

Jaiden wrote: »

I was there for about three minutes, and that alone was enough to make me fear for my testicles. I figured one of them was just going to hop the table and start eviscerating the junk of the first guy they could get their hands on. :P

Honestly. Like, I understand promoting women in gaming and equality and all that jazz, and that's fine, more power to you, I'm sure we're all for getting more women involved at all levels of this industry, from development to playing.

However, being a giant man hating bitch is exactly the wrong way to go about doing it. You want us on your side, not wanting to punch you in the ovary.

Gwyddia · September 2008

Yeah, as a female gamer, I was pretty disgusted by all that crap.

Morphix wrote: »

Jaiden wrote: »

I was there for about three minutes, and that alone was enough to make me fear for my testicles. I figured one of them was just going to hop the table and start eviscerating the junk of the first guy they could get their hands on. :P

Honestly. Like, I understand promoting women in gaming and equality and all that jazz, and that's fine, more power to you, I'm sure we're all for getting more women involved at all levels of this industry, from development to playing.

However, being a giant man hating bitch is exactly the wrong way to go about doing it. You want us on your side, not wanting to punch you in the ovary.

Blade Fusion · September 2008

Wil Wheton was teh shit today. Absolutely amazing. Very funny. RoosterTeeth panel was also amazing. Saw some pretty sweet stuff there.

mavrick88 · September 2008

Code monkeys = the best.

Evermourn · September 2008

I thought the Advertising and PR panel was great, well moderated and interesting people on the panel. Quite a good insight into how things worked and lots of good questions from the audience.
Surprisingly the Sex and Violence in Videogames was a complete snore (who'd have thunk it) - part of the prob was the moderator asked the panelists the most long complex questions in history they spent part of the time debating just what he was asking. And they went to audience questions way too late, most of the hour was just these 4 people talking to each other.

Bionic Monkey · September 2008

Maybe it's because I'm not a PC gamer, and thus aren't a part of the modding community, but the BioWare Dragon Age demo today was fucking boring. I went expecting an hour of the game in action, and instead got 50 minutes of setting up the game, with 10 minutes of the game in action (of which, 10 seconds were spent in combat.

Psychoish · September 2008

I really couldn't decide whether I wanted to see history of Harmonix, or the PA comic thing. After waiting in line for the PA one for about 20 minutes, I ditched it for hmx. There weren't any more seats left, so I had to stand in the back, but that was okay. It was still pretty awesome. My friends were being idiots and throwing shit at each other and probably annoying the hell out of everyone, though.

I wanted to see Sex in Videogames: A Comparative Study, but after waiting in line a bit they said it was full. Aw. For anyone who was there, how was it?

Evermourn · September 2008

Yeah, ducked out of the Dragon Age thing to line up for a panel, it was fairly detailed

Did anyone go to the spore demo after Dragon Age, was it any good?

ineptbeerman · September 2008

I really dug the Spore presentation today. I've been really looking forward to the game for a very long time now and seeing it live like that was amazing. The presenter (I forgot his name) was quite funny and gave a bit different perspective on the game than we've seen in previous demos. That and he cursed a lot (fucking procedural bullshit).

I really can't wait for the game now.

Altima NEO · September 2008

Well I showed up late, so I didnt see anything till Sunday, but the concert Saturday night was awesome, minus Frontalot, didnt care for him. Minibosses were bad ass.

But yeah, went to the Dragon Age toolset panel. That was really boring. I was expecting to see more gameplay or something. But just seeing a plain looking pc app, while the guy was describing stuff... didnt work out for me. Then again, I was pretty exhausted.

And although not really a panel, I was disappointed by the freeplay sections. The wait was so long that it really wasnt even worth it in my opinion. My friend and I came to PAX expecting huge rooms with a lot of consoles and stuff.

Coldbrew · September 2008

The Spore presentation was really cool, I just wish he went beyond the creature stage a bit, I wanted to see Civ and Space, though it was cool seeing how easily you can change pretty much anything even in the Cell stage. I got it on film, it will be up some day...

My favorite would have to be RoosterTeeth though, that was fucking epic. Even better was the question Nihilist asked them when they're were doing the Q&A (I'll have to crop that part out of my recording for you guys). Or if he reads this tonight, he can get it done because I don't have the footage.

EDIT: Well... I have this part at least, which left a big mark rather quickly on Youtube. I think it's kinda funny reading the comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCAJ_q5ZM6Y

dovirstrgn · September 2008

The Art of the DM was a wank. Three WotC guys and one indie voice add up to a bunch of trite crap and very little new or useful advice. Even Wil Wheaton walked out early. James Wyatt, if you're so committed to DMing, why did you participate in a new edition which strips all the RP out of the original RPG?

On the other hand, the Beyond D&D panel was pretty good. I have never heard their podcast, but they seemed like cool guys and all three systems they showcased are neat stuff.

I agree that the Dragon Age toolset demo was dull and the Spore demo was a lot of fun.

Foo_Dog · September 2008

Kids and games (Saturday morning) was pretty good.

The talk about sex and games started out good but then went limp (sorry... couldn't resist). It was awesome to get the Japanese perspective but the translations lost the nuances of the questions.

not really a panel but Family Feud kicked ass.

Dorkness Rising was really well done. I'm going to order a copy and get the D&D crew over for a screening

Gamedeals.ca · September 2008

Piracy panel was lame (all DRM talk and one panelist spent 10 minutes explaining the types of piracy as if we didn't already know).

Casual Games panel was decent (Wil Wheaton was the star of that one as expected).

Didn't get to any of the other smaller ones, although can someone next year please not schedule Wil Wheaton at the same time as the PA Q&A.

RoyceSraphim · September 2008

The women in gaming panel on Saturday was fairly decent, not a man hatefest but more of a ...."bitches and math equal sexy."

They didn't say that men were pigs or make me fear for my nuts, just, well, for the issues of women as characters in games, it was that the chainmail bikini isn't always needed but can still be in there and if I have to rescue a female character, give her broken ankles or some other reason to be helpless, but that felt like it was more of the fact that escort missions suck in general.

They said that guys can play female characters and that's fine but they don't have to play up the ditzy female.

There also needs to be a lot more fanservice for woman, because appearently the guys in WoW look like shit on a stick.

Sex and Violence where is it heading, was really...dull, I liked hearing N'Gai's questions, I just didn't hear answers. I dunno I enjoyed all the double entendrés better.

The piracy panel at least made me more educated about the issue and let me know that:
1. You can prevent piracy by making your system so mod friendly that the game itself becomes a platform (HL2, UT2004, TES3, TES4).

2. If you build a better mousetrap, the web will build a better mouse.

edit: I still thought that the piracy panel could have gone batter but at the very least I learned something that I didn't know before, unlike the violence and sex panel.

How did the sex panel by Pink Godzilla go?

GameTrades · September 2008

Gamedeals.ca wrote: »

Piracy panel was lame (all DRM talk and one panelist spent 10 minutes explaining the types of piracy as if we didn't already know).

Casual Games panel was decent (Wil Wheaton was the star of that one as expected).

Didn't get to any of the other smaller ones, although can someone next year please not schedule Wil Wheaton at the same time as the PA Q&A.

Hmmmm...the guy who did not like the piracy panel owns a store that installs mod chips and uses a skull and crossed sword graphic on the site to promote the service? Just saying

DJBreslin · September 2008

The "Casual vs. Core" panel was interesting, but to a large degree it seemed like they were debating the wrong sub-topics. The answers to a lot of the pre-made questions were "it doesn't matter / that's not an issue." It got more interesting when they discussed game complexity being simplified to fit platforms (consoles) and to create broader market reach (appeal to less skilled players). We also noted that less skilled doesn't necessarily equal casual.

Also, Wil was the star of the panel by far... most insightful comments... he impressed me.

RoyceSraphim · September 2008

GameTrades wrote: »

Gamedeals.ca wrote: »

Piracy panel was lame (all DRM talk and one panelist spent 10 minutes explaining the types of piracy as if we didn't already know).

Casual Games panel was decent (Wil Wheaton was the star of that one as expected).

Didn't get to any of the other smaller ones, although can someone next year please not schedule Wil Wheaton at the same time as the PA Q&A.

Hmmmm...the guy who did not like the piracy panel owns a store that installs mod chips and uses a skull and crossed sword graphic on the site to promote the service? Just saying

sigged

KaitouAyashi · September 2008

Best? Definitely Wil Wheaton. It was just...so awesome and went by too fast. Rather, I never wanted it to end. I greatly enjoyed the 3 years of GW panel and the Advertising and PR panel. The NCSoft panel on Aion seemed kinda boring, though I was crashing for some reason and only hung around the back for about 10 minutes before leaving.

parabola · September 2008

The best was the Mega 64 panel... That one guy playing TWEWY during the panel had me loling.

xxhennersxx · September 2008

parabola wrote: »

The best was the Mega 64 panel... That one guy playing TWEWY during the panel had me loling.

He's a special guy.

Pax 05, i saw him on the Gamecloud couches eating ramen between the cushions.

I dubbed him Ramen Boy, because I just thought he was dirty.

Pax 06, I approached him tried talking to him and it was very obvious he had a form of autism.

Pax 07, during Mega64's panel he kinda rambled on at the Q&A about Megaman and Parappa the Rapper.

This year, he was playing TWEWY...and they jokingly mentioned the hat. At the end - he asked for the hat.

After the omegathon, I was in the bathroom and my cell phone rang - I have "never gonna give you up" by Rick Astley as my ringtone.

So he turns to me, dick still exposed as he tucks it away and says "You rick roll you! You rick roll people everytime people call your cell phone!"

All i did was smile, nod and say "yeah. Yeah i do."

ASimPerson · September 2008

The questions at Friday's PA Q&A were really bad.

Saturday's Make-a-Strip and Sunday's Q&A were a lot better though.

Strongside · September 2008

not saying it was the worst by any means, but the fallout 3 demo pissed me off. It wasn't even the game or the panel itself, it was the fact that 70-80% of the people from the previous panel stayed. So i felt really bad for the hundreds of people behind me.

SWATJester · September 2008

My panel was the best, obviously (legal issues).

The Video game policy panel (moderated by gamepolitics.com) was very dry, but informative.

Astayonix · September 2008

Most Interesting: Sex in Gaming: A Comparative Study. The only annoying thing about that was the translator. She seemed to have about the same level of command of the English language as the guy she was translating for. Eventually, the guy from Pink Godzilla had to just start translating himself and she sat there doing nothing. I LOVED the perspective given by the guy who runs Gaygamer.com; he was pretty informative and very funny.

Most Dissapointing: PC Hardware panel. Seriously. The 2 panelists were from Sun (who make servers) and Razer (who make mice). Uh... okay... The guy from Sun was okay because he knew what he was talking about simply because he's a gamer. At least he was entertaining. But Razer? Sure, they were an exhibitor, but guess what? So was Intel, and they are more relevant to PC Hardware than peripherals IMHO. As a PC purist (ever since the death of the Sega Genesis), a good mouse is a good mouse is a good mouse. Talk to me about processors. I'm pretty sure Intel would have wanted to be on the panel had they been given the opportunity. A lot of the questions seemed to center around physical feedback from peripherals (which really isn't something a lot of PC gamers want) because of the weak panelists. There were even times when the guys sitting up there said "That's something you'll have to ask Intel." Most of the time the Razer guy just sat up there staring out at the crowd. Lots of stumpage. Also, I love Jeff Kalles, but get someone who knows hardware to moderate because the moderator can help drive better questions.

cRIPticon · September 2008

Hey all!

I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to my panel sessions. I was on the Piracy in Gaming, PC Futures and Code Monkeys panels. It would have been nice to have had Intel, nVidia, etc. up there in the PC panel, but I tired to hold my own. As a life long gamer, I tried to balance the responses with my personal views without speaking for Intel, AMD, etc. As for Sun making servers, we also make a whole line of x86 desktops so our participation was somewhat relevant

The reception from all audiences was fantastic and just wanted to thank all who attended for their time and consideration. See you next year at PAX!

-Chris Melissinos

EDIT: And thanks Astayonix for deeming me entertaining at least! If you really want to speak candidly about where processors are going, off the record, PM me

Sakebomb · September 2008

dovirstrgn wrote: »

The Art of the DM was a wank. Three WotC guys and one indie voice add up to a bunch of trite crap and very little new or useful advice. Even Wil Wheaton walked out early. James Wyatt, if you're so committed to DMing, why did you participate in a new edition which strips all the RP out of the original RPG?

On the other hand, the Beyond D&D panel was pretty good. I have never heard their podcast, but they seemed like cool guys and all three systems they showcased are neat stuff.

I agree that the Dragon Age toolset demo was dull and the Spore demo was a lot of fun.

Completely the opposite over here.
I really enjoyed the Art of the DM panel and wished it couldve gone on for longer. It was nice to hear different perspectives on the subject.

The Beyond D&D panel was 30 minutes of "Lets all rip on D&D, but not really. Heres a bunch of reasons why D&D sucks, but we're not saying it sucks, but if it did suck, these are the reasons why" followed by 30 minutes of crash course lessons into other RPG systems.
A full hour of in-depth disscussion about RPGs wouldve been much better.

mrsnackroad · September 2008

We went to the "Writing in Video Games" panel, and it was a pretty awesome surprise over Ron Gilbert sitting in it.

The only real disappointment about that was it was more panel and less lecture, which is what I wanted - the four seated writers came from a wide variety of backgrounds (Gilbert with Monkey Island, there was a woman who did research for Harmonix, one for Guild Wars and another from Telltale Games) and I really would've liked to hear them talk about how they wrote.

It turned into a Q&A and there were a lot of really good questions asked, though, so it wasn't what I expected, but it was interesting just the same.

LewieP · September 2008

Evermourn wrote: »

I thought the Advertising and PR panel was great, well moderated and interesting people on the panel. Quite a good insight into how things worked and lots of good questions from the audience.

Agreed, I actually bumped into Marlo (woman on the far right) at Gameworks, and was chatting to her and her boyfriend (who works for Wowhead) and they were giving me a bunch of great advice for my blog, and just chatting about games.

I feel bad that my question came across kinda badly, I was the dude who asked for advice getting on pr firms radars, but they thought I just meant "free stuff", I meant more like interviews and things like that. Still the answers I got were useful.

Penny Arcade

Quick Links

Best/Worst panels at PAX 08

Posts