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TroyandAbedinAM

PAX East

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Just wondering if anyone here is going?  I love listening to the Idle Thumbs podcast, and would be fun to meet some other Idle fans at PAX.  Also my buddy and I have never been so would like some input on what to do, where to go, etc.  Feel free to message me if you don't want to leave a message here.

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I went from 2011-2014, but am going to give MAGFest a try this year instead for a number of reasons . My favorite three things at PAX East are the tabletop area (which is massive), the Indie Mega Booth, and the classic arcade free-play room, run by ACAM.

 

Some pointers:

  • Bring a refillable water bottle (which you can top off at the water fountains all over the place) and some travel-sized hand sanitizer. I also like to carry a bag I can toss them in along with free t-shirts and stuff.
  • Learn the train route from your hotel to the convention center (BCEC). It's near the World Trade Center stop on the silver line.
  • The food at the convention center sucks and is way over-priced, so bring snacks and take a break for lunch. Just hop the train (or walk, Boston is very walk-able) and go eat at any of Boston's awesome restaurants instead, for less.
  • If you plan on going to panels, bring something to do in line. You'll be spending a ton of time standing / sitting around. Card and dice games are pretty standard, as are 3DS games. Folks are usually friendly and down to play stuff.
  • Speaking of panels, if you want free stuff, Gearbox tends to be pretty generous. Last year, everyone at their panel got a pre-order code for the Borderlands pre-sequel.
  • If you want to demo games on the show floor, you can show up before the show opens (8 AM? check the PAX East twitter feed the day before to be sure) and get in line in the queue room to try and beat the rush.
  • If you're into rhythm games, Harmonix usually has a party either the night before or the first night of PAX. I've heard it's a good time.
  • There are a number of useful PAX twitter accounts, especially @PAX_lines and @Official_PAX
  • Bring a battery pack and charging cable for your phone.
  • Three Moves Ahead, Gamers with Jobs, and Giantbomb typically record live episodes at the show. Giantbomb started a
    last year that's a good time. Gamers with Jobs community folks also set up a presence in the table top area every year and are fun to play board / role playing games with.

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A bunch of companies host parties those nights at hotels and nightclubs around Boston; some will have open bars or less crowded opportunities to play games, and many will require an RSVP so I highly recommend investigating as the date gets closer. That Harmonix party that pkirkner recommended has sold out every year I think, so check on that early.

 

I didn't get a pax ticket, but everyone I know will be there so I imagine I'll be around.

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pkirkner has some good tips.  I'll add a few more.

 

-If this is your first PAX, the show floor is going to be a huge draw and with good reason.  Lots of bright lights, game demos, colorful booths, etc.  But be careful not to spend too much time in it.  Pretty much everything you see there will eventually be released so unless you absolutely HAVE to play a certain demo maybe think about just walking around and not waiting hours in line.

 

-I CANNOT emphasize how much fun the panels are.  The first time I went to PAX I didn't really go to any and that was a big mistake.  Every PAX I've gone to since then has been mostly going to panels.  Whether you're there to learn something, see something, or just be entertained, I think they're easily one of the best parts of PAX.

 

-If you want to get into the big panels, such as Gearbox or Giantbomb, you'll have to show up several hours in advance and be prepared to wait in line.  They usually fill capacity fairly quickly and the Enforcers will start turning people away.

 

-Be prepared to have little to no functional internet while in the convention center.  Thousands of people are competing for bandwidth which will make everything slow to a crawl.  If you can, bringing a mobile hotspot might not be the worst idea.

 

-The Omegathon is usually a lot of fun to watch.  In case you're not familiar with this, the Omegathon is where they take (I think 10) people and have them compete in a series of games, both of the video and board type.  Each round one is eliminated until the very end, which is the closing event of the show.  All of the rounds are announced in advance except for the last one which is kept as a secret.  The winner will get a trip somewhere, usually Gamescom or the Tokyo Game Show.  PAX East Omegathons are slightly different than PAX Prime because at East they're in teams while at Prime they're solo.  If you don't mind Mike and Jerry, I suggest going to the final round of the Omegathon in the main theatre.

 

-Lastly, if you see a hard working Enforcer around, thank them!  The Enforcers are the volunteer army (who I think technically get minimum wage now) who actually run the show.  Everything is possible because of their hard work.  I know several Enforcers in real life and they're some of the best people.  Don't be afraid to ask them for help if you need.

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If you want to get into the big panels, such as Gearbox or Giantbomb, you'll have to show up several hours in advance and be prepared to wait in line.  They usually fill capacity fairly quickly and the Enforcers will start turning people away.

 

The PAX lines twitter account really helps with this, as they'll be constantly sending out updates about how close to capacity a panel's line is. In the past, they generally wouldn't let you start queuing up for a panel until the previous panel in that conference room had started, so for something like the main Giantbomb panel show up around that time. Personally, I tended to skip the bigger panels and used the PAX lines twitter account to figure out which panels didn't require a wait so I could just show a few minutes before the start time. I happened on a lot of weird, interesting panels that way, like the one MIT's Lincoln lab gave on creating games to train and evaluate disaster response personnel. 

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If all goes as planned I'll be there at the Devolver booth showing Dropsy. :0) It'll be my first big festival thing, can't wait!

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My close friends have submitted a game to try to get into the Indie MegaBooth. If they get accepted, I might make an attempt to go to help them out if it's needed, and for general support.

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The PAX lines twitter account really helps with this, as they'll be constantly sending out updates about how close to capacity a panel's line is. In the past, they generally wouldn't let you start queuing up for a panel until the previous panel in that conference room had started, so for something like the main Giantbomb panel show up around that time. Personally, I tended to skip the bigger panels and used the PAX lines twitter account to figure out which panels didn't require a wait so I could just show a few minutes before the start time. I happened on a lot of weird, interesting panels that way, like the one MIT's Lincoln lab gave on creating games to train and evaluate disaster response personnel. 

 

The PAX twitter accounts are useful, but I would caution against relying on them too much.  Like I said above, internet connections will probably be consistently slow in the area due to the huge amount of traffic.  One thing I've learned that can help out a little bit is turning off 3G/4G data.  You'll obviously get a slower speed than normal but I've personally had better luck getting any kind of stable connection at all.

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Buncha parties have been announced now, the PA thread is probably the best list.

 

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/195448/pax-east-2015-pax-parties

 

I'm goin' to the Made in MA party on Thursday, which a lot of local indie folks will probably come out to and I'll probably be at the Disruptor Beam thing on Friday too. I also recommend checking out the panel Alex (who works at Disruptor Beam) is on Sunday; he's a fun speaker, and has some really great stories http://east.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/even-more-dark-stories-from-online-games 

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I've been chosen as a player ambassador for Elite Dangerous (one of three), so I'll be demoing that. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to look around a bit, because this will be my first PAX even though I've lived just over the river from Boston for the last 5 years... timings never worked out before as there was always a NASA proposal deadline around then.

 

You may have heard that it's been incredibly snowy in Boston this year... we've had over 100 inches of snow, beating the previous 30 day record by over 3 feet; a few more inches and it's the snowiest on record. There are a few possible extra snow storms coming up on Sunday evening and Wednesday (mixed with rain). The public transport has been massively impacted, and you should definitely take that into account. It has also been one of the coldest winters on record too, so bring plenty of layers.

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I've been chosen as a player ambassador for Elite Dangerous (one of three), so I'll be demoing that. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to look around a bit, because this will be my first PAX even though I've lived just over the river from Boston for the last 5 years... timings never worked out before as there was always a NASA proposal deadline around then.

Fingers crossed their hardware arrives before the show. At PAX South, they only had one Oculus/Saitek setup for most of Friday.

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Fingers crossed their hardware arrives before the show. At PAX South, they only had one Oculus/Saitek setup for most of Friday.

Yeah, by the time we left last night we had 8 pcs up and running, all with X52 pros, and 4 DK2s :). I woke up at 4 am this morning (day 1) due to excitement (and maybe alcohol) :P!

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I have no idea who it was, but someone walked by our booth in an Idle Vice shirt and I gave them a double thumbs up and shouted IDLE THUUUUMBS.

 

Person I shouted at, if you're out there, come back to the Indie Mini Bar and say hi!

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Hey Dino, I went looking for you in the 20 minutes I was able to get away from our booth on Sunday, but couldn't find you, sorry! I didn't see 10203 anywhere on the plan, or bitSmith in the directory, so I guess you guys were pretty late editions.

However I was stoked that I got to chat with Samantha Kallman and Dave Lang about Paxamania on Saturday before the event, and I finally found out what Sentris was, having heard about it on Giant Bomb... It was the only game I got to play other than Elite,and sitting down was fantastic :P.

It was a fantastic experience, but totally draining, and the atmosphere was amazing. I would love to go as an attendee sometime :)

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there in spirit 

 

 

Although I'm still here in the office workin on hands-on artwork. I don't go to big stuff like this any more.

 

I'll be at a spin-off of EuroGamer Expo called REZZED in London this weekend.

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It's a spin-off? I thought it was the renamed EuroGamer Expo. I also thought that REZZED (which is still an awful name, btw) was the Manchester expo.

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I'm going to EGX Rezzed in London on Friday, it's basically all indie games.

 

EGX itself is in September in Birmingham, and has bigger, publisher-backed console games.

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I went to Rezzed last year in Birmingham and at least Sony had a sizeable presence (Microsoft not so much and Nintendo wasn't there). Did Sony pull out this time?

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Hey Dino, I went looking for you in the 20 minutes I was able to get away from our booth on Sunday, but couldn't find you, sorry! I didn't see 10203 anywhere on the plan, or bitSmith in the directory, so I guess you guys were pretty late editions.

 

Ah, bummer! I think we were in the book as Indie Mini Bar but I'm not sure. Anyway, glad you had a good time at your first one!

 

I also had a really great PAX this year :) I loved working the booth, so actually working 4 hours a day was kinda ideal. I had exactly enough free time to check out most of the mega/mini booth and go to a friends panel, and because I had afternoon shifts I could go out at night and still get enough sleep.

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Ah, bummer! I think we were in the book as Indie Mini Bar but I'm not sure. Anyway, glad you had a good time at your first one!

 

I also had a really great PAX this year :) I loved working the booth, so actually working 4 hours a day was kinda ideal. I had exactly enough free time to check out most of the mega/mini booth and go to a friends panel, and because I had afternoon shifts I could go out at night and still get enough sleep.

 

Damn! I passed the Indie Mini Bar several times, and thought it referred to that whole block. Oops! You might have seen me hovering near by on Sunday afternoon: I'm 6'6" and was wearing an Elite Dangerous Ambassador shirt

 

Not including set-up and take down, I was on from 9 til 7 on Friday, then 10 til 6 on Saturday and Sunday. I also got into the Harmonix party which was fun, even though it meant I got even less sleep :P.

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