Hello Forums!
SO I'm happy to say that I'll be heading to Boston for PAX East next week and I was wondering if Paizo will have a presence there, or if anyone from the forums is planning on running any games...
Hello Forums!
SO I'm happy to say that I'll be heading to Boston for PAX East next week and I was wondering if Paizo will have a presence there, or if anyone from the forums is planning on running any games...
Please let us know how things go.
Did you go last year?
I'm a huge fan of PA, and I went to PAX East Last year and it was the worst "fun" event I've attended in years. If I hadn't been the transportation for the rest of the group, I would have left after the first day. I thought it was one of the worst organized and laid out conventions I've ever been to.
Boston was easy to get to, but it's a VERY expensive city, with poor parking, high priced hotels, and very expensive restaurants and stores. I don't mind paying more than normal for a good meal or good servce, but Boston was just more money for less of everything.
And the convention center was wayyyyy too small for the number of people attending and the rooms were small as well. You could line up for a session an hour in advance only to find out that it was already full, because they had rooms that could only hold a VERY small percentage of the number of attendees. And in many cases, you had to wait in line for HOURS just to get in to see the opening ceremonies and so on. Why not show the main auditorium events on TVs in the cue hall so that people who can't get in at least have something to watch?
The vendor room was disappointing as well. While there were some cool displays, and the guys from Rooster Teeth were very friendly, a lot of the vendor spaces were difficult to get in to and, at the risk of sounding cheap, most of the SWAG was sub-par, if there was any at all. (One of the vendors was giving away t-shirts on the first day, but they were all medium or smaller. Have they even SEEN the size of the average geek?) While what the vendors did wasn't really PAs fault, the layout of the rooms was.
And while there were lots of handouts and flyers for the rediculously expensive restaurants in the area, at no time were there ANY directions to the inexpensive food court tucked into a corner right next door.
It was an expensive, frustrating convention, and the highlights (John Coulton, the PA panel with Gabe and Tycho, some of the cool displays) didn't offset the annoyance of spending more time waiting in line than actually attending events (if you could get in at all...C'mon, a seminar room to hold 200 people, with the number of attendees at PAX, really?)
All of us that went last year decided to skip it this year.
So, while last year's PAX was a complete and stressful waste of time, let us know if it is better this year. I would go back if they got a better location and had better organization and bigger rooms so that I could actually attend some of the things I paid good money to see.
Did you go last year?
I did, and had an experience that was more-or-less the total reverse of your own. I was able to attend all the panels I wanted, spent a ton of time on the exhibition floor browsing, picked up some excellent swag (including two free copies of a D&D sourcebook that had just been released that month), played in and ran a number of organized play events, was briefly interviewed about said events by Mike Krahulik and his camera team as they came by our table, played Rock Band on stage, watched the final round of the Omegathon, ate dinner and bowled with the WotC crew, and in general just ended up having a totally awesome time, just like every other time I'd been to PAX (last year was my fifth show).
I can't recommend attending strongly enough. It's a huge party the entire time. Grab The Conventionist and follow @PAX_lines to make sure you're on top of everything while you're there.
Did you go last year?I did, and had an experience that was more-or-less the total reverse of your own. I was able to attend all the panels I wanted, spent a ton of time on the exhibition floor browsing, picked up some excellent swag (including two free copies of a D&D sourcebook that had just been released that month), played in and ran a number of organized play events, was briefly interviewed about said events by Mike Krahulik and his camera team as they came by our table, played Rock Band on stage, watched the final round of the Omegathon, ate dinner and bowled with the WotC crew, and in general just ended up having a totally awesome time, just like every other time I'd been to PAX (last year was my fifth show).
I can't recommend attending strongly enough. It's a huge party the entire time. Grab The Conventionist and follow @PAX_lines to make sure you're on top of everything while you're there.
I'm galld to hear you had a better time (was this PAX EAST or PAX WEST).
Three of us went and we stood in line for hours waiting to get into a bunch of the panels in the smaller rooms and never got to a single one except the "conventon hall" brainstorm your video game panel and the PA Q&A.
Either way, if it sounds like PAX East has gotten better than last year, I'd try it again.
And how did you get free D&D books? When we went to the WOTC booth in 2010, we were there day 1 and they weren't giving out anything. Just playing the human-scale DD4E game. (I admit, we were more interested in what they were doing with Heroscape...)
I admit that joco was great, and I got some cool unusual-sided polyhedrons.
I'm galld to hear you had a better time (was this PAX EAST or PAX WEST).
PAX East, though I've found that Prime and East are basically interchangeable in terms of how much fun they are. It's the same con, just different locations/times of year.
Three of us went and we stood in line for hours waiting to get into a bunch of the panels in the smaller rooms and never got to a single one except the "conventon hall" brainstorm your video game panel and the PA Q&A.
Either way, if it sounds like PAX East has gotten better than last year, I'd try it again.
They changed the venue to a larger one, so the crowds ought to be thinned out. They key is to plan ahead and not to try to do too many things. Panels are great and all, but the most fun I had was for things that you don't need to wait in long lines for.
And how did you get free D&D books? When we went to the WOTC booth in 2010, we were there day 1 and they weren't giving out anything. Just playing the human-scale DD4E game. (I admit, we were more interested in what they were doing with Heroscape...)
When I showed up at the organized play rooms, it was clear that they were utterly swamped by people who wanted to play, and they hadn't planned for that kind of interest so they were short on DMs. I volunteered to run a number of sessions during the con (all of which were extremely rewarding; most of the people playing had never tried out D&D before). I got a PHB3, an RPGA judge bowling shirt and a small stack of other minor things for my time, but I would have done it for nothing.
The other giveaway came towards the end of the con. I follow a bunch of the WotC guys on Twitter, and Trevor Kidd (I believe) announced that they were giving away books to anyone who came up and asked for them. I tracked him down and snagged another PHB3 (donated this one to my university's gaming club). I also found out via Twitter that the WotC guys were going to dinner and bowling and wanted fans to come join them, and that ended up being pretty rad.
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I'm galld to hear you had a better time (was this PAX EAST or PAX WEST).PAX East, though I've found that Prime and East are basically interchangeable in terms of how much fun they are. It's the same con, just different locations/times of year.
Three of us went and we stood in line for hours waiting to get into a bunch of the panels in the smaller rooms and never got to a single one except the "conventon hall" brainstorm your video game panel and the PA Q&A.
Either way, if it sounds like PAX East has gotten better than last year, I'd try it again.
They changed the venue to a larger one, so the crowds ought to be thinned out. They key is to plan ahead and not to try to do too many things. Panels are great and all, but the most fun I had was for things that you don't need to wait in long lines for.
And how did you get free D&D books? When we went to the WOTC booth in 2010, we were there day 1 and they weren't giving out anything. Just playing the human-scale DD4E game. (I admit, we were more interested in what they were doing with Heroscape...)When I showed up at the organized play rooms, it was clear that they were utterly swamped by people who wanted to play, and they hadn't planned for that kind of interest so they were short on DMs. I volunteered to run a number of sessions during the con (all of which were extremely rewarding; most of the people playing had never tried out D&D before). I got a PHB3, an RPGA judge bowling shirt and a small stack of other minor things for my time, but I would have done it for nothing.
The other giveaway came towards the end of the con. I follow a bunch of the WotC guys on Twitter, and Trevor Kidd (I believe) announced that they were giving away books to anyone who came up and asked for them. I tracked him down and snagged another PHB3 (donated this one to my university's gaming club). I also found out via Twitter that the WotC guys were going to dinner and bowling...
How many different cons have you been to, Scott?
I've not been to a single one yet so if I could ever manage to go to one, do you have a suggestion? Sounds like you had a hell of a time.
How many different cons have you been to, Scott?
I've not been to a single one yet so if I could ever manage to go to one, do you have a suggestion? Sounds like you had a hell of a time.
Whichever of the two PAX cons is closest to you. They are weekend-long gaming parties that gaming fans throw for themselves, and the gaming industry shows up to entertain the fans. It's not an industry con, and it doesn't feel like one either. It's probably got a heavier focus on video games than on tabletop gaming, but there's plenty of both to be had.
I've been to SDCC, AX, PAX (Prime and East), PMX, GenCon SoCal and probably a couple others that I can't remember off the top of my head, but far and away PAX is my favorite and the only one I make a point of visiting. The others feel like a fun little diversion, but PAX always feels like a vacation.
dont know if its too late or not, but maybe you east coast players could organize a few games there. As a bonus, sometimes you can get discounted admission if your running games at a con. just a thought.
PAX doesn't provide discounts to people running games in the open gaming areas, which is your only option at this point. If you were an exhibitor or had set up organized play events with the con well in advance you'd probably be able to arrange for free admission, but as is we're talking about the weekend before the con. You shouldn't have much of a problem finding people to play, though. I do know that the RPG blogging community made a point of getting together for board games in the nearest hotel lobby/bar last year the Thursday before the con started. You might check to see if something's going on there, and that'd be a good way to find other gamers who might be down with a game of Pathfinder during the con.
Paizo will not be going to PAX East this year. Sorry!
-Lisa
Oh Bummer!
I'm sure it will still be a fun time.