PAX Prime 2011

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fattypants

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Just starting a PAX Prime general discussion. Anyone else coming? I'll be posting pictures if I can get some good wifi somewhere. If not, then Monday morning.

Also, it's my first convention so I have a couple of questions for -con experts:


  1. What do you like doing the most at conventions?
  2. Is there enough to do and see booth-wise to keep people busy without panels?
  3. Tell me about swag. Do they give away a lot of stuff during these things?
  4. I'm interested in attending a few panels (PC Gamer, Guild Wars 2, Square, Gearbox, Skyrim, SWOTOR, GiantBomb.com). Are they worth attending? I just want to know if I should pack my schedule with panels or just wander around the show floors.
 
This is my first con as well. Very excited.

My friends and I missed out on the weekend passes but I was able to secure Saturday passes. Since we're only going to be there for the day, I think we're just going to peruse the floor and skip the panels.
 
I would have told you that Skyrim is worth it at all cost, but I'm just a biased TES fan :p

I hope you guys have a great time. And please share lots of pic... and whatever they will be showing at Skyrim :D
 
What do you like doing the most at conventions? Chatting with developers usually. Seeing cool presentations of upcoming products. Attending developer parties.

Is there enough to do and see booth-wise to keep people busy without panels? You probably won't see it all.

Tell me about swag. Do they give away a lot of stuff during these things? Companies give a ton of stuff away, and you can also buy a lot of things.

I'm interested in attending a few panels (PC Gamer, Guild Wars 2, Square, Gearbox, Skyrim, SWOTOR, GiantBomb.com). Are they worth attending? I just want to know if I should pack my schedule with panels or just wander around the show floors. Choose a couple panels that you really want to see, and make sure you allot enough time to stand in line for them. Standing in line for a lot of panels wouldn't be too fun in my opinion.
 
I'll be there as well...

Need to figure out a gameplan for the weekend though - there's a lot to cover!
 
I should be there Saturday, but I won't be taking pictures. Last time I did that I ended up not seeing everything I wanted to.
 
The one year I'm actually in town... and I forgot to buy tickets :(
 
Only plan to see 2-3 of the presentations, remember most of the stuff thats being showed that has been showed in the past (ie probably skyrim) the videos are already out there.. so consider what hasnt really been showed and show up for that.
 
Just a tip: bring a small, cute kid if you want people to give you a lot of stuff. Though you may not be getting T-Shirts your size... That, or a badge/some sort of identification for a larger company that is involved with gaming.
 
My first time at pax i brought a backpack to put the free stuff in. If you want to go to one of the events make sure you show up early. There will be long lines
 
Going with my wife and two friends, we fly out at 5:40 a.m. CST today! From San Antonio, TX... so it will be a while before we get there, we stayed up all night so we can sleep on the long flight. :)
 
I would love to go but unfortunately I live on the other side of the states, so I can only afford to go to the PAX Eest events. :(
 
I live in Seattle, and procrastinated on getting a pass, and they sold out in May! I think it was intentional procrastination since I didn't have a very good time last year.
 
I will be working in the ASUS booth and will have rigs on display there (Star Wars painted rig) and in the Crucial booth (UV Blue Danger Den case with skull on top).
 
fattypants said:
Just starting a PAX Prime general discussion. Anyone else coming? I'll be posting pictures if I can get some good wifi somewhere. If not, then Monday morning.

Also, it's my first convention so I have a couple of questions for -con experts:


  1. What do you like doing the most at conventions?
  2. Is there enough to do and see booth-wise to keep people busy without panels?
  3. Tell me about swag. Do they give away a lot of stuff during these things?
  4. I'm interested in attending a few panels (PC Gamer, Guild Wars 2, Square, Gearbox, Skyrim, SWOTOR, GiantBomb.com). Are they worth attending? I just want to know if I should pack my schedule with panels or just wander around the show floors.
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Go play Counter Strike: Global Offensive at the Valve Booth for a couple rounds. When they hand you a beta key let me know how much you want for it.
 
RustedAngel said:
I live in Seattle, and procrastinated on getting a pass, and they sold out in May! I think it was intentional procrastination since I didn't have a very good time last year.
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I live up here too, and think I'd have a great time. Procrastination will be the death of me, if I ever get around to it
 
I'm a local and my GF and I are going for the first time. Going to be there Saturday. Should prove to be interesting.....
 
Whoever is going to PAX do you mind please please going by the Grinding Gears Games Booth to check out Path of Exile and get me a beta key? Please, just PM me when you get one for me. They will be handing out beta keys if you go to their booth they said online.. PLZ grab me one. PLEASE!
 
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Creepy PAX schwag photo!
7tcVS.jpg
 
I didn't get nearly the same about of shwag as Mike, but I still had a great time. Here are some pics I snapped with my phone:

LN2 @ ASUS ROG booth (Video)
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Hopefully you snagged a free Onlive micro console. :)

We've been in Seattle since Wednesday, good stuff, we'll be back at PAX tomorrow; 3day pass FTW! :D

It has been a great time, probably to do with the fact that I have not had a proper vacation in like six years.
 
Yea, if anyone got a LoL Nasus k-9 or Sivir code from the Riot guys and doesn't play it I'd greatly appreciate it after godofdeath gets one. Someone on another forum was going to get one for me there but it fell through :(.
 
The guys in the ME2 costumes were pretty well done, and as I've said in some other forums the GoG take on booth babes was hilarious (and delicious).

I got a weird look from the border customs officer when he saw all the swag shit in the back of my car, guess he isn't a gamer!
 
MikeTrike said:
Hopefully you snagged a free Onlive micro console. :)

We've been in Seattle since Wednesday, good stuff, we'll be back at PAX tomorrow; 3day pass FTW! :D
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Damn, I should have followed you!

Some of the lines were simply insane (2hr wait to play The Old Republic). We waited an hour to see the Colonial Marines live demo and tried to stick it out to play Rage (watched some of the Prey 2 demo that was going on while we waited) but jumped out half way through because we didn't have the time. We got to see what we wanted, so all-in-all, the day was a success.

Really awesome event and I'm definitely going back next year.
 
deff said:
Damn, I should have followed you!.
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My wife and I both got one, I already have one at home also... lol But I paid for that one.

There are still some pre-order ways to get one for free.
http://blog.onlive.com/2011/02/25/pre-order-homefront-now/

However I like the "netflix" style subscription for a games library vs. the pay for a game and guarantee it for three years minimum. I think that sort of "purchase" sucks ass, I'm still partial to steam's purchase platform. Though it's comparing apples to oranges, it's the perception. So I think Onlive should focus on the netflix style library.
 
Well, I got back a little while ago and here's a quick rundown:

SWTOR: WoW with lightsabers...yay :(

Skyrim: Excellent art design and fun gameplay.

My personal best in show, despite not having a playable demo, was Prey 2.
 
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I was able to go fri/sat with the gf, and it was totally worth it. Halo fest had a lot of cool memorable stuff over the past ten years as well as some good tourneys

CS:GO was a little disapointing, def felt like a step back as far as graphics but the game play was decent. Got 2 beta keys so ill see how it compares on the pc (they only had xbox setup)

Gears of war 3 was cool, deff buying that when it comes out

battlefield 3 was INSANE deff worth the hour long wait to play it

the panels were ok, but i personally had more fun roaming around the different booths and seeing all the different stuff.

vendors that setup had stuff for deals! picked up a HAF 932 for 99, and a CM Hyper N520 for 19
 
If anyone gets a code for the Sivir LOL skin, let me know!
 
intrusionzero said:
I was able to go fri/sat with the gf, and it was totally worth it. Halo fest had a lot of cool memorable stuff over the past ten years as well as some good tourneys

CS:GO was a little disapointing, def felt like a step back as far as graphics but the game play was decent. Got 2 beta keys so ill see how it compares on the pc (they only had xbox setup)

Gears of war 3 was cool, deff buying that when it comes out

battlefield 3 was INSANE deff worth the hour long wait to play it

the panels were ok, but i personally had more fun roaming around the different booths and seeing all the different stuff.

vendors that setup had stuff for deals! picked up a HAF 932 for 99, and a CM Hyper N520 for 19
Click to expand...

how much you want for the extra beta key?
 
So by far, the most impressive game I saw wasn't at PAX at all.

I got wind of the Paradox Interactive private party on Sunday and managed to get on the invite list with a few friends. They were showing off the soon to be released Sword of the Stars 2, to maybe 30 people that were invited to the private party. It looks absolutely amazing and has made so many improvements over the original game.

The space battles have become far more complex as well, while it doesn't have completely 3D space like homeworld (apparently it was very difficult for players to adapt well to this) it does have some 3D manuvering and tactical options available. One of the most impressive changes was the way that combat was handled and the damage model. In the first, you could only have so many ships in the fight and they would come into the battle they could. Now it appears that all ships will be in the battle for both players from the beginning - this includes support ships, so care must be taken to ensure that these do not end up in harms way - and there's a lot more tactical level decisions going on in battle, as the two forces start out not knowing exactly where the others are, and with a large amount of space to play in - making contact with the enemy and navigating faster ships to strike at different sides, or trying to get behind the main body of an enemy fleet is possible.

In addition to this, the damage model is astounding. Ships have six facings, left, right, fore, aft, ventral, dorsal. There are shields and armor values for each ship section on each facing which is an actual visual representation of the armor levels on that facing. So if an opponent focusing on a given area of your ship with a phaser type weapon, you can see how much of the armor it is eating through. (Not on the model itself, but rather on the defense overlay for the ship. For example:

I am tempted to do a little ascii art to demonstrate it, but I don't think it does the concept justice. To get the point across, just imagine how armor and damage modeling should work in any Sci-fi show, and that's pretty much how it works. If you're taking a beating on one side, you'll lose shields and armor on that side pretty quick. If they get through the armor completely then they'll start damaging ship systems and sub-systems, potentially causing engine failures or containment breaches. These facings as whole, do not take the damage in bulk, but rather they take damage on the areas they are hit on that side. If someone has been sending a lot of fire into the engine area of your ship, then the armor around the engines may be heavily reduced in places (and not so much in others) and then the mission and command sections of a ship may have sustained relatively light damage.

Of course, with this in mind, players are now able to roll their ships (even invert them) to ensure that if a side is taking too much of a beating, then a quarter-roll or a half-roll will present a relatively undamaged area of the ship to enemy fire. This of course will also affect your firing arcs as well.

In addition to this, the ship customization and design has been improved upon and has had even more detail added to it. Research has been improved, and while the original game had at least 200 techs, I want to guesstimate that they've nearly doubled this for the second game. Research even has feasability studies which will indicate if a technology is going to be a viable pursuit or not.

Finally, with the mod tools that they have for it, I could easily see a Star Trek, Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica mod come out for it, which would be absolutely thrilling. Aside from a bit of polish and bug squashing, this title just jumped to the top the titles I'm going to get this year.

Syntaxx said:
i take it noone got me a Path of Exile beta key from PAX? :(:confused:
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I believe I ended up with one. That's the Diablo-looking one right? I wanted to play it a bit more and get a better feel for it, so I might end up using it myself, but considering how badly you want to play, I could at least toss the account info your way even if I do use it. You'd probably be much more likely to give them feedback to.

I imagine you're interested either way, so hit me up in a PM and we can work something out.
 
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