PaxAus in the rearview mirror.
With a few days distance (and a possible case of the con flu creeping up on me), I'm looking back on PaxAus with fondness.
Of the 3 days, Friday was the quietest day, or at least it felt that way. Possibly due to less kids and the adults being more orderly and restrained. Sunday was possibly the most fun, but that's probably because we played more stuff and spent less time in lines.
Friday we saw 2 panels:
* The first one was on gaming on a Mac, it was a little disappointing that the panelists largely didn't game on a Mac as their primary gaming device. The discussion verged into a discussion about iOS fairly early and mostly stayed there.
* The second panel was on tabletop roleplaying systems beyond the core DnD rules set. Their basic premise was that DnD is too heavily focused on conflict resolution, primarily combat, and didn't enable good roleplaying experiences. I have posted a list of the systems discussed a few days ago, most of the systems are designed around a specific game style or setting, but are all designed more about the story than the combat.
Saturday we were turned away from one panel and got into one panel:
* Independent Australian Games development panel. We primarily went to it because our very own Morgan Jaffit was one of the presenters, there were a number of digs about his sexy voice during the panel, I suspect he was pretty husky by the end of Sunday. I felt kinda bad about potentially taking a seat a potential developer wanted, but the discussion was really good, talking about how to get into the industry - which was basically make games, any type of game, and get out there and show them to people and put your foot in the door asking for job opportunities.
* Why So Serious - we didn't actually make it into this panel, after waiting in line for the better part of an hour, some people pushed in in front of us and we missed the cutoff by about 4 spots.
Sunday I did one panel and a tabletop game:
* Writing Tabletop Games - I thought this panel was going to be about inspiration and structure of tabletop games, instead it was writing tabletop games for publication and talked about grammar, word count targets and following submission guidelines. We know quite a few published game authors, and I helped Rick when he got published a few years back. While it was of academic interest, it probably wasn't the panel I was interested in.
*Dragon Age, I haven't played a pick up tabletop game at a con in years. Generally I have either had a full team, or have at least known the people I've ended up grouped with. Things were a bit chaotic to begin with because people straggled in over a period of about 40 minutes, and then started leaving before the session was over. I suspect that will be the case with a pick up game regardless of whether it's good or bad - at a con like PAX, people just can't commit 3 hours in a block.
PINNY ARCADE - bonus round, apparently Gabe and Tycho collect pin badges. They have collectors sets available at the con, some of which you can buy, some which you can only trade with con orgs to obtain. We got one of the trade only ones on Saturday and got our entry passes signed by Gabe and Robert Khoo. Before next year's con, I need to find out if they only want to trade for PAX pins, or whether they would like some non-PAX pins.
Tips for people planning to attend next year;
* Wear comfortable shoes, you will be queuing, a lot. The queue to get in first thing in the morning was 2 hours.
* Dress in layers. The queuing hall got pretty warm at times, but the outside queues for panels could get pretty cold (and wet).
* Consider packing food. There are food vans on site, but the queues for those were long too at most main meal times.
* Bring a water bottle, there are water fountains around the place where you can refill it for free.
* If you have a Nintendo 3DS, bring it along, you will see more street passes than you know what to do with.
* Make sure you charge your phone/tablet/handheld overnight every night. Consider packing a charger - though no guarantees you will find a free powerpoint.
* Have a twitter client as there are feeds for the queues, cookie brigade, the con generally, and they are used to get timely information out to con goers. The PAXAus hash tag was also inundated with information and feedback. Following these will kill your battery pretty quickly if you don't start with a full charge. Besides, reading twitter is a great way to kill time in the queues.
* When planning your schedule, leave about an hour before a panel to queue, 2 hours for the really big ones (like the Bioware panel or concerts).
Of the 3 days, Friday was the quietest day, or at least it felt that way. Possibly due to less kids and the adults being more orderly and restrained. Sunday was possibly the most fun, but that's probably because we played more stuff and spent less time in lines.
Friday we saw 2 panels:
* The first one was on gaming on a Mac, it was a little disappointing that the panelists largely didn't game on a Mac as their primary gaming device. The discussion verged into a discussion about iOS fairly early and mostly stayed there.
* The second panel was on tabletop roleplaying systems beyond the core DnD rules set. Their basic premise was that DnD is too heavily focused on conflict resolution, primarily combat, and didn't enable good roleplaying experiences. I have posted a list of the systems discussed a few days ago, most of the systems are designed around a specific game style or setting, but are all designed more about the story than the combat.
Saturday we were turned away from one panel and got into one panel:
* Independent Australian Games development panel. We primarily went to it because our very own Morgan Jaffit was one of the presenters, there were a number of digs about his sexy voice during the panel, I suspect he was pretty husky by the end of Sunday. I felt kinda bad about potentially taking a seat a potential developer wanted, but the discussion was really good, talking about how to get into the industry - which was basically make games, any type of game, and get out there and show them to people and put your foot in the door asking for job opportunities.
* Why So Serious - we didn't actually make it into this panel, after waiting in line for the better part of an hour, some people pushed in in front of us and we missed the cutoff by about 4 spots.
Sunday I did one panel and a tabletop game:
* Writing Tabletop Games - I thought this panel was going to be about inspiration and structure of tabletop games, instead it was writing tabletop games for publication and talked about grammar, word count targets and following submission guidelines. We know quite a few published game authors, and I helped Rick when he got published a few years back. While it was of academic interest, it probably wasn't the panel I was interested in.
*Dragon Age, I haven't played a pick up tabletop game at a con in years. Generally I have either had a full team, or have at least known the people I've ended up grouped with. Things were a bit chaotic to begin with because people straggled in over a period of about 40 minutes, and then started leaving before the session was over. I suspect that will be the case with a pick up game regardless of whether it's good or bad - at a con like PAX, people just can't commit 3 hours in a block.
PINNY ARCADE - bonus round, apparently Gabe and Tycho collect pin badges. They have collectors sets available at the con, some of which you can buy, some which you can only trade with con orgs to obtain. We got one of the trade only ones on Saturday and got our entry passes signed by Gabe and Robert Khoo. Before next year's con, I need to find out if they only want to trade for PAX pins, or whether they would like some non-PAX pins.
Tips for people planning to attend next year;
* Wear comfortable shoes, you will be queuing, a lot. The queue to get in first thing in the morning was 2 hours.
* Dress in layers. The queuing hall got pretty warm at times, but the outside queues for panels could get pretty cold (and wet).
* Consider packing food. There are food vans on site, but the queues for those were long too at most main meal times.
* Bring a water bottle, there are water fountains around the place where you can refill it for free.
* If you have a Nintendo 3DS, bring it along, you will see more street passes than you know what to do with.
* Make sure you charge your phone/tablet/handheld overnight every night. Consider packing a charger - though no guarantees you will find a free powerpoint.
* Have a twitter client as there are feeds for the queues, cookie brigade, the con generally, and they are used to get timely information out to con goers. The PAXAus hash tag was also inundated with information and feedback. Following these will kill your battery pretty quickly if you don't start with a full charge. Besides, reading twitter is a great way to kill time in the queues.
* When planning your schedule, leave about an hour before a panel to queue, 2 hours for the really big ones (like the Bioware panel or concerts).