Day One PAX – Friday 28th Aug
Got up had a shower made coffee spilled it all over the desk ran around franticly cleaning that up. Then headed out for the keynote which was Story time with Kim Swift of Portal, Left4Dead, and Quantum Conundrum fame. She's now working for amazon games studios on a hush hush pc title. She started off explaining she wasn't making portal 3 or half life 3 and that she doesn't own that IP so couldn't make those games even if she wanted to.
After that she gave a nice overview of the insides of game development what sorts of jobs there were what they did for the games and also debunked some common misconceptions about things. She also listed this (http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Video-Game-Programmer) wonderful 8 step how to be a game programmer in which we get to step 5 before “learn to program” comes up.
She also showed some of the “feedback” she had received both good and bad. The bad was mostly blacked out expletives the good stuff was constructive criticism.
In all it was a fun and informative talk on the subject.
After that it rolled straight into Mike and Jerry Q&A #1 it was using the new submitted question format which mostly ruled out the crazys and or people who wanted their final 200 page erotic fantasy fanfic rated. There was a weird beginning message about some crazy conspiracy about a fictional PAX Europe which I don't think is a thing but they had a sparkly dunces hat for Jerry to wear.
The rest of the questions were more normal things like how the strip had changed as the two have grown up. Would they pay for college degrees for their kids or suggest they do what they did live in a rundown flat eating nothing but ramen noodles for a few years. There were some interesting questions of future kickstarters would they do something like a thorn watch animated series or something from the Nightlight storyline. They were open to that but since they've just done the Automata kickstarter it's too soon. They also talked about moving PAX prime and the answer Robert Khoo had given them was NO. So that's that.
They also talked about the HTC VIVE vr system and Jerry described the prototype as a “digital colostomy bag” that you strap to yourself. Then he also talked about his favorite demo of the oculus being a simulation of sitting at a desk and how he would be sitting at his desk in real life looking at virtual desk and then smacking his head into the real world keyboard or biting his desk as he tried to look closer. They also described how the Vive warns you off obstacles in it's holoroom style system with a gentle blue mesh and how it made you feel quite safe where as other systems you don't want to move for fear of walking into a wall. Jerry also sang a sea shanty and it was established Mike can't sing except perhaps Micheal Jackson songs.
Once that was over I headed to the shops to pick up some vittles I went back to the hotel and ate a sandwich then dashed down to the Westin where I joined the queue to the Mike and Jerry make a game panel with Mike Selinker and his team helping. The game they came up with was eventually called “Meat Your Maker” set in a world of intelligent sandwiches with four races (subs, wraps, panini, and biscuit) you had to get three cards with three recipes for sandwiches then in under some time limit you rolled a dice to collect parts then you made your sandwiches from those parts and then battled you sandwiches more dice for more parts completed. The did story, art, cards and dice and tested and started playing it in under an hour. The only down side with this panel is the guy next to me kept dozing off leaning on my shoulder.
I grabbed a swag bag then headed back to the hotel for some rest and relaxation. There is a Gearbox panel at 4 that I might go to or I could just stream it not sure. Later tonight there is Acquisitions incorporated which I want to see.
I watched the Gearbox panel they talked about Tales of the borderlands from telltale ep4 which sounded pretty good I've got behind on that series but what I've played I really enjoyed. Telltale are the best at this sort of thing they basically lead that market.
Then they mentioned that there is going to be a Borderlands movie from Lionsgate and the producers behind the spiderman films and ironman films they were the ones who figured out how to do superhero movies and Gearbox are gambling they will be the ones to figure out how to make a good video game film. Early days yet and no details but interesting.
Next they talked about their new IP Battleborn (all Gearbox original ip has to begin with a B) it's planned for early next year. They showed some footage it looked interesting 25 different playable characters solo coop and competitive. The story was interesting it's based on the idea that all the stars have burnt out but one and all the remaining races are gathered around it.
They went through some of the characters with the borderlands characters they had different abilities but moved and fought somewhat the same ways. With Battleborn they mentioned they were trying to make them all play differently in motion and attack. I wonder how they will manage to balance that.
Next they had a butload of cosplayers and then a marriage of two borderlands fans with a selection of officiates including Kris Straub who was eventually relegated to ring bearer. They had borderland themed vows and a claptrap ring cushion. Finally an epic group hug.
Randy Pitchford started doing a magic trick but then the twitch feed went down and I didn't get to see the rest.
I had a nice burger for dinner the guy delivering it mentioned he moved from San Francisco before the earthquake then he said something about selling 100k dollars of small jams and jellies which seemed like a complete non sequitur unless I misunderstood. Anyway it was good burger with some nice fries.
Later it was time for the live D&D and it was pretty good they had an awesome set with a little lake and a purple worm converted to a little house they also had a mechanical beholder mech model. They also had Statler and Waldorf style heckling gargoyles. It was pretty awesome with some great randomness I expect they will put it online for people.
And so ended day one.
Day 0 - Arriving in Seattle
It’s typical that as soon as you are going away some vital urgent thing pops up and everyone who should know (given you booked it months ago and put the dates on the top of every weekly report) are surprised you’re not going to be there.
So it was all panic when I left work I did all I could to get things in the right place so it should go fine. I missed out on free pizza too which I’d very much like to have now but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I left at normal sort of time since I had a late flight I looked at getting the VTA but it suggested a 45min trip for not actually very far. I think I could have walked it in 45min though maybe not with lugging bags and so forth.
I took an Uber instead which was nice quick while I was waiting I chatted to the security guard who asked me if I was going out of state which threw me a little I don’t really think in terms of states. I know that here it’s more of a big deal given the size and scope. He then chatted to me about various gaming and internet conferences he mentioned Twitch con which is down in San Francisco in a month or so I’ve not really been that interested in going to that one but I am going to the playstation experience also in SF a bit later in the year. My Uber arrived and we cruised over to the airport took about 5 minutes dropped me at the terminal B and I then went through the security.
I finally got round to getting a tsa friendly all plastic belt so I don’t have to stand there holding my trousers up while being irradiated worked pretty well. Went through settled in with a book and waited for the flight. I looked around at food options but nothing grabbed me lot of restaurants I wanted something quick like a sandwich but none of the places had any.
At about 9:15 they started bording our flight I was in the enviable position of A01 so was the first of the general passengers on the plane. I stuck my back in the bin and grabbed a window seat settling back in with my book. We got a nice view of the bay as we swooped up and over.
It’s a short flight out about an hour and half in the air we arrived in Seattle at about 11:40. We got a spectacular nighttime view of the space needle naturally I was without an easy to access camera. I grabbed my bag and hoofed it over to the light rail not wanting to miss the last train.
The final train downtown didn’t leave till 12:10 so I actually had plenty of time still better safe than sorry. I rode the light rail downtown and hopped off at the last stop the Westlake center.
The hotel I’m staying at for the first section of the trip is a fairly swanky Hyatt at Olive8 (street names olive street and 8th ave the hotel is on that corner) and I got a nice king sized room on the 16th floor with a fantastic view directly into someones offices. It was now too late for room service and I didn’t see anywhere open that would sell me food so I’m just going to go hungry. I looked around for perhaps a mini bar but they have a psudo fridge instead which normally I would prefer as I rarely use expensive mini bars and would prefer somewhere to keep a drink cold.
Anyway I set up everything to charge and then went to bed as PAX starts bright and early tomorrow morning.
Final Day
We cleaned up our stuff and packed our bags. We'd done most already just a few bits were left we bunged anything we'd not washed in the dishwasher set it going cleaned the surfaces and emptied the bins. Once ready we headed out dropping off the keys at the place next door. We also left out bags so we didn't have to carry them about. The weather was not very nice it was chucking it down though it had warmed up a bit.
We headed over to the corner tavern for brunch. I had BBQ pulled pork sandwich with pastas salad which was excellent. Byrnie decided eggs Benedict with a side order of bacon and Jen had a meatload sandwich. The food was really good and in reasonable quantities. The side of bacon turned out to be a plate with a pile of crispy fried bacon on it which was quite a lot more than had been expected and we all had to help to eat it up. We drank coffee and chatted as we ate.
After that we wandered out onto the bridge looking over the Charles river it was still mostly frozen the rest of Boston was thawing slowly the huge piles of snow melting away though still present. It was a grey wet day with low cloud and the view of Bostons skyline was obscured.
We walked back into town and to the prudential center mall. First we visited a book shop and perused the titles we stumbled across a niche section of mystery books that were also cook books. At first I thought this was just one authors gimmick but there were several others doing the same thing. I perused the scifi fantasy section and then we decided to have a sit down.
We found a spot nearby and rested a bit Jen and Byrnie drank an energy drink we had gotten on the trip to Salem. After that we headed to the Microsoft store as Jen wanted to look at the phones they had some nice toys there which we looked at the new dell xps 13 with the tiny bevel so it's more like a 11” laptop.
It was then about time to be heading out so we went back for the bags and then rode the T to the airport. On the way we managed to use the wrong lift for the silver line connection and had to go up and down repeatedly to correct the mistake.
We got to the airport and Byrine and Jen checked in I was flying from another terminal so we then had to walk over there and I checked in got rid of my case etc.
Feeling a bit peckish we wandered over to the food court and grabbed some smoothies this further inflamed our appetites as we then had burritos. I had a chicken tikka masala burrito that was quite good.
It was then time for us to go our separate ways and get through security we said farewell and I headed to my gate. My flight was delayed by about 45 minutes and moved to another gate.
I waited for a while for the plane to be ready and boarded. It was a fairly good flight as they go I got some sleep and read for the rest. We landed around 12:15am and then it was just a matter of waiting for the luggage to come through.
I had booked a shared ride van home so I headed to the stop. They'd changed over to some automated thing where usually they had a guy who sorted out which of the vans you went on. This initially put me on a van going the wrong way. The driver for that van sorted things out and then it was a short wait till the proper van turned up. One of the passengers had some obscure destination that required them to work out what they were doing so we sat in the van for maybe another 10 minutes while they sorted things out with their dispatch.
Eventually we got on our way and I was second on the dropping off and I got home around 1:30am
It's been a great holiday I had a really good time at PAX East and then wandering around Boston and Salem with Byrnie and Jen. I've got a day to recover then on monday (my birthday) I'm back to work. Perhaps we'll do this again some time.
