Living in Fictional Universes: My First Trip to PAX!

Travelling to Seattle was something that I was quite excited about. I’ve always wanted to stay in a hotel where I could see the mountains and, lo and behold, my wish was granted. What I didn’t expect was that my hotel room was on the 36th floor and that it looked over downtown Seattle right towards the Space Needle…

When I saw this, I realized this trip was a good idea.

PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo, is kind of a big deal. The first thing I’d like to mention is that there is a huge difference between hearing there will be 60,000 attendees and knowing there will be 60,000 attendees. The first day in Seattle, my friend Corey and I had no idea where we were going. To put it simply, there were crowds of people everywhere. There was hardly a place to sit down, and if you did find one it was still warm from the previous person who vacated that spot.

I walked in and saw this first thing

The first thing that we wanted to do is witness the Penny Arcade Q&A that happens first thing in the main theatre in downtown Seattle. Corey and I wandered around in the main convention center until we found the queue room… that’s right, there is a room at PAX dedicated solely to lining up for things (I said 60,000 people right?).

So many nerds…

Well it turned out that we weren’t even in the correct place. This line was solely for those people going to see the exhibition hall. What I mean to say is, these were the people waiting in line to play the video games that were showcased in the very next room. Thanks to the guys in line next to us wearing the DayZ outfits (sweet Ghillie suit, bro!), we were able to figure out where we were actually supposed to go.

We walked the 10 minutes to the correct line, and this one was outside a theatre about a block away. While waiting here, there was a PAX Lady-Enforcer wandering around handing out pipe-cleaners. Most of us did not avail ourselves of these crafty little guys, but some of us decided it was better to play with them than stand around. Some of us created some pretty funny stuff, like the guy who made the six inch penis (such girth!). Others created some pretty interesting pieces, like the guy who made a 3-dimensional stick figure wearing a top hat (tipped at a precisely determined angle for jauntiness) and a cane. I was able to supply this stick figure with a small sword to adorn his person. This was when I came up with my idea to make pipe-cleaner trinkets to hand out to people that I got along with, that did something cool, or had really awesome costumes.

I met a bunch of people that first day, like the nice couple that sat next to us for the Keynote speaker (Ted Price of Insomniac Games) and the Q&A (Penny Arcade's own Mike and Jerry). Corey and I also stuck around for the Rooster Teeth panel, which was a lot of fun.

Ted Price, Q&A, and RT in that order

After seeing the things that we wanted to as far as panels were concerned (at least on this first day), we decided to check out the exhibition hall. We saw a bunch of really cool exhibits in the hall. While the Firefall one definitely took the cake, there were a few more that really drew my attention. In particular, I had a lot of fun at the Planetside 2 booth, the Firaxis booths, and the Flying Frog Productions booth.

Left side: Planetside 2. Right side: The Drifter from Last Night on Earth (Flying Frog)

What’s interesting to me is that I should be so drawn to the Firefall booth. It’s interesting because I really have no interest in MMO games specifically. In fact, there was only ever one of them that I played for a significant amount of time: Star Wars Galaxies. That’s just because I’m a massive Star Wars nerd, but also because the game offered something other than just combat. While the game of Firefall doesn’t really attract me, the mythos does. I mean, who doesn’t like looking a huge dude in powered armor?

Yes, that’s Hawk from American Gladiators with professional cosplayer Crystal Graziano

What surprised me about PAX, from a personal perspective, is the thing I found to be the most rewarding: my interactions with the developers. Corey and I went to the X-Com: Enemy Unknown panel to hear them talk about many of the game design choices they wanted put into their game and ultimately had to take out because it wasn’t workable or it wasn’t fun. Through watching this panel, I found that I had many more questions that really made me feel enthusiastic about the game. In fact, I was able to go to the Firaxis booth and spend time talking to Pete Murray, their marketing person. It was such an awesome feeling being able to get actual face time with a member of the company who understood and shared my concerns for the game. One of the most pressing questions I had about this game: will it be mod-able? The answer surprised me. I actually expected to be spoon fed some pre-fabricated answer. What he told me was this: “While the game won’t support mods at the initial release, this is something that the team would really like to have in the game.” Now my interest was piqued… but my concern: will the game be too easy? I come from a time when video games were hard. Yes, it is my opinion that most games these days aren’t all that difficult.

Take the original 1994 X-Com, for example: this game required you to take desperate measures just to complete a mission on the hardest difficulty setting. You had to make very tough calls like “do I sacrifice this base to the aliens?” or “which soldier do I use to draw the enemy’s fire?” In a game like the original X-Com, you can’t help but be attached to your soldiers. Each soldier has things they were good at and things they were bad at. They were given names and specific functions on my team based on their strengths. After time, I found myself creating back-stories for each of my soldiers all in my head. I was super stoked to see that they kept this in the game for the new release, but would the game be difficult enough? What I wanted to know was if there was a way to get into the game’s files and adjust the numbers to artificially make the game more difficult. Can we get more aliens? More explosions? More frequent alien attacks? He told me that there isn’t really any need to edit the values ourselves. Their most difficult game setting, aptly named “impossible,” was designed to not be beaten. In fact, Mr. Murray made the claim that this difficulty setting could not be beaten without save-scumming. The design team feels so strongly about save-scumming that they threw in an “iron man mode” which prevents this from happening. To be honest with everyone, this interview got me so excited about this game, that I actually went out and preordered it along with Borderlands 2 (the last time I pre-ordered a game was for Dead Rising 2 in 2010). Firaxis, for giving me what amounts to fan lip-service, you have ensured another customer. Thanks so much for talking to me, Pete Murray.

What I ended up learning about myself by the end of PAX2012 was that my interests no longer include playing video games as one of the top items. As I’ve gotten older, I have begun to appreciate board games more and more. I’m not trying to say that I don’t love video games, I’m only saying that my interests have shifted away from playing them. In fact, what I realized was that I love talking about video games even more than playing them.

It was such a wonderful time for me being able to talk to the guys from Firaxis and 2K, as well as have a conversation about Star Wars: Galaxies and Planetside 2 with Donna Prior of SOE. These people really were very kind to me, and I’m happy to say I’m a fan of their companies and their products, when before I was quite cynical. At the end of the day, I like talking about video games and nerd culture so much, that I’ve designed a blog to talk about it.

Feel free to send me a message so that we can discuss stuff! Tell me your concerns and fears, your loves and your hates!

Oh, and have some more pictures from PAX2012!