Pax East 2011
Entry posted by Black Six
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I've been meaning to talk about this for over a week now. Real life keeps getting in the way though. I probably should be doing other things even now, but PAX was just too much fun to not talk about!
It started out on Thursday (3/10), which was in general a pretty un-fun day. I had to drive down to the Washington DC area in the morning for some training, then back up to Maryland in the afternoon, and then to New Jersey at night to meet up with my friend Terence. All of this was in the pouring rain. Not fun.
I got there intact though, watched some TV and relaxed after the long day, and then went to bed.
The next morning started off way too early, at four-something in the morning. A couple quick showers later and we were on the road. Thanks to Terence's friend's EZPass, we didn't have to worry about tolls and could take a more direct route. So despite the continuing rain we made good time and were in Newton, MA before ten. We parked the car, hopped on the T, and took the Green Line forever and ever. Then we switched to the Red Line, and finally to the Silver Line, which is a bizarre underground bus. I guess they were too lazy or too cheap to lay down subway tracks? Coincidentally, we stumbled across my other friend AJ and his girlfriend, who we were planning on meeting up with at PAX - very convenient. Anyway, we got to the Boston Convention and Expo Center and saw the endless horde of geeks and nerds and knew we would fit right in.
After that point a lot of things started to blur. We walked around the show floor for a bit, I met up with Nate (Than the Moa), who arrived but couldn't get in since John (Watashi Wa) had his pass and was stuck in Detroit or Washington DC or some ridiculous place (had he come to Washington the night before we could have driven up together). We got in line for the Rage demo and I broke out my Settlers of Catan portable edition. We got a lot of positive comments and had a lot of fun - it made the wait fly by. The demo itself was amazing. I have no idea how they made the game look that good on the Xbox 360. We got free shirts even! We walked around the floor a little more after that, and I randomly met Louis Wu! Then we got on line for The Old Republic. And we waited. And waited. And waited. And the expo floor started closing. And the panel on Xbox Enforcement that I had wanted to see started. But we finally got in! You definitely need a lot of coordination and teamwork for TOR, and the fact that the mics on our headsets didn't work failed to help that. Nor did the fact that AJ and his girlfriend had never played an MMO before. It was still kind of fun though, but it seemed more like Star Wars wrapped around World of Warcraft than Knights of the Old Republic turned into an MMO. We didn't get to finish the demo since the expo closed - but I consider us lucky: we only waited in line for about three hours, later in the show the line could last up to six hours.
We left the show and headed toward our hotel. Along the way we met up with Nate again, who had spent his time at the library and Prudential Center. We received an unpleasant surprise when the two double bed room I reserved only had a single bed. Terence and I had brought Aerobeds though and we were able to get a cot, so things mostly worked out. Somewhere around then John finally got to Boston and after much direction-giving we met up with him and had some dinner. We hung out in the hotel a bit and then after midnight, celebrated what was now John's birthday.
We didn't stay up too late though, since we wanted to get to the show early. Nate, John, Terence, and I got there before the show opened and started a new game of Catan while we waited. AJ and his girlfriend, who live in Boston, didn't show up until much later, the lazy bums. When we got in, we played some Fallen Frontier (a game made by former Bungie and Harmonix employees) and then lined up to see Battlefield 3. Man that game looks amazing too, and I'm not even a fan of the series. We did some other stuff too probably, and then went to watch the Rooster Teeth panel. Those guys are a blast and so funny. After the panel we got some dinner and then went to line up for the Saturday night concerts. We got to watch Pyre Jenga, one of the Omegathon events, and then Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Jonathan Coulton. VGO didn't disappoint this year - they gave us Zelda, played a Halo arrangement, and they even had an encore ready! Paul and Storm were a blast, they're two really funny guys. JoCo was great - he's gone electric since last year and has a 'band' now (a bassist and drummer), so even his older stuff was new. Things ended really late though, which when combined with Daylight Savings and a mile and a half walk back meant it was a realllllly long day. Oh, I got to meet e and Stepto during the concert too and got a code for a Cole plushie for my Xbox Avatar!
On Sunday we slept in a bit, and managed to catch the last shuttle to the convention. We started off by signing up for the Halo tournament and then waited for that to kick off. It wasn't very well organized, but we got to talk to bsangel and get some free codes for the Defiant Map Pack. I'm glad we got something, because we were knocked out in the first round by some pros. It was a close match though at least. We hit up the show floor for a little more after that, but John had to leave to catch his flight. The rest of us played some Gears of War 3, which seemed pretty similar to the second one, but with some new weapons. Nate had to leave soon after that, and Terence and I decided we should get going so we didn't get back to New Jersey too late. We made pretty good time again, but we were dead tired and passed out pretty much right away.
Unfortunately I couldn't sleep in too much the next day, but I only had a few hours to drive to get back to Maryland. I got home, exhausted, and then had to deal with unpacking, doing laundry, and getting ready for going back to work. I still haven't quite caught up, but the weekend was so fun it was worth it and I don't really even care.
If you can ever make it to an event like this (if you're a gamer) go for it. We got to talk to some awesome people, play a lot of awesome games, and just had a good time with friends in general.
I'm already looking forward to PAX East 2012!
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