PAX 2011 Report

[Morgan Shackelford]

I cannot really even begin to describe this event. It was simply amazing. The first day for us was Friday afternoon - unfortunately we arrived just after Will Wheaton left, so I missed out on that; but I quickly forgot about it once we hit the expo floor. It was like walking into a gigantic casino, but with a bunch of unreleased video games instead of slot machines. The lights and the sounds just hit like a wall of bricks and your senses go into overload.







We spend the couple of hours we have Friday just getting a feel for where stuff is. The expo floor covered two enormous rooms and a connecting skybridge, as well as a secondary area for indie games on a whole other floor. One of the cool things we ran across on the first day was the Geek Chic booth:



http://www.geekchichq.com/

If you are into tabletop gaming, this is pretty much the ultimate. Some of the tables cost as much as $14k. One of the cooler tables was also one of the cheaper ones; it had a roughly 60 inch flat touchscreen monitor as the tabletop, tied into a 'hidden' server built into the table. Everything you needed to run a D&D adventure was in the software - touch a character, it brought up a panel with their stats. Same with monsters. All the info at your fingertips - virtual dice included.

As the floor closed Friday night, we stopped at the Warner Brothers booth. Enforcers were clearing everyone out; but we just had managed to find it - if you don't know, WB owns Turbine, which is the company that runs LOTRO, which is another game I own a lifetime sub in. My friend and host for the trip, Kamil, walked up to the booth and grabbed a button from a pile they had laying out, and out from a room in the booth came a nice gentlemen who started talking to us, asking us if we were fans, etc. Turns out it was Sapience, LOTRO's Community Manager, the guy who makes all the forum news announcements for LOTRO and generally is the face of the game on their official forums. He gives us all VIP passes to a WB after party - when we get to the party, there was a huge line to get in - but hey, we're VIP's! We got to go in before everyone else; they gave us this awesome LOTRO totebag with a bunch of free Turbine points and in game items we could redeem, some very cool Isengard T-shirts, and a great spread - sliders, mozerella sticks, pasta, the works - first two drinks were free, there was a bar - oh, and did I mention this was all inside a Gameworks Arcade? They had a raffle and gave out a bunch of very cool stuff to their fans; blue-rays, jackets, mugs, lifetime subs to any of their games, etc. Turbine knows how to treat its people; it's one of their greatest strengths.

And after all that, I still had two days left. I felt like I had moneys worth in the first half day.

Anything coming out in the next year was represented, and so many of the games looked incredible.











A couple of MMO's really caught my attention, one called Secret World, by Funcom:

I know, I know, Funcom doesn't have the best rep. But this game looks fairly innovative. Cookie cutter MMO's based on the WoW format curl my stomach, so this was a very cool presentation to me. No levels, purely skill based, in a Shadowrun type world. And, Shadowrun was an ingenious environment, mixing magic and technology with real world mythology, which is what Secret World seems to be doing. Release is set for April 2012.

Guild Wars 2 also looks fairly amazing:

GW1 wasn't my cup of tea, but a lot of what they've got going on here looks really good. They've twisted the idea of quests and factions in a new way, the game itself is visually stunning and set in a dynamic environment with all kinds of events going off based on who is in the zone, what they have or haven't accomplished, and a number of other factors. I will definitely have my eye on this. No release date yet.

I also got to attend the SW:ToR presentation, which got me fairly excited about their game. The intro clip they just put out on their website and displayed for us on the big screen gave me goosebumps. When they mentioned that SW:ToR will be the largest piece of Star Wars fiction ever made - combined of course, with the fact that we're talking about Bioware, whose ability to weave a storyline is nothing short of legendary - well, let's just say I'm excited to get my hands on it.

Last but not least, I did get to meet Jeremy from STOked very briefly on Sunday and grab a pic:



He was very gracious, but both of our time was very limited. I only got to speak with him for maybe 2 minutes. I have recently sent him some info on what we do here at the 7th to keep STO interesting for our Fleet. Who knows, maybe some of that will make it into the next episode when they go over community feedback...

All in all, it was an incredible trip.

[Captain Talbot]

Awesome info sir. Glad you enjoyed yourself.

[AUGERSON U.S.M.C. (Ret)]

Look like you had a great time sir, outstanding pic.....

[Cleo Mavendorf]

I so need to go to one of these....

[VADM pRett]

Glad you had a good time and thanks for the amazing AAR.

[William Anders]

Fantastic!

Guest Post Rules are In Effect for this Post

[Anton Mercer]

One instance the character is cooler then the player... :P This looked awesome! I need to get my ass in gear and go to one of these!

[Deven Scott]

Hey Shack good to see you had a very good time man . Going to events like that is awesome, the sheer amount of content that's in those places is just mind blowing.
Lots to do and see... and three days barely gives you time to see it all.

Good pics, glad you got to see the J-man! and speak to them about us and what it is we do over here . Looks like you had good times .

I so want to go to one of these next year.

[Morgan Shackelford]

This is the full hour long presentation on SW:ToR. It is worth watching at least the first two and half minutes just for the new trailer. Gives me goosebumps every time. Really looking forward to this game.

"On the day we launch, we will be the biggest piece of Star Wars fiction in history."