Arenanet at the PAX in Seattle

I wanted to start a thread for anyone here who has attended the Penny Arcade Expo and would like to share their experiences. For those of you who are unaware, Arenanet had a huge presence this year at the PAX. I myself attended every GW panel, met Gaile and some of the art team, observed some features of GWEN and the sealed deck tourney, and even attended the after hours party at gameworks with all the GW dev team. It was a fun filled night for myself and I would like to hear about anyone else who was able to attend.

I will post more about my experience when my pics develop. (I left my camera at home so I used a disposable one)

Yeah... I wish that I lived a reasonable distance from events like these in all of the games I play. The only large event that i can go to is CPL for Counter Strike: Source.

Yeah I went to PAX and got a picture with Gaile! >.<

At PAX they had a history of GuildWars thing where the devs talked about Anet and the game and people there could ask questions about GuildWars.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/s.151100.jpg

^ Picture of potential merchandise(not very good picture)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/s.151101.jpg

^ Picture of members of the GW team signing art for fans

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s.151103-1.jpg

^ Picture with Gaile(with my face colored out.
*Disclaimer, by clicking the link above you agree that you will not use the picture at all without consent from the original owner of the picture(me)

Edit: added pictures of PAX

The panels are supposed to be available for podcast on the PAX website....
But they don't seem to be up yet, but the PAX coverage article on the GW website has pretty good coverage.
Even though my programmer buddy I brought as my superfan guest (so he could grill the devs) won the USB mini lavalamp, I thought they were really cool and I may buy one.

I also went to PAX, my favorite moments were getting my fellow guild officer, Jeff, to ask Izzy what skill he would like to have his face photo shopped onto. I still haven't got those images off my camera, so I wont tell you what skill he said lest you fiends beat me to the punch.

Also, I thought it was hilarious when Kevin Dalziel was signing my Primeval Warrior armor concept art, I mentioned I had dyed mine pink. He stopped mid-signature, and Katy Hargrove said to him "See, people LIKE pink!"

Kevin then sighed and continued his signature--begrudgingly.

Also, A few guildies and I managed to get Katy Hargrove and James Phinney to answer a few questions and shoot the breeze, even though we did get the feeling we should have let James go earlier -- We kinda ran out of stuff to say after talking for 45 mins or so. Katy showed us a pretty awesome shot glass that said "roll to see if I'm getting drunk" and showed us the stuffed charr that someone brought in.

We also participated in GW trivia, and i must say we did quite well. Our Guild Leader, Axl Swiftbreeze, won a G7 laser mouse for correctly answering which skill in GW has the longest activation time. I said Claim Resource, which I maintain has a longer cast time (Sanctum Cay anyone?), but the REAL answer was Charm Animal. GG to Axl.

PAX was awesome. Go next year or you are merely a shell of a person, and Will Wheaton says that we can hit you with a baseball bat.

Awwwww man. You guys should have told us your forum names when you met us

I did tell Gaile, who after learning that I was a mod gave me "vip" early passes to the after hours party... we talked a bit about forum frustrations and such. I have to say, even with all the nasty comments out there, Gaile is a sweety.

actually I was impressed with every member of a-net that I met. You guys are really great. (still waiting on my pics)

I swear, I'm going to PAX next year all the way from Australia.

What nasty comments, are we talking about same Gaile? The Gaile I know has too mild and politically correct comments which I guess is because she's PR. You should see me doing her job

I'm sorry Kali, I guess I should have explained myself. I was referring to the conversation I had with Gaile.... the nasty comments directed 'to' her, not 'from' her.

I flew in from South Carolina for PAX. My bf, who recently moved to Idaho from SC was there with his brother to meet me. You probably saw one of us if you went. I was dressed as a monk in black Ascalon starter armor. My bf was dressed as White Marth (Gaile called him out for not dressing as a GW character). And on Saturday, his brother was the "naked monk" running around in a pair of grey hanes, a washcloth "loincloth" and improvised tattoo armor.

True story: I spent 45 min in the GUYS bathroom that day, helping him paint himself. ...interesting to say the least.

We also were VIPs at the A-net party. We had a BLAST! We got to meet Christopher Lye and some of his team that were talking about GW. That was a lot of fun. We also met Gaile on the Friday and really enjoyed talking to her throughout the weekend. ^_^ Everyone we met from A-net was really nice!

Yeah, PAX was fun ^_^

As well as the party xD! Can you say 2-story arcade with more free game-credits than you can use in one night, on top of free food, drinks, door-prizes, and game prizes? GG ANET FTW!

Yeah, I was *cough*Marth*cough* yeah my excuse for wearing a cape all weekend.

The only thing that bothered me slightly about the weekend was..... it was DURING the GWEN Preview event... RAWR!!! We were too busy doing stuff at PAX to ever get to play GWEN for but a second :P... ah well, it was worth it and GWEN comes out in less than 10 hours.


Hahaha, my favorite part was when my brother (the naked monk) and Shannon (Sera Kitten) were the only two to show up dressed up for the costume competition, so they both got the keyboard and mouse, and the devs/team went to take pictures of them with their prizes and they told my brother (the guy only wearing a loincloth and tattoo armor) to hold the keyboard over his loincloth so you could hardly see it, then one of the devs told him to turn it 'long-ways'....

OK, I'm going to stop now because that last paragraph probably made no sense-what-so-ever. Let's just say it would have been HILARIOUS if you -did- see it... :P

lol, I remember you guys, I took a picture of the three of you. Great job on the um... tatoos.

I'm so jealous...
Where all is pax going this year? Is there some kind of list of places it will stop at? Or is it a one time thing?

yea, that's sounds really really fun, i would like to go to PAX next year if i am still in US

Ok, so start planning! PAX next year will take place at the same location -- The Washington State Convention Center -- but I understand it will take place one weekend later, that is, Labor Day Weekend, starting on August 29, 2008. (I am sort of wondering if it will extend into four days, through September 1st, which is Labor Day, but I guess we'll find out when Penny Arcade starts promoting the show early next year.)

Anyway, ArenaNet will be there in force, of course. We're already set up to have another large booth and we've reserved our party spot, too. I'm booked as party manager, so count on food, drinks, games, raffles, and challenges with cool prizes. (Come on, you guys know you loved getting diseases! Which -- for someone who was not there -- might sound a just a little strange, eh. )

On the floor, I have some great ideas for community contents. Next year, I'm thinking about doing a whole "classic game show" theme.

And yes, there will be a Super Fan 2008 contest! This means that if you're coming to PAX, you may be able to score tickets to what was widely believed this year to be absolutely the party of that weekend. Super Fans from previous years: I'm very sentimental and I'm thinking that we'll be sure to have a few extra tickets for those who come back to the show, so you should start thinking about whether you'll be able to attend the show and the party, too!

All in all, we loved the show and enjoyed meeting everyone and really can't wait to start planning to make next year even better!

...I love you,

lol

I went up to PAX for the second time and I enjoyed myself a lot. Ended up spending most of the weekend hanging out with a guildie that I met up there and an old friend Samyel. I took 1st in the sealed deck tournament (also got 1st in last year's sealed deck tourney). The laptop is amazingly awesome, and I've been enjoying the GWEN content on it for the past couple days!

I think ANets presence this year was significantly better than last year. First of all, I think the booth that they had was MUCH better: much more elbow room and a better setup of the computers. Unfortunately it wasn't enough room for Izzy to do a cartwheel though

The biggest thing that I thought was an improvement was the way that the tournament was structured. Last year your placement was just based on raw points, so any team that wanted to win had to stay at the booth all weekend long and either play a match or wait in line to play a match. None of us really got to enjoy the rest of the expo, which was very unfortunate. This year however, since you only had to be present for your 1.5 hour flight, and then again for the 1.5 hour finals, we had time to go enjoy the expo for the entire weekend. This made the entire experience SO much more enjoyable.

Another great aspect of it was the greater number of ANet staff that were able to attend PAX this time around. Last time PAX was the same weekend as the GWFC finals in Germany, so there were only a handful of ANet employees at PAX. Having more there this time boosted the fun at the booth a lot. You could see the interesting dynamic that goes on among the GW team and tell that they were a group of people that loved what they do and had a fun time doing it.

The afterparty at gameworks was enjoyable as well. It seemed a bit hectic at times, with everyone spread out across the floors while they tried to announce door prizes and contests and such, but the food was good and the company was even better. I tried throwing down some third strike against James Phinney, but he finally got beat by the guy in front of me in line at the machine. I liked doing something outside of the convention center though, and being able to interact with the devs on a more personal level made it a worthwhile experience.

I think I covered the majority of my experience at PAX as it relates to GW. Overall I had a freaking blast and fully plan on making it up there for my 3rd PAX (and hopefully 3rd tournament win :P). I must say though, walking out of PAX with a giant Alienware box gets you some funny mixes of staring and drooling. I got a kick out of that.

So thank you ANet for the great experience that I had, PAX wouldn't have been the same without your booth

I totally agree that having the show during the Sneak Peek Weekend -- or having the Sneak Peek Weekend during PAX (and incidentally GC in Leipzig, Germany) -- was a bit much. In a three-day period we had:

• A $10,000 tournament for PAX
• A 3-day in-game one-of-a-kind event (Sneak Peek Weekend)
• A gaming show in the US
• A gaming show in Europe
• The August playoffs of the $100,000 championship
• And all that ending only five days before release of a new expansion pack!

Three of five might have been do-able, but I swear to Dwayna, we have to plan better next time for sure!

(And I ain't gonna explain that paragraph, either, if someone didn't get it. )

Well, wearing last year's gold medal was an inspiration. Gogo intimidation factor! Congratulations, again, on your victory!

We had a blast, too. I love fan shows -- there's not better than getting to meet with fellow players, hear their ideas, share their stories... dang, I can't wait for next year and the rumour is we may be doing a few more shows, so that makes me a very happy panda.

SOOOOOO Excited...only 365 1/4 days to go guys!!!!!! >.< I had So much fun at PAX this year...the dev team was so nice and the party was amazing! But yeah...I was sad that there was no GWEN playing for me (except that 3 hours after I got home Sunday). Ah well, I have GWEN now, and my adorable mini moa too!

Time to start planning (and saving) for PAX 2008!...

XD

Singapore Avarre is sad and lonely without conventions!