PAX Prime 2012 Thread: Post (your) PAX (impressions and pics) Edition!

blueshinra

blueshinra

CAGiversary!
Feedback
14 (100%)
Old stuff -
Getting it started off a bit earlier this year :p

Anyway, PAX Prime! Registration is currently up, but broken (ETA: It's fixed now! Go go go!). A few CAGs managed to meet up last year, but going to aim for something bigger (and better organized) this time around.

In addition to a possible CAG meetup, this thread can be used to discuss panels, games being shown, transportation/hotel/food/etc. deals, and basically all things PAX.

Links, etc. coming soon. In the meantime:

Old meetup stuff -
Official Site

CAG MEETUP INFO:
Most people seemed to like the idea of meeting up Sunday after the Closing Ceremony, so that's what we'll do.

The meeting place is in front of the Free Play room at 6-6:20 PM on Sunday. From there, we'll go out to eat. Last year we went to Gordon Biersch, but if anyone has other suggestions, they're welcome :)

Note that, unfortunately, Gordon Biersch is not taking reservations the weekend of PAX, so we might have a wait ahead of us. Again, alternate restaurant suggestions are welcome!

Additional CAG Meetup Notes:
If you get to the meeting spot late and no one's around, come to the restaurant and look/ask for us! The address is in the link above.

:hot: NO NEW RSVP REQUESTS ARE BEING ACCEPTED! :hot:

RSVD'd:
- blueshinra
- bitprophet
- io (+1)
- pete5883
- zenprime
- metaly
- ThreeRandomWords (probably?)
- soulvengeance (+1)
- CheapyD (pre-dinner)
- shipwreck
- mrs. shipwreck
- kube00 (probably not)
- EvilIA
- sobjw (+2)

Thanks to everyone who came to the meetup, and to those who weren't able to make it, hope to see you next year!

Let's keep this thread going for a little while :) Post your PAX impressions, stories, and photos. I'll get mine up soon, promise :p
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Schedule

This year's PAX Prime takes place from Friday, August 31st to Sunday, September 2nd.
ALL passes are SOLD OUT.

The schedule's up! Here's the link - http://prime.paxsite.com/schedule

Accommodations and Transportation

Hotel registration

PAX Train
This is an annual event where PAX goers ride the same Amtrak train (the Coast Starlight from LA) up to Seattle. I can't find any information for this year's yet, but with the way the passes sold out, I'm guessing it's fully booked by now. The PAX Train Twitter seems to be down for the time being :whistle2:| A map of the route is here (PDF).

Flights / Rental Cars
- Hipmunk is a handy tool for airplane ticket price comparisons.
- The hotel registration link above also has sections for flights and cars, along with discount codes. Here they are:
  • American Airlines - 5% discount - Code: 6882AW
  • Delta - 2-7% discount - Code: NM8EH
  • Avis - 5% dscount - Code: D629073
- Note that if you're coming in from out of town by plane or train, you should not need a rental car. Downtown Seattle is very walkable, especially if you're in a hotel close to the convention center, and there is public transit both from the airport and close to Amtrak.

Food
- The convention center's food is expensive, of course. One of the more reasonable places there is the Juicy Cafe.
- True cheapasses may want to bring their own drinks and snacks for the day. There's a supermarket downtown that's pretty decent.
- For breakfast last year, my husband and I (and a lot of other PAX-goers) hit up Specialty's quite a bit. There's also the option of buying muffins, etc. at the supermarket :p
- As for any other restaurants, suggestions welcome :)

Parties
- For the latest info, there's the PAX Parties Twitter account.
- zenprime also suggests the following two links for par-tay information: http://www.sidequesting.com/2012/07/the-big-pax-prime-2012-party-list-events-parties-and-more/ and http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/164988/prime-pax-prime-2012-parties/p1

Other Events

- CAG Meetup! Tentatively scheduled for after the closing ceremonies. See the OP for info.
- PAX Pokemon League
- Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Event: Aug. 31 (Friday), 1-9 PM at the ACT Theater (700 Union Street). Timed to coincide with a similar event in Tokyo.

Useful Twitter Accounts

- PAX - official account with updates and such. Highly recommended.
- PAX Lines - information about lines for panels, concerts, etc. Probably the most helpful PAX-related Twitter after the official account.
- PAX Parties - party and meetup information.
- PAX Tourney - tournament information.
- PAX Pokemon League - see above.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='blueshinra']Hope you do decide to come! No pressure, of course :p[/QUOTE]
Definitely want to go, it's a matter of figuring out if anyone's flying/staying with me.
 
At least you have some extra time to think while they get their act together. D:

That'll teach me to be responsible and wait till lunch to register.
 
My son really wanted to go to this last year. He was just mentioning it today in fact.

Now, if he behaves a little better (he just got himself banned from the game room for the next 3 days) I might take him there. We live pretty close so transportation is not an issue.
 
I wanna go~!!!!

I'ma gonna be coming from California!!

so then would any1 here be interested in room sharing?? I have no issues sleeping on the floor =P
 
Depending on where I'm living by then you'd probably be able to stay with me fool! I live like 3 miles away from the convention center. I also go every year
 
the fukk?!?!?! I jus got home and that already... what a piss >_<

-edit- jus picked up Friday n Saturday.

$5 more, one day less, eh whateverz...

guess I'll take advantage of that and spend sunday exploring seattle
 
Just finished booking my hotel and found out the three day passes are sold out. Won't be buying passes until Friday, hoping none of the one day passes will be sold out by then.
 
I just got Friday and Saturday passes, usually sunday is my recover-from-drunken-stupor-and-go-like-1-hour day anyways.
 
Got my 3-day. The whole mix-up last week with the registration was the only reason I didn't wait till the end of the day, and wow, good thing. Kind of a mess this year, huh?
 
[quote name='metaly']Kind of a mess this year, huh?[/QUOTE]
It really is.

Booked the hotel and flight this evening, so we're ready to go here.
 
[quote name='blueshinra']Three-day passes are now sold out. Holy shit, that was fast.[/QUOTE]

[quote name='blueshinra']
Booked the hotel and flight this evening, so we're ready to go here.[/QUOTE]

Holy hell! I'm glad I saw this and pounced when I did. And here I thought I might wait till my son gets back tomorrow afternoon. I thought it took 2-3 weeks for them to sell out last year? I guess that was for all the individual ones too.

Well, makes up for all the CAG deals I miss ;).

I guess I should pounce on a hotel soon and maybe airfare. I'm trying to decide between flying and driving. Driving is no problem from where I am but those downtown hotels have limited parking and it costs an arm and a leg (looks like $30-$40 per night!). I figured I wouldn't be using the car anyway the entire time except when we leave. So maybe flying is better. Is it easy to get the train/rail thing from the airport to the Convention Center area?

I can get airfare for just under $200. So say $400 total with baggage fees for the 2 of us. Driving is 170 miles each way. That comes out to about $60 with $4 gas (plus whatever wear and tear on the car)... Hmmm... Still seems cheaper (and more flexible) to drive. I'll have to think on that. But I should probably book a hotel soon.
 
Wow, Saturday-only badges are also sold out now. So just Friday and Sunday are left which is pretty useless for anyone who isn't local.

I decided to look into hotels and about half the lower rates via PAX are gone already so I grabbed something just to be sure. Looks like that is fully-refundable if we change our minds. But even with the cheaper rate (and I picked one of the cheaper ones they had too) it adds up to $700+ for 4 nights. I figured we'd stay Sunday night so we could spend Monday doing other stuff in Seattle. But, man, that is not very cheapassed! And I need to take my other son to Disneyland some time soon, too. We promised him that as a Christmas present last year and I've been too busy to go this Winter/Spring and now I'm taking his older brother (who has already been to Disneyland) to PAX. So I'm on the hook for something big for the younger one ;). I may have to do Disneyworld instead.
 
For some stupid reason I thought I'd wait until this morning to make my final decision. I sprung out of bed half an hour early ready to spend, and Saturdays are long gone :wall:
 
Damn shame the Saturday passes sold out. I ended up cancelling my hotel reservation and I'm not going to PAX Prime this year. At least I got to make it to PAX East.
 
[quote name='io']I figured we'd stay Sunday night so we could spend Monday doing other stuff in Seattle. But, man, that is not very cheapassed![/QUOTE]
Tell me about it >_< When we booked the hotel last night, we decided to go with the same one we stayed at last year, the Hilton. We wanted to get a room for Wednesday night as well, and spend Thursday sightseeing around Seattle, since we weren't able to do very much of that last time. Turns out the Hilton was one of the hotels that wasn't offering the convention rate for Wednesday-- instead, it's a full $70 more! What we ended up doing was booking our flight early on Thursday so that we'd get in by early afternoon. Not as much sightseeing time as we'd like, but better than the price for the extra night :p

Oh, and as for public transit from the airport, yes, it's very easy to get on a train from there to the convention center area downtown. The fare is pretty cheap, too. Here's the info; I'll add it to the second post as well.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='spydey']I think it's safe to say PAX has outgrown Seattle. It's time to move it.[/QUOTE]

I hope that PAX East 2013 doesn't sell out this fast. I'm not sure about Seattle, but Penny Arcade has a ten year contract with Boston so if they outgrow Boston, they're there for a while. I think making a third PAX (South is recommended by a lot, as is Europe) will alleviate the over population of the other two PAXes. Or this could just be caused by scalpers buying all the tickets.
 
Just heard via metaly on Twitter that the show's completely sold out now.

PAX site update:

[quote name='PAX']05-03-12 PAX Prime Badges are Gone

Every single badge has been sold, and there will be no extra allotments either online or on-site. We know many of you would still like to attend, but unfortunately, building firecode restricts us from selling any more badges.

Along those same lines, if you buy a badge from a third party, we have a series of measures in place to detect counterfeits on-site. Last year there were an extremely high number of fakes, so know that if you're purchasing from anyone that isn't us, you run the risk of having a fake badge and not being allowed into the show.

We think it's important to note that we care very little about the money in the "counterfeit badge" situation, but rather when a building is supposed to fit X, but we have X + 5,000 in it... there is a legitimate safety concern. That said, we absolutely cannot let people with fake badges into the show.

So please be smart. If you buy from a 3rd party, do so from a trusted source. Thank you.[/quote]
 
So, uh, now that I've bought my passes and committed to this thing, can anyone tell me exactly what it is? I hear there is a lot of waiting in lines. And I detest waiting in lines, so I'm not too happy about that. I know there are panels and last year there was a lot of Halo stuff (which is why my son wants to go though he realized it probably won't be too Halo-heavy this year).

But what exactly have I gotten myself into? :lol:
 
[quote name='io']So, uh, now that I've bought my passes and committed to this thing, can anyone tell me exactly what it is? I hear there is a lot of waiting in lines. And I detest waiting in lines, so I'm not too happy about that. I know there are panels and last year there was a lot of Halo stuff (which is why my son wants to go though he realized it probably won't be too Halo-heavy this year).

But what exactly have I gotten myself into? :lol:[/QUOTE]

Seeing how Halo 4 is coming this year there should be a good number of Halo stuff.
 
[quote name='62t']Seeing how Halo 4 is coming this year there should be a good number of Halo stuff.[/QUOTE]

Well, yeah, but I don't think it will be the extravaganza (Halo Fest, etc) that it was last year with the 10 Year Anniversary. I ended up buying him some PAX-exclusive Mega Bloks packs off eBay that were apparently given out there. He would be thrilled if there was something like that this year but I'm telling him not to expect that sort of thing. I'm sure Halo 4 will be present (and playable) but that is no stretch as it comes out just a month or two after PAX. There will probably be a beta around that time so it might not even be that thrilling for him to see/play it there.
 
[quote name='io']So, uh, now that I've bought my passes and committed to this thing, can anyone tell me exactly what it is? I hear there is a lot of waiting in lines. And I detest waiting in lines, so I'm not too happy about that. I know there are panels and last year there was a lot of Halo stuff (which is why my son wants to go though he realized it probably won't be too Halo-heavy this year).

But what exactly have I gotten myself into? :lol:[/QUOTE]

PAX has:
  • Panels - sit in line for an hour or so to see people talk about things like these
  • Exhibition Floor - all the companies have big booths where you can demo games and occasionally chat with devs. Most popular stuff requires hours in line, but there's enough other stuff to do that you generally don't have to do that
  • Console freeplay - borrow a game from the game library and sit and play for a while
  • Handheld Lounge - a room full of beanbag chairs to play DS / nap on
  • Tabletop - where people play D&D and Settlers of Catan etc. until 2am
  • Jamspace - chiptune & other bands play music
  • Concerts - see acts like Jonathan Coulton and the Video Game Orchestra
Not sure if Prime has this but at East there's always been a room with old arcade machines. I think that's about everything? It's good fun and the weekend goes by in a flash. There's also about a million people there and you will almost definitely come home sick.

[quote name='CtrlAltDft']I hope that PAX East 2013 doesn't sell out this fast. I'm not sure about Seattle, but Penny Arcade has a ten year contract with Boston so if they outgrow Boston, they're there for a while. I think making a third PAX (South is recommended by a lot, as is Europe) will alleviate the over population of the other two PAXes. Or this could just be caused by scalpers buying all the tickets.[/QUOTE]
I think they thought that East would alleviate overpopulation of Prime, but it sells out more quickly every year anyway.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='CtrlAltDft']I hope that PAX East 2013 doesn't sell out this fast. I'm not sure about Seattle, but Penny Arcade has a ten year contract with Boston so if they outgrow Boston, they're there for a while. I think making a third PAX (South is recommended by a lot, as is Europe) will alleviate the over population of the other two PAXes. Or this could just be caused by scalpers buying all the tickets.[/QUOTE]
I think they thought that East would alleviate overpopulation of Prime, but it sells out more quickly every year anyway.
 
Interesting - thanks, Pete. Looking at that PAX East schedule I'm going to have to say this doesn't appeal to me all that much. It seems to trend a little younger than me. But then I'm doing this mostly for my son, though of course I have some interest and wouldn't have signed up if I didn't also want to check it out. I guess I should experience this sort of thing at least once. The last sort of convention like this that I went to was the old MacWorlds in San Francisco back in the early 90's.

As for getting sick, I have 5 kids, 4 of whom go to different schools (and the 5th is 2 years old). So there isn't a cold/flu virus I haven't been exposed to. I should be OK in that respect.

And I guess I should definitely bring my 3DS. And maybe I'll have to play Mario Kart and some other games first (I've barely touched it). I may also have to get my son interested in either the 3DS or Vita (which I don't have yet) so he can take part in all the handheld tourneys and such. The problem is that he is a huge 360 fanboy and vehemently hates anything Nintendo or especially Sony now. But yeah, he's 12 ;). Hopefully they will have a Halo Reach tourney like at PAX East. He is pretty damn good at it.

As for the tickets selling out so quickly, here's what someone on the PAX forums posted about the 3-day passes: In 2009 it took 6 months for them to sell out, in 2010 it took 3 months, in 2011 it took 2 weeks, and now in 2012 it took about 6 hours. They then went on to predict that at that rate, the 2013 PAX is sold out already ;).
 
Oops, forgot they do have tournaments for a few games too. And if you ever were interested in the StreetPass games, you could probably spend the entire weekend collecting tags.
 
[quote name='pete5883']Oops, forgot they do have tournaments for a few games too. And if you ever were interested in the StreetPass games, you could probably spend the entire weekend collecting tags.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that's what I meant - I'll have to start up those games and then be there to collect StreetPass tags. I think right now all I'd get would be Miis. Which 3DS games are big with StreetPass? The only game I ever did the DS-to-DS connection thing with was DQ IX and of course that was a whole different animal since it required the game in the DS and running to collect tags.
 
[quote name='spydey']I think it's safe to say PAX has outgrown Seattle. It's time to move it.[/QUOTE]California here we come!!!!
 
[quote name='io']Yeah, that's what I meant - I'll have to start up those games and then be there to collect StreetPass tags. I think right now all I'd get would be Miis. Which 3DS games are big with StreetPass? The only game I ever did the DS-to-DS connection thing with was DQ IX and of course that was a whole different animal since it required the game in the DS and running to collect tags.[/QUOTE]
Off the top of my head, here's what you can get from StreetPass:
Mario 3D Land - mini rooms with more Star Coins
Kid Icarus - weapon gems that you can combine to make new weapons
Mario Kart - new kart parts
Resident Evil - bonus items, and something for Raid mode

As for DQIX, AFAIK there's been a meetup at every PAX since release, so that's the time to fill up your inn. Attendance might be getting pretty low by now, though.

[quote name='JEKKI']California here we come!!!![/QUOTE]
Kinda hoping they move it there for space purposes, but I've always wanted to check out Seattle.
 
[quote name='pete5883']
Mario Kart - new kart parts[/QUOTE]

Someone with the egg kart please tag me. PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top