PAX 09 Happened

Well I had all these ambitions of blogging about PAX as it happened. Guess that went out the window. It was a great weekend and here are some highlights.

Thursday: Meeting up with fellow Canadian travelers for some Cheesecake Factory goodness was great fun. Then I was off to the Pre-PAX Dinner which was prime button-trading and people meeting territory. The only shame was the catering company that couldn’t handle the volume of orders.

After the Pre-PAX dinner the Tri-Wizard Drinking Tournament groups got together and headed out to our pubs. Again this was a fantastic opportunity to meet people, especially after the fourth drink.

I somehow managed to stumble back to my hotel and was asleep by 2:30 A.M.

Friday: Waking up still drunk at 6:10 A.M. was the worst feeling I had ever felt. I showered off and trekked out to meet the Pre-PAX Breakfast group. Again, a great time to meet people. Alas the Crumpet shop decided to open late this day so we were forced to find whatever pastry goodness we could. I led a few people to Cafe Ladro for a Latte and we stumbled up to the convention centre to get in line. The 2 hour line was made way more bearable by the excellent Get In Line Games. This interactive game kept the queued audience entertained with Lolcats, Random Trivia, and great humour. Not only that but I again met some cool people in line.

Unfortunately in that same line, I started sobering up. This became the new worst feeling I had ever had. Sobering up while awake surrounded by 70,000 of my closest friends.

The doors opened at 10am and I briefly walked through the expo floor before finding my way towards the 6th-floor meeting rooms. I attended the Game Design 101 panel which was an awkward mix of panelists consisting of Richard Garfield, Jeff Hickman and others. I left, tried to down some coffee and juice and lined back up for the Hey Ash, Whatcha Filmin Panel. This was one panel I didn’t want to miss. Unfortunately my sobering up was turning for the worse.

I sucked it up and stayed for the panel which was definitely one of the highlights of the show for me. Anthony and Ashley were entertaining, humble and enlightening. They truly seemed surprised by the turn-out at the panel and were very appreciative of their fans. They even called up their dad mid-panel so the crowd could cheer him. This was amazing and really speaks to why I love the show so much… it’s the adorable family dynamics at play. The crowd was treated to a new episode, and we all got filmed for an upcoming episode. This was definitely the way to get the audience part of the panel.

Once the panel was over I rushed back to my hotel to nap. Sobering up was not working out well for me.

I wandered through the Expo floor for another couple of hours again in the afternoon before heading back to the hotel for another nap. Then after I was finally feeling better I trekked over to the tabletop rooms.

I played some Lord of the Rings boardgame with a few friends before calling it a night.

Saturday: I felt a LOT better on Saturday morning. My first order of business was the “Designing Indie Games with a Team of One” panel by Michael Todd. It was a well done panel full of good advice and learnings. After the panel I met up with new-friend Rob to sign-up for Beginner D&D. We wandered around the expo halls before our session started at 3:30. On the expo floor I got to see a live demo of Brink which is looking like it’s coming together nicely.

Learning D&D was awesome. I had wanted to get into playing this for a long time so to have Wizards of the Coast offering learning sessions was just incredible. I created a new character (Suru the half-elf warlock that took a few paladin electives in school) and we blasted our way through a couple of encounters. I had so much fun with D&D that the rest of the Saturday was devoted to tabletop games. I skipped two sessions I originally wanted to attend plus the Saturday night concerts. But I had so much fun. I want to play D&D again!!!

Sunday: By Sunday morning I was getting tired. I wandered through the expo halls for a couple of hours and got my shopping done. After that though, I was PAX’d out and I called it a day.

PAX Highlights:

• The people. I met so many new friends (I hope they keep in touch!!!). It was truly amazing to meet so many passionate and friendly dorks.
• Buttoneering: I had so much fun trading buttons with people!!! I even got to trade directly with Will Wheaton himself.
• Pub Crawl: As much as I hurt on Friday, Thursday night’s pub crawl was a spectacular way to meet people.
• D&D: Who knew I’d enjoy it so much! Was so glad I got to spend 4 hours of my weekend on this.
• Other Board Games: Meeting up with new-friend Alok and his Seattle crew was a treat and I really enjoyed the time I spent with them playing board and card games.
• Shaking Ashley and Anthony Burch’s hands. Like I said, I really enjoy the show Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin? Meeting these two was a thrill.
• Meeting my Doppleganger: Several times during the weekend people same up to me thinking I was someone else. Apparently “Liger” from the PAX forums looks like me. I got to meet her on Saturday night. I guess there is a bit of a resemblance. It was more awesome though how easy it was to just arrange a meet-up.

PAX was awesome. I had an amazing time. The venue was perfect. The crowds of people were generally well behaved. I don’t think I could honestly complain about a single thing.

Now I can’t wait until next year.