PAX, Day 3!

Before PAX opened…

After uploading some videos (more are coming! Though I won’t have the day 3 video available until after BioWare sends it back to me: they’re currently doing whatever it is they’re doing with it as we speak. =) ), I went down to a Dim Sum restaurant with some friends from the Penny Arcade forums. ElectricTurtle, Redhalo, Hypatia and others were there. It’s been years since I had Dim Sum, and it was quite enjoyable! Again, the name of the restaurant eludes me… it was “Honey” something, but I can’t remember what. I’ll have to see if I can find out what it was. It was also drastically less expensive than the food immediately around PAX itself: we fed 10 people for the price of two in the restaurants around PAX, and I would say this was probably the best meal I had on the trip.

PAX, Day 3!

But I digress, this isn’t a culinary blog! =) We took a taxi back to PAX, where my first goal was to meet up with Chibidani, who ran the Cookie Brigade this year. I was completely, 100% out of cookies, and I needed to turn the money in to her so that she could consolidate it at a meeting later that day (which I wasn’t going to be able to attend). I had raised just shy of $1500 dollars on Day 2, and I had a large Tupperware container full of money from Day 1 that I hadn’t yet counted… needless to say, carrying these with me during PAX (and back and forth from PAX to my room) was a bit nerve-wracking! But as someone mentioned when we were counting money on day 2, if anyone dared to take it they’d have a pile of ravenous gamers on them in moments. =)

We met just outside of the Wil Wheaton panel in the Convention Center Annex, and I managed to take some footage of the panel before she met up with me.

(INSERT Wil Wheaton video here!)

Penny Arcade Q&A

After handing off the money, I was off to get to the Penny Arcade Q&A panel. At PAX, Mike and Jerry (aka Gabe and Tycho) hold several question and answer sessions where people can ask anything they want, and they’ll receive responses that range from interesting to amusing. =) I couldn’t miss this particular one, however. In the following video, Houn explains the two events that other PAX goers were set to spring on Gabe & Tycho during this particular Q&A session:

(Insert Houn explanation here)

Though I didn’t get any video of the Bad Horse Sniping (d’oh!), I did get plenty of video of the button case presentation:

(Insert presentation video here)

LordThanda, a PAX Forum frequenter and former Omeganaut, put together the idea of getting a case for the buttons and presenting them to the duo. It came out beautifully, and was well received!

Dragon Age Toolset Presentation

At the end of the Q&A Session, I went to BioWare’s presentation of the Dragon Age toolset. There were many BioWare fans waiting in line, and I talked to a few in depth about what they think of the upcoming game.

(Insert interview videos here!)

I took plenty of video of the event, for those who might be interested! I imagine there’s more than a few of you in this particular audience who might want to see it. ;)

(Insert Dragon Age Toolset video here!)

From the looks of it, the Dragon Age toolset will be an extremely powerful tool for the gaming community, and it looks like they’ve improved greatly on ideas that they were honing in previous creations such as the Neverwinter Nights toolset.

The Omegathon Final Round

For anyone who has yet to go to the final round of an Omegathon, it is quite an event. The audience, even after three days of nonstop entertainment and activities, is electric with anticipation and excitement. Only two Omeganauts remained, and they were ready to compete head-to-head in a mystery game to be declared on the spot by Gabe and Tycho.

The chairs were removed from the main theater to fit more people, and even then the theater filled to the brim with a standing room only crowd. While we waited and listened to music coming through the sound system, several PAX attendees who had acquired puppets from the Fallout showing pulled them out and… well… here’s some footage of it.

(Insert Fallout puppet videos here)

Before the competition began, Tycho made a special announcement about the cookie brigade: we had earned over 5,000 dollars for Child’s Play! It was a great feeling to know that we had contributed meaningfully to such a wonderful organization, and it was great to see the limitless generosity of the Gaming community for good causes!

Finally the competitors were brought onto the stage, and the game was revealed. It was Vs. Excitebike, the two player variant of Excitebike that was never released in the United States! It was to be a best of seven competition between the two who had competed all weekend long to get to participate in this moment.

The closest round of the final was undoubtedly round 1, where the Omeganaut who went by the handle “Gecko” beat his opponent by a mere fraction of a second. After this, however, he gained more and more momentum, and ended up sweeping the series 4-0. We had a winner!

(Insert Omeganaut final video here!)

After this, Gabe and Tycho went head-to-head… as would be expected, Gabe won handily (Gabe is known for being the more experienced console player): however, Tycho did keep it fairly close in most of the rounds, and Gabe won the match 4-1.

Wrapping it up

The end of the Omeganaut finals signaled the end of PAX, and all that was left was to say goodbyes. It was a wonderful experience to meet so many people who I had talked to for so long in forums, IRC chats, and games… and I only can hope that the friendships made will last for years to come.

I feel honored to have been a part of this year’s PAX, and I can’t thank BioWare enough for the support and opportunities they have given me. Going back to the real world after five days in the world of our community will likely be a difficult transition, but the memories of this PAX will keep me going until next year!

I’d like to thank all of you who read my blog, and I hope you found it as amusing to read as I found it to write. Until next time!