Wednesday, September 3, 2014

PAX 2014!! - Friday night

IT WAS THE BEST!!! 

PAX 2014 in Seattle is one of the largest gaming conventions ever. They have handheld games, board games, PC games, console games, card games. ALL THE GAMES. This year PAX Prime (the main convention) was in Seatlle, WA, from Aug 29th through Sep 1st (Friday through Monday). They also have PAX East, PAX South, PAX Australia, and PAX Dev (which happens at the same location as PAX Prime, just a couple of days earlier).

Max found out about it a couple of weeks back and managed to find reasonably priced Saturday passes, so we booked a hotel and got super psyched. 


That blurry Space Needle!!
The Washington State Convention Center, home of PAX Prime 2014

We drove down on Friday night and went to a developer meet and greet for Wildstar, one of Max's current favorite games. The event was at a comedy club/bar downtown. The doors opened at 7 pm, so we showed up around 6:30  to get in line. We were the LAST people let in! It was pretty amazing. They cut it off immediately after us. There was free food and t-shirts. We saw some PAX reporters giving the scoop, and mingled with the developers for a while. 
Just found out the pool table at our wedding reception was set up the same way! So cool!
Free shirts are the best shirts!

Max eavesdropping on the PAX reporters 

We saw plenty of crazies, but this was one of the craziest...
There was supposed to be a presentation at some point, but by 9 we were hungry for more than just appetizers and a little stir crazy. There was a Cheesecake Factory across the street from the Convention Center, so we headed that way for some delicious foods!
Also, there was a Daily Grill there! Throw back to my Tulsa days working at Williams and breakfasting with Jesseca :)




We went inside to put our name on the list, then figured we'd go wait outside because it was a nice night out. We were immediately accosted by a very vulgar homeless man. Back inside it is. The buzzer went off and we moved toward the hostess bar, where there was a large crowd of people. I grabbed Max's hand and pulled him around to the side so we could hand in our buzzer and be seated. You apparently hand them the buzzer, they then print a ticket with your party name and table number, and put you in another line (admittedly shorter) to get to your seat.

Max seemed a little frazzled, and then told me that some professional League of Legends (LoL) players were around at the front of the hostess bar. He looked absolutely and adorable star struck. There were about 4 members of the Curse team with a couple of lady friends. I asked if he wanted to go meet them. Max muttered something about "yeah..." so I pulled him over to them. He asked if he could have a picture and they were very nice about it. He went in like he was going to take a selfie, so I grabbed his camera so it would be a better picture. The Cheesecake Factory is one of the darkest restaurants known to mankind, but the picture still turned out pretty fabulous!
L to R: Quas, Voyboy, Max, and Cop
Max was more fanboy than I've ever seen him! It was amazing! When we walked away, he was super jittery. He said he's wanted to go approach them, but other than Voyboy he wasn't sure how to "address" them! (For the non-gamers out there, Quas, Voyboy, and Cop are game handles, they all have actual names, but are generally referred to by their handles when in that sort of environment; ex: when you watch the competitions, they are referred to by their handles). It was super cute and adorable! The weekend was now worth it, no matter what happened on Saturday!!