PAX 2014 Day Three - Sunday 31/8/2014
Another gray day hopefully less rainy than yesterday. First up on the agenda was the Gearbox Software panel down in the main hall. The streets were wet but it wasn’t actively raining and it even cleared up as the day went on.
I joined the queue which was outside and around 2 sides of the block that Benaroya sits on which I think is the biggest queue I’ve been in so far. Once we got in seats were at a premieum I was all the way up on the third floor in the front row. It was a decent view a little far back but pretty good.
The panel kicked off with Mikey Neumann and a few others welcoming out some superb borderlands cosplay. That was followed up by studio head Randy Pitchford coming on taking off his jacked then putting another one back on. After that they got down to business and started by talking about Borderlands the Pre Sequel that Mikey apparently named by accident it was a joke that became the title. It’s set between borderlands one and two and follows the rise of hansom jack. They showed the new playable heroes although they were all borderlands 2 characters I think. Claptrap will be playable and his special will be somewhat random. Sometimes it will do what it’s supposed to other times rubber ducks. They also mentioned that the game will feature a framing device for its new game + mode where the game is told in flashback and if you play again Tiny tina of Borderland 2 fame will ask to hear the story again but harder and then have various commentary.
Then they brought out the head of Tell Tale who are doing the tales of borderlands which will be set after borderlands 2 and tell some of the stories as well as new stories from the universe and it will unlock stuff in the presequel.
After that they talked about an email they had received and had Rami Ismail from Vlambeer to do a dramatic reading.
After that they spoke about homeworld remaster and they were redoing all the graphics the textures the models the engine the soundtrack so it might take a while. They showed the cinematic remade with the hidef visuals and hidef audio it looked pretty good.
Next up they talked about Battleborn which is a new game a fps where you go through the leveling proccess very quickly, they said sort of 30 min chunks. It sounded like it was pretty early on so they had some sort of taster trailer but not much else. They suggested there would be many many different characters to play all different. The story is that it’s near the end of the universe all the stars but one have burnt out and every remaining race in the galaxy are clustered around that star arguing about what to do.
Next up Randy did a magic trick it was a card trick that was pretty good fun he basically told a story while drawing the cards so they matched the story. They had some trouble with the card table that wasn’t flat so Mikey held it up.
Then Randy did the ice bucket challenge and got soaked in ice water for the ALS charity thing.
To end things off they gave out the season pass for borderlands presequel free to everyone which was pretty cool.
After that I essentially did a loop and joined the benaroya queue again to wait for the PA make a strip panel. It was pretty fun Mike drew the strip live and both him and Jerry answered questions. In previous years they had a mike and people asked stuff live. This year they had preselected questions in envelopes white envelopes for normal red for hard. There were some fun questions then talked about some of the times they nearly called the whole thing off. How hard making the ill fated games was on them. Why Jerry always wears the same type of clothes. Mike’s desire to teach art to kids.
It was good fun and I enjoyed it as usual.
After that I took a break and grabbed some lunch to fortify myself for the afternoon. I tried to watch a tetris panel while eating but the streaming wasn’t cooperating.
Later I watched the Patrick Rothfuss panel he answered some questions read his book “The Princess and Mr Whiffle” which looks like but isn’t a children’s book and once read through is a very different story. He also gave his review of Esio Trot by Roald Dahl which he wasn’t a fan of it was a bit of an awful tale about an old man tricking a woman by replacing tortoises. The he read a bit of a novella he is releasing and then finished with everyone singing you are my sunshine.
I thought about going to one of the parties but I fell asleep and also I wanted to go to the ClubPA photo thing so that would have made it difficult to get some dinner.
After that I saw a Gauntlet semi final match with Graham Stark, Paul, Storm, and Jose Sanchez playing in the pax celebrity gauntlet tournament which was entertaining. Paul won with a great use of Thor the fighter. Next up were Angry Joe Vargas, Kris Straub, Scott Kurtz, and Katie Rice from strip search. Joe went through to the final.
I got some dinner Subway do creamy Sriracha sauce it’s firey deliciousness that hurts so good. I had it on a steak sandwich.
After that I read a bit then headed over to the paramount theater for the ClubPA picture. ClubPA is a subscription thing where you pay a small amount and you get access to some exclusive stuff things like staff podcasts and a special pin and also no adds on the site so I’d signed up as I love the podcasts and having some more seemed an excellent idea. Anyway there were quite a few of us and we all stood around some steps for the photo inside the paramount. All the PA staff were there and so while the camera was being sorted out we got a chance to ask questions of any of them and there were quite a few mostly on pax’s and other possible events. Patrick Rothfuss showed up as well and got asked when the next book comes out to which he made a rude gesture.
Kiko did some people adjusting so everyone could be seen (hopefully) I got moved along the rows so was on the very end one back hopefully I show up in the photo. It was fun to have that extra little meeting for that smallish (relative to pax crowds I mean there were a good hundred people there I should think) group.
Tomorrow is the last day there is a PA Q&A then I think I’ll probably hit the show floor as much as possible try and see some more stuff I feel like always that I’ve barely scratched the surface. Because of the way today’s panels worked out and my need to consume food to keep going I didn’t manage to get down there at all today. I still saw a lot of stuff but it feels like I should have somehow fitted a trip in even though I don’t think I could of. Anyway one more day to go.
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