Last weekend I attended PAX South. This is the first year that PAX has made its way to Texas. I have been to PAX Prime once about three years ago. For its first year, the convention seemed pretty well organized. Everything was pretty easy to find and all pretty close to each other. Panels and events (for the most part) were on time and entertaining. Even though the overall convention was pretty small, I found myself doing something the entire time I was there. The overall feel at the convention was pretty laid back and everyone was very nice. I was also able to get all the puzzle pieces through street passes on my Nintendo 3DS – only took a whole year to catch up!
Compared to other conventions I’ve been to, the PAX South expo hall was pretty small. A lot of the bigger companies did not attend, probably because they were unsure how popular this new convention would be. Nintendo had a small booth showing off the new 3DS that was always filled with a lot of people. I didn’t get my hands on a new 3DS but they looked super nice. I’m still a bit bummed the smaller new 3DS isn’t getting an American release. Twitch had a very large presence in the expo hall as well. Anytime I walked past the booth there was a streamer talking or playing a game. In the back of the expo hall, you could see a large 15 foot, floating Balloonicorn over the We Love Fine booth. My husband picked up a cute Spy Crab from their booth. While he stood in line to pay, I walked over to the Geek Chic booth and dreamed about owning one of their board game tables. There were also a lot of indie booths throughout the expo hall. My husband played a few of these indie games including Super Slam Dunk Touchdown and Brawlhalla.
Behind the expo hall was the room I spent the most time in, the tabletop room. During the weekend I got to play a game of Power Grid, Ticket to Ride Europe and Caverna. The people in this area were so nice and helpful. When my husband and I picked out Caverna to try playing for the first time, a random passerby, named Noah, saw us looking very confused. He walked up and asked if we needed someone to teach us the game. He saved us probably an hour of confusion and I ended up enjoying the game! In the tabletop section, Reaper had a paint and take section. You walk up, pick a miniature and paint it. It was a very relaxing activity, even though I’m awful at it.
I attended the Guild Wars 2 panel on Saturday. I barely slept Friday night because I was so excited for the panel. When we final got in we were all handed boom sticks to make noises of excitement. As the panel started we waited to hear what Heart of Thorns was. Then they played the trailer and answered that question – it is the first expansion for Guild Wars 2. The first time the trailer played, it had no text and brought a lot of questions to my mind. As Mike O’Brien and Collin Johanson took the stage they each explained new elements coming to the games. New things including class specializations, masteries, a new class called the revenant and progression into the Muguuma Jungle. I can’t wait for them to go into more details about the expansion. I’m especially excited to see what the specialization will be for the guardian and the necromancer (YAY greatwords). I’m also really curious what the revenant is all about. After listening to all the information and reading a lot of theories people are coming up with, I can’t get off the hype train for Heart of Thorns.
I enjoyed myself this past weekend. The convention was small but I kept busy with things around the convention. If PAX South happens again next year I’ll probably be going again. Hope you all enjoyed my short look back at the convention and the photos.