The Thomplog: PAX East Diary 2013

Preamble

Well, it would have been nice to post some PAX stuff day by day, as it happened, but I would have missed out on so much if I would have taken the time to do that! So I'm sorry for the delay, but really... I'm not.

Even if it's a bit late, I'm going to give you the day-by-day breakdown of my visit to PAX East 2013 this year. I think it's safe to say that this was one of the most successful PAXs for me personally, as I got to check out just about every panel and game that I wanted to see and more, plus got to meet and hangout with a lot of new and awesome people.

Day 1

Yeah. It was a good day.

Blizzard

The day started a little rocky with a botched attempt to see the Blizzard announcement at 10AM Friday morning. I should probably mention that this was my first PAX East, and while I knew it to be popular, I wasn't sure how it would compare to PAX Prime in Seattle. Foolishly, I figured it would probably have far less people. This resulted in being a little too far back in the line to get into the Blizzard panel.

And this was the overflow line...

This disappointed me at first. The panel description gave the following information:

“Blizzard has a little something new, and they're bringing it to PAX East! It's different from their other games, so it's not a sequel, expansion, or that rumored next-gen MMO. Be among the first to see what the legendary development studio has been working on in this presentation.”

Needless to say, I was intrigued. While I had assumed that this HAD to be a MOBA competitor of some sort, I was left watching Reddit and Twitter, awaiting the announcement.

It didn't take long before the posts and tweets started flowing in. Blizzard's big announcement was a micro-transaction based, Free-to-Play game entitled Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Don't let the name fool you, it's no MOBA. In fact, it's a CCG! That's right... an online collectible card game. Not exactly what I was expecting, and certainly not what I was hoping for, but hey, who knows.

I didn't get too many details on this as the line to the booth was crazy long, and to be honest my interest had been waning from the moment I heard it was a CCG. What I do know from watching some gameplay is that the game is very Magic: The Gathering-esque (surprise, surprise) and graphics-wise it looks more or less like a budget browser game.

I heard from another attendee that the game will involve buying (with real money, of course) the equivalent of MTG booster packs for the game. Meaning, the online cards you purchase will be randomized, which will inevitably result in you wasting entire paychecks on the game. Sorry Blizzard, I've done that too much with MTG already.

Now, all of that being said, it's impossible to judge the game yet. I'm sure I'll give it a go when it goes live, and give a thorough review at that time. Until then, you can check out the game and all the information Blizzard has on it here.

Indie Journalism

My plan for Day 1 was to spend almost all of my time checking out panels, so after the failed attempt at the Blizzard panel, I was off to the next on my list. This happened to be a panel entitled Games Journalism in the Age of Independence. If you're reading this now, you are probably happy that I attended some journalism panels as my writing is questionably acceptable, I'm sure.

The Panel

Justin Amirkhani – Writer – GamerUnplugged.com

HipHopGamer – Owner – HipHopGamerShow.com

Neal Ronaghan – Director – Nintendo World Report

Kyle McIntosh – Curator – GoodGamesWriting.com

I found this to be an interesting talk, as these are people who are doing what they love in an industry where many, many people are attempting to do the same thing. But these folks, in their own individual way, have managed to make an exceptionally original go at it, and (in many cases, after much failure) have reached an admirable level of success. At the very least, they had such diverse stories to tell, it was both inspirational and informative.

Justin Amirkhani, after dabbling in traditional games journalism decided to step out of the box and hitchhike across America, visiting game development studios along the way, and of course writing about the trip in the process. He had a good enough following at this point to get the endeavor crowd-funded on Kickstarter and make this dream become a real thing. His perspective and insight into decision making regarding a career in games journalism, especially in the indie vein, was fascinating to say the least. I encourage everyone to take a look at this site, he's a really cool guy, and someone I actually got to talk to one-on-one later in the trip.

HipHopGamer, being a popular (and controversial) YouTube content creator had a completely different background and take on the indie game journalism scene. He seemed to be more interested in making money, and being involved with some of the bigger corporate gaming organizations. While this particular stance was not shared so much by the other panelists (it seemed, at least), he was clearly out to spread the same sort of message. That message was to do something you're passionate about, but don't copy someone else. Put yourself into your work, make it original, find that niche, and you will be successful. You could see by the way he talked about his work that he truly loved it.

Neal Ronaghan seemed less excited to be on the panel, and frankly, less interesting. I think this may be partly due to my disinterest in Nintendo specific games media, but also the way he was responding to questions seemed somehow disconnected and less involved. That's not to say that he didn't have some interesting things to say. His history coming up in the industry, doing volunteer writing for various websites, taking advantage of the downfall of various publications to eventually make his way into a niche market that he's passionate about; it was an interesting perspective to have on the panel.

Lastly the host, Kyle McIntosh mainly posed questions to the panel participants and tried to keep them on topic. He did a great job, and it was largely due to him that the panel was so meaningful. I haven't spent a lot of time on it yet, but his site, GoodGamesWriting.com seems like a great resource for aspiring games journalists (like yours truly!).

I wasn't sure what to expect with this panel, but it turned out being one of my favorites. While there are tons of panels on “How to breaking into the games journalism industry,” this one was almost the opposite. It addressed the question of how to really define yourself in an industry where there are SO many people trying to do the same thing. It was fascinating to hear the panelists' stories and how they dealt with swimming against the current in the games journalism space.

Indie Storytelling

Next up on the docket was a panel entitled Want a Good Story in Your Game? Get an Indie! This panel focused on storytelling in games, how important it is to indie developers, and how control over that story element differs in an indie environment versus a big triple A environment.

The Panel

Dave Gilbert – Game Designer – Wadjet Eye Games

Stephen Hewitt – Co-founder & Head of Design – Blazing Griffin

Jon Ingold – Co-founder & Creative Director – inkle

Andrew Plotkin – Interactive Fiction Writer

Oded Sharon – CEO – Adventure Mob

Phil Tossell – Game Creator – Nyamyam

There was a diverse group of panelists, and it was interesting to hear how story effected their design process, and how they thought about and pursued storytelling in their games.

In the indie scene, without massive budgets to throw at games, story is many times all the developer really has to express themselves. Graphics and art aren't always possible to perfect without money so story often has to take center stage and be the element to really rope consumers in.

While a small budget can be tough, it can also afford you some luxuries that big game companies don’t always have. Without those massive budgets behind the games, it's easier to take risks and play around with ideas that traditional publishers might not be so keen on. If you want some examples of storytelling that pushes the limits of the social standard in gaming stories, take a look at Oded Sharon's games (e.g. Zbang is an adventure game where you play as a teenager trying to get laid for the first time). These are perfect examples of truly unique story ideas that traditional publishers wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. But it's possible in the indie world! Freedom was a big factor in indie storytelling, and that permeated throughout all of the panelists remarks.

It was an interesting panel, and compelled me to check out numerous games that the panelists had both developed in the past, and are currently in development. If you're a fan good storytelling and narrative in games, I'd recommend checking out each of these panelists' works.

Marvel Heroes

To finish up Day 1 at PAX, I thought I probably ought to go to a game specific panel. Luckily, the Marvel Heroes team was at the show and seeing as this is a game that I played back in August at PAX Prime 2012, and have been eagerly awaiting news on, this was a perfect opportunity!

The Panel

Stephen Reid

David Brevik

Matt Group

Leo Olebe

TQ Jefferson

If you're not familiar with Marvel Heroes, it's an action RPG being developed by Gazillion Entertainment (led by David Brevik, co-founder of Blizzard-North) that takes place on a massively multiplayer scale where you can play as your favorite Marvel super heroes, level up, collect gear, min-max, and grind to your hearts content with Diablo-esque gameplay mechanics.

As I mentioned before, this was fully playable last August and frankly seemed pretty damn polished. At the time, I signed up for the beta, which was supposed to start in October 2012. Since then, I've heard virtually nothing about the game aside from the so-called “Founders packs” that they've been pushing email subscribers to purchase on a weekly basis for months now. It's been frustrating how tight lipped the developers and publishing team has been regarding this game for the past six months.

Because I was one of the first 1000 people in line, I finally got my beta access!
Unfortunately, I'm under a NDA, so I can't talk about it.

Thankfully, they decided to be talkative during this PAX event, and reveal a slew of details on the game, including a RELEASE DATE. By the time you read this, it will have been old news, but it was exciting to hear the company finally commit to a date, as well as all of the other features of the game that we learned about.

Tons of things were discussed during the panel including things like PvP, the breadth of playable characters and the various costumes available to them, the new and improved F2P (free-to-play) model, endgame content, and of course, release plans.

PvP

To get the ball rolling... PvP! Player vs. player combat will be available and live upon the release of the game. Diablo III fans are breathing a sigh of relief right now, I'm sure; I know I am. The PvP sounds promising, allowing you to bring the gear you collect in PvE to the arena, but changing the skills you can use in PvP vs. PvE to deal with the obvious balance issues that will arise. They didn't speak a whole lot about this, but the important thing is that it will be there. As to the state of it at launch? We'll have to wait and see.

Heroes and Costumes

While I knew that the Marvel super hero selection and costumes would be a big factor in this game, this panel made me realize just how seriously they're taking this stuff. They had aboard the panel, TQ Jefferson, a representative from Marvel that we're told has been working closely with the team to keep all in-game Marvel references and costumes in line with what is actually in the comic books. They made the claim that there would be 20 Marvel heroes out of the gate upon release (5 playable; read more in the F2P part below) with many more coming down the pipeline. To go with those 20 heroes, let me tell you, there are a massive number of costumes to choose from with, again, more coming down the pipe everyday. I could tell by the reaction of fans in the room that this meant a lot to them, and while it's not as big of a deal for me, I'm glad to see the developers appeasing the fans and staying true to the Marvel Universe with respect to appearance, at the very least.

Free-to-Play Model

Next, I'll attempt to outline the innovative new F2P model that Gazillion Games has come up with for this game. I think outside of the release date, this was the most interesting part of the presentation. With the success of games like League of Legends and Path of Exile, having cosmetic-focused F2P models that don't allow the paying customers to have an in-game advantage, many companies are trying to figure out how to make similar systems generate revenue and they're coming up with some interesting models in the process.

I mentioned before that the game will release with 5 playable heroes. You didn't read that wrong. Upon release, unless you buy a Founders-pack (I'll explain in a moment), you'll have 5 characters to choose from to play. No, you can't buy any other heroes once the game releases. The only way to play a hero different than the aforementioned 5, is to purchase them BEFORE release date, via the Founders-packs. You can pick up any hero you like for $20, and it comes with a few different costumes for the hero.

Okay, so how do we get new heroes after the game launches if we can't buy them? For better or worse, in a true ARPG fashion, the way you'll acquire additional heros is by killing bosses that drop hero tokens. You'll then be able to redeem those hero tokens for the hero, unlocking the hero at level 1 to play. There will be both common and rare hero tokens, meaning you may have to do some heavy grinding to get that rare Spider-Man drop (yes, it was confirmed that Spider-Man is a rare drop).

So where do the micro-transactions come in, you ask? Well, if you kill that boss 20 times, and you're not getting the hero token drop you're looking for, you can go to the shop and buy a consumable item to increase your odds of getting a rare hero drop when you kill that boss the next time. Sounds a bit like gambling, doesn't it? I guess that's the nature of ARPGs. One of the biggest pulls of ARPG games is the satisfaction that one feels when finding a rare, legendary item, so it makes sense to take hero acquisition for a F2P game in that direction.

It's hard to say how this is going to work out, there are a ton of factors to take into consideration. I, for one, am intrigued. I think it's a cool idea, and I'm excited to see how it will work.

End Game

Outside of these topics, the only thing that really caught my interest was Gazillion's plan for endgame content. From what it sounds like, there will be artifacts to collect, items to craft, team challenges and a special "Quest for Ultimate Power".

The team challenges will involve specific quests that will require team cooperation to complete and will have rare gear and hero rewards. Thanks to an excellent Q&A question, we found out that there will be an infrastructure in-game to help people find groups to play with for these challenges, which I was happy to hear.

It sounded like most of the remainder of the endgame (excluding PvP) will be spent attaining your "ultimate power". To do this, you will have to find more hero tokens for the hero you are playing with. Each additional hero token (of the same hero) you find will add to your ultimate power. Brevik specifically mentioned that your ultimate power will be vital to surviving the endgame content, so expect to do some grinding for those hero tokens!

Release Plans

Lastly, the release dates! We were finally told what we'd been waiting so long to hear, and I was glad to hear that it's not too far off!

Early Access

5/28/13

Full Release

6/4/13

Conclusion

And with that, Day 1 at the convention was complete. I spent the rest of the evening drinking with Co-founder of Bootsnake Games, Dru Staltman and the GWJ (GamersWithJobs.com) crew! I'll conclude this post with a small plug for these guys because they're awesome!

Check out Bootsnake Games and pick up Containment - A Zombie Puzzler, it's a lot of fun. Also, the new turn-based-rpg they're working on now looks great! I'll talk more about that in the Day 2 post.

Bootsnake Games

GamersWithJobs.com not only has an active, friendly gaming community to chat with on forums and in-game, they have one of the best gaming podcasts available right now, it's my personal favorite.

GamersWithJobs

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