I didn't enforce at PAX this year, and only ended up buying a Saturday pass. I feel like three days is far too much for me for one weekend, on top of working full-time. I also feel a bit like there isn't that much for me at PAX that I can't do anywhere else. I had two tasks that I wanted to accomplish: get an FFXIV T-shirt for someone, and find a board game to play with Jal.
First stop was the Make A Strip panel.
Some lovely Enforcer art:
I'm not sure what happened to Mike, but it was Jerry with Kris Straub drawing.
I hadn't been to one of these before, as I'm usually on morning shift as an Enforcer, but it seems to involve Kris (or Mike if he's there), drawing a Penny Arcade strip, while Jerry answers questions that had been submitted earlier from fans. A few of the questions were along the lines of, "Have you heard of
One of the questions Jerry was asked was why he bought a bunch of Nintendo Switches for his staff members before buying one for himself. I really liked his answer: he said he did it because he wanted to work for a place where the boss did things like that, so that's what he decided to do.
Another question I'm surprised he answered was someone asked Mike what Jerry's shatterpoint is, and Jerry answered on his behalf, saying he thought he knew what Mike thought Jerry's shatterpoint would be. Nerd side note: they're referring to Mace Windu's speciality, which is the ability to pinpoint shatterpoints - the point at which a person or event breaks. He said that Mike (who draws the comics) would probably think that Jerry would be sensitive about the idea that he's simply riding on the coattails of Mike's success. Jerry laughed at the idea, because if it were true, it would mean that Mike is the stupid one, since he could be making twice the amount of money for the work that he does, and Jerry would have a pretty sweet life.
He also mentioned how he often gets asked whether PAX Aus would continue. It's question that came up in the Enforcer Q&A with Robert Khoo after the second PAX. He said that people kept coming up to him and asking whether PAX Aus would continue. He responded that when PAX set up somewhere, it was there to stay. I guess in Australia, we're used to having games say they'll set up Australian servers, and then when they're less popular, take them away so we always live with the fear that this awesome thing we have will be taken away someday.
I also filmed Jerry miming his favourite poem: https://youtu.be/DMpVWD_21bk (sorry for the shaky video)
I think he said it was called Feelings First, and the closest thing I could find was this poem by E.E Cummings: Since Feeling is First, which doesn't quite match up with what he mimed.
The final comic looked incredible. Sorry for my potato phone quality photo, but I'm sure the real comic will be up on their site eventually.
We saw some cool Dota 2 cosplayers, including someone cosplaying KotL! :D
(from left: Axe, KotL, Dazzle, Death Prophet)
The line for the FFXIV T-shirt was longer than I expected. To win a T-shirt, you join a raid group of 8 people and have to defeat an event boss. Saturday's boss was Lakshmi. The line was pretty long... I was in queue for 2 hours before I got to play. As I approached the front of the queue, there was someone asking whether people had played before, and which role they would like to play. Finding a tank was hard, so the guy had to keep going down the queue until he found a tank, who was brought to the front.
The boss fight was pretty cool, though our black mage walked off the edge of the platform and died at the start for some reason, so we didn't have the best start. But the rest of the fight was pretty easy - especially as our entire party had experienced players (it was open to new players, too, and they had some people to help you play). I died at the end to meteor, but the boss was on less than 5% HP by then, so it was an easy win.
Once you're done, you get a token which lets you collect a T-shirt.
We checked out the indie showcase, and I noted a few games that I want to try. I also set myself a new task: I was going to practice the moustache compliment skill!
After that, it was time to find a board game for Jal. I needed something that could be played during our lunch break, and his requirements were a game where you can screw other people over, and ideally involves combat. It was tougher than I thought, but in the end, I settled on Small World.
I also tried out a new game to help practice my Dota 2 carry skills.
The last panel the indie showcase panel, and it's amazing how many cool games are being developed right here in Australia (a couple were from NZ). There was this interesting shadow puppet game, where you control a light source and can use it to create platforms to get through the levels. But honestly, who am I kidding? I'm probably just going to go back to Dota 2. Oh, but there is an expansion for Orwell coming out, so that's pretty exciting.
As for the moustache compliments, we saw a guy cosplaying Bob from Bob's Burgers, and he had a cool moustache. I was going to compliment him, but he was walking away, so I started following him. But he had a friend with him, so I didn't get the chance to compliment him on his own, so redbeanpork told me that wasn't the right time to practice. While we were looking at board games, there was another guy with a cool moustache, and a girl walked up to him and complimented it. Just like that. I wanted to try it, too. but it would be too weird doing it immediately after someone else had just done it. We passed Bob again, and I was working up the courage to approach him when another girl showed up. It looked like she was his girlfriend, so it was a good thing that I chickened out. Time was running out, and as we were walking to the last panel, I saw a guy on his own with a moustache. It wasn't as great as all the others, but it was still pretty nice. I walked up to him. I didn't even have time to get worried, because we had a panel to get to, and I was running out of time to achieve my goal.
Me: Hi, I just wanted to say that I think you have a nice moustache.I did it!
Him: Thank you very much.
Me: You're welcome.
*runs away*
It's weird, even though I didn't have an enforcing shift, the day felt really short. I think one day was enough for me though. That being said, the hoodies sold out really quickly, which redbeanpork was sad about. If we were going to go again, maybe we'll do Friday instead, so we have the weekend to recover.
I'm also losing my voice. Probably from all the shouting in the expo hall.
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