The BioWare Community Team Visits PAX and X07

By Evil Chris Priestly

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip." – Gilligan's Island

It was a sunny day in late August when the BioWare Community Team, Jay Watamaniuk and I, Evil Chris Priestly, set forth from BioWare's Edmonton headquarters bound for the Penny Arcade Exposition in Seattle Washington and X07 in Toronto Ontario. Armed with a camera, a digital audio recorder, copious amounts of deodorant, and a couple of Xbox 360s with the latest build of Mass Effect, we set off for the first of a series of arduous tasks and public appearances by the Community Team as we bring the BioWare coolness to the public. This is our tale...

Does that sound epic or what? Now let us fill you in on our trips to PAX and X07.

Jay (Community Manager) and I (Community Coordinator) have wanted to get out and meet the people who buy our games, but we haven't had a good opportunity until this trip. Fortunately for us, PAX and X07 happened to be at a time where Mass Effect was nearing completion, and was at a point the Dev team was confidant we could show it off to the public. Since all the stars seemed to be in alignment for the trip, we made all the arrangements and prepared to take Mass Effect to Seattle for the Penny Arcade Exposition and then to Toronto for X07.

PAX (the Penny Arcade Exposition) is a conference started by Gabe and Tycho of the web comic Penny Arcade. Unlike most video game conferences, PAX isn't run by publishers or mega-corporations. Instead, it started off as a place where gamers could get together and play games, whether they were video games, collectable card games, board games, or whatever.

PAX has steadily been growing in size and we felt it was a great opportunity for us to take Mass Effect to what could be a large group of potential Mass Effect fans in one place. Realizing at the outset we were getting in over our heads, we drafted the lovely and talented Kim Hansen, who is the Mass Effect Technical QA Lead, to come with us to do the driving of the Mass Effect demo, and to ensure we don't make a mess of the game.

Jay and I flew out of Edmonton the morning of August 24 without Kim, who was driving some friends down to the conference and would meet us there. We did meet up with Jason Booth who is a Senior Technical Designer on Mass Effect and was also on his way to PAX. For the trip we were equipped with some extra special luggage items as we had 2 Xbox Demo Kits that were equipped with the current build of Mass Effect. Although I had no trouble with mine, the security people at US Customs took a close look at Jay and his kit as we passed through Vancouver. I blame this on a heightened sense of precaution during air travel and because Jay looks like some sort of shifty smuggler.

None of us had been to Seattle before, and since the set up for PAX didn't happen till the next day and Kim wouldn't be arriving till later that evening, we checked into our hotels and decided to see the sights. We took the Seattle monorail (singing the Simpsons' monorail song as we went) to the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame and the Experience Music Project. None of us were huge music fans, but we enjoyed our tour through the EMP looking at impressive displays about the Seattle music scene, the hall of guitar history, and a fun display about the music of Walt Disney.

Even though the EMP was cool, the purpose of our trip was to visit the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and man, was it worth it. If you live near Seattle, or if you ever visit, I strongly recommend it for anyone who is a fan of Sci-Fi movies, TV, books, or magazines. The place is full of costumes and props from famous movies and shows, as well as displays, videos, and educational information about Science Fiction. Jay, Jason, and I were squealing like giddy school kids as we encountered more and more coolness at every turn. We weren't able to take pictures in EMP or the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame, but you can check out our impressions of what we were seeing as we recorded them on our podcast recorder as we walked through. Check it out.

After finishing up at the Hall of Fame, we headed off for some dinner and retired for the night to be refreshed for our first full day of PAX.

We met up with Kim and Jason the next morning and had a little time to kill before setup for PAX began, so we walked down to the Pike Place market for some breakfast, shopping, and sight seeing. We also stopped in at the first Starbucks Coffee location, as Jay had wanted to go see if they had a special mug. However, we could have easily stopped in at any of the other Starbucks locations that seemed to be on every corner in Seattle. There was even one place where you could stand and see not less than seven Starbucks stores. That's a whole lot of coffee. We stopped back at the hotel to drop off our souvenirs and grab our Demo kits, and then headed off for our first day of PAX.

We didn't know what to expect since this was the first PAX for myself and Jay (although Kim was a regular attendee and a bit of a local legend), but I can confidently say we had a great time. We met up with some of the folks from Microsoft whose booth we were sharing, and Jay and Kim started to practice their demo as I located our giveaway shirts and took pictures of things being setup.

Soon everything was ready and PAX opened its doors to the fans. We were very lucky the Microsoft booth was situated near the entrance to the demonstration hall, so we had a lot of people stop by the booth when they learned we were going to show a live demonstration of Mass Effect. We also were lucky Microsoft equipped our area with plenty of soft, comfy sofas for people to sit on, and a cool, life-size "Mr. Bubbles" from BioShock, so we were always a popular draw.

Soon it came time for our first demo and, in front of a huge crowd of Mass Effect fans, Jay and Kim did an excellent job. I was on hand to give a brief introduction as well as some Mass Effect t-shirts and tickets for a special draw. We had the Mass Effect dev team sign an Xbox 360 Elite kit and put one of the cool Mad Catz ME faceplates onto it. We gave that away as a random draw prize on the final day. So, we had a kick-butt demo, free t-shirts, and a chance to win a signed 360 Elite. This made us one of the most popular things to see at PAX, and each of our four demos the first day was jammed packed with fans.

Soon, Day One drew to a close for those of us in the demo hall. PAX continued on well into the night with rooms full of gamers playing their favorite games, a bring your own computer room networked together so people could compete in combat games against each other, and live bands that played on till the wee small hours. Our intrepid group was tired out from all the demoing and meetings with fans, so we left to find some dinner and headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest.

Day Two and Day Three continued in mostly the same fashion. I kept on handing out t-shirts and draw tickets while Jay and Kim continued to give great demonstrations of Mass Effect to packed crowds. On Day Two we had Tycho (Jerry to his friends) of Penny Arcade come by the booth to watch a demonstration. He and Gabe (Mike) are big BioWare fans and were looking forward to seeing more of Mass Effect. I have to say I think it is very cool that the guys who founded the con, and are famous in their own right, walked around the show, met their fans, and attended demonstrations and stuff. It's something that sets PAX apart from other cons I've visited.

Our demonstrations were a little more spread out on Days Two and Three, so we had some opportunity to get out and see the rest of the goings-on at PAX. If you're a gamer (and if you're reading this I assume you are) I strongly recommend attending PAX. There is so much to see and do while you're there that you need the full 3 days to try to take in as much as possible. We saw excellent demonstrations from other game companies, awesome presentations by guest speakers and Gabe & Tycho, and got to get our hands on excellent schwag from merchants and vendors. Plus, on Day Three, Kim and I got to meet PAX's keynote speaker, Wil Wheaton. Wil, from TV's Star Trek the Next Generation among other things, is a nice guy and seemed to be enjoying his visit to PAX. He was there every day and signed a ton of autographs. He was a lot of fun to talk to and I got the name of his agent in case we can use him in a future game.

Far too soon it was time for our last demonstration and the end of PAX. However, even though it was the last demo, we ended with a bang as after the last demo was over, we held the draw for the Xbox 360 Elite signed by the Mass Effect team. The crowd soon overflowed the space we had in our area, as we had given away close to 1000 tickets for a chance to win. With everyone clutching their tickets we drew the winning number, and Brian Webb ended up as our lucky winner.

With our last demo complete and the 360 Elite given away it was time for us to draw PAX to a close. For our final night in Seattle, we had a farewell dinner with some folks from Microsoft and Eidos at a local Steakhouse. We had a great dinner with good food and drink as well as lots of swapping stories between the three companies. However, as cool as the dinner was, the coolest thing occurred as we were leaving the restaurant. As we get near the doors Jay taps me on the shoulder just as I start to notice, what for me as a film geek was a very distinctive voice, and we look up to see comedy legend Mel Brooks. He was in town for the start of a new musical version of Young Frankenstein he was opening, and he was surprisingly welcoming to a group of slightly inebriated fanbois and fangirls. He signed autographs for us and gave Kim a peck on the cheek. Overall, it was a cool way to wrap up our Seattle visit. The next morning we all went our separate ways. Kim was staying for a day extra in Seattle to meet with Microsoft about Mass Effect, Jay was heading back to Edmonton, and I was flying off to Toronto for the next stage of my trip - X07.

Traveling from Seattle to Toronto went off without any security concerns or travel troubles. I always say that if you listen to instructions and are as obliging and friendly as possible, things will go smoothly, and it certainly worked this time despite my backpack full of technology. I arrived in Toronto, taxied to my hotel, checked in, and after a short dinner, went to bed so I would be awake and ready for the next day.

I have to say I was a little nervous going to X07. PAX was great fun, but I always had Jay and Kim on hand to rely on and it was large group of demonstrations to many potential fans. I would be flying solo and giving small, "behind closed door" demonstrations to select members of the press and media. Still, I was able to rely on having an excellent game to show, so I was pretty confident I would do O.K. The next morning I taxied to the show and started to setup. X07 was taking place in a fabulous restaurant that had been converted for the show. I was setup in a small private area in the basement along with Assassin's Creed, Lost Odyssey, and the Halo 3 Single Player game.

After a few moments of walking around and checking out the other demos and such, including my new Eidos friends from Kane and Lynch that I had dinner with the night before, they opened the doors and the press came in for their demos. For a few hours things were going well. The Mass Effect demo was a hit with the press, and I was having a good time interacting with them as they asked questions and took in the demo. Everything was going well until...BLACKOUT!

Yep, all of the power totally cut out. No lights, no demos, nothing. We all sat there stunned for a second and then joked with each other that someone had plugged in one camera too many. However, after waiting for 15 minutes, the power didn't come back on. Eventually, one of the organizers came around and apologized as a Toronto driver had hit a telephone pole, which had destroyed the transformer for the area, so the whole city block was without power. We continued to do the best we could and I hung around to answer questions and do some interviews.

It actually ended up being kind of fun walking around a blacked out restaurant occasionally conducting interviews by candle light. Microsoft did the best they could and brought in an emergency generator, but there just wasn't enough power to reach us in the basement. In the end, I headed back to Edmonton a little disappointed that we didn't get to show off Mass Effect as much as I wanted but still with some great stories to share and fun times with the other folks from "X07 Blackout."