[12:10] PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Welcome everyone!
[12:11] PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): We have the English-language Guild Wars Community Manager with us today!
[12:11] PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): everyone give Regina a big WELCOME and THANKS for coming to chat with us today! ^^
[12:12] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): Hi everyone. Sorry I am late. A Guild Wars fan asked me to sign her trousers! O_o
[12:20] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): I'm back!
[12:20] PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): YAY! Welce Regina!
[12:20] PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Welcome*
[12:22] PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): For those of you don't know, Regina was our USA Community Manager at Xfire before she moved to Seattle. We MISS you, Regina!! ^^
[12:22] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): Question: Do you personally play Guild Wars and if so, what is your character? If not then do you wish that you played?
I do personally play Guild Wars. I have multiple characters on my personal account: Necro, Paragon, Warrior, Mesmer, ... I have a Mesmer on my work account.
[12:24] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): RX-Rose (irosei): Question: Is there going to be more content for pre-searing?
We have no plans for additional content for Pre-Searing at this time.
[12:25] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): Nightmare (nightmaric): Question: Can you give us a hint on when the Guild Wars 2 beta will start, and what the requirments to play will be?
When we are ready to release information, you will be able to find it on our official website.
[12:26] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): DacrioS.PSombra (dacrios): QUESTION: Will be anything added to GW on september? (not M.O.X., i mean something more)
MOX is the main thing planned for September, apart from the regular skill balances and bug fixes
[12:26] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): Riobux (lostchances): Question: Do you plan to shut down the servers for GW1 soon after GW2 is released?
No. We will continue to support GW1.
[12:27] [ArenaNet] Brinstar (brin5t4r): _woLf (starwolfdx): Question: Are the Hall...

PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Ok, so, here comes Jonathan Coulton
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Welcome Mr. Coulton!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): The Concert last night was awesome! Wish you guys could have been here!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): PHrag (snakesbodyguard): Question: Will be there Still Alive song from portal on Guitar Hero: World Tour as DLC? Please, add it...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): PHrag (snakesbodyguard): Question: Will be there Still Alive song from portal on Guitar Hero: World Tour as DLC? Please, add it...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Sorry about the delay guys -- we have a French laptop her out Frence and JoCo is taking it all in stride as he figures out the foreign keybard. ^^
JoCo (incolas): You may be surprised to hear that I'm not the boss of Guitar Hero. I'd be thrilled for something like that, but i'm not sure if anything like that is in the works. I can tell you though that skullcrusher mountain is coming out in rockband...
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): (NSE)Cmdr.Sonic (sonicjon): Question: Is it funny listening to your song every time it plays on G4's Codemonkey?
JoCo (incolas): It's always incredibly weird to hear my music played anywhere other than in my own head. And when it's on television or radio it is kind of crazy.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): [vG]Mike_Mullen (mikevg3): Whats was the name of your first song?
JoCo (incolas): The first song I ever wrote was called Skylight (I think) and it was a very sad song about being sad. Something about foggy gray days and sadness. Very sad. I think also a lot of big words and pretentious jazz chords.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): ShadowJ (sh4dowj): Question: How did you find moving from one career to another and was it always an ambition to become a musician?
JoCo (incolas): It was always part of the plan I think, I used to talk about moving to nyc and becoming a rock star. Just forgot to get around to it for several years, and got a decent day job by mistake that turned into a career. And making the switch was pretty...

PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Ok, guys, heres Dan Teasdale, the lead developer of Rock Band 2
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): How many songs do you plan to release?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): There are 84 songs on disc, plus 20 available for free right away online, but with all the RB content and the stuff available online, there will be about 500 songs
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Whats changed the most?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): This is about perfeecting the experience, taken suggestions from Rock Band.com, plus taken on new modes for the world tour.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Are you going to have full albums coming out?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): There will be 6.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): What album do you like?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): I think Color and the Shapes by Foo Fighters, but also we have Megadeth, No Doubt, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Are the drums better than the first, that will allow people to rock out hard?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Yes and Yes.
<Josh (springz) (Peon (Mute)) has entered the room>
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): much quieter new pads and metal foot pads, so these things are boing to better and quieter. If you can break these, you should see a doctor.
<Josh (springz) has left the room>
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Linkin Park?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Its on the disc.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Any rainbows?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): if you want In Rainbows, go to rockband.com, we really read all the suggestions
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Why go more realistic than Guitar Hero?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): We at Harmonix are all musicians first, so joing MTV gave us the chance to make the game that we've always wanted, whats its like when were on stage.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Are you happy with the huge success of Rock Band at Pax (look for video and shots at the Xfire Blog)
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): We Love PAX! The fan support is amazing
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): What do...

[Xfire] Sdaria and [Xfire] Artaxs with Jonathon Coulton after his chat.



[Xfire] Artaxs basks in the glory of his favorite webcomic hero, Jerry Holkins.



[Xfire] Incolas shoots Master Chief



[Xfire] Matthew wins Second Place in the Carcassonne Tournament! Skillz!



[Xfire] Danthony...iphones! He's loading a picture of Darth Vader

PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Okay guys, I'm going to run and see if i can find The Duke, or Maybe someone from Ubisoft. Either way, If you don't hear from me in the next 30 minutes, assume that I've been killed and another Pax Chats will arise in my place to run the chat with Turbine in 1 hr 20 mins.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): I found the duke!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Yay!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Start asking your questions
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): we're headed to a room with better wireless
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): He doesn't have much time so start asking now1
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Okay we're back here in the Press Room the with the Duke of (I can do this) Pennekoekan ( I was close!0...Pannekoeken
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): ShadowJ (sh4dowj): Question: Why are you named "The Duke"?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Basically my family comes from belgium and we have a plot of land cally the Dutchy of candied Apples and many years late during a violent battl emy families land was overrun by the dutchy of pennekoeken, and they needed me to be the the figure head for the family. It was very complicated There are alot of EU politics and fighting and you would never have heard of it because it never happened. In my brain it happened so..
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): -=&#125;F-||-R&#123;=-Big J (jlp11: question:how mutch money have u made from rockband and guitar hero
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): How much money? Well. that's a weird question. Money from game companies, or money selling CDs. Usually putting a song in a game you can make a couple of thousand dollars but we didn't make any money putting our song in rock band or guitar hero, actually, but we did get some money from DS. But we generally give it out for free for the exposure. It does help us sell concert tickets and CDs later on.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats):
ShadowJ (sh4dowj): Question: How was Freezepop formed and where did the name come from?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Formed in the summer of 99 and i...

PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): ???? (smdhell): What is your best moment in gaming?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): I think probably our most auspicious moment was when we first sponspored to do a $100000 gaming event. We did CPL 2001 event where 100000 prize money for quake 3 and that was pretty major. Pretty significant. I think we've had alont of nice moments. IN terms of accolades from our customrs over many of our products and media response often has been good. it's hard to pick a moment for a company that's been around 10 years. One offline that is pretty fun, but I can't tell it "live". The whole 10 years has been a really fun ride and I hope the next 10 years will be as much fun.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Unfortunately Robert Krakoff had to run, and we're late for Freezepop! We'll have to run! We might have to reschedule Freezepop. Don't kill us!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): It seems that The Duke from Freezepop who we were supposed to interview has disappeared.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): I know. I know. I'm disappointed to. I'm going to try to find him somewhere, but with the wireless being what it is, I can't promise anything. I'm sorry to disappoint you all.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): We will definitely be back at 6 for the chat with turbine.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): 6:00pm PDT
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): It's 4:35 here now

Hey Everyone, These transcripts are going to be really ugly. But we'll fix them when we're back in the office, later. ^^ So much gaming...so little time.

RAZER:

PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): HI Everyone! Welcome to the answer room!
<[Xfire-TTHS] Paddy (ragdollsuk) has left the room>
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): You're silent on purpose!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): We have here with us Robert Krakoff, the President of Razer
<AOD# Max (southbunkermax) has left the room>
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): You've been asking your questions and now he can answer them!
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): First Question: As the President of Razer do you find it difficult to attend large conventions like Pax? Or do you enjoy being around the users?
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): I love being around the users. I made a concious decision 11 years ago, I wanted outside invasion. I wanted to touch and feel the user and be in their environment. I also wanted to give back to the community and not just take and take. Alot of companies are here for the money. For me, the money is great, but I want to give back to the users who support us
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): Omer (omer200: Question : What kind of things will you make when virtual reality or a new "dimension" of gaming comes out.
PAX CHAT LEADER (paxchats): It depends on what the game developers want. They pretty much dictate what the hardware will be by what they dream up. It depends on Artifical Intelligence or the power or the pc (or whatever the platform may be). and we'll adapt to what those are. It might be conceivably something that's affixed to your body, or even inserted into your skin. it might be attached from a display standpoint to your visual cortices and from a sound standpoint from your audio cortices. It all depends on what the needs are. In gamer interaction how is it developed/controlled/interfaced and it's highly possibly that Razer will be into that. Right now we're highly peripheral. We deal with traditional hardware...

AMAZING!


Jonathon Coulton and Felicia Day (star of Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog) singing Still Alive from Portal!


Crowd doing Zombie Hands in the Jonathon Coulton song "re: your brains"

The One Ups were really really good. The jazz vibes, multiple instruments, live game play that always ended in death. It was just really really good. I have heard a whole lot of their music, but there really isn't anything like seeing them live. I suggest you guys at least try to check out some of their live shows on youtube.

Also we had Mustin from The One Ups here for chat! I'll be posting that transcript up here in the blog soon, so keep watching.

Following them was Freezepop. The synth pop sounds could be heard from various points of the building. At that point my feet hurt so much from my first day at PAX, I wanted to collapse, but it was worth it! The Duke (also a chat by him, transcript coming soon!) sang in some of these songs, something that fans probably weren't used to. They were really cool.

Last but definitely not least was Jonathon Coulton. After 3 hours of sleep and being on my feet for 16 hours, it was WELL WORTH staying up rocking out to this amazing musician. He came out for first AND second encores, and everyone was enraptured. He clearly had a very loyal fan base, and I honestly think his creativity has no bounds. Pictures above!

PAX is..well..the long and short of it, really hectic.

The chats have been amazing, the booths have been intricate, and the wireless has been shoddy at best.

This place is packed! I tried to update yesterday but couldn't get online. After trying several times from the floor, I just gave up, and tried to make my way through the myriad of gamers.

I was so overwhelmed by the crowd, I just shrank onto a pile of beanbags at a nearby booth clutching my swag bag anxiously.

Alright. I'm off to eat the burrito I waited 45 minutes for. Soon to come: Transcripts from the first chats, pictures from the floor, more tales of our experiences.

-- [Xfire] Sdaria