Best Of

I was at the Fest for the entire weekend, and I’m sorry the OP had the experience he did. All I can do is give my own impressions, which are that there was so much happening so much of the time, I can understand if he felt like he was being ignored, because if you were not proactive in trying to engage with people they were not always going to do the same, simply from sheer overload.

I personally chatted with 40 or 50 people over the weekend, between the fest and the extracurricular activities. I had to initiate many if not most of those conversations because however well known anyone thinks I am, no one actually knows what I look like unless they’ve already met me, since I do not have a YouTube channel or other such visual presence. If you stood there and waited for them to approach you, likely most people - attendees and staff - would not specifically engage with you, probably thinking you were taking a break or something. Unless they already knew you.

I personally saw Dave and Mike stop and shake hands with many many many many people throughout the fest, basically anyone who stopped them and held out their hands and say hi. Not just content creators, but just every day players, as did many of the devs. In an event like this, there are bound to be interactions that don’t go smoothly. Sometimes I waited to talk to someone I specifically recognized but because they did not see me and were focused on someone else, they left before I could catch their attention. I’m pretty sure I eventually got to most of them, but in my opinion if anyone there thought they would not have to be the one to reach out and make the effort to connect first, and everyone else should be out looking for people who might want to chat, I think that’s asking for too much. The environment - like every convention I’ve ever been to - is just not conducive to that kind of thing.

Incidentally, those steps to and from the Brawl stage? Yeah when I was going up and down those I was focused on the steps. If anyone was trying to catch my eye while I was going up and down those, I almost certainly missed it, even if it might have appeared like my gaze passed in your direction. Between the lights and the music and the smoke machine and the conversations going on around and my desire to not tumble down the stadium seating like an idiot, combined with the fact I was generally operating on just a few hours of sleep at the time, I could have passed my wife going the other way and not noticed.

If I accidentally failed to chat with someone who was trying to get my attention, and I don’t know how that could happen because I was just an anonymous floppy hat in the crowd, I’m sorry for that. But I did my best, and I’m sure the staff there did as well. But in that kind of environment, you have to be proactive. Not just proactive, but persistent. At any moment in time the dev/attendee ratio was 30 to one or more, and most of them were running back and forth between tasks they had to do.

To the OP, if you’re still reading. I spent about half my time at the actual Fest just hanging out, especially Saturday. I was hanging out at the Beat the Boss area, I spent a little time at the Wheel, I was down by the Coloseum and Dazzler stations for a while. I was willing to talk to anyone who approached me. If you had tapped me on the shoulder and said hi, I would have chatted with you about anything you wanted for as long as you wanted. And then probably continued chatting long past the point you wanted. I’m sorry we didn’t specifically cross paths.

If you walk into a restaurant, you sit down and before you even say anything, you smile at the waiter and they have a disgusting look on their face what do you do? Come on

Furthermore, have you seen how DLL treats people when they give any sort of criticism on his spotlight videos? Lol if you need a refresher go read his comment section real quick.

I can understand being excited because of all the stuff that Kabam announced but let's not downplay the experiences from people who were actually there. He paid for the ticket, a hotel, probably a plane ticket as well, he was there and you weren't. If this was his experience and it made them quit the game then it's probably true.

I personally feel like their CEO is full of it too. He says they are listening yet nothing about AI has been addressed in who knows how long.

Being worked on now, it takes a pretty long time to download and set up 8+ hours of video for 24/7 restreaming - I'll send a poke out when it's up and ready

It's going to be looping until Friday once it's up

I am leaving this post as it will descend into forum stupidity.

I have messaged the CEO and head of Marketing. It was not about anything more than politeness.

Late in the day I was walking down the stairs from the Beat the Boss. Dave was walking a few meters ahead. I smiled and nodded politely. He immediately averted his gaze and rushed off. It was a friendly smile and nod. Who in the world can't reciprocate that.

That was it for me. If people at Kabam want to talk, they know how to reach me.

Sorry to hear you didn't have a good experience. Over the weekend I shared a handshake and thanked many dozens of people, but with over 200 people in attendance it wasn't possible to talk to everybody. On Sunday I actually spent an hour walking around deliberately trying to find someone having and bad time and I failed. I guess by that point you had already left, and I'm sorry to have missed you.

I will also say, Mike and Dave worked tirelessly to make this event happen. I'm pretty sure Mike worked so much that he literally didn't even go back to his hotel some nights last week. It was an enormous lift to put on the show they did, and I promise you if you felt dismissed it wasn't because they intended that and likely they had the production team yelling in their earpiece telling them they needed to be somewhere or do something.

I attempted to say hello to many. The looks I got made it clear they were not there to interact with me. I smiled at many. Would have been very happy with a polite smile back.

It was the very least they failed at. A polite smile.

sorry to read that @Freskin . Sending you and your son a big virtual hug from Oz. I am one of those people that will say hi to strangers and start a conversation but even my family gets embarrassed by me. The gaming community is mostly introverts and coupled with the stress of running the event, I can imagine they are also under the pump. Hope you can forgive them in time.

Take care, stay safe and hope you at least check in with the community every so often.