Travel problems aside, the Montreal conference was great. The focus was on games and storytelling. To be honest, it's not the approach I would have taken, mostly because it's an approach that seems to be taken so often. But what marked this conference was the way it went about the discussion. Essentially, each panel focused one on four games: Assassin's Creed, The Graveyard, Mass Effect II, and Amnesia: The Descent, with David Cage as a keynote speaker to talk about Heavy Rain. Each panel had two academics, but also someone from the game industry who worked on the game's story. That meant we had writers from Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect II, Thomas Grip from Frictional Games, and Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn from Tale of Tales. And registration was open, for the first 250 people who registered, which meant a lot of those in attendance were from the fan side of things. In other words, we had an extremely diverse group of people talking together. That kind of opportunity is valuable, I think.
In terms of the papers, they were all reasonably good. The fan-oriented questions were a little eye-rolling, especially since many of them asked questions that weren't strictly relevant to the proceedings or basically repeated what someone else already said (ex, Assassin's Creed: How do you balance the Desmond story sequences? followed by Why is Desmond so bland?), and I think even David Cage was a little embarrassed by the number of questions that started "thank you for making this game." But the scholarly discussion was top notch. Certain moments were a little embarrassing for me, personally, on account of my mono-linguist skills; some presentations were in French and the translator occasionally gave up entirely, which left me a little in the dark. I suppose my favorite papers were the ones on spatial exploration in Assassin's Creed, and the visceral elements of horror in Amnesia.
What I really got out of the conference, though, was a chance to meet and talk to some of the big scholars in the field. Admittedly, I'm not the most outgoing person at a conference; it takes some time for me to get comfortable with everyone. But this time around, I met a few people, and made some connections--largely thanks to my supervisor's prodding, I'll admit. To break into self-indulgent bragging, I personally met Bart Simon (director of TAG), Brian Greenspan (director of the Carleton Hyperlab), Nick Montfort ("Twisty Little Passages," "Chasing the Beam"), Mia Consalvo (whom I've discussed previously here), and Bernard Perron ("Horror video games: essays on the fusion of fear and play.") I particularly fear I came off as a babbling idiot to Consalvo, considering that my self-introduction included the phrase "I'm probably going to sound like a babbling idiot." As far as my list of "Gaming Scholars I Must Meet," after I saw Bogost at the 2009 SLSA, the big names left now are Mark J. P. Wolfe and Jesper Juul.
But more than just establishing basic connections (and I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I really developed anything beyond that), the sessions, especially those on the second day, granted some opportunities to really get deep into some game talk with people who know what they're talking about. A chance to talk about Dead Rising with Bernard Perron, who is generally regarded as THE expert on horror video games, for example, was an incredibly useful opportunity for me. And the indie developers, from Frictional Games and Tale of Tales, were extremely forthcoming in their views on what stories in games can and should be.
So to sum up the entire less-than-48-hours actually in Montreal trip: traveling sucks. But meeting people and ideas is worth it.
I would like to point out that this is the first time in ages I've actually finished one of these "trip series." Doing them all at once seems to help.
Next post: something special to celebrate a momentous occasion.
Later Days.
Showing posts with label montreal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label montreal. Show all posts
Monday, October 3, 2011
Montreal Conference Part I: Never Leave Home Without It. Or just never leave home.
After some internal debate, I've decided to break the post into two parts. One concerning the travel, one concerning the conference. This is the travel one.
Remember when I said that hate traveling and get really paranoid about things going wrong? Well, it's not so much paranoia anymore when everything really does go wrong. The first big hurdle was my own fault. Due to the incredible levels of paranoia aforementioned, I got to the bus stop for the first leg of my trip three hours early. So I went to the coffee shop for a quick meal and a bit of reading time. A friend came in, and joined me. He asked what I was reading, and I replied that it was a book by Nick Montfort (Twisty Little Passages), and that he was one of the speakers at the conference. I went to pull out the program, when I realized that I didn't have it. Or my tickets. Or my paper. Or my map. Instead of any of that useful stuff, I had accidentally grabbed the wrong pile of papers from my office--I was going to the conference armed only with my professor's notes on my dissertation proposal. It has its own uses, but those tended not to apply to my current situation.
I quickly recounted my situation to my colleague, and he offered to drive me back to campus to retrieve my lost papers. (Imagine that scene with him being a lot more saint-like, and me being a lot more "crazy-panicked.") At the time, I couldn't remember whether my papers where in my office or at home, so he drove me to the office, with a promise to wait outside to see if he'd be needed to drive me home instead. I got to my office, and realized that I didn't actually have my keys with me, save my house key. Deciding that the beatified friend had done enough for my well-being, I lie through my teeth and tell him I have my papers. He drives away, and I take off running to the English department to beg the administrative assistant for the spare key. It's 4:30 on a Friday, so I catch her just as she's leaving. But catch her I do, and so I finally get back into my office and retrieve my missing papers. Then I catch a town bus back to the Greyhound bus terminal, and spend the next hour in the rain waiting for the bus. Fun.
I went over this in such great detail because it all hinged on so many different factors, any one of which could have spelled doom or averted everything. If only I had double-checked the papers, nothing would have happened. Counterwise, if that friend hadn't come in and asked about the book, I never would have noticed the papers missing. If he hadn't had a car, I would have been up the creak. If I had brought my keys, I wouldn't have had to rely on the slim chance that the administrator hadn't left yet. It's all a complex web of coincidences and random events. Remember when I said I practically live in a sitcom? This is why I say things like that.
I considered myself seven kinds of idiot for not backing up everything I needed. My friend took a more sympathetic view, pointing out that this sort of emergency was just the reason that I had shown up three hours early. History will tell who is right.
And my travel woes don't end there! My bus had connections at Toronto and Ottawa on the way to Montreal. About twenty minutes from the Ottawa terminal, the bus's transmission blows. The driver, not wanting to admit defeat, crawls at 10 k on the highway for a kilometer or two, before a passenger points out that he's endangering our lives. So he pulls over, and I have to split a cab with a guy who knew exactly where the bus terminal was (lucky) and a teenager who admitted upfront that he'd been drinking from a flask the last six hours, and he's really ready to party, man. (Less lucky). I get to the terminal just as the next bus is pulling out, and rush onto the bus. So it ended well enough, I guess, but it wasn't exactly a fun thing to add to a 9 hour bus trip.
And then I got to Montreal, at 4:30 am. I had 4 hours till the conference actually started. Not enough time to warrant getting a hotel room, too much time to do anything useful. All I had to do was get to the conference. And once again, I had reason to be grateful for extra, redundant time built into my schedule.
This is a map of the route from the Greyhound Terminal to the conference:
View Larger Map
It's a straight line. All I have to do is head south. So of course, I head north. Let this be a tip for would-be tourists: north of 505 Boulevard de Maisonneuve is not the most scenic area of Montreal. I stepped over two different hobos sleeping on the sidewalk, and walked very quickly by what looked like a pack of wild dogs. After I passed the third "massage parlor," I decided that discretion was the better part of getting the hell out of there, and fled south. Conference located almost immediately after.
Then, finally, going home, my train is delayed an hour because the signal relay had suffered water damage. At one point, we were slowly going backwards for about five straight minutes. They did a good job making up for lost time, but I'm still 20 minutes late for my connection. Luckily for me, the decision was made to hold my connection back until my train got there. (It is somewhat less lucky for anyone who was traveling from Toronto to Kitchener straight last night.) So one train trip/taxi ride later, I was home at 12 am.
Incidentally, the one part of my transportation that seemed to go smoothly was the cab transits. The cabbies were well-tipped for that distinction.
Moral of this story: I don't know. Plan ahead? Except I did plan ahead, which was why I was three hours early. So... plan ahead in different, better ways. Not that that helps with public transportation breakdowns. So I guess the moral is to take things in stride. I just wish it stopped feeling like I need to take things in sprint.
Later Days.
Remember when I said that hate traveling and get really paranoid about things going wrong? Well, it's not so much paranoia anymore when everything really does go wrong. The first big hurdle was my own fault. Due to the incredible levels of paranoia aforementioned, I got to the bus stop for the first leg of my trip three hours early. So I went to the coffee shop for a quick meal and a bit of reading time. A friend came in, and joined me. He asked what I was reading, and I replied that it was a book by Nick Montfort (Twisty Little Passages), and that he was one of the speakers at the conference. I went to pull out the program, when I realized that I didn't have it. Or my tickets. Or my paper. Or my map. Instead of any of that useful stuff, I had accidentally grabbed the wrong pile of papers from my office--I was going to the conference armed only with my professor's notes on my dissertation proposal. It has its own uses, but those tended not to apply to my current situation.
I quickly recounted my situation to my colleague, and he offered to drive me back to campus to retrieve my lost papers. (Imagine that scene with him being a lot more saint-like, and me being a lot more "crazy-panicked.") At the time, I couldn't remember whether my papers where in my office or at home, so he drove me to the office, with a promise to wait outside to see if he'd be needed to drive me home instead. I got to my office, and realized that I didn't actually have my keys with me, save my house key. Deciding that the beatified friend had done enough for my well-being, I lie through my teeth and tell him I have my papers. He drives away, and I take off running to the English department to beg the administrative assistant for the spare key. It's 4:30 on a Friday, so I catch her just as she's leaving. But catch her I do, and so I finally get back into my office and retrieve my missing papers. Then I catch a town bus back to the Greyhound bus terminal, and spend the next hour in the rain waiting for the bus. Fun.
I went over this in such great detail because it all hinged on so many different factors, any one of which could have spelled doom or averted everything. If only I had double-checked the papers, nothing would have happened. Counterwise, if that friend hadn't come in and asked about the book, I never would have noticed the papers missing. If he hadn't had a car, I would have been up the creak. If I had brought my keys, I wouldn't have had to rely on the slim chance that the administrator hadn't left yet. It's all a complex web of coincidences and random events. Remember when I said I practically live in a sitcom? This is why I say things like that.
I considered myself seven kinds of idiot for not backing up everything I needed. My friend took a more sympathetic view, pointing out that this sort of emergency was just the reason that I had shown up three hours early. History will tell who is right.
And my travel woes don't end there! My bus had connections at Toronto and Ottawa on the way to Montreal. About twenty minutes from the Ottawa terminal, the bus's transmission blows. The driver, not wanting to admit defeat, crawls at 10 k on the highway for a kilometer or two, before a passenger points out that he's endangering our lives. So he pulls over, and I have to split a cab with a guy who knew exactly where the bus terminal was (lucky) and a teenager who admitted upfront that he'd been drinking from a flask the last six hours, and he's really ready to party, man. (Less lucky). I get to the terminal just as the next bus is pulling out, and rush onto the bus. So it ended well enough, I guess, but it wasn't exactly a fun thing to add to a 9 hour bus trip.
And then I got to Montreal, at 4:30 am. I had 4 hours till the conference actually started. Not enough time to warrant getting a hotel room, too much time to do anything useful. All I had to do was get to the conference. And once again, I had reason to be grateful for extra, redundant time built into my schedule.
This is a map of the route from the Greyhound Terminal to the conference:
View Larger Map
It's a straight line. All I have to do is head south. So of course, I head north. Let this be a tip for would-be tourists: north of 505 Boulevard de Maisonneuve is not the most scenic area of Montreal. I stepped over two different hobos sleeping on the sidewalk, and walked very quickly by what looked like a pack of wild dogs. After I passed the third "massage parlor," I decided that discretion was the better part of getting the hell out of there, and fled south. Conference located almost immediately after.
Then, finally, going home, my train is delayed an hour because the signal relay had suffered water damage. At one point, we were slowly going backwards for about five straight minutes. They did a good job making up for lost time, but I'm still 20 minutes late for my connection. Luckily for me, the decision was made to hold my connection back until my train got there. (It is somewhat less lucky for anyone who was traveling from Toronto to Kitchener straight last night.) So one train trip/taxi ride later, I was home at 12 am.
Incidentally, the one part of my transportation that seemed to go smoothly was the cab transits. The cabbies were well-tipped for that distinction.
Moral of this story: I don't know. Plan ahead? Except I did plan ahead, which was why I was three hours early. So... plan ahead in different, better ways. Not that that helps with public transportation breakdowns. So I guess the moral is to take things in stride. I just wish it stopped feeling like I need to take things in sprint.
Later Days.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Travel Anxiety
I don't think I've mentioned this, but I've got a minor conference coming up this weekend in Montreal. I say minor in reference to my role in it--I'm giving a small 12 minute presentation during a roundtable session, on the subject of remediation in the video game Dead Rising (you remember Dead Rising? Of course you do. I couldn't work the insane 72 hour mode into the paper, but that's probably for the best.). The conference is on video games and story telling, and in terms of presence, it's got some heavy hitters, including lead people who worked on Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream), Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft), Mass Effect 2 (Bioware), The Graveyard (Tale of Tales) and Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games), and scholars such as Nick Montfort and Bernard Perron (in fact, about 70% of my secondary sources for the paper comes from a book Perron edited, so... no pressure).
At this point, I don't really have any anxiety about the conference itself; the speakers will be great, and I have enough confidence in my own abilities to be sure that I won't embarrass myself too badly. And in one of those serendipitous things, I've been reading Tom Bissell's Extra Lives, (more on that some other time), so I'll be in the right mindset for a lot of game/narrative discussion. What fills me with anticipatory dread is the commute. While I've got a travel scholarship (so it won't be a financial burden), the trip itself is almost guaranteed to be unpleasant. Here's a tip for aspiring scholars: in a semester where you teach on Fridays and Mondays, don't go to weekend conferences. Because of transport schedules and the restrictions caused by my class times, I've got to catch a Greyhound bus at 6:30 that arrives in Montreal at 5:00 am, the first day of the conference. Ugh. Then it's a 5:00 pm via rail trip back on Sunday, with an arrival time of midnight, with a morning class to teach the next day. The only good thing is that ridiculous schedule means that I only have
But really, I hate every step of it. I hate planning to get to the bus station. I hate having to make my transfer. I hate worrying about my luggage during the transfer. Which is only a problem on the way back, admittedly, but a pressing one. The train trip from Montreal to Toronto requires me to check my suitcase, but at Toronto, I have to carry the bag, and have 15 minutes to retrieve it before I'm scheduled to depart. Maybe I'll try to pack the smaller bag inside the suitcase, and claim it as my carry-on. Bringing the full suitcase for a weekend trip is admittedly ridiculous in any case; I really need some smaller luggage. Or maybe I'll try taking the book bag instead of the suitcase (immediate downside: not exactly the best way to transport clothing).
It's when I'm traveling that I reluctantly, very reluctantly, acknowledge that I could really, really use a smart phone, or at least a laptop, or SOMETHING that allows me to stay connected. So much of the information I need--my presentation, the colloquium schedule, the train and bus itinerary, map of route between hotel and university--could then be at my fingertips, as well as anything else I need to look up on the fly. Otherwise, everything has to be prepared ahead of time, and if I miss anything vital, I'm out of luck. Consequently, every time I travel, I feel like I've jumped into a swimming pool without bothering to check if anyone's filled it with water.
Anyway, expect a full report on my return. Which in my case means "write a series of posts on it that never quite gets finished."
Later Days.
At this point, I don't really have any anxiety about the conference itself; the speakers will be great, and I have enough confidence in my own abilities to be sure that I won't embarrass myself too badly. And in one of those serendipitous things, I've been reading Tom Bissell's Extra Lives, (more on that some other time), so I'll be in the right mindset for a lot of game/narrative discussion. What fills me with anticipatory dread is the commute. While I've got a travel scholarship (so it won't be a financial burden), the trip itself is almost guaranteed to be unpleasant. Here's a tip for aspiring scholars: in a semester where you teach on Fridays and Mondays, don't go to weekend conferences. Because of transport schedules and the restrictions caused by my class times, I've got to catch a Greyhound bus at 6:30 that arrives in Montreal at 5:00 am, the first day of the conference. Ugh. Then it's a 5:00 pm via rail trip back on Sunday, with an arrival time of midnight, with a morning class to teach the next day. The only good thing is that ridiculous schedule means that I only have
But really, I hate every step of it. I hate planning to get to the bus station. I hate having to make my transfer. I hate worrying about my luggage during the transfer. Which is only a problem on the way back, admittedly, but a pressing one. The train trip from Montreal to Toronto requires me to check my suitcase, but at Toronto, I have to carry the bag, and have 15 minutes to retrieve it before I'm scheduled to depart. Maybe I'll try to pack the smaller bag inside the suitcase, and claim it as my carry-on. Bringing the full suitcase for a weekend trip is admittedly ridiculous in any case; I really need some smaller luggage. Or maybe I'll try taking the book bag instead of the suitcase (immediate downside: not exactly the best way to transport clothing).
It's when I'm traveling that I reluctantly, very reluctantly, acknowledge that I could really, really use a smart phone, or at least a laptop, or SOMETHING that allows me to stay connected. So much of the information I need--my presentation, the colloquium schedule, the train and bus itinerary, map of route between hotel and university--could then be at my fingertips, as well as anything else I need to look up on the fly. Otherwise, everything has to be prepared ahead of time, and if I miss anything vital, I'm out of luck. Consequently, every time I travel, I feel like I've jumped into a swimming pool without bothering to check if anyone's filled it with water.
Anyway, expect a full report on my return. Which in my case means "write a series of posts on it that never quite gets finished."
Later Days.
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