Now that Scott mentions it, it just seems like a common trait for (most) GW employees to be apathetic, whether they be techs or cashiers; techs being apathetic is obvious, and then there's the true story I described in my post about the cashiers doing nothing about the vending machines eating my money.  Seems like they wouldn't care about people bringing in water or even any other non-alcoholic drink.

lol, when I worked downtown I would go to lunch somewhere and go play a few rounds of DDR before heading back to work. I almost ALWAYS had my drink cup from where I ate with me when I played and no one ever so much as even mentioned it to me, even when I stood there and had them put points on my card.

Technika2 was indeed pretty neato :]


On the note regarding water bottles.. I usually bring along a bag or my backpack to pack stuff in when I go play, like when I went this last Thursday I easily packed along a Gatorade & bottled water.
But even if you aren't able to bring along something & can't find the water fountain, I've been able to ask the guys at the bar for a couple glasses of water to bring over to the Supernova2 cab with me.

I can't find that vending machine either, not that I'd be willing to take my chances with it, and it was pretty expensive anyway.  IIRC a bottle of soda or water cost $2.00 there, which is not ridiculous compared to around $3.50 at sports stadiums and theme parks, but it only worked about 50% of the time, making the expected cost higher and the histogram of costs skewed right under the ridiculous assumption that people would keep trying until they got something.  And people at the latter kinds of places would probably at least refund you instead of telling you that "the machine does that" and doing nothing to either get the machine open or refund your money when the machine is right next to them and they probably saw you buy something.

What I usually do is run to that convenience store near the convention center, and drink what I buy there outside.

Yup! behind house of the dead 4 I think

Never tried bringing a water bottle, since one would never hold enough water to matter for me - I just know that they might (legally, they're supposed to: they serve alcohol, so they are supposed to keep you from bringing in anything, Acme's the same way).

I also knew about the drinking fountain upstairs, but I swear it's disappeared (or is behind a machine now) - I look for it each time I run to the bathroom, since it seems weird for it to just disappear (and it was right there, 2 feet from the door to the bathroom), but I haven't seen it the last several times I've looked.

There's a drinking fountain by the upstairs bathrooms.
Also they check for water bottles? I guess they never cared to notice for the 2 years I played DDR there heavily.

Gameworks, being a heavily corporate group, is probably not that likely to pursue a game that can only be bought used and was produced by a now-defunct company.  Regardless of the techs' opinions, usually someone higher up the chain will see that as too risky a purchase - they might have gone for a used cabinet if there was still some kind of support you could get from Roxor (they passed support onto some other company after they settled with Konami, and that company no longer exists).  Even if they got a machine despite the risks they see there, they definitely wouldn't allow nonstandard content, since hacking the machine would be seen as risky, plus most of the custom content out there is copyrighted (so USB customs would not be enabled) - being a subsidiary of a pretty large company, they're visible enough that they actually have to worry about lawsuits.

Fiesta EX would be more appealing to them, since it's legal and currently supported.  It would be more welcome to serious players, too, since even if players really wanted to see more ITG in the area, Gameworks would not be a good place for it.

Then again, even when their machines were consistently better, Gameworks was always a terrible place for serious play.  No outside drinks (not sure how much they enforce this rule for water bottles, but a bottle would last me no more than two or three sets), no drinking fountain (so even if you had a bottle, you can't refill it), and the vending machine (if they still have one) was always jammed - unless you're old enough to go up to the bar and wait for the half a dozen people in front of you, you can't get water.  Pump and ITG would be very impractical games - at least for me - under these conditions.

Final unlock code for X2 is out now...

http://www.bemanistyle.com/index.php/news/dance-dance-revolution-x2-max-unlock-code-unintentionally-released-2238

If someone could mention to the techs about the faulty cymbal on DM 10th Mix and also about turning up the volume up a bit on DM and GF the next time they are there, that would be great.

There are plenty of ITG cabs in the area already.  Fiesta EX, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found.

Well I had nice couple of chats with the lead tech Richard, and another cool one Ely. Long story short, they worked on the X2 pads a bit, and we got the 2nd unlock code on there! They're still bad but they ordered 32 new sensors for it, so hopefully it'll be playable for a little while after they install those. It's pretty much the fate of the Betson cab for DDRX and X2 though as theyre way worse and cheaper than the old cabinets.

In other news, the headphone jack was broken for a while in T2 but a new replacement mobo is on the way, and the Pop'n buttons are working great now. I'd like to see an ITG cab there someday too since the DDR presence is way over saturated there. If any of you guys feel this way too let em know! I think they'll seriously consider it there's enough demand for it, it could easily replace their SN1 since they have a good working SN2 there already IMO

Its good to know their lead tech and a couple other guys seem to genuinely care for people like us, and they deserve some credit considering all the other machines they have to maintain and fix as well. The story I got though is that some of the other techs are more lazy though, and probably the experience most of you all got when those guys work on pads and stuff there :/

It's tons of fun.

GameWorks.

Planning to go here tonight around 7pm with a friend or two.

Gotta see if Technika2 is any fun or not.

It's not the "ghetto" but it's close enough to the seedy areas around Pacific HW nearby that all  gangstas, "wangstas", etc./whatever  and other wastes of life come down from there from time to time to appease their boredom.   Granted I haven't seen any areas around Seattle that you would say are anywhere nearly as bad as those you can find in LA, Youngstown, Hunter's Point, etc. , but as far as Seattle goes that area down by Pacific is pretty seedy.

I just had a thought: Being a tech at GW$ must be the best job in the world.  You'd get paid to fart around and not fix things.

Acme isn't in the 'ghetto' it's actually in the rich part of Tukwila/Renton. Hence the super nice mall and surrounding commerce. Yes people get shot at that mall, but downtown Seattle probably isn't much less 'ghetto'.

Anyway I just wanted to say again, Gameworks sucks

what a damn shame.  and i'm actually gonna be in that area on monday and was gonna see if it was working. guess it's sn2 for me if i manage to find time to stop by.

The general consensus is that it's good for Technika but nothing else.  The last time I went about two months ago the pads on any DDR game were absolute poop and can only imagine they have gotten worse; I hear Pop 'n has sticky buttons too as usual.

The only redeeming factor about GW$ is its location (i.e. not in a ghetto), but even that has the drawback of having to pay pretty handsomely for parking, and the machines are nigh unplayable so it doesn't matter.

It's really sad, It seems some of the good techs have left or been fired, because everytime I do go I never see any of the good ones anymore. There were at least 3 from 2008 to early 2010 that would actually do their job when asked too. It's DDR Extreme stayed as good as it did for a period of time when they fixed it.

Haven't you guys figured out yet that Gameworks runs and maintains their arcade like absolute shit and will completely blow you off if you make an effort to get things fixed? Gameworks is just a bunch of greedy fucks who don't really care about their customers' satisfaction. Just make the extra little bit of commute to somewhere that actually works, and patronize arcades that actually care to listen to the players.

yeah x2 pads are so terrible now, 2P up arrow does double tap inputs, and its all horrible. Even when I see free credits on it I don't play it anymore unless I'm really bored. Pity you can't even input the code in, but that game still makes them money good pads or not

I actually didn't get to go last weekend. Had plans changed and such, so I'll have to check again for this Saturday. Hopefully the pads aren't in as bad shape as they usually are. I'm getting rather excited about playing some songs.

(Note as of Saturday Aug 20)

So, EXTREME and SuperNOVA 2 worked like a dream. Was I excited about that? Not so much but it was pretty awesome. I was just excited to play DDR X2 with the hope of inputting the unlock code. Did I try? Oh very much yes. Did I succeed? No, just plain no. The X2 pads suck horribly. I was pretty upset because the 1P Right Arrow is either stuck (on) or triggers without any direct pressure. It even triggers when you step on the 2P Right Arrow rendering Double Play a pain to accomplish on anything harder than an 11 footer. With that being said inputting the unlock code was literally impossible due to that problem. Oh and the 2P Down Arrow sucks as well. All the sensors on that arrow except the back sensor, if they have four sensors, do not register. It's playable to an extent but don't expect to AAA or even AA much.

Yeah I deleted it. I looked through gameworks today, nothing there.