goliathvt@Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:58 pm :
If there's another topic about this merge away but...

I picked up Spore this past Sunday and my girlfriend and I sat there and played it all day. The first few phases are pretty easy if you've played any sort of 2D scroller (cell stage), 3rdP adventure game (creature stage) and a RTS (Tribal and Civ stages). And while these first four stages are pretty easy, they're still insanely fun... especially if you get a lot of enjoyment of out making your own creatures, vehicles and buildings and also get a kick out of interacting with other user-created content.

The sheer imaginative and seemingly limitless sandbox you get when it comes to creature and building design is really impressive. This being my first play through, I was fairly diplomatic and friendly... focused on social aspects of interacting and gaining territory. My girlfriend, on the other hand, decided to be aggressive and and warlike. We took turns playing throughout the day and we could both really see how our games developed quite differently based on the types of choices we made and how we interacted with the world.

As I said before, the first four stages are pretty easy but fun... but the game really kicks into high gear when you get to the Space stage. I ran around micro-managing things to perfection for a while and even a gamer vet like me was constantly on the move... there was enough to do at every turn and it took me a while to figure out the economics... once I had that resolved and started to make some real money (or Spice, as that's your currency at that point in the game... think of the movie "Dune"), I started upgrading up my ship and could conquer worlds at a far greater pace.

When I had taken over or made alliances with just about everything around me, I sat back and said... ahh yes, I have the hang of this... my empire fills this entire screen! Muhahahaha. I thought that I must be close to the end of the game just judging by the other short but fun sections of the game.

And then I scrolled out the space map...

...and realized that I was at the very outward tip of the enormous galaxy spiral... my oh-so-enormous empire was but a spec in space and, from what I've read, "winning" the game requires you to get to the center of the galaxy.

I've got a long way to go and it will probably take a few days to get anywhere near the center, even using the Blackhole shortcuts, assuming I get to the center by expanding my empire in that direction.

I love this game. :)



pbmax@Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:14 pm :
wait, is this a single player game or an online massive multiplayer one?



Duff@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:08 am :
single player game, but you share content (monsters/building designs) with other players.


i just felt the hard end of a lack of auto-save. the game freaked out, so i quit, losing my progress from the space stage and sending me all the way back to the beginning of the tribal stage. epic fail.



KoRnScythe@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:55 am :
Imagine what God will feel like when he wakes up from his nap and accidentally (due to the computer screen being on sleep mode) turns the computer off while trying to boot it up. Then again, he won't have lost that much process - We're not even in the space stage yet.



asmodeus@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:21 am :
We don't have to worry about that because the universe runs on Windows Vista and 50 quadrillion processes will throw pop-ups and wait for 50 quadrillion clicks on the ok button for a complete reboot. Thankfully, Jesus has written a dash script that solves this problem...


oh wait...



BloodRayne@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:30 am :
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|

Quote:
I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.

We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.

After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God.

Witness the power and evil of Christian fundamentalism.



geX@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:41 am :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|

Quote:
I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.

We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.

After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God.

Witness the power and evil of Christian fundamentalism.


I lol'd

Cause seriously, that's just funny. But then again that guy/girl must live in USA. Where they don't know if they should teach children about evolution or about noah's ark. I know its a while back, but still.

About spore. I think its hilarious and very epic. I'm in space age, and like 1% done with that, since its so frakking huge!



iceheart@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:09 pm :
I think it's MORE hilarious that the gameplay in spore is a LOT more like the demented "intelligent design" theory that religious people try to get passed off as science. After all, are you not a creature of virtual divine power designing your creatures? I'm not seeing the "non-random selection of random genetic mutations" that is central to the process of evolution.



pbmax@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:23 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|


You know, this is not what Christianity is supposed to be about. The truth is that the Bible neither supports evolution nor does it disprove it. As with most things, mankind has f*cked up the intended scope and meaning of the Bible.

Ugh. People like this certainly do not help their own cause and only drive people away from it.



The Happy Friar@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:06 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Witness the power and evil of Christian fundamentalism.


she's just wrong. w/o going in to detail (she must not of read the whole Bible & is just one of those "internet" people who knows everything via google, like pretty much everyone on the net. Or is filling in the blanks with "i think's", which is what his website says), science != what made something, science = explanation of how something is done. Bible says nothing of the technical details on how things were created. Man was created in God's image. So, based on this, it's natural that man would strive to be like God. God created universe, man wants to create universe too.

Duh. She should know, it's in the Bible!

Albert Einstein wrote:
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure



mavrik65@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:56 pm :
Quote:
We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.


*sigh* :roll: like the church doesn't "poison the minds of children"? drafting kids into Sunday school is a stupid idea anyway because there too young to choose their religion in the first place and also they don't need a religion there lives haven't gone bad yet. I hate religious fanatics they blow things well out of proportion, all because religion is the only thing that fills there sad lives ( get a hobby that doesn't force your beliefs on others). Religion isn't evil sad people with nothing else to do but hate and complain are.



goliathvt@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:17 pm :
Um... guys... please see the Rick Roll that is embedded in the biblical text quotes by this antispore.com admin....

'Tis a joke.



mikebart@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:14 am :
I bought it and ive been playing it a fair bit lately, I think I enjoyed the first and second stages the most, the tribal and civilisation stage I found became pretty boring.
Im finding the space age very frustrating, finding planet X in solar system Y for missions is very difficult, maybe they could have made a more obvious way to find planets like a planet search bar or something, its also very easy to accidentally break alliances with other races and then when you try to re-ally with them they dont want to know about it, an "are you sure sure you want to....yes, no?" would be great for all buttons in the diplomacy panel, also far too much micro-management for my liking, having to return to your home sector everytime it gets attacked (which happens alot), makes it pretty hard to explore, but maybe this is all because I set the difficulty to medium, I might start again on easy.



BNA!@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 10:22 am :
I've spent the whole day with it yesterday.

Cell stage:
Nice, easy cute and funny. I like it a lot and it's fun to see what other creatures drift by.

Creature stage:
I could play it to no end. Constantly reshaping my creature, adjusting abilities, trying to find the big foes to add them to my group... and of course walking around seeing what types of creatures I am sharing the world with.
There should be a button which shakes off or highlights the lower level items attached to your creature. If you have a mighty level 5 something you probably don't want a level 2 decorative item dangling from your body elsewhere.
It is, however, a great plus that you can trade your items back with no discount at any time.
I might not be the first one to say this, but don't you think it would be interesting to cross-breed once you have made a new species your friend? This would add even more randomness and hilarity, always good for such a game!

Tribal stage:
Well, I cannot adjust my creature as much as I want to. Sure, genetic evolution has it's limits... Also I am not sure how your high level attachments from the creature stage carry over to tribal stage. Does it make any sense to carry over some Elk-horns? Or what?
Also I couldn't get my people to catch more wild creatures since my creature stage friends occupied the "farming" area which led the game to tell me I have too many creatures. This way I cannot finish the catch some animals mission. That's probably not crucial, but I like to make some checks on the list of quests. I'm less a gamer than a working robot in such games.
Tribal stage, like for others, wasn't very exciting for me. But it doesn't feel like wasted time either.

Civilization stage:
More stuff to design - always good. Too bad my civilization still looks like crazy mudworms with elk horns and misplaced limbs... I'm not sure my money donations to other cities did anything. I wanted to buy myself into one of the cities to carry over some merchant skills into space age, but albeit there is an option in the city interaction menu to send some money it doesn't tell whether this is doing any good or not.
Except cell stage I found this the easiest. Even in cell stage you have to be more interactive since you have to constantly drag your cell around. But I don't want to say it was boring or anything.
Good thing is I could keep the skills of the acquired cities. Since I was a great singer, dancer and musician in creature and tribal stage the game assumed I am a great religious leader. In civilization stage I could finally acquire some military skills this way. I tried to go after some epic creatures (again), but they still are too dangerous.

Space stage:
I didn't spend much time there yet. However it is large and there is plenty to do. Following the comments above - if there is a lot micromanagement then it's probably a suboptimal solution.

All in all it is a fun game and certainly less of a screensaver than Black and White was. There are some shortcomings, but there is so much future potential untapped I am sure we will go and purchase Spore addons from now on every six months (look how much money you could have spent with everything "Sims").

In my personal game rating I'd give it a:

(-) Camp overnight before store to get it
(-) Get in line around the block for a preorder box
(+) Get in moderately long line for a store purchase
(-) Store purchase
(-) Mail order at your favorite online retailer without checking for prices too long
(-) Wait for a Steam "Ten games priced for one" release
(-) You accept it as a gift from your aunt and trade it to your younger sisters
(-) Your time is worth more than that



Brain Trepaning@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:59 pm :
BNA!: Would a Spore mod that allows a person to create and grow their own plants be of any interest?



iceheart@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 2:01 pm :
Brain Trepaning wrote:
BNA!: Would a Spore mod that allows a person to create and grow their own plants be of any interest?


I personally missed this editor when playing it myself :).



BNA!@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:09 pm :
Brain Trepaning wrote:
BNA!: Would a Spore mod that allows a person to create and grow their own plants be of any interest?


I would sure say so!



goliathvt@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 10:50 pm :
BNA! wrote:
I'm not sure my money donations to other cities did anything. I wanted to buy myself into one of the cities to carry over some merchant skills into space age, but albeit there is an option in the city interaction menu to send some money it doesn't tell whether this is doing any good or not.


The gifts and donations improve your happiness rating with the civilization on the receiving end. You can check to see by how much by mousing over the communication interface if they have more than 1 city or by mousing over a city hall. You can buy out cities by first establishing a trade route. You'll see a moneybag meter appear above the city you're trading with grow towards your color. When it's full, you'll have the option to buy the city. The same concept works for planets.

Quote:
Im finding the space age very frustrating, finding planet X in solar system Y for missions is very difficult, maybe they could have made a more obvious way to find planets like a planet search bar or something...


Finding Planets for missions can be nuts when you really start expanding your empire and all you see is colorful spaghetti on your screen after a while. Toggling the "Mission Waypoint" filter that is over your minimap can be a real help... I sometimes switch it off and on again so my eyes will catch the destination in the middle of the mess of empires that are all over the screen. Also, for systems with multiple planets, be sure to mouse-over them... the one you have a mission on will show a message above the normal planet info.

If you mean finding a random planet that you've visited that you don't need for a mission... well that's more about memory than anything else, I guess.



leifhv@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 9:03 am :
I would like to get Spore but the fact that it'll stop working after two hardware upgrades is really unacceptable to me. Luckily there are several other interesting games coming out this fall.

I hope that Rage won't be using this kind of DRM now that it's published by EA or there will be a hole in my id games collection.



goliathvt@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 1:11 pm :
Spore will work fine after 2 hardware upgrades. You'll just need to contact EA to get more than 3 activations. And besides, in most cases of this kind of DRM silliness, they relax the restrictions once the game has been out for a while anyway. I imagine in about a year you'll see that # of allowable installs bump up to 6 or more.



leifhv@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 2:59 pm :
goliathvt wrote:
Spore will work fine after 2 hardware upgrades. You'll just need to contact EA to get more than 3 activations.


Yes, thats not good enough for me...If I buy the game I won't accept that I have to beg EA to let me play it again after buying a new graphics card.

I'm fairly understanding of the problems that PC game makers are facing in regards to piracy but the restrictions for Spore are unreasonable imo.



bashport@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 4:36 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/


"Will Wright brainwashes founder of SETI, Frank Drake!"

and I'm wasting time reading this crap! :P



asmodeus@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:35 pm :
Poe's law in action.



Kamikazee@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 7:49 pm :
goliathvt wrote:
I imagine in about a year you'll see that # of allowable installs bump up to 6 or more.
Even if that would come through, there's still a limit.



Kristian Joensen@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:54 am :
I already said a teeny bit on how I will about the Spore DRM thing on Shacknews, so I will just like to that discussion:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54749



stabinbac@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:27 am :
goliathvt wrote:
I imagine in about a year you'll see that # of allowable installs bump up to 6 or more.


Or perhaps they'll just set it to infinite like Bioshock. It's odd how people interpret that as removing the protection. It's all still there. It still has to check in with the DRM server. It'll just never send a "too many installs" signal back. What about when that is eventually taken down? They could finally release a real DRM removal patch, but that takes effort most companies won't care to invest.

(Unless I'm missing some key point)



rich_is_bored@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:03 am :
I have an idea for a new software business model that would put an end to DRM but I doubt it would be very well received by commercial entities or the public at large.

The way it would work is publishers set up a fund that consumers would donate to. The goal being to cover the costs of development and whatever profits a publisher hopes to make. The product is withheld until it reaches this predetermined target.

The catch however is that when this target is reached, the product is not released as a commercial product. It's free and you can download it and do whatever the hell you want with it.

Consumers benefit because the software is free of CD checks, registration keys, and DRM at large. They can make copies and give them to friends. They can share it on BitTorrent.

Publishers benefit because they don't have to invest in DRM technologies or worry about lost sales or poor profits. They don't have to spend truckloads of money on manufacturing and packaging. It also buys developers more time to iron out bugs and polish up a product for better reception.



BNA!@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:52 am :
rich_is_bored wrote:
The way it would work is publishers set up a fund that consumers would donate to. The goal being to cover the costs of development and whatever profits a publisher hopes to make. The product is withheld until it reaches this predetermined target.


That sounds pretty much socialist (in a Marx way). You could also impose an entertainment tax. Let's say 5% of your annual income get's withdrawn and the state then decides who will make which movies, paint pictures, develop games... Afterwards you are free to go to cinema as often as you wish for free, pick up your favorite games and so on.

On paper this works perfectly, but it is human nature which makes it a sure failure. Just think who of the developers will be responsible to distribute the funds to the associated groups. Will id software get as much as the guy who writes a pong adaption for the iPhone in his garage? Will it get distributed by headcount? Wouldn't this encourage a growth of headcount to receive more funds without paying any attention to quality or developing any product at all? Wouldn't this add 100 more years to Duke Nukem Forever development time? How long would it take till we'd see digi cam images of the head-money-distributor sitting after a long money allocation meeting in a heart shaped bed with ten hookers, 20 lines cocaine on his nightstand and 30 empty bottles of super-glide, all taking place in the private suite of EA or Activizzard Las Vegas?

The base line is I think anything that involves too much socialist high moral ideology and human nature is very unstable and prone for a failure. Things are different if you for example pay a € 10,- flat per month for Xbox live, Steam or whatever else available. There the company allocates the money and tries to get the best to hook up more subscribers. This is probably as close as it gets to your idea.



leifhv@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:25 pm :
rich_is_bored wrote:
The product is withheld until it reaches this predetermined target.


Assuming we'd be able to overcome the problems described by BNA the economics of your system is flawed.

Every day a product is withheld is means that the publisher takes a loss. So it's not only a lack of income but an actual loss meaning that the publisher will risk going bankrupt waiting for the 'fund' to fill up. The fund will probably be lost in the bankruptcy proceedings so the consumers will never see the product they've paid for.

Releasing a product as soon as possible is important in any business but especially so in the gaming business.



iceheart@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:35 pm :
Charity game development? Interesting, but ultimately I think capitalism is the best way to go for most things in the world.



mikebart@Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 12:09 am :
Anyone still playing it?, I got back into it, really struggling to stay into it now that im closer to the centre, it does have some addictive qualities though.



BNA!@Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:47 am :
Still playing - I slowly get it how things work and have established a well trading and happy space age population called "Bnomnivore".

I'm not sure, but if you're the one who produced the Charlie Chaplin tiger (for a lack of better explanation) - it's my main trading partner :)

I have become a master of arbitrage trading, buying up yellow and red spice and sell it to the neighbour solar system with a good win - riskfree profits linger everywhere ;)

But I really don't like how you have to zoom into every solar system to collect from your colonies. These things, including basic interaction with the populations on a planet, imho should have been made available on the solar system level.



mikebart@Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:32 am :
ha yeah, hes one of mine, if you come across my 8 limbed spider creatures just wipe them out, they're bastards.



ajm113@Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:57 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|



Cover your heart, the christans are trying to take out freedom of choice out of America again! :shock:

They want us to power their child happyness extracers!



goliathvt@Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:58 pm :
If there's another topic about this merge away but...

I picked up Spore this past Sunday and my girlfriend and I sat there and played it all day. The first few phases are pretty easy if you've played any sort of 2D scroller (cell stage), 3rdP adventure game (creature stage) and a RTS (Tribal and Civ stages). And while these first four stages are pretty easy, they're still insanely fun... especially if you get a lot of enjoyment of out making your own creatures, vehicles and buildings and also get a kick out of interacting with other user-created content.

The sheer imaginative and seemingly limitless sandbox you get when it comes to creature and building design is really impressive. This being my first play through, I was fairly diplomatic and friendly... focused on social aspects of interacting and gaining territory. My girlfriend, on the other hand, decided to be aggressive and and warlike. We took turns playing throughout the day and we could both really see how our games developed quite differently based on the types of choices we made and how we interacted with the world.

As I said before, the first four stages are pretty easy but fun... but the game really kicks into high gear when you get to the Space stage. I ran around micro-managing things to perfection for a while and even a gamer vet like me was constantly on the move... there was enough to do at every turn and it took me a while to figure out the economics... once I had that resolved and started to make some real money (or Spice, as that's your currency at that point in the game... think of the movie "Dune"), I started upgrading up my ship and could conquer worlds at a far greater pace.

When I had taken over or made alliances with just about everything around me, I sat back and said... ahh yes, I have the hang of this... my empire fills this entire screen! Muhahahaha. I thought that I must be close to the end of the game just judging by the other short but fun sections of the game.

And then I scrolled out the space map...

...and realized that I was at the very outward tip of the enormous galaxy spiral... my oh-so-enormous empire was but a spec in space and, from what I've read, "winning" the game requires you to get to the center of the galaxy.

I've got a long way to go and it will probably take a few days to get anywhere near the center, even using the Blackhole shortcuts, assuming I get to the center by expanding my empire in that direction.

I love this game. :)



pbmax@Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:14 pm :
wait, is this a single player game or an online massive multiplayer one?



Duff@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:08 am :
single player game, but you share content (monsters/building designs) with other players.


i just felt the hard end of a lack of auto-save. the game freaked out, so i quit, losing my progress from the space stage and sending me all the way back to the beginning of the tribal stage. epic fail.



KoRnScythe@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:55 am :
Imagine what God will feel like when he wakes up from his nap and accidentally (due to the computer screen being on sleep mode) turns the computer off while trying to boot it up. Then again, he won't have lost that much process - We're not even in the space stage yet.



asmodeus@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:21 am :
We don't have to worry about that because the universe runs on Windows Vista and 50 quadrillion processes will throw pop-ups and wait for 50 quadrillion clicks on the ok button for a complete reboot. Thankfully, Jesus has written a dash script that solves this problem...


oh wait...



BloodRayne@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:30 am :
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|

Quote:
I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.

We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.

After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God.

Witness the power and evil of Christian fundamentalism.



geX@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:41 am :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|

Quote:
I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.

We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.

After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God.

Witness the power and evil of Christian fundamentalism.


I lol'd

Cause seriously, that's just funny. But then again that guy/girl must live in USA. Where they don't know if they should teach children about evolution or about noah's ark. I know its a while back, but still.

About spore. I think its hilarious and very epic. I'm in space age, and like 1% done with that, since its so frakking huge!



iceheart@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:09 pm :
I think it's MORE hilarious that the gameplay in spore is a LOT more like the demented "intelligent design" theory that religious people try to get passed off as science. After all, are you not a creature of virtual divine power designing your creatures? I'm not seeing the "non-random selection of random genetic mutations" that is central to the process of evolution.



pbmax@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:23 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|


You know, this is not what Christianity is supposed to be about. The truth is that the Bible neither supports evolution nor does it disprove it. As with most things, mankind has f*cked up the intended scope and meaning of the Bible.

Ugh. People like this certainly do not help their own cause and only drive people away from it.



The Happy Friar@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:06 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Witness the power and evil of Christian fundamentalism.


she's just wrong. w/o going in to detail (she must not of read the whole Bible & is just one of those "internet" people who knows everything via google, like pretty much everyone on the net. Or is filling in the blanks with "i think's", which is what his website says), science != what made something, science = explanation of how something is done. Bible says nothing of the technical details on how things were created. Man was created in God's image. So, based on this, it's natural that man would strive to be like God. God created universe, man wants to create universe too.

Duh. She should know, it's in the Bible!

Albert Einstein wrote:
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure



mavrik65@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:56 pm :
Quote:
We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.


*sigh* :roll: like the church doesn't "poison the minds of children"? drafting kids into Sunday school is a stupid idea anyway because there too young to choose their religion in the first place and also they don't need a religion there lives haven't gone bad yet. I hate religious fanatics they blow things well out of proportion, all because religion is the only thing that fills there sad lives ( get a hobby that doesn't force your beliefs on others). Religion isn't evil sad people with nothing else to do but hate and complain are.



goliathvt@Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:17 pm :
Um... guys... please see the Rick Roll that is embedded in the biblical text quotes by this antispore.com admin....

'Tis a joke.



mikebart@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:14 am :
I bought it and ive been playing it a fair bit lately, I think I enjoyed the first and second stages the most, the tribal and civilisation stage I found became pretty boring.
Im finding the space age very frustrating, finding planet X in solar system Y for missions is very difficult, maybe they could have made a more obvious way to find planets like a planet search bar or something, its also very easy to accidentally break alliances with other races and then when you try to re-ally with them they dont want to know about it, an "are you sure sure you want to....yes, no?" would be great for all buttons in the diplomacy panel, also far too much micro-management for my liking, having to return to your home sector everytime it gets attacked (which happens alot), makes it pretty hard to explore, but maybe this is all because I set the difficulty to medium, I might start again on easy.



BNA!@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 10:22 am :
I've spent the whole day with it yesterday.

Cell stage:
Nice, easy cute and funny. I like it a lot and it's fun to see what other creatures drift by.

Creature stage:
I could play it to no end. Constantly reshaping my creature, adjusting abilities, trying to find the big foes to add them to my group... and of course walking around seeing what types of creatures I am sharing the world with.
There should be a button which shakes off or highlights the lower level items attached to your creature. If you have a mighty level 5 something you probably don't want a level 2 decorative item dangling from your body elsewhere.
It is, however, a great plus that you can trade your items back with no discount at any time.
I might not be the first one to say this, but don't you think it would be interesting to cross-breed once you have made a new species your friend? This would add even more randomness and hilarity, always good for such a game!

Tribal stage:
Well, I cannot adjust my creature as much as I want to. Sure, genetic evolution has it's limits... Also I am not sure how your high level attachments from the creature stage carry over to tribal stage. Does it make any sense to carry over some Elk-horns? Or what?
Also I couldn't get my people to catch more wild creatures since my creature stage friends occupied the "farming" area which led the game to tell me I have too many creatures. This way I cannot finish the catch some animals mission. That's probably not crucial, but I like to make some checks on the list of quests. I'm less a gamer than a working robot in such games.
Tribal stage, like for others, wasn't very exciting for me. But it doesn't feel like wasted time either.

Civilization stage:
More stuff to design - always good. Too bad my civilization still looks like crazy mudworms with elk horns and misplaced limbs... I'm not sure my money donations to other cities did anything. I wanted to buy myself into one of the cities to carry over some merchant skills into space age, but albeit there is an option in the city interaction menu to send some money it doesn't tell whether this is doing any good or not.
Except cell stage I found this the easiest. Even in cell stage you have to be more interactive since you have to constantly drag your cell around. But I don't want to say it was boring or anything.
Good thing is I could keep the skills of the acquired cities. Since I was a great singer, dancer and musician in creature and tribal stage the game assumed I am a great religious leader. In civilization stage I could finally acquire some military skills this way. I tried to go after some epic creatures (again), but they still are too dangerous.

Space stage:
I didn't spend much time there yet. However it is large and there is plenty to do. Following the comments above - if there is a lot micromanagement then it's probably a suboptimal solution.

All in all it is a fun game and certainly less of a screensaver than Black and White was. There are some shortcomings, but there is so much future potential untapped I am sure we will go and purchase Spore addons from now on every six months (look how much money you could have spent with everything "Sims").

In my personal game rating I'd give it a:

(-) Camp overnight before store to get it
(-) Get in line around the block for a preorder box
(+) Get in moderately long line for a store purchase
(-) Store purchase
(-) Mail order at your favorite online retailer without checking for prices too long
(-) Wait for a Steam "Ten games priced for one" release
(-) You accept it as a gift from your aunt and trade it to your younger sisters
(-) Your time is worth more than that



Brain Trepaning@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:59 pm :
BNA!: Would a Spore mod that allows a person to create and grow their own plants be of any interest?



iceheart@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 2:01 pm :
Brain Trepaning wrote:
BNA!: Would a Spore mod that allows a person to create and grow their own plants be of any interest?


I personally missed this editor when playing it myself :).



BNA!@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:09 pm :
Brain Trepaning wrote:
BNA!: Would a Spore mod that allows a person to create and grow their own plants be of any interest?


I would sure say so!



goliathvt@Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 10:50 pm :
BNA! wrote:
I'm not sure my money donations to other cities did anything. I wanted to buy myself into one of the cities to carry over some merchant skills into space age, but albeit there is an option in the city interaction menu to send some money it doesn't tell whether this is doing any good or not.


The gifts and donations improve your happiness rating with the civilization on the receiving end. You can check to see by how much by mousing over the communication interface if they have more than 1 city or by mousing over a city hall. You can buy out cities by first establishing a trade route. You'll see a moneybag meter appear above the city you're trading with grow towards your color. When it's full, you'll have the option to buy the city. The same concept works for planets.

Quote:
Im finding the space age very frustrating, finding planet X in solar system Y for missions is very difficult, maybe they could have made a more obvious way to find planets like a planet search bar or something...


Finding Planets for missions can be nuts when you really start expanding your empire and all you see is colorful spaghetti on your screen after a while. Toggling the "Mission Waypoint" filter that is over your minimap can be a real help... I sometimes switch it off and on again so my eyes will catch the destination in the middle of the mess of empires that are all over the screen. Also, for systems with multiple planets, be sure to mouse-over them... the one you have a mission on will show a message above the normal planet info.

If you mean finding a random planet that you've visited that you don't need for a mission... well that's more about memory than anything else, I guess.



leifhv@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 9:03 am :
I would like to get Spore but the fact that it'll stop working after two hardware upgrades is really unacceptable to me. Luckily there are several other interesting games coming out this fall.

I hope that Rage won't be using this kind of DRM now that it's published by EA or there will be a hole in my id games collection.



goliathvt@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 1:11 pm :
Spore will work fine after 2 hardware upgrades. You'll just need to contact EA to get more than 3 activations. And besides, in most cases of this kind of DRM silliness, they relax the restrictions once the game has been out for a while anyway. I imagine in about a year you'll see that # of allowable installs bump up to 6 or more.



leifhv@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 2:59 pm :
goliathvt wrote:
Spore will work fine after 2 hardware upgrades. You'll just need to contact EA to get more than 3 activations.


Yes, thats not good enough for me...If I buy the game I won't accept that I have to beg EA to let me play it again after buying a new graphics card.

I'm fairly understanding of the problems that PC game makers are facing in regards to piracy but the restrictions for Spore are unreasonable imo.



bashport@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 4:36 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/


"Will Wright brainwashes founder of SETI, Frank Drake!"

and I'm wasting time reading this crap! :P



asmodeus@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:35 pm :
Poe's law in action.



Kamikazee@Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 7:49 pm :
goliathvt wrote:
I imagine in about a year you'll see that # of allowable installs bump up to 6 or more.
Even if that would come through, there's still a limit.



Kristian Joensen@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:54 am :
I already said a teeny bit on how I will about the Spore DRM thing on Shacknews, so I will just like to that discussion:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54749



stabinbac@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:27 am :
goliathvt wrote:
I imagine in about a year you'll see that # of allowable installs bump up to 6 or more.


Or perhaps they'll just set it to infinite like Bioshock. It's odd how people interpret that as removing the protection. It's all still there. It still has to check in with the DRM server. It'll just never send a "too many installs" signal back. What about when that is eventually taken down? They could finally release a real DRM removal patch, but that takes effort most companies won't care to invest.

(Unless I'm missing some key point)



rich_is_bored@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:03 am :
I have an idea for a new software business model that would put an end to DRM but I doubt it would be very well received by commercial entities or the public at large.

The way it would work is publishers set up a fund that consumers would donate to. The goal being to cover the costs of development and whatever profits a publisher hopes to make. The product is withheld until it reaches this predetermined target.

The catch however is that when this target is reached, the product is not released as a commercial product. It's free and you can download it and do whatever the hell you want with it.

Consumers benefit because the software is free of CD checks, registration keys, and DRM at large. They can make copies and give them to friends. They can share it on BitTorrent.

Publishers benefit because they don't have to invest in DRM technologies or worry about lost sales or poor profits. They don't have to spend truckloads of money on manufacturing and packaging. It also buys developers more time to iron out bugs and polish up a product for better reception.



BNA!@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:52 am :
rich_is_bored wrote:
The way it would work is publishers set up a fund that consumers would donate to. The goal being to cover the costs of development and whatever profits a publisher hopes to make. The product is withheld until it reaches this predetermined target.


That sounds pretty much socialist (in a Marx way). You could also impose an entertainment tax. Let's say 5% of your annual income get's withdrawn and the state then decides who will make which movies, paint pictures, develop games... Afterwards you are free to go to cinema as often as you wish for free, pick up your favorite games and so on.

On paper this works perfectly, but it is human nature which makes it a sure failure. Just think who of the developers will be responsible to distribute the funds to the associated groups. Will id software get as much as the guy who writes a pong adaption for the iPhone in his garage? Will it get distributed by headcount? Wouldn't this encourage a growth of headcount to receive more funds without paying any attention to quality or developing any product at all? Wouldn't this add 100 more years to Duke Nukem Forever development time? How long would it take till we'd see digi cam images of the head-money-distributor sitting after a long money allocation meeting in a heart shaped bed with ten hookers, 20 lines cocaine on his nightstand and 30 empty bottles of super-glide, all taking place in the private suite of EA or Activizzard Las Vegas?

The base line is I think anything that involves too much socialist high moral ideology and human nature is very unstable and prone for a failure. Things are different if you for example pay a € 10,- flat per month for Xbox live, Steam or whatever else available. There the company allocates the money and tries to get the best to hook up more subscribers. This is probably as close as it gets to your idea.



leifhv@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:25 pm :
rich_is_bored wrote:
The product is withheld until it reaches this predetermined target.


Assuming we'd be able to overcome the problems described by BNA the economics of your system is flawed.

Every day a product is withheld is means that the publisher takes a loss. So it's not only a lack of income but an actual loss meaning that the publisher will risk going bankrupt waiting for the 'fund' to fill up. The fund will probably be lost in the bankruptcy proceedings so the consumers will never see the product they've paid for.

Releasing a product as soon as possible is important in any business but especially so in the gaming business.



iceheart@Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:35 pm :
Charity game development? Interesting, but ultimately I think capitalism is the best way to go for most things in the world.



mikebart@Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 12:09 am :
Anyone still playing it?, I got back into it, really struggling to stay into it now that im closer to the centre, it does have some addictive qualities though.



BNA!@Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:47 am :
Still playing - I slowly get it how things work and have established a well trading and happy space age population called "Bnomnivore".

I'm not sure, but if you're the one who produced the Charlie Chaplin tiger (for a lack of better explanation) - it's my main trading partner :)

I have become a master of arbitrage trading, buying up yellow and red spice and sell it to the neighbour solar system with a good win - riskfree profits linger everywhere ;)

But I really don't like how you have to zoom into every solar system to collect from your colonies. These things, including basic interaction with the populations on a planet, imho should have been made available on the solar system level.



mikebart@Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:32 am :
ha yeah, hes one of mine, if you come across my 8 limbed spider creatures just wipe them out, they're bastards.



ajm113@Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:57 pm :
BloodRayne wrote:
Talking about spore: http://antispore.com/

Oh my f#cking god. :|



Cover your heart, the christans are trying to take out freedom of choice out of America again! :shock:

They want us to power their child happyness extracers!