The insanity that is Spore

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-03-03 02:50am

So is there any actual news on this game, or are we stuck with the exact same information we had last year?

Shadowhawk · Post by **Shadowhawk** » 2006-03-03 09:16pm

Crossroads wrote:Are you serious?

Yup.

RedImperator wrote:So is there any actual news on this game, or are we stuck with the exact same information we had last year?

As near as I can tell, there has been NO information released on Spore in the past year. Maybe some Spore fanboards have some new info they've gleaned from some places, but there haven't seem to have been any press releases, newsletters, interviews, or previews in ~10 months.

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-03-04 04:46am

I think the presentation video is one of the few times I was literally wearing a shit eating grin and giggling in anticipation of a video game.
I practically shit my pants where he said you could design every single vehicle, building, and spaceship your races uses...and that you can conquer a fucking galaxy full of totally original races. Damn.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-03-04 05:19am

I refer you to Project EGO, which then became Fable. Grand tales of freeform told by the masters are not neccessarily going to come true.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-03-04 09:12am

weemadando wrote:I refer you to Project EGO, which then became Fable. Grand tales of freeform told by the masters are not neccessarily going to come true.

True, but they've got a gameplay demo...wouldn't it be safe to assume that at least what was shown in the demo will make it into the final product?

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-03-04 02:54pm

Will Wright has a very solid reputation for delivering on what he promises. The only occasion when I can think of a functionality lapse was with Sim City 4, which initially lacked one of the more minor features it was planned to ship with. This was rectified when the first expansion pack came out...

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-03-04 02:58pm

RThurmont wrote:Will Wright has a very solid reputation for delivering on what he promises. The only occasion when I can think of a functionality lapse was with Sim City 4, which initially lacked one of the more minor features it was planned to ship with. This was rectified when the first expansion pack came out...

Really? What was the "one" feature?

And as for Spore... Old WW may have a good history of games, but I can NEVER think of a time in the past when a game waas in the works and there has been no news for almost a year...

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-04 03:00pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote:
And as for Spore... Old WW may have a good history of games, but I can NEVER think of a time in the past when a game waas in the works and there has been no news for almost a year...

I'm sure we can think of some, possibly UT2k7, Oblivion from announcement to first preview, HL2(hah!)...

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2006-03-05 02:52pm

weemadando wrote:I refer you to Project EGO, which then became Fable. Grand tales of freeform told by the masters are not neccessarily going to come true.

I don't even listen to anything that cocksucker says anymore. He is like the ultimate carnival barker.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-05 03:02pm

Well, there's two possibilities here:

This game works as promised and is deep and thoughtful and fun.
Result: Will Wright has made me his bitch.

This game doesn't.
Result: Will Wright is a hyping bastard.

For some reason this game gives me Daikatana vibes at the same time as it gives me "Awesome" vibes.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2006-03-05 03:07pm

MRDOD wrote:Well, there's two possibilities here:

This game works as promised and is deep and thoughtful and fun.
Result: Will Wright has made me his bitch.

This game doesn't.
Result: Will Wright is a hyping bastard.

For some reason this game gives me Daikatana vibes at the same time as it gives me "Awesome" vibes.

I dunno, it doesn't seem like hype to me. That may change as the release date nears but at this point it just seems like he exhibited the game and the crowd dug it.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-03-05 04:02pm

The differance between this and Daikatana is no one knew what "Daikatana" was, only that it "Would make you it's bitch" It kept getting delayed, and could never live up to the hype.

With Spore, from what I've seen in the Demo Will showed at the convention, even if only half of all those features got into the final game, it would still be a worth while game.

What gets me nervious is not that it might fail, but that it might not be finished at all for various reasons.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-03-07 03:17pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote:The differance between this and Daikatana is no one knew what "Daikatana" was, only that it "Would make you it's bitch" It kept getting delayed, and could never live up to the hype.

With Spore, from what I've seen in the Demo Will showed at the convention, even if only half of all those features got into the final game, it would still be a worth while game.

What gets me nervious is not that it might fail, but that it might not be finished at all for various reasons.

Don't jinx it! Don't jinx it!
The only problem I can see with this game is that if it is released as advertised, then I may never leave my room again.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-03-07 06:26pm

Looks like stripped down versions of a bunch of games I've already played, crammed into one box. Might be interesting, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

The procedural animation bit looks to be a pretty useful technical achievement, though, and I hope to see it in more games.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-03-07 07:43pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote: With Spore, from what I've seen in the Demo Will showed at the convention, even if only half of all those features got into the final game, it would still be a worth while game. .

Even as a software toy to play with the procedural animation and behaviour it would be worth a look.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-03-07 08:36pm

Really, the "make your own creature" program by itself is something I could have endless fun with. Since it seems you can 'sculpt' your beast lik clay, instead of using pre-existing forms, you can shape any fancifil creature you want.

Also from the demo it seems you can put together limbs in any fasion you want, merging and shaping them...

Anyone up for making some Satyrs?

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2006-03-07 11:13pm

Hotfoot wrote:It looks very interesting, but I gathered the following caveats from the video:

-Evolution looks like it takes a long time, and can potentially get very repetative in the process.

While there is probably a mimimum evolution time, it seems that overall, it takes as long as it you want it to take. A person who wants to go to the city/planet building phase will likely go right for the Brain upgrades to aquire sentience, another person could spend months just making the perfect predator or whatnot.

-Combat in the Civ mode looks more like who can create more units more than anything else, economic model is not well covered other than "Happiness".

Then again, he didn't spend too much time on that. His flyers, which probably could've blasted those tanks with impunity, instead ran because of his race's personality, it seems.

-Space mode, while huge, seems a little short on what you can do.

After exploration, terraforming, manipulation, war, destruction, and diplomacy, there's not much else to do. ^_^

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2006-03-07 11:27pm

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been a Spore fanatic since I first saw the video, when it was first made available on the GDC site. From my extensive research, I have gleaned these two words from between the screams- Gaming Steve. You wnat Spore Coverage, go there. He's had interviews with Will. He's seen the project. He is essentially the Officially Unofficial Hype guy. He has screenshots he releases when the river of information turns into a stagnant pond. The forumers there have watched the video hundreds of times and looked at everything, finding bugs and things no one else noticed.

www.gamingsteve.com

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-03-08 01:28am

SAMAS wrote:After exploration,

While normally I love exploring, it looks like just randomly generated terrain, which can only go so far in my book. The fact that the game seems to rely largely on player content also makes me wary.

terraforming,

An interesting minigame that looks like it will get old after first several attempts, and a welcome release will come from the genesis device.

manipulation,

What manipulation? Stealing creatures and putting them on moons to die of violent decompression?

war,

One UFO versus a planet doesn't seem like a lot of fun to me. It's who's got the biggest gun, which seems to be the UFO once it's upgraded.

destruction,

Whoop, there goes another planet. Hate to tell you, but it gets old, just destroying planets with no real consequences. Even in games with consequences, like Star Wars: Rebellion and Space Empires 4, it can get old fast.

and diplomacy,

What diplomacy? I didn't see any. He showed up, got shot at, shot back, and then ran and blew up the planet. I didn't see any sort of diplomacy going on, heck there really isn't any real sort of communication, it's just sim-like babble back and forth.

there's not much else to do. ^_^

When I read the hype for this game, I thought I was getting an honest to god 4X game that takes you from germ to galactic and everything in between. You'll have to excuse me for being a little less than impressed when I'm shown yet another sandbox game with questionable depth of gameplay. In fact, it seems that once you hit space mode, the game becomes little more than just a post-game walkaround with some extra minigames thrown in. Interstellar wars seem impossible, I didn't see anything about the AI getting UFOs, or there being any sort of space fleet option like armies and such.

It looks like a very interesting toy, but I'm not sure about the quality of the attached game.

FedRebel · Post by **FedRebel** » 2006-03-08 02:11am

Hotfoot wrote:
manipulation,
What manipulation? Stealing creatures and putting them on moons to die of violent decompression?

or you could put them on a livable world and hunt them for sport, or have as the developer suggested in the vid "create a zoo planet"

war,
One UFO versus a planet doesn't seem like a lot of fun to me. It's who's got the biggest gun, which seems to be the UFO once it's upgraded.

Ever heard of conventional war, you don't want to blow up your home planet do you? And there maybe alien worlds you want to conquer, not destroy, you'll need armies, tanks and more surgical air support for that.

destruction,
Whoop, there goes another planet. Hate to tell you, but it gets old, just destroying planets with no real consequences.

Drawing conclusions already? We really know jack shit about the game, undoubtedly there would be penalties of some sort, mild ones that come to mind are that you lose a resource base, a potential colony, and a staging area for advancing deeper into the galaxy

and diplomacy,
What diplomacy? I didn't see any. He showed up, got shot at, shot back, and then ran and blew up the planet. I didn't see any sort of diplomacy going on, heck there really isn't any real sort of communication, it's just sim-like babble back and forth.

You saw a brief demonstration of ingame fotage of an incomplete game, where the developer did an 'impromptu' tour of the enviroment (remember it's a procedural game, the game engine makes it all up as you go along), and you assume that the full capacity of the game is being shown?

You must have a hearing impairment because the developer SAID that diplomacy and trading were attributes in the game.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-03-08 03:15am

FedRebel wrote:or you could put them on a livable world and hunt them for sport, or have as the developer suggested in the vid "create a zoo planet"

Again, I don't really consider that manipulation, and making a zoo planet and a hunting planet are pretty much the same thing. Not that you seem to have a huge amount of control over your people's actions.

You know what manipulation is to me? Tricking someone into believing you've got something you don't.

Ever heard of conventional war, you don't want to blow up your home planet do you? And there maybe alien worlds you want to conquer, not destroy, you'll need armies, tanks and more surgical air support for that.

Translation, more of the same. That's not space warfare, that's just the same ground warfare that is part of the civ-lite game.

Drawing conclusions already? We really know jack shit about the game, undoubtedly there would be penalties of some sort, mild ones that come to mind are that you lose a resource base, a potential colony, and a staging area for advancing deeper into the galaxy

Yes, I am drawing conclusions based on the half-hour or so of gameplay and description the dev gave us. Why shouldn't I draw conclusions based on the information I'm being given? Should I instead be drawing conclusions on hopes and dreams and magical pixies? Or would you rather I just go "Oh, huh, he's a gaming legend. I'm sure whatever he makes will be gold, no matter what reservations I may have with what he's already shown us." Yes, because that attitude has served me so very well with previous games that promise me the world. I mean, I was skeptical of Daikatana, Deus Ex 2, Black and White, Fable, Civ 3, MoO3, Starlancer, Everquest 2, Star Wars: Empire at War and Force Commander, and hey, even Neverwinter Nights, but those all turned out to be stellar games that delivered everything they promised by the hype machines. The screenshots and videos never disappointed or revealed sub-par graphics or gameplay.

So excuse me if I expect a little more from interstellar content than reiterating the same planetary content over and over and over again. I thought, maybe, just maybe, there'd be as deep a space portion to the game as the ground portion (not that the ground portion seems that deep to begin with), but no, what we get is the UFO, which is essentially the Hand of God for all intents and purposes.

You saw a brief demonstration of ingame fotage of an incomplete game, where the developer did an 'impromptu' tour of the enviroment (remember it's a procedural game, the game engine makes it all up as you go along), and you assume that the full capacity of the game is being shown?

Make all the excuses you want, speculate all you want, there's been a brief bit of news, a rather detailed look at the game itself (call it what you will, a half an hour in a game is pretty extensive and allows for a lot of information to be conveyed). Since then, it's been more or less total blackout. I've seen this before, and it usually leads to two things: One, they're working hard on making everything perfect and spic-span for release, and they've got it all, or they're hurrying their asses off to try and produce all the things the lead dev promised people, making cuts as the deadline draws closer and funding runs out. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I've seen projects that promised a lot before, and quite often they end up more like the latter than the former.

You must have a hearing impairment because the developer SAID that diplomacy and trading were attributes in the game.

Yeah, yeah, and the devs of Deus Ex 2 SAID there would be a deep and detailed emotional conversation system, based on your character's facial expressions and the tone you assumed. Never saw it. Don't see even the basis for the mechanic of it in the game preview, sure as hell didn't see anything close to it in the video, even though there was a PRIME point to show it off when the UFO went to the new planet. When a game developer tells me he's got something that sounds too good to be true, chances are it is.

Like I said before, this project looks like a nice toy to play with, but it seems to be lacking as far as the actual game is concerned.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-08 03:22am

I have an intense skepticism for these types of games and the claims that surround them. I got burned on the mediocre shitty gimmick that was Black and White. It won't happen again. Fable was especially all hype and no substance, but I didn't pay for it, so it was worth every penny. Not the case with Black and White.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-03-08 05:42am

Project EGO was fucking amazing, they actually had coded and working an entire fucking world going about its business, trees growing, germinating, going to seed, growing... Fucking ecosystems in there. Then from that, we got Fable...

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-08 06:23am

B&W was really exactly what Hotfoot is talking about here: an interesting toy. No content, no real game: just a sandbox for throwing people into the sea or rolling rocks down hills. 95% of everything is shit, but when it's something so ambitious, the pressures of real-world development (feature creep leading to cuts, funding issues, the ole hype machine) tend to make it a lot higher.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-08 11:57am

I have to agree with the naysayers, here, which is why this thread is the first tidbit of information I've ever bothered to read about the game. But I have to say, that was a very entertaining 30 minutes of my life, and it was a lot of fun to get sucked into the video and say "Yes, I truly believe it will offer everything he says, and be the best game ever." A few minutes later, of course, reality sets in.

What's truly revolutionary about this game, I think, is the creature editor with the procedural animations. If that became the norm, it would cut development time and increase possibilities, both for the games themselves and for mods.