It's Time for Another Spore Thread. Again.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 11:06am

Yeah, it's my turn now. Spore is just over the horizon, and the demo (just the creature creator) is only ~18 days away. So people, what do we think?

Personally, I am excited. Even though its become far more cartoonish (and from the looks of it, less flexible) and lacks the water stage, it still looks damn fun, and the creature creation should occupy me for a good long while.

Oh, and naturally, have some links to new videos.

IGN's 12 minute creature creator hands on

Creature Creation Video

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 11:17am

Personally? Don't care for it much. I'm honestly tired of games that promise the world, end up getting delayed to high hell, then offering a fraction of what was originally offered. Maybe it's unfair of me to judge a game based on its pre-release hype, maybe I should judge the game entirely on its merits out of the box, but I can't help feel like game companies continually try to pull fast ones on us by getting us all excited about something, then replacing what they originally promised with something that is, frankly, not nearly as cool.

I mean, what's the purpose of calling it "Spore" if the "Spore" stage has been completely removed? Shame on the marketing and dev teams for doing this. Shame.

That said, I was never terribly enthusiastic about the game as promised. The actual gameplay itself seemed, well, less than intriguing. Honestly it looked like something I'd get bored of in just a few hours. The combat system looked weak as hell, as did the city construction, world building, and yes, even the terraforming. It may fascinate people with low standards, but it's like the dev team went to each other and said, "Hey guys, let's make the shittiest RTS and Civilization game we can, try to make it interesting by having a fully procedural creature maker that produces creatures that really aren't that different from one another in any discernible way, then we'll have a lame 4X space exploration component with a god ship that lets you just fuck around with cheats turned on. Woo, sounds like an awesome time had by all.

Really, 3-4 shitty games plus one marginally cool feature does not a sweet-ass game make. I applaud them for trying to do something different, at least, in this world of shooter and RTS clones, but really, with the time and energy spent on Spore, I was expecting something truly unique.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 11:28am

I don't recall there ever being an actual spore phase, Hotfoot. If you mean the cell phase, that's still in, just not the transitional water phase between it and land.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 11:47am

Spore, cell, it's a matter of semantics. Both refer to the exceptionally small and insidious.

Fair enough, they kept it in, but got rid of the water phase, which is still stupid, but whatever. Hey, let's show of gameplay that won't actually exist in the final game. GENIUS!

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 12:12pm

They haven't shown it off since 2005, if I recall, maybe early 2006. It was shown off in an early concept demo at the GDC, not in an official teaser. You may as well say that about most any game that has ever released a screenshot or movie of something later cut due to time, budget, or other factors.

I do agree the removal of the water phase was idiotic.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 12:15pm

Early concept? That's not what I'd call actual gameplay footage of all stages including a reel of Robin Williams just fucking around. The game looked fuckingly near done then. Remember, at that point, the game was coming "soon". Since then, it's been endlessly delayed for little reason, and features have been chopped like veggies on the food network.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2008-05-29 12:22pm

Hotfoot wrote:Early concept? That's not what I'd call actual gameplay footage of all stages including a reel of Robin Williams just fucking around. The game looked fuckingly near done then. Remember, at that point, the game was coming "soon". Since then, it's been endlessly delayed for little reason, and features have been chopped like veggies on the food network.

Apparently while there was quite a bit of gameplay done there, the engine obviously had issues with edge cases (the old 80/20 rule) and in interviews, it was noted that none of the individual games really meshed with each other so it took awhile to get a cohesive game out of it.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 12:26pm

Don't think the videos circa Robin Williams's (who crashed the fucking engine, REMEMBER? Creature was too complex, and it locked up. Don't tell me that's near done, that's a pretty big issue.) fuck around had the water phase.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 12:32pm

Oh, so you magically know why the game bugged out and crashed? It could have been a creature that was too complex, or a system that had a fatal error, or any number of things, even down to the game trying to access a resource that didn't exist in that build. Unless you're on the dev team or heard it straight from them, don't fucking act like you know shit you clearly wouldn't have any idea about.

The engine needed some work, true, however, it was running just about as well from what I saw as an early beta client for any given game.

And yes, they fucking well did. The video released before Robin William's run had a walkthrough of ALL stages of the game, from cell to interstellar.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 12:35pm

And this video was from the same period, not from 2005? If so, I don't recall it (and I'd love a link, I always like the old videos). And fact remains, the engine DID crash on a fairly basic part of the game (half the entire experience is the editors. You don't want them to crash), hence, it was not as close to finished as you thought.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 12:37pm

And in case you think I'm full of shit:

Feb '06 (Note: This is when the video went up, this was actually delivered at the '05 GDC.

May '06

So, yes, the underwater part has been shown in significant detail very early on.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 12:43pm

That was my exact fucking point. May 06 and the 05 GDC video were fucking EARLY.

They haven't shown it off since 2005, if I recall, maybe early 2006

Again, it isn't uncommon for games designers to show something off in early videos only to drop it later for whatever reasons.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 12:44pm

Okay, first off, a demo crashing at a trade show? Not that uncommon. Again, since you cannot realistically cite a reason for failure, we don't know if it was general instability in the code itself, that build, or the computer it was running on. It's impossible to declare one way or the other without access to data only the devs would have, but they clearly thought it was stable enough to let Robin Williams play on it. That it crashed is regrettable, but you can't read too much into it.

Look, the fact of the matter is that I've not been following Spore since the '05-'06 period, but I remember what I saw there, and it looked damn near done, and they were marketing it as damn near done, but since then it's been delay after delay with no real reason given as to why.

Now, as I'm looking at more info about the game, I have to ask, what makes you say that the aquatic section has been axed? Did the devs say specifically it had been cut, or did you once again, assume that this was the case?

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 12:48pm

Yes, they specifically said it had been axed, along with flying creatures.

http://www.spore.es/index.php?s=specials&id=3 Fansite that had an interview.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 12:53pm

Fair enough, it's still a stupid move on their part.

Seriously, who else is getting tired of being promised the world by game devs? Will Wright and Peter Molenuex are particularly heinous here.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 12:55pm

Now that we're off that, I have to agree on both counts. Bad move, and I'm damn tired of such.

Although I do have a lot of faith in Will Wright, if only because of his track record. Even if not the world, as promised, it encourages me to think Spore will be good anyway.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 12:59pm

Frankly I'm not overly impressed by his track record. A few basic simulation games with the pinnacle of his career being the most voyeuristic game on the planet.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2008-05-29 01:15pm

Hotfoot wrote:Fair enough, it's still a stupid move on their part.

Seriously, who else is getting tired of being promised the world by game devs? Will Wright and Peter Molenuex are particularly heinous here.

I'd prefer to be promised the world and get say, Belgium, than to be promised, and get, a small garden shed. Which is what 90% of generic drek does.

Commander 598 · Post by **Commander 598** » 2008-05-29 01:22pm

The water phase will probably be the first expansion...

Ohma · Post by **Ohma** » 2008-05-29 01:26pm

Hotfoot wrote:Frankly I'm not overly impressed by his track record. A few basic simulation games with the pinnacle of his career being the most voyeuristic game on the planet.

So because you don't like the Sims or Sim City (both of whitch deliver exactly what they promise), Will Wright is automatically in the same catagory as Peter Molenuex who constantly releases broken, underdesigned, and overhyped trash?

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 01:33pm

The first SimCity, maybe even #2, delivered what was promised. Hell, even SimTower was pretty keen. Everything past that? Overhyped garbage, by and large.

The Sims, meanwhile, yeah...let's have a game where a minute is a second in realtime and it takes unreasonable lengths of time to do anything, thus maintaining "balance". I'm sorry, what happened to the "Simulation" part? Let's also remember that they create a basic game for the Sims, then release a flood of expansion packs and other "micro"payment content (not so micro, at $20 a pop), so at the end of the day, for the "Fully featured" game, you're spending hundreds of dollars.

Ohma · Post by **Ohma** » 2008-05-29 01:37pm

Hotfoot wrote:The first SimCity, maybe even #2, delivered what was promised. Hell, even SimTower was pretty keen. Everything past that? Overhyped garbage, by and large.

The Sims, meanwhile, yeah...let's have a game where a minute is a second in realtime and it takes unreasonable lengths of time to do anything, thus maintaining "balance". I'm sorry, what happened to the "Simulation" part? Let's also remember that they create a basic game for the Sims, then release a flood of expansion packs and other "micro"payment content (not so micro, at $20 a pop), so at the end of the day, for the "Fully featured" game, you're spending hundreds of dollars.

So again, you don't like the games, fair enough. However I'm fairly certain that none of the hype for any of the Sim series games was anything like "lol, it's JUST LIKE REAL LIFE!!!" and more along the lines of "lol, you can run a computer city/building/ant hive/world/farm/other spinoff!" or "lol, you get to play with virtual dollies!".

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-05-29 01:48pm

I actually liked the original SimCity games, but it's a far cry from "He made a good game once" to "He'll make a good game now".

The Sims is a POPULAR game. It is, perhaps, a well constructed game. However, it is largely mindless, repetitive, and ultimately boring to me outside of the "one more turn" syndrome. I played it, realized I was spending more time organizing my character's life than my own, and promptly shut the thing off.

Popularity != Quality. American Idol should be proof enough for that.

And again, just because someone made an awesome game twenty years ago does not mean they'll make an awesome game today, especially when you're talking about completely changing the scope of the game involved. If the developer of, say, Final Fantasy 6 told me he was going to make an Oblivion-esque game with a totally open world and organically flowing characters, I'd be very cautious until I saw something resembling the final product, because while both games are huge, sprawling RPGs, the qualities of a Final Fantasy game and an Elder Scrolls game are rather different.

Similarly, Spore promises 4X and RTS gameplay, plus city-building, plus cohesive behavior citizens, and huge scale. I can see right off from the videos he's shown us that he's taking huge shortcuts and that those aspects of the game are going to be, at best, mediocre. He has not history of developing anything like those games, of course, so naturally I would expect them to suck, and the entire process of Spore is a giant case of "Too many ideas, too little time". The fact that he cut major parts of the game out and has basically redesigned it is indicative of this fact.

Bottom line: He's promising us the world and giving us Hoboken. Just like Molyneux. He might have a somewhat better track record, but at this point, just be glad it's a disappointment like what Molyneux comes out with, and not utter shit like what Derek Smart churns out.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2008-05-29 02:34pm

Few flaws there, Hotfoot. Will does, in fact, have experience in developing city building. And one transitionary phase is not, necessarily, a major part.

Furthermore, Spore was not designed to be incredible in and of its individual phases, but rather a collection of toys, in his own words. Cheap, easy fun, rather than a fully developed game.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-05-29 07:45pm

Seriously, who else is getting tired of being promised the world by game devs? Will Wright and Peter Molenuex are particularly heinous here.

Hear hear. Black & White will always be the ultimate expression of this syndrome for me, and since then, I've stayed well away from games that are really toys masquerading as games. I don't remember who drew that distinction on SD.net, it was a few years ago, but it was a very good one. I want games, not fucking toys.