Spore

Fanny Cradock

A non-DRM related topic...

I have played two games so far both up to the second stage. The first game was as a bad-assed carnivore and the second game as an omnivore. In the carnivore game (though not the omnivore game) there are a couple of huge creatures (health of 1000) and I wonder if you stick around long enough can you grow to that size?

Ross_Mahon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMtgP8ScVc0

The creatures i created dancing to Supermode

Its only the free creature creator though...

thelordofcheese

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

A non-DRM related topic...

I have played two games so far both up to the second stage. The first game was as a bad-assed carnivore and the second game as an omnivore. In the carnivore game (though not the omnivore game) there are a couple of huge creatures (health of 1000) and I wonder if you stick around long enough can you grow to that size?

Those are the 'Epic' Creatures.

You can't grow to that size, but if you can take them down you get something like 100 DNA for your creation.

Also, i think Epics tend to be other peoples creatures that you get while being online (kinda like Mii's and how the mingle). If it's from someone else you should be able tell by the info available on it in your Sporepedia.

thelordofcheese

Ross_Mahon wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMtgP8ScVc0

The creatures i created dancing to Supermode

Its only the free creature creator though...

Some of those are fantastic.
I liked the two headed purple thing with the nipple-claws the best.

Gerard_Smith

Pre-ordered my copy of play.com some months ago, shipped last Wednesday and still hasn't arrived

Sometimes I think An Post deliberately delays my post just to annoy me!

Kernel

I like it lads. It's very simple, red vs blue vs green - generate more units and rush tactics. However, it's original and I like the scope of it.

I was always hoping for an age of empires type game that was geared more towards setting up a tribe and providing for them etc using one massive map which eventually turn into countries. But that day is far far away....

johnny_ultimate

The Space stage really is addictive as hell. First time in years I've lost myself in a game for three or four hours. Have yet to get to grips with terraforming though, too busy dealing with an irksome empire.

Ciaran500

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The Space stage really is addictive as hell. First time in years I've lost myself in a game for three or four hours. Have yet to get to grips with terraforming though, too busy dealing with an irksome empire.

Unfortunately it doesn't last, you've done everything after a few hours.

tba

I can't get enough spore bucks, I'm sad.

Pyr0

i've gotten all the merchant badges and have around 9 million

Branoic

I wanted to like like this so much, but I'm really getting bored.

I found the pre-space stages to be short, cute little distractions before what I thought (going by what some review were saying) was the "real" game, the space section. Just got to the space stage there an hour ago and I'm bored silly.

I've pretty much had enough now. I think i'll go and play a game of Civ IV and then when that's completed, a game of Gal Civ II - which is sort of the experience I was hoping Spore would give me.

I think I've just seriously misjudged the market this game is aimed at, it's all just far far too simplistic and shallow.

thelordofcheese

Branoic wrote: »

I think I've just seriously misjudged the market this game is aimed at, it's all just far far too simplistic and shallow.

I think you've kinda hit on something there. I think alot of people did what you did and saw a Populus like phase, a Civ like phase and a Sins like phase and assumed that they'd be getting these three huge games rolled into one.

I don't think spore was ever really meant to be that game, i mean we're talking about the man who has most recently given us the Sims and the Sims2, it was kinda signposted just how much 'depth' was going to be in this.

I get the feeling spore was designed to be something you play with as opposed to play against (if that makes any sense). Making a creature of your own and seeing other peoples crazy creations is the best part of the game. The early stages serve mostly as a tutorial for romping around in the universe later on where you get to see how those choices you made early on have panned out.

I'm loving it, i just see it as a toybox i can go mental with and the community parts are fantastic (spore-casts, uploading to youtube, various exporters)
I have games like Civ, populous and Sins already, spore isn't them, it's something different.
I don't think i'll be playing this in a years time, but i'm happy with it for the forseeable future.

Zillah

Branoic wrote: »

Gal Civ II

Now thats is an awesome space game. Not quite perfect, but still, fantastic fun.

Pyr0

Yeah I got to the center of the Universe awhile ago. Wasn't as great as I expected !

Anyone know what the item Steve gives you does ?

Maximilian

Zillah wrote: »

Now thats is an awesome space game. Not quite perfect, but still, fantastic fun.

Great game that. Can't wait for No.3. They are promising proper tactical battles in it.

Ciaran500

Pyr0 wrote: »

Yeah I got to the center of the Universe awhile ago. Wasn't as great as I expected !

Anyone know what the item Steve gives you does ?

Huh, when I got to the centre I just got a pretty 3d model of the galactic core.

Gerard_Smith

Has anyone who ordered it from play.com received theirs yet?

steviec

Kernel wrote: »

I like it lads. It's very simple, red vs blue vs green - generate more units and rush tactics. However, it's original and I like the scope of it.

I was always hoping for an age of empires type game that was geared more towards setting up a tribe and providing for them etc using one massive map which eventually turn into countries. But that day is far far away....

The map you do the creature phase on is the same map you do the tribal phase on is the same map you do the Civ phase on - your tribe sets up where your last nest was and your first city sets up where your tribe was - so it really does do that, it's just the control and UI changes make you feel like you're stopping one game and starting another, but it is continuous on a single map. The same map that becomes you're home planet in the space phase too.

cherryghost

i cant get very far, unfortunately, a lot of enemies have been made beside my home planet, and everything is crumbling...

Fanny Cradock

Destroy them!

Jumpy

DONT fire the thing that destroys all the cities on the planet.

Apparently you "Break the galactic code" and your friends dont like you anymore.

thelordofcheese

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Destroy them!

Listen to this man.
Crush them, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!

Fanny Cradock

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Listen to this man.
Crush them, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!

Not going to happen. In space no one hears you scream.

tba

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Not going to happen. In space no one hears you scream.

you just need to buy the attachment for your ufo that transmits sound through a vacuum.

Pyr0

Ciaran500 wrote: »

Huh, when I got to the centre I just got a pretty 3d model of the galactic core.

If you scroll with your mouse wheel like when you're desending down into a planet, it brings you into it.

kinda like the Wormholes.

TomCo

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Listen to this man.
Crush them, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!

We need Conan in space.

WE NEED THIS NOW!

Azza

Oh dears its getting worse on the DRM front for Spore.

This is also a very stupid decision. The 3 activations was bad enough but this is a double whammy to legit customers.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54704

tman

Grrr, still bloody waiting for my copy... Have had a serious amount of post go missing recently, thought that paying extra for signed for first class delivery would have gotten around that, but evidently not!

Canis Lupus

Azza wrote: »

Oh dears its getting worse on the DRM front for Spore.

This is also a very stupid decision. The 3 activations was bad enough but this is a double whammy to legit customers.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54704

Oh wow that's a pretty big kick in the nuts for say.... A parent who bought it for their kids etc.

thebman

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Oh wow that's a pretty big kick in the nuts for say.... A parent who bought it for their kids etc.

Yes, say the parent creates an adult account that can view all content and then wants their kid to play.

This opens a can of worms that could potentially lead to children viewing c*ck shaped creatures.

papu

brim4brim wrote: »

Yes, say the parent creates an adult account that can view all content and then wants their kid to play.

This opens a can of worms that could potentially lead to children viewing c*ck shaped creatures.

sporn is a hazard any splayer must face

MooseJam

do you have to buy the game to get it to work online

papu

MooseJam wrote: »

do you have to buy the game to get it to work online

yeah all the keygen keys are black listed

The Gnome

Here...

Arguably more interesting than the final result.

corblimey

Dagnammit, I only wanted to play with the creature creator for half an hour this evening. That was at 7.20 and I've only just stopped now. This game sucks up far too much time.

steviec

corblimey wrote: »

Dagnammit, I only wanted to play with the creature creator for half an hour this evening. That was at 7.20 and I've only just stopped now. This game sucks up far too much time.

I know what you mean. I still haven't completed space stage because I keep going back and making new creatures. Way too addictive.

Canis Lupus

Finally gotten to the Space stage.

Man this game, for all it's hype is nothing but a dumbed down (and I mean really dumbed down) 5 in 1 game with the first 4 sections being drivel and the final bit being nothing more than a vastly inferior Gal Civ 2 clone.

They've surely tried to make this game appeal to so many people to maximise sales ala Sims style that it could be played by a 1 year old and it suffers horribly as a result.

It's simplistic, it's repetitive, it's repetitive, it's bleeding repetitive and childish and bleh.


So so so so so much potential has gone to waste here it's almost ****ing criminal.

thelordofcheese

Spore is fantastic.
The rest of you are either dead inside or insane, there is no other rational explaination for it.

Maximilian

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Spore is fantastic.
The rest of you are either dead inside or insane, there is no other rational explaination for it.

I've come to the conclusion that it's a very slick, very polished but shallow game. The Cell stage is fun as a kind of arcade game, the creature stage is just plain repetitive. The civ stages are just a bad RTS and the space stage is just a bit crap. To prove it myself I fired up Sins of a Solar Empire again with the latest patch. Now that's a brilliant game.

madrab

Maximilian wrote: »

I've come to the conclusion that it's a very slick, very polished but shallow game. The Cell stage is fun as a kind of arcade game, the creature stage is just plain repetitive. The civ stages are just a bad RTS and the space stage is just a bit crap. To prove it myself I fired up Sins of a Solar Empire again with the latest patch. Now that's a brilliant game.

amen!

thelordofcheese

Maximilian wrote: »

I've come to the conclusion that it's a very slick, very polished but shallow game. The Cell stage is fun as a kind of arcade game, the creature stage is just plain repetitive. The civ stages are just a bad RTS and the space stage is just a bit crap. To prove it myself I fired up Sins of a Solar Empire again with the latest patch. Now that's a brilliant game.

Provided they've actually fixed the missile frigate so spamming them doesn't equal instant victory. Have they? Because that ruined the vanilla version.


Also, you've missed the point by a thousand miles. Spore isn't meant to be Populous + Civ + Sins all in one game. If you're expecting that of course you're going to be disapointed.

Gonzovision

So true!

Canis Lupus

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Also, you've missed the point by a thousand miles. Spore isn't meant to be Populous + Civ + Sins all in one game. If you're expecting that of course you're going to be disapointed.

Then what is it supposed to be cos the sum of it parts equals a crap game in my opinion.

thelordofcheese

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Then what is it supposed to be cos the sum of it parts equals a crap game in my opinion.

to repost from a few pages back

Me wrote:

I think you've kinda hit on something there. I think alot of people did what you did and saw a Populus like phase, a Civ like phase and a Sins like phase and assumed that they'd be getting these three huge games rolled into one.

I don't think spore was ever really meant to be that game, i mean we're talking about the man who has most recently given us the Sims and the Sims2, it was kinda signposted just how much 'depth' was going to be in this.

I get the feeling spore was designed to be something you play with as opposed to play against (if that makes any sense). Making a creature of your own and seeing other peoples crazy creations is the best part of the game. The early stages serve mostly as a tutorial for romping around in the universe later on where you get to see how those choices you made early on have panned out.

I'm loving it, i just see it as a toybox i can go mental with and the community parts are fantastic (spore-casts, uploading to youtube, various exporters)
I have games like Civ, populous and Sins already, spore isn't them, it's something different.
I don't think i'll be playing this in a years time, but i'm happy with it for the forseeable future.

So in short, the fun is making creatures/buildings whatever and being creative with the tools given. Some of the stuff i've seen online has been amazing, the mega maid (spaceballs), a giant flying brain (futurama), starbug (Red Dwarf) and some crazy creatures, the best being a carebear. You havn't witnessed terror untill these things turn up and unleash hell.

If i were to compare spore to something, it'd be Youtube. It's a way for people to share their creations with eachother and the creativity of some of the people out there impresses me no end. And i like that. It's more appealing to me than the populous & Civ & Sins hybrid everyone else wants. As i said earlier, i have these games and they do their own thing very well. Why would i want to buy a game that is just more of the same?

I know it's not clicking with alot of people, they want something different to what spore actually is, but i think that's their failing, not the games.
You can't punish the game for living up to expectations you invented thanks to your insane imagination.

Maximilian

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Provided they've actually fixed the missile frigate so spamming them doesn't equal instant victory. Have they? Because that ruined the vanilla version.


Also, you've missed the point by a thousand miles. Spore isn't meant to be Populous + Civ + Sins all in one game. If you're expecting that of course you're going to be disapointed.

Re. Sins - I don't know but the new beta patch changes a vast amount of stuff balance-wise. I've no doubt that issue is fixed now. AI seems beefed up too.

Re. Spore - I don't think anyone has missed the point. Sure, its not populous + sins etc. but when those games are so vastly superior to any part of Spore, then why bother with Spore? Just because they are all in the same game? Too warioware for my taste.

Look, you like it and good for you but I think its massive disappointment and ill-conceived. I'm not alone either. It really is a game you eitehr love or hate, more than any in recent memory. I cannot fathom how some people really love this, anymore than those people cannot fathom how the rest hate it.

edit: reading a few other posts - it seems the creature creator is the most loved part. What's up with that?

GhostInTheRuins

Aww, I was really looking forward to spore but this thread has now put me in two minds whether I'll buy it or not.

Canis Lupus

Maximilian wrote: »

edit: reading a few other posts - it seems the creature creator is the most loved part. What's up with that?

That's my feeling. The creator is cool but what's the put of having these tools that let your mind run riot and then get placed in a game enviroment that basically sucks or that, regardless of my creature having 50 arms, once I get to the main game (space) it's unimportant? Or having a spacehip that looks like a hoover cos it does basically the same as someones ship that looks like a toaster....

So I just got attacked by carebears or darth vader lookalikes?? They look fantastic and kudos for the person who invented them but the underlying game is just cutesy fluff, 'by the numbers' game.

There is only faux depth to Spore imo so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree

Phototoxin

I must admit having played it for about 2 days when i got it I've not touched it since. Guild Wars is more appealing and CS:S. The creature creator is fun, I dont know how they managed to spend so much time and money on it and sure as **** I wont be buying and EAxtra EAxpansions.

thebman

I think its fun.

it may not have the depth of most/any modern RTS game but that is kind of the point is to keep it simple so anyone can enjoy it.

Personally though I wouldn't view people making the brain from Futurama as their creature as creative. It isn't really, the person that makes something new is creative, they are just mimicking their favourite show, not very creative although not necessarily easy to do.

I think its a bit of a fad and sure as hell won't take on the Sims for popularity. I think a Spore 2 could just build on this to add more depth though. Its not a very open game despite it trying to appear as one. You don't have a lot of decisions to make and you can't make a big sea monster and not go into space which I was kind of expecting to be able to do. Would have been fun

corblimey

I suspect (and call me cynical) but EA and Wright are going to keep releasing nicey pricey expansion packs for this one until Armageddon. And each one will make some part of the 5 mini games a whole lot better, for example, add better space trading, add better rts features to the tribal stage, etc. Sims 2 as a standalone game is kinda sucky, but add in the 30 or so expansion packs and you have a completely different game (which is also kinda sucky imho ). I'd say that's the plan going forward.

As someone says above, it just makes no sense to have this creator that does all these wonderful things when those things are then rendered pointless in the space stage. You develop this affinity for the creature you've watched evolve and then boom, you're in a spaceship and it's all irrelevant.

ETA: Had a wonderful moment last night in Creature, when one of my previous war-like creations who had somehow mutated to be over 20 feet tall came bumbling along into my camp and kicked the snot out of my new non-warlike creation. Lovely.