We have a Spore thread

[HaemishM]

I wasn't dismissing Spore because it's niche. I want more niche games, especially on the PC whose days of non-online mass market games are fast departing. I was calling it niche because it's so much less mainstream than the Sims that predicting success for Spore based on its sandbox-y similiarities with the Sims was dangerously myopic.

Look, Will Wright has already done Spore, it was called SimWorld. It didn't sell nearly as well as SimCity, despite being a more ambitious version of City. The subject matter of Spore is niche, while the subject matter of the Sims (virtual dress up/relationship games) is a mainstream genre that hasn't been tapped for shit by game makers.

[Samwise]

I find it surprising that people (in this jaded community) are getting excited about a game that hasn't been released/demo'd/seen.

Part of it (for me) is that it's a game completely built around player content, with the bulk of the development going into content creation tools, rather than having a few kludgy tools thrown in as an afterthought.  And that it's being done by a team that has the resources to pull it off and a pretty good track record.

Another part is that every non-gamer who I've shown the Spore demo video to has said "wow, that looks really cool... when is it coming out?"  Including my mother.  If MY MOM, the same person who wouldn't let me buy a Nintendo, looks interested in a video game, we are on the verge of some sort of major paradigm shift.  Dogs and cats living together, that sort of thing.

[Yoru]

Another part is that every non-gamer who I've shown the Spore demo video to has said "wow, that looks really cool... when is it coming out?"  Including my mother.  If MY MOM, the same person who wouldn't let me buy a Nintendo, looks interested in a video game, we are on the verge of some sort of major paradigm shift.  Dogs and cats living together, that sort of thing.

This.

This is the first game I've gotten really excited about in a long time, and not in the least because the majority of my childhood and adolescence were spent playing Will Wright's various Sim games. I had every single SimCity2000 book ever printed, and I read them all, cover to cover, multiple times. The man is more or less my personal Jesus.

Will it be a mainstream success? I think so. But if I like it, that's all I give a fuck about. My one worry is that it will be too gamey or won't have a sandbox mode where I can just fuck around with the tools and the mid-level games and blow up planets and whatnot. I'm aware of the stellar mode, but from what I hear, there's still going to be 'goals' and shit up at that level. Once I unlock everything, I just want to run around making my own fun.

This, coincidentally, may or may not involve populating a planet with furries and then experimenting with things like the positive-feedback-loop runaway greenhouse effect slowly turning it into a molten, burning hell. 

[eldaec]

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Spore be a great game because the concepts and gampeplay have fantastic potential.  But, there's still a lot that could go wrong - *cough* grindy shit to unlock the next gameplay style *cough*.

I'd be much more worried about the fact that if any one of those gameplay styles isn't fun, the whole game dies.

Or about the fact that effort could get spread thin amongst the 'stages' so you end up with a sequence of bad mini games that make the whole effort feel like a circa 1990 movie tie in.

[Samwise]

I think it's entirely possible that there will be some point in the game where I'm thinking "oh for God's sake, just let me find the next foozle to eat so I can be done with this stage already."  On the other hand, though, in his various talks on this, WW has said that the "goal-oriented" part of the game is meant primarily as a tutorial to introduce you to the various editors.  He's also said that once you finish the goal-oriented bit, you've got a complete sandbox with access to every stage of the game and every editor. 

So even if I don't like one of the stages, well, I only have to play through it once, probably for a fairly brief time, and then I never have to go back to it again, even if I want to "reroll" a new creature.

My general sense is that Will wants to keep the "dollhouse" player-content aspect of the Sims (you're choosing limbs instead of choosing wallpaper, but it's really the same sort of game), while cutting out most of the grind (lest we forget, the Sims was an INCREDIBLY grindy game, with lots of tedious micromanagement needed to accomplish the game's main goals). 

I am 100% in favor.

[Morat20]

I find it surprising that people (in this jaded community) are getting excited about a game that hasn't been released/demo'd/seen.

Part of it (for me) is that it's a game completely built around player content, with the bulk of the development going into content creation tools, rather than having a few kludgy tools thrown in as an afterthought.  And that it's being done by a team that has the resources to pull it off and a pretty good track record.

Another part is that every non-gamer who I've shown the Spore demo video to has said "wow, that looks really cool... when is it coming out?"  Including my mother.  If MY MOM, the same person who wouldn't let me buy a Nintendo, looks interested in a video game, we are on the verge of some sort of major paradigm shift.  Dogs and cats living together, that sort of thing.

My wife wants to play it. More than wants to play it, she's hoping it's good enough to justify grant money to buy copies for her elementary school. If it's what it looks like, you're talking about a game custom-designed for fostering creativity, exploration, and love of science in kids. She's not the only teacher waiting for the game to be released.

The best sort of learning takes place when you think you're playing, and this has a lot of potential for younger kids (and the editors seem designed to allow that sort of gameplay).

As for me -- I'm excited about this game. I haven't been excited about a game in a long time. And there's a lot of jaded gamers here excited about this game. Even if Wright fails, that should convince designers there's a market for the idea -- if not Wright's personal solution.


Sam: To me, it looks like "the grind" is hidden inside a gameplay many find fun. Pac-man, Diablo, an RTS -- you play a game to advance. And like you said -- you only have to beat it once. :)

[HaemishM]

I'm extremely interested in the technical concept of procedural graphics and behaviors. The game itself, in all the videos I've seen, has interested me less the more I've seen of it.

[stray]

As for me -- I'm excited about this game. I haven't been excited about a game in a long time. And there's a lot of jaded gamers here excited about this game. Even if Wright fails, that should convince designers there's a market for the idea -- if not Wright's personal solution.

Some of those jaded gamers have never even liked one Will Wright game, and are just setting themselves up for disappointment.

That's the only thing that'll be wrong with this game. Too much hype and completely ungrounded expectations. As if he's making something for them all of the sudden.


Besides that one uncontrollable issue, Will Wright won't fail. He'll make a good Will Wright game, and nothing more.

[Roac]

Look, Will Wright has already done Spore, it was called SimWorld. It didn't sell nearly as well as SimCity, despite being a more ambitious version of City.

SimEarth.  I had it for the SNES, and it sucked because you didn't do much in that game.  Even if you were doing badly in SimCity, you usually had *some* money to play around with, or else some slider you could dink with to get some and then do something with.  In SimEarth, *everything* cost points (money equivalent), even the slider bar things.  So you couldn't touch anything without burning points, and they accumulated very, very slowly.  Hell, even the function that let you query your little critters to see what stage of development they were at cost points.  It didn't sell well because it was a bad game.

[Margalis]

My great fear (I've said this before) is that one or two parts of Spore won't be fun, and that will ruin the whole experience. What happens if you really like the 3rd stage but hate the 2nd? I hope they have a mode where you can just start at a certain phase and stay there or something like that.

[Samwise]

I hope they have a mode where you can just start at a certain phase and stay there or something like that.

Unless Wright was totally lying, there will indeed be that mode.

[Venkman]

It's a life sim without MMOtards. How bad can it possibly be?

[WindupAtheist]

Seconded that SimEarth just plain sucked.

[Trippy]

Seconded that SimEarth just plain sucked.

Better than SimFarm.

[schild]

I liked SimEarth. And SimAnt.

[stray]

Same. I haven't disliked any one of his games.

Now if only he'd make a Sim Survival game. It'd be the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

[Kageru]

Sounds sort of boring to me. Sim-city worked because it had so many parallels to real life, traffic jams, low rent neighborhoods, pollution that people would become addicted to solving it. Taking your "freak-o-the-week" for virtual walks around some alien sludgefarm... not so much. Of course if there are enough sliders and variables to make optimizing your monster challenging it will also scare off all but the hardcore.

Needless to say I don't see the point in being strongly pro or anti until something playable is actually released.

[WindupAtheist]

I liked SimEarth. And SimAnt.

SimAnt was awesome.  I learned to hate that fucking human.  All he did was mow his lawn sixteen times per day.

[Merusk]

I liked SimEarth. And SimAnt.

SimAnt was awesome.  I learned to hate that fucking human.  All he did was mow his lawn sixteen times per day.

Breed more queens... when you start spreading like wildfire because you're sending out 3-4 queens at a time (as well as the other colonies) you drive that lawn-mowing bastard right out of his house.  Buahaha

[Sky]

I'd be much more worried about the fact that if any one of those gameplay styles isn't fun, the whole game dies.

I'd be more worried about it if it wasn't Will making it, and if he wasn't more than willing to say 'hey, let's spend another year getting it right' after admitting some of the problems you just mentioned.

I'm extremely interested in the technical concept of procedural graphics and behaviors.

The one interview or lecture where he was talking about how he recruited the team because of all the cool coding ideas they had was very interesting. It should pay off pretty well.

I've already admitted to being a huge fanboi for this one. I love science and space, I just hope enough of his original inspiration shines through the long haul of development and polish to deliver the original zeal. It's kinda silly, but just the idea of starting in a drop of water and building a civilization to explore space makes me excited like I haven't been in a long time. Equally silly, the first time he pulled out the camera to the galactic view, talked about the SETI inspiration and started to mouse-over stars looking for radio signals....chills of excitement.

Add in tiny filesizes and a game predicated on shared content, and I foresee some good times. I can't wait to invade Haemish's Planet Angst.

Oh, and I'll see your transcript and raise you a youtube search link!

[Yoru]

Yes to everything Sky said.

Oh, and I'll see your transcript and raise you a youtube search link!

I love you man.

[Samwise]

The creature editor is looking really polished.  I'm not quite sure how to quantify that, but it looks a lot more "done" than the early demos.  A lot more parts in the body part palette, tooltips (it looks like) saying what each one is good for, the stage-backdrop thing going on in the background... it looks good.

Also, I dig the acid-spitting ninja slug.   

[Paelos]

I'm going to make a team of eye-patch wearing Monkies who fly Deathstars called "Revenge"

So yeah, I'm excited.

[Sky]

Great to see the Enterprise in action. I was hoping they would allow customization on all levels and they really seem to be working toward that. Now we'll see if they can get past the lawyers, I'd love to have an x-wing or the millenium falcon. And yeah, polish is looking good, I hope it doesn't slip again (though honestly I'm totally ok if it does!).

Looks like they cut down some features and shortened the 'microscope slide' portion of the game, which is kind of a bummer. Flagellums rule!

[Yoru]

Looks like they cut down some features and shortened the 'microscope slide' porton of the game, which is kind of a bummer. Flagellums rule!

I'm guessing they cut it because it was functionally similar to the creature-on-land game, or it simply wasn't demoed. They also appear to have cut the fish part, where going onto land was optional, or that too might've been not demoed.

I liked the more realistic look of the earlier versions of the microscopic phase, but I can't say I'm that surprised that they opted for a softer art style. More appealing to non-science-nerds that way.

As long as I can still blow up planets.

[Xanthippe]

Seconded that SimEarth just plain sucked.

Better than SimFarm.

Yes yes.  SimFarm didn't even work.  I finally gave up on it.  SimEarth also crashed a hell of a lot.  Stability is not one of the hallmarks of the Sim games, unfortunately.

[Xanthippe]

Why did I think Spore was a MMO?  Was it ever announced as multiplayer?

[Sky]

No.

It's technically multiplayer in the way it will download content from other players from their centralized server to flesh out your pond/world/galaxy. And I'm pretty certain you can prioritize friends so we can all have Haem's Planet Angst in our galaxies somewhere.

[Murgos]

It's technically multiplayer in the way it will download content from other players from their centralized server to flesh out your pond/world/galaxy. And I'm pretty certain you can prioritize friends so we can all have Haem's Planet Angst in our galaxies somewhere.

And destroy it and enslave it's people every time it gets spawned into my game.  Muahahaha!

[Xanthippe]

So I can use someone else's content but I can't play _with_ them?

[Morat20]

So I can use someone else's content but I can't play _with_ them?

Yep. It's a single-player game.

God, I'm worried this game is going to suck. Please don't let it suck.

[Merusk]

So I can use someone else's content but I can't play _with_ them?

Yep. It's a single-player game.

God, I'm worried this game is going to suck. Please don't let it suck.

That's what I keep thinking.  It's getting the "let the F13 crew buy it and play with it for a month first" treatment.  I recall the furor over Black and White, Morrowind II and Titan's Quest well.   It's a VERY ambitious game, so I worry about the depth of the parts that will comprise the whole.

[Hoax]

Fucking Titan Quest, its amazing that replacing something that most people hate (b.net) with something nobody could stand even trying to use (gamespy) was enough to completely doom that one for me.  Oh that and the balance came across as totally f'd up on several levels.

[Venkman]

Sony's answer to Spore?

Little Big Planet

18 minute video is worth a looksee.

[Samwise]

That's pretty cool.  Reminds me more of Garry's Mod than Spore, though.