f13.net

Sep 7, 2008


 :grin:


http://www.spore.com/screenshots.php?movieID=7&play=hi

I was really excited about this game two years ago.  Now?  Not so much.  I want to be but I can't seem to muster up anything.

I don't believe them when they set release dates any more.

They were originally supposed to have this game ready last year. I guess the extra year was to get it working on the DS?

I am still looking forward to it, but I don't expect them to actually deliver it on Sept 7. Making this announcement 7 months in advance is just dumb.



(edit for spelling)

Is this the day that Sky's life as he knows it comes to an end?

For one, this was officially announced with Will Wright's name on it in the Spore newsletter. That puts it in a different category than the previous announcements and is in keeping with EA's stockholder's conference call a week or two ago.

Second, if you're not excited about it you REALLY need to look at the videos from summer 07 and recently, especially the demo Will Wright gave at NASA. Everything I see appoints to a very polished game and the freewheeling demonstrations of late give me a warmy fuzzy about this game that the standard marketing horseshit doesn't.

GEEKED!  :awesome_for_real:

I burned off all my geek enthusiasm for this one a few years ago.  I will still buy it whenif it comes out, of course, but I'm done trying to count down the days to release.

Not worth installing Quicktime.

It just gives you the date I put in the post, basically.

Ha, in that case I'm putting the actual release in February 2009.

Take note gamemakers:
http://www.macworld.com/article/132078/2008/02/spore.html


What separates the upper echelon gamemakers with blockbusters like Blizzard from the rest of the crowd - cross platform releases…

I'll be excited in late August. Until then, way too much shit to do and games to play. I learned my lesson about getting excited about a game months or years before release before the century turned.

Mac-ness aside, if their plans for cross-platform and genre stuff works, it's going to be really cool. Creating and growing a unit in the PC game that you can then take into the card game on a mobile would be cool...of course, I don't own a mobile, nor would I, but I like the concept.

Links to videos? We're all lazy.

There have only ever been two, count 'em, two games by Will Wright that I actually enjoyed.  SimCity 2000, and SimAnt.  Other than that all his stuff has left me extremely cold.  Sure, he comes up with good ideas, and if you're really into the sandbox thing I suppose it's great.  I just don't think he comes through on the "game" portion of his games.

Go to xspore.com. There's one from some genius conference whose name escapes me... that one was good, too

TED, which was the same time as GDC last year.

This is the recent NASA one http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=1076

Was the same but every showing it seems more polished which is a good sign. Massive ambition without polish isn't much good. For that initial 30 minute showing at E3 in 2006 (I think it was 2006) I was in a nerd frenzy about the ambition but it was drab color palettes and a little herky jerky all around. Now it's bright colors and seamless play. The NASA one is cool because it's almost strictly galaxy play and reveals the sheer size of the universe you're playing in. And it's fucking massive.

I like this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5TXEUiR1Xk) better.

I gave up on pre-release excitement around the same time I gave up pre-ordering games. When it goes gold, I'll start showing osme interest and a week or two after release I'll decide if it's something that I'd like to play. And on which platform.

Also.. quicktime? I've avoided doing that, so it better be pretty fucking special to make me consider it.

I don't even know if it's quicktime or not to be honest. Both my home and work computers are a hodgepodge of codecs, players and burning utensils. It all runs together. Besides, you have an ipod right?

I mean... you DO have an ipod, don't you? Come on... everyone has an ipod. The commercials said so.

(http://content.ytmnd.com/content/7/1/0/710c6c4556827d9616bb3fa8a455c30e.gif)

No, I have an iRiver. It's like a Soviet iPod. Except it also functions as a USBOTG 40-gig HDD without any issues. And no need for iTunes. Drag'n'drop FTW, baby!

Interview, please to be readin' dis:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2008/02/12/exclusive-will-wright-on-why-spore-is-taking-so-long-and-much-more-part-i.aspx

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2008/02/12/exclusive-will-wright-on-why-spore-is-taking-so-long-and-much-more-part-ii.aspx

Basically, one points in the interview plain out admits that it took so long because they had it difficult to smooth the overlapping of the gaming stages. Also, playtesting showed that some people want to start dicking around wherever they want in the game first, before playing it seriously. So if you want to blow up planets from the get go, you are allowed to.

Interesting. That's something I brought up from the start: some people are going to like only certain stages. The problem with the staging is that if someone doesn't like one of the stages it could kill the overall enjoyment, and the more diverse the stages are the more likely that is. Good to see them address that, but it shouldn't have been a surprise.

New screenshots.

http://www.joystiq.com/photos/spore-gallery-2/637906/

Maybe it's just my fucking laptop telling the site a queer screen resolution, but to see these in full res, I had to copy and paste the image addresses in the URL bar.

Oh goddammit.... STOP RELEASING STUFF I CAN'T TAKE IT!

STOP MOWING YOUR LAWN ASSHOLE!  YOU MOWED IT LIKE SIXTEEN TIMES TODAY!  IT'S AS SHORT AS IT'S GETTING!

...sorry, flashback...

Spore for DS. Looks pretty cool. There's no network access with a DS, is there? Would be much cooler if you could import little guys from your pc game to play on the crapper.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/851/851789p1.html

DS has WiFi.

Ok, that could be cool then. I hope they have a thing where you can export and print cards, but judging by the hype, I'd bet it's monetized "Visit spore.com and get REAL CARDS of your creations only 99¢/ea!"

I assed myself to skim that article and it doesn't say much, but my advice when dealing with Nintendo is to not put much hope into any online component being cool.  I figure DS-to-DS communication is all you will be getting.

Some interesting tidbits -- they're releasing the Creature Editor as a demo, and integrated into the editor is the ability to package it and automatically post it to YouTube.

It appears they've spent the extra time doing a lot of integration into social networking sites, to basically allow your friends to see and import your creatures into their worlds.

They also added a difficulty slider, to accomodate both the "Gamer" and "creator" type of player.

They seem to be aiming at making it more of a game than "The Sims", but still retaining the "I love to share my Sims shit with my friends and show off my cool stuff" aspect -- enhancing it, even, so that you don't need third-party sites or products to link up to your friends.

An interesting concept. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Any mention on system requirements yet? I am wondering how much of a resource hog this will be, or how it will scale to crappy old systems.

One comment I liked in the newsweek blog. Will pointed out that if you take the time to explore a gamespace, and find the local maximum in that gamespace, its real hard for people to compete with you in that gamespace. There is no big competitor for the Sims out there, because it does that gamespace so well. Maybe Spore will be the same.

Kind of like WoW coming out first, not EQ.

We need a translator.

Gaming Steve (http://www.gamingsteve.com) (site currently broken) made some videos of the "Procedural Music in Spore" talk at GDC.

From the creature editor, spaceship editor, and city editor:

(Warning! Video quality = hand-held pointed at a projection screen.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEfr8GO4uBg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bc2VRe89Ho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHCRzAcGS0Y

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

September release? I'll start caring in late August, then.

Having skimmed over the screenshots over at GamingSteve, it appears, while the latest videos suggest something different, the editor's far from gimped towards creating cartoony shit only.

http://www.gamingsteve.com/images/2008/02/gamingsteve_spore_gdc_08_26-thumb-500x375.jpg

I just can't get excited over Spore.

What's the hook for you guys?  What am I missing that you see in it?

I'm sure you hated Lego as a child, too.

Everything.

Frankly, it's the creativity. Being able to basically mold and create these creatures -- such a huge range -- and then release them out into the wild, so to speak? To be able to play with these little simulators on a huge scale (the galaxy game).

It's the sort of unfettered (well, mostly unfettered) creativity and sandbox-ness I've been looking for in games for a LONG time.

The sheer scope of it. Almost every other game is some sort of central mechanic tweaked a zillion ways, fitting genres that were ironically retrofitted to categorize the games that created them. Spore is trying to be all of it. No idea if they'll pull it off, but it's worth checking out for the attempt alone.

I do like that they'll players jump straight into segments of the game. I plan to sfart from scratch to see how well the whole thing ties together.

I think there's a lot of people heading for disappointment when they find the game has less freedom than they thought. At the same time finding that large sandboxes with procedural content and emergent game play actually ends up feeling repetitive, undirected and less satisfying because it can't actually tell a story. Not to mention that players will find the optimal approaches quickly and trivialize the game. I see a lot of nice editors which is nice an all.

I'd be happy to be wrong, but I'm certainly not buying it on launch.

Here I agree. This isn't a clay molding world from what's been made public. It seems to be more a collection of games strapped together under a meta goal, with loads of customization in parts of it.

Going that route I think make it's more casual friendly. Second Life could use the Crytek2 Engine and it'd still never have mass appeal, simply for what it is (even putting aside the other players).

Talking about that, Project Entropia is moving to the CryENGINE 2...

I got to play the DS version at GDC; it's very story/quest/collection-driven.  I'd go so far as to put it into the RPG genre, as it's got character "levelling" and customization to go with the main story and side quests.

The full game will probably be much more sandboxy, but I have seen snippets of story elements in there too, particularly once you start encountering other intelligent species.  Not that I care because I've learned from games like Black & White that I don't need a story to enjoy a sandbox (I had the most fun with those games when I ignored the story and just stayed on one level to play around).

Large sandboxes with procedural content and emergent gameplay = use your imagination to make stories. Players who find optimal approaches and trivialize their experience = broken toys. If you're an unimaginative min/maxer (ie: modern gamer), yes, you will probably not enjoy this type of game.

Sam, I also played a single level of B&W and disliked it when it tried to be more than a sandbox to play in. My main fears about Spore is that they dumb the science down to much and try to make it too much of a game for the aforementioned unimaginative short-attention span crowd that need a story spoon-fed to them in a /game/ (reminds me of the great plot of the aforementioned Legos or the gripping adventure of the shoe in Monopoly).

From what I've heard of the design (and it may have changed since), it's T-shaped. Early play is far more guided, with "endgame" being a total sandbox.

This isn't a huge issue for me, after all... how much gameplay is there to be had in an amoeba?

EQ2 crafting + mitosis = :awesome_for_real:

Spore Creature Creator to be made available before game's release
Bring your own creatures to life.

While the full version of this virtual life-form creating title won't hit stores until September, Maxis has announced that the creature creation toolset for Spore will be made available to PC owners across the world from June 17.

This demo version of the Spore Creature Creator will give players the chance to dabble in the creation of their very own species, using 25% of the creature parts that will be available in the retail title.

As well as letting you play Frankenstein on your PC, the Spore Creature Creator will allow you to directly import your creature into the game upon release as well as upload videos of your handiwork onto YouTube for all to see.

For those of you that aren't content with playing with only part of the game's creature creating power, a full version of the toolset will be available to buy from participating stores, which will unlock all of the creation parts that are set to be available within the retail title. The full version of the Spore Creature Creator is said to retail for around the $10 price point.

http://palgn.com.au/article.php?id=11259&sid=4606147c3228279bc95d9e91de6cc002&title=Spore+Creature+Creator+to+be+made+available+before+game%27s+release

==========================

Interesting move, there...

I always said that CoH would do well to offer their character creation bit as a free demo. :)

June 17 can't come fast enough. All the goddamn blue balling is getting annoying.

As long as I can create a race of super-intelligent baboons bent on galactic domination, then I will buy this game.

Isn't the game dated for release in like October?

This feels a bit early to be releasing a 'demo'.

September. The creature editor is done. Not a demo.

Long time since I checked this discussion:


I guess you are referring to the local maximum stuff. That roughly translates as “make the game the best it can be and its hard to compete”.

But Will Wright’s description is I think more precise.  Thinking in terms of local maximums in a design space is a different way of looking at the process than “making the best product”.

I get the impression one of the drivers for Will Wright in producing Spore is to give people the experience of exploring a design space. One in which there are lots of local maximums but no “best” answer.

I think the world would be a better place if more people thought about complex systems that way.