Spore!

[Sky]

Sep 7, 2008


 


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

[Xanthippe]

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.

[Samwise]

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

[Hutch]

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)

[SnakeCharmer]

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

[Modern Angel]

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! 

[Samwise]

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.

[Yegolev]

Not worth installing Quicktime.

[Sky]

Not worth installing Quicktime.

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

[Yegolev]

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.

[naum]

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

Electronic Arts (EA) and development studio Maxis announced Tuesday plans to ship the new game Spore this September. EA plans for simultaneous Mac and PC release. It's also coming to Nintendo DS and mobile phones.

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

[Yoru]

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.

[Sky]

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

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.

[NiX]

GEEKED! 

Links to videos? We're all lazy.

[Big Gulp]

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.

[Modern Angel]

GEEKED! 

Links to videos? We're all lazy.

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

[Obo]

from some genius conference whose name escapes me...

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

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

[Modern Angel]

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.

[NiX]

I like this video better.

[Azazel]

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.

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.

[Modern Angel]

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.

[Samwise]

[Azazel]

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.

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!

[TripleDES]

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.

[Margalis]

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.

[TripleDES]

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.

[Modern Angel]

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

[WindupAtheist]

SimAnt.

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

...sorry, flashback...

[Sky]

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

[Yegolev]

DS has WiFi.

[Sky]

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!"

[Yegolev]

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.

[Morat20]

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.

[WayAbvPar]

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.

[Hellinar]

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.