Spored out of your mind?

[Reg]

My enemies all have enormous fleets as well. Hang in there. If you survive long enough to unlock a few weapons upgrades you and one or two friends can easily whip a big fleet of bad guys.

I entered the game to see who belonged to what. The intelligent races I'm involved all belong to people in here. The Cenorite Empire who I'm friendly with and the Space Sharks (who are bad and evil) both belong to Yoru. From Aez I've got the happy friendly Spaezian Empire and of course the Floranna from Lantyssa.  Some of the animals I have are early versions of your intelligent races like the Meeps.

Hmm, I just unlocked the Monolilth special. Maybe I'll use it to evolve the Meeps to sentience. 

Oh another tip. When you shoot down an enemy ship it often drops loot that if you tractor it into your hold is worth 5,000 - 10,000 bucks. I would never have noticed except for reading about it over at QT3.

And another.  When you drop a plant or animal onto a planet while terraforming it instantly fully populates the planet. What this means is that you can safely tractor the guy you just dropped right back into your hold without doing any harm. So you only need to carry one of each type to save space in your hold.

[Yoru]

My worst enemies are the Freedom Sharks. Do they belong to one of us?

I was having a lot of trouble with the space stage of the game. I just can't get the hang of the radar so when I get sent to kill off the 5 glow in the dark animals to avoid ecological catastrophe while a timer counts down in the background it causes me massive frustration.  I cured that by completely ignoring such things. After a few species go extinct there's a final mission that tells me to stabilize the ecology by restocking the planet. I fly over, dump a load of Meeps and bask in the admiration of my allies. :)

Another sometime buddy is the Cenophite Empire. Is that one of yours Aez?

Sup. Cenorites and Freedom Sharks are me.

The Freedom Sharks I created in the editor because I was going for a very specific look, so they have no preset personality. They're based off of an office injoke. I think using the carnivore jaws predisposes them towards being either of the two big aggressive types (zealot & force).

The Cenorites are my powergamed race with the perfect set of attributes for my playstyle in the space age. They swing pretty widely between aggressive and passive over their history, ending up as Ecologists in my game. I'm not sure if those attributes cross over entirely - I have Joe's race (the Will Smifs) in one of my early games, and they came out as Scientists in mine, whereas he said they were force/warmonger dudes in his.

I have a number of F13 races on my planets. I know I've encountered two Spaezian empires in my Cenorite game, one of which I left alone, the other I turned into allies. I've run into a number of F13 nonsentients and buildings; Lant's Dragorann buildings are all over my universe for some reason.

I should genocide out a star cluster and set up a bunch of planets populated with uplifted F13 races, maybe see which ones conquer the others. I also found Sol and turned Earth into a zoo planet; perhaps I should keep some of them there, too.

Edit: Also, Spode help you all whenever I finish evolving the Frobozzians. They make the Freedom Sharks look like cute harmless pandas.

[Soln]

please tell me this game isn't genocide == FTW.  What are the win conditions?

Please tell me this is a joke. This has to be a joke.

Win conditions. Will Wright. ... Win conditions.

Srsly?

Srsly.  Not win, but is it the case that carnivores are the OP?  More clearly, does the game only lend itself to winning via violence or is there a non-violent alternative.  Can you grow a race without nuking others?  Just asking.  The box has arrived.

[Lantyssa]

Srsly.  Not win, but is it the case that carnivores are the OP?  More clearly, does the game only lend itself to winning via violence or is there a non-violent alternative.  Can you grow a race without nuking others?  Just asking.  The box has arrived.

My herbivores are doing pretty well with making peace.  I had to bribe a few races and run a few missions, but things are going well now.

[Reg]

The Cenorites are my powergamed race with the perfect set of attributes for my playstyle in the space age. They swing pretty widely between aggressive and passive over their history, ending up as Ecologists in my game. I'm not sure if those attributes cross over entirely - I have Joe's race (the Will Smifs) in one of my early games, and they came out as Scientists in mine, whereas he said they were force/warmonger dudes in his.

The Cenorites are big ecologists in my galaxy too. It's kind of interesting. I did a couple of missions for them to get them to open a trade route with me early in the game.  They were a real pain in the ass because every 10 minutes I'd get a message saying they didn't like me anymore and were considering shutting down trade and I'd have to drop everything and do another mission. Eventually I just said screw it and ignored them.

After a couple of hours of playing I started getting new messages from them. I'd click the message and they'd give me a nice gift. The only thing I can figure out is that I'm getting much more into the terraforming now and it's made them like me.

Note to Soln: My guys never killed anyone in any of the stages before space. They got a couple of special badges for being pussies.  There's no avoiding fighting in the Space phase of the game though. The Pirates and the Grox can't be reasoned with.

[Shavnir]

Lantyssa's Empire is my bestest buddies. But Shavnir's empire has declared war on us and Reg's empire stopped trading and is also probably going to declare war. You guys are so mean.

The green locusts?  Its kind of funny, due to a stupid mistake on my part (you can only save during the space phase in orbit or above) I actually don't have the save of when they went spacefaring...so it appears /dev/null is actually a stargate.

Or something.

[Jade Falcon]

Srsly.  Not win, but is it the case that carnivores are the OP?  More clearly, does the game only lend itself to winning via violence or is there a non-violent alternative.  Can you grow a race without nuking others?  Just asking.  The box has arrived.

Pretty much what you'd expect from Wil Wright,any way you want to play it is viable with some thought and planning.I haven't tried it yet but I saw the options to have your allies/friends declare war on others for you so it seems you can just go the route of sitting back and letting others do the dirty work while you run a economic or religious take over of the world/galaxy.

[MisterNoisy]

please tell me this game isn't genocide == FTW.  What are the win conditions?

Please tell me this is a joke. This has to be a joke.

Win conditions. Will Wright. ... Win conditions.

Srsly?

Srsly.  Not win, but is it the case that carnivores are the OP?  More clearly, does the game only lend itself to winning via violence or is there a non-violent alternative.  Can you grow a race without nuking others?  Just asking.  The box has arrived.

I've had a much easier time of it (especially through the first 3 stages) with omnivores that just happen to have big teeth.  I know the omnivore sucking tube is way OP in cell mode, and not having to murder everything in creature mode just to stay alive makes it a lot easier.

I've had the same experience with the Meeps - they're EVERYWHERE, but they're pretty much harmless no matter which era you run into them in.

[Sky]

My enemies all have enormous fleets as well. Hang in there. If you survive long enough to unlock a few weapons upgrades you and one or two friends can easily whip a big fleet of bad guys.

Oh another tip. When you shoot down an enemy ship it often drops loot that if you tractor it into your hold is worth 5,000 - 10,000 bucks. I would never have noticed except for reading about it over at QT3.

And another.  When you drop a plant or animal onto a planet while terraforming it instantly fully populates the planet. What this means is that you can safely tractor the guy you just dropped right back into your hold without doing any harm. So you only need to carry one of each type to save space in your hold.

Yeah, since the "reload", I've pissed off Shavnir's guys again. They are naturally pissy but I stole an artifact from their homeworld before I knew that soured relations. Woops. Lantyssa and I have been fending off their invasions, but I had to let Lantyssa hang out to dry against Reg this time. She's doing quite well, though, and still expanding into space behind her. The problem is more that whenever I'm in the local area, there are invasions every five minutes. I waited so long to colonize worlds, there aren't really any new worlds to expand to in my area, so I'm terraforming the three systems I own already, but it is tough when I'm also called away to fend off these invasions all the time. I peeked at the official boards and it seems a common complaint.

If you have your radar active, after you defeat a foe, it'll ping the loot drop. Makes it easy to find lootz after a longer global battle. The other tip, about populating, is a GREAT idea.

Edit: Also, Spode help you all whenever I finish evolving the Frobozzians. They make the Freedom Sharks look like cute harmless pandas.

I decided to start a hostile race for when I want to blow off steam after the Meeps get stomped :) FEAR THE SPORKS! (git it, space orks, spore, SPORKS!)

On "winning". I find it odd that they expanded from the initial duality of the cell/creature/tribal phases to a triality of military/religious/economic for the civ phase but then revert to economic/military for space. As a religious/entertainment race, it kinda leaves the Meeps in the cold. Since, as I mentioned, I'm stuck between several pretty large empires, my only hope for expansion is either buying out systems or conquering them. Odd.

I've had the same experience with the Meeps - they're EVERYWHERE, but they're pretty much harmless no matter which era you run into them in.

Meep zep du mip em wibble nips, den Meeps BAM ZTAB! 

[Sky]

Btw, even with all the flaws that a game of this scope must have, I fucking love it. Not to mention the Sims formula (expansion ad nauseum) is the PERFECT way to flesh out such a massive undertaking.

edit: Also, you can get the advanced rotate handles by holding down tab in the creators. I assume you know that holding alt and dragging a part copies it. I forgot the one to pull a joint off a limb, though, to use an upper arm for a neck, f'rinstance.

[Lantyssa]

edit: Also, you can get the advanced rotate handles by holding down tab in the creators. I assume you know that holding alt and dragging a part copies it. I forgot the one to pull a joint off a limb, though, to use an upper arm for a neck, f'rinstance.

Ctrl lets you sever limbs.

[Sky]

I figgered. Good video through the official community portal on painting. I had heard most of the creator stuff, but didn't know any of the paint stuff.

Alt = eyedropper
3: modifies dropper to pick up color only
4: modifies dropper to pick up texture only
5: resets default dropper behaviour

Crtl = Paint all same parts (all the gothic windows, but not porthole windows, for instance)
1: modifies ctrl to paint all similar parts (all windows or all doors, all trim, etc)
2: resets default ctrl behaviour

Shift = Paint all parts of that section of model

Good vid to watch, though. He makes little cubes of his most used colors for complex stuff so he can just eyedropper off them, then delete them when he's done with the model.

[DaZog]

Buddy name = dazog

If it works, that is. The spore site seems to think it doesn't exist 

[Hutch]

Looks like it's working now. I think their server threw up earlier today, I was getting server 500 errors before.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm up to the tribal phase and so far this game sucks.

I have never seen pathfinding this terrible.  A mountain pass seemingly wide enough for your guys to pass two-abreast is an insurmountable obstacle.

[Trippy]

Spore manual lies about allowing multiple accounts per install:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080912/0031172248.shtml

[lamaros]

Wrong thread. Whoops. I blame sickness.

[bhodi]

That section in the manual was a misprint and will be corrected in future printings of the manual. There is one Spore registration/account per game/serial code so you are correct in that you cannot make multiple accounts at this time.

Eat Shit EA.

I hope your game crashes and burns.

Oh wait, I don't have to hope.

[Trippy]

I like how they claim it's a misprint. Almost certainly it was allowed in some version and then a EA bigwig heard about that and realized that would cost them money and told them to take it out but they didn't have a chance to reprint the manuals.

[Calantus]

So EA is evil again? Good to know, I was getting a little confused there.

[Azazel]

The more I read about this game, the less interested I become in ever playing it.

Yet, at the same time, the more I read about it, the more I feel like I am going to have to pirate a copy out of general principle.

[WindupAtheist]

I pirated it, and I'm glad I didn't pay because I'd totally feel ripped off right now.  Everything somehow manages to feel dumbed-down and cluttered at the same time.

Microbe phase:  If this were a Flash game I'd think it was pretty nifty.  This was probably the most directly fun part of the game.  You sit down, and within a minute or two you're swimming around eating stuff and evolving your creature.  This and the next phase REALLY remind me of EVO for SNES.

Creature phase:  Getting bodyparts and modifying your creature is fun, but a lot of this is just you tediously eating creatures via MMO-style combat.  Eventually when you're running with a pack and some of the other species are fighting each other this is kind of neat.

Tribal phase:  Shitty watered-down RTS.  Kill the red village, now kill the blue village, now kill the... etc...  I do like the way your creatures still use all their special attacks from the previous phase, but overall this was my least favorite part thus far.

Civilization phase:  Less shitty but still watered-down RTS.  Kill the red nation, now kill the blue nation...  You design one ground unit, one air unit, and one sea unit type.  That's it.  Since modifications to my creature always had a lot of direct meaningful effect on gameplay, I spent a good chunk of time coming up with a well-designed ground vehicle complete with a tailgun for shooting things behind it.  Then the first time I went into combat I realized that all vehicles fire auto-homing poofs of light into the air and it didn't matter how I designed them.  All that matters is the overall proportion of health/speed/damage.  Just get 4 cities so you can build air units and then pew-pew everyone else to death from the sky.

Space phase:  I just started this one, but so far it's looking like a micromanagement nightmare of playing an empire-building game by physically flying your avatar to every city on every colony and telling them to build houses and shit.

[Soln]

It was a flash game -- cell game == flOw [original game is here, then on PS3] (where the designer worked under Wright for a bit then left 2007)

And civ game == Populous: the Beginning





I still would like to try Spore.

But it's sad/ironic what's happened -- any game that I really admire I reinstall and continually replay.  I kind of want it around to reinstall and replay even for a few minutes.  Like an old book.  Can't do that with Spore possibly.

[Reg]

Half the fun of the game is being online and seeing stuff that other people make. With only one account per game it's practically like an MMO. All of the other nonsense like three installs per account is massive overkill.

I'm enjoying the same but I think I can safely say that this has less replayability than any Will Wright game I've ever owned.  Even mediocre ones like SimAnt kept me amused for months but I don't see that happening here.

[WindupAtheist]

I dunno, SimEarth was pretty lame.

[Reg]

I liked SimEarth too. I've liked all of his games and although I liked Spore as well I found it disappointing especially after all of the hype.

[Azazel]

I didn't mean I'll pirate it to actually play It doesn't seem worth my time. I meant to pirate it just to say "fuck you and your DRM, EA".

[WindupAtheist]

So.  I played some space mode.  It's awesome.

I need to learn how to terraform a planet back together after I suck all the air off to kill everyone on it, Spaceballs style.

[Reg]

Terraforming is truly awesome especially after you unlock the permanent tools that you don't have to pay 150k a pop to use. But yea, Space is where the real game is.

[Samwise]

I just unlocked the energy-driven terraforming tools last night and I was all like   

My guys at Mission Control keep telling me to go colonize other star systems, but fuck them.  I'm going to go put MONKEYS on the fucking MOON.

[naum]

I just unlocked the energy-driven terraforming tools last night and I was all like   

My guys at Mission Control keep telling me to go colonize other star systems, but fuck them.  I'm going to go put MONKEYS on the fucking MOON.

SOLD. I AM SO BUYING THIS GAME.

[Murgos]

I pirated it, and I'm glad I didn't pay because I'd totally feel ripped off right now.  Everything somehow manages to feel dumbed-down and cluttered at the same time.

Microbe phase:  If this were a Flash game I'd think it was pretty nifty.  This was probably the most directly fun part of the game.  You sit down, and within a minute or two you're swimming around eating stuff and evolving your creature.  This and the next phase REALLY remind me of EVO for SNES.

Creature phase:  Getting bodyparts and modifying your creature is fun, but a lot of this is just you tediously eating creatures via MMO-style combat.  Eventually when you're running with a pack and some of the other species are fighting each other this is kind of neat.

Tribal phase:  Shitty watered-down RTS.  Kill the red village, now kill the blue village, now kill the... etc...  I do like the way your creatures still use all their special attacks from the previous phase, but overall this was my least favorite part thus far.

Civilization phase:  Less shitty but still watered-down RTS.  Kill the red nation, now kill the blue nation...  You design one ground unit, one air unit, and one sea unit type.  That's it.  Since modifications to my creature always had a lot of direct meaningful effect on gameplay, I spent a good chunk of time coming up with a well-designed ground vehicle complete with a tailgun for shooting things behind it.  Then the first time I went into combat I realized that all vehicles fire auto-homing poofs of light into the air and it didn't matter how I designed them.  All that matters is the overall proportion of health/speed/damage.  Just get 4 cities so you can build air units and then pew-pew everyone else to death from the sky.

Space phase:  I just started this one, but so far it's looking like a micromanagement nightmare of playing an empire-building game by physically flying your avatar to every city on every colony and telling them to build houses and shit.

So, what your saying is that you have enjoyed it so much that you have spent hours unlocking all the phases?  And this justifies you pirating it how?

Because, you know, like, if it actually sucked, you wouldn't be playing it.

[WindupAtheist]

I am never playing those other phases again.  I spent a few hours slogging through them to reach the space phase, which is indeed to my liking.  So I guess ethically I should run out and buy a box of Spore.  And then throw it in the trash, I guess, since I don't see the need to screw with the DRM when I already have it installed.

So anyway, yeah, I know how to move the little dot around the bullseye, but how do you stabilize the environment?  I know you have to plunk living things down.  I know there's a way to insta-populate the planet with something so you don't need a hold full of 5000 trees and monkeys and shit.  I just don't know how it works.

[Samwise]

Fill up the little ecosystem slots from left to right.  You don't need 5000 different species, just six per terraforming level - one small plant, one medium plant, one large plant, two herbivores, one carnivore/omnivore.  And you only need one individual of each; putting one down will insta-populate the planet as long as the ecosystem has an open slot for it.

I haven't gotten to the stage of carefully planning out my ecosystems yet. My system is to fly to a random planet, scoop up one of each thing I need, and fly back to my terraforming project.  The flying to a random planet each time means I don't have to keep careful track of what I've already put down (since it's got to be a new species).

My theory on space is that the way to keep from having lots of micromanagement shit to do is not to get involved in any fights.  Fly the fedex missions and do lots of trading; this gets you money to spend on sandbox tools and it keeps everyone happy with you.  If someone asks you to help them in a fight against anything but Grox or pirates, politely ignore them; you can make it up to them by doing a fedex mission later, but helping them against another empire just means that sooner or later that empire's going to be raiding your colonies.  To deal with belligerent empires that demand tribute, lay the fedex treatment on thick so you can form trade routes and alliances as quickly as possible.  I've been doing this with my second game and I've been pretty successful at keeping everyone happy with me and having a minimum of distress calls to answer.

[Reg]

The easiest way to keep everyone happy with you is to terraform their planets for them.  It's only worth doing once you have the energy based tools but if you raise one of their T0 colonies to T1 they will become quite happy with you.  You don't even have to stabilize it by dropping plants and animals.