[bigsilly]

Hi! A friend told me that Spore's been made more like an action-game, and that certain "stages" in the evolution of your organism have been reduced to minigames.

I was just wondering if any of you knew more about that and where I could read more about it? I looked at the Spore Wiki and couldn't find anything that seemed related...

Thanks!

[Dresden]

IIRC wasn't Spore originally pitched to be an MMO?

[Skrying]

Originally Posted by Ink

IIRC wasn't Spore originally pitched to be an MMO?

No. It has online where you can visit other peoples planets if you consider that MMO.

Anyway, there are no signs the game has been dumbed down. There have been sizable visual tweaks. Much in total is not known about the game though.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by Ink

IIRC wasn't Spore originally pitched to be an MMO?

I think the idea was that a lot of the content was actually generated by other players, and then pulled into your game as you played it. So for instance, if you found another creature/village/city/planet, it would have been designed by other players and uploaded to the Spore server, and then downloaded to your game as you needed it.

It's a way for Spore to generate a lot of varied content without the dev team actually having to do the work, and Will Wright said as much in his various demonstrations of the game.

Here's how the Wiki puts it:

"Massively single-player metaverse"

Wright calls the game a "massively single-player online game". Simultaneous multiplayer gaming is not a feature of Spore. The creatures, vehicles, and buildings the player can create will be uploaded automatically to a central database (or a peer-to-peer system), cataloged and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players' games. The data transmitted will be very small — only a couple of kilobytes per item transmitted, according to Wright. This was due to procedural generation of material.

During Wright's Long Now Foundation seminar with Brian Eno in June 26, 2006, he mentioned that players would receive statistics of how their creatures would be faring in other players' games, referring to this as the alternate realities of the Spore metaverse. The game would report to the player on how other players interacted with them (for example, how many times other players made alliances with their race or destroyed their planet). The personalities of user-created species are dependent on how the user played them.

[Dresden]

Originally Posted by Skrying

No. It has online where you can visit other peoples planets if you consider that MMO.

Anyway, there are no signs the game has been dumbed down. There have been sizable visual tweaks. Much in total is not known about the game though.

I mean in it's original production, I thought they intended to make it an MMO, which was later changed.

edit- BZB's explanation clarified it for me.

[Riddlewire]

Originally Posted by bigsilly

Hi! A friend told me that Spore's been made more like an action-game, and that certain "stages" in the evolution of your organism have been reduced to minigames.

It wouldn't be unprecedented. Fable and Impossible Creatures were both too ambitious in original concept (which both had similarities with Spore). The end result, after lots of editing, was an action-adventure and an action-strategy game.
Will the same thing happen to Spore?

[Arwin]

The answer to this question is obvious:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/49653

[L233]

Originally Posted by Arwin

The answer to this question is obvious:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/49653

The answer to the question was obvious to me the second I read the thread title.

I'd make some disparaging comments about games being dumbed down for the console tards but I don't want yet another moderator warning for not saying nice things about consoles.

[Neb]

Originally Posted by L233

The answer to the question was obvious to me the second I read the thread title.

Haha!
I thought the same (but in a nicer way )before even entering the thread but then it is not confirmed at all that it has downgraded gameplay or?

[Skrying]

Originally Posted by Arwin

The answer to this question is obvious:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/49653

I don't follow, but then know the way you think I'm not surprised.

[AlStrong]

So... nothing new, just rumours spun from air? *sigh*

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by Skrying

I don't follow, but then know the way you think I'm not surprised.

Ok, then, since my way of thinking is apparently so incredibly mysterious to you, let me spell it out as best I can:

The OP's friend has been reading about the Wii version.

[Skrying]

Originally Posted by Arwin

Ok, then, since my way of thinking is apparently so incredibly mysterious to you, let me spell it out as best I can:

The OP's friend has been reading about the Wii version.

Still doesn't make sense as nothing I've read suggests the Wii version of Spore is going to be "dumbed" down.

[imsabbel]

I think _my_ main problem with spore is the extreme difference between what we have been _told_ it would be like, and what we have been _shown_

The whole gameplay videos up to now were just minigames on the level flash-games.

-Swimm around eat stuff
-3rd person "sims" mode
-sim city ultralight
-civilisation ultralight
-Fly around and look at planets not doing anything sensible.

There is much talk about "procedural", but no indication if this means anything for gameplay: Yeah, your creature will be able to walk with 3,4,5,....N legs. But does that change the game? Every demonstration made it _look_ like the progress is a result of the creature design, but in a fishy (i.e. scripted) way. And all minigames beside the first 2 dont look very "procedural". Does it matter how many legs your guys have if you are building the same building-types?

Im over the hype now, and just wait and see.

[Kyyla]

Originally Posted by imsabbel

I think _my_ main problem with spore is the extreme difference between what we have been _told_ it would be like, and what we have been _shown_

The whole gameplay videos up to now were just minigames on the level flash-games.

-Swimm around eat stuff
-3rd person "sims" mode
-sim city ultralight
-civilisation ultralight
-Fly around and look at planets not doing anything sensible.

There is much talk about "procedural", but no indication if this means anything for gameplay: Yeah, your creature will be able to walk with 3,4,5,....N legs. But does that change the game? Every demonstration made it _look_ like the progress is a result of the creature design, but in a fishy (i.e. scripted) way. And all minigames beside the first 2 dont look very "procedural". Does it matter how many legs your guys have if you are building the same building-types?

Im over the hype now, and just wait and see.

That's exactly what I've been thinking. This all reminds me of the hype surrounding Black & White and the BS they spewed out at Lionhead.

[Malo]

This game will probably end up like CoH/CoV does for my friend. All he does it create characters, play with them for a few levels then delete them. It is the character creation he loves, whereas the game itself is rather bland. Yes he pays the monthly fee solely for the character creator (which IS a lot of fun admittedly).

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Aha! Spore hands-on preview:

Unfortunately, with such an impossibly complex design even getting the basics of the gameplay right can be a daunting task in and of itself and, even with the full might of Electronic Arts behind him, Will Wright has struggled to get Spore working. The game, which he has reportedly been planning for the last decade at least, has suffered numerous delays. At the start of this year we gave it an honourable mention as a game which we thought would definitely turn out to be vapourware.

Now though, it looks like we may have to admit that we were wrong. Not only has EA confirmed that Spore will be out in time for the holidays, but the game is now in a fully playable state. All that is left to do is polish up a few glitches, test it and load it with content before release.

How do we know that, I hear you ask. Simple; we’ve played it—nearly all of it.

There’s no question in my mind that Spore is going to be fantastic on pretty much every level and I can already tell that I’m going to be have to be very careful when it’s released. Too much exposure and I can easily see myself getting addicted to the game. In that sense Spore stands to be hugely successful – more so than Guitar Hero or even The Sims.

[Neb]

That sounds great!

[Berek]

To develop an MMO game is an incredible task, and why so many suck or simply never make it to release. Spore's concept is an incredibly broad one, and while it isn't and never was going to be an "MMO", they had concepts that brought it to within the grasp of what an MMO is about.

Have they dumbed it down? Yes, they always do in game development. I've seen previews from the very beginning and things have changed quite a bit, but, not so much that I would be concerned about the core integrity of the game itself.

Don't worry folks, this will be an awesome game that will provide an interesting twist to multiplayer concepts. I am personally looking forward to implementing my life worlds inside my friend's universe, and vice versa.

[cbarcus]

Spore is Will Wright's idea about what to do regarding our global problems. He intends to raise the consciousness of society by getting them to play with his addictive simulation. He wants us all to have an experience with the world of science, so that we may get to know ourselves.

Listen closely to how he talks about his art:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/146

If he pulls this off, which I think he will, he'll be known as the 2nd Homer (of the Iliad and Odyessy).

Here's his interesting analysis of pop culture over a noisy barroom:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/11/sp...h-will-wright/

The scientific foundation for some of his ideas I'm guessing stem from Julian Jaynes' Origin of Consciousness. Obviously Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyessy is another important influence.

Absolutely fascinating stuff.

[imsabbel]

Originally Posted by cbarcus

If he pulls this off, which I think he will, he'll be known as the 2nd Homer (of the Iliad and Odyessy).
<snip for more "stuff">

Dont you feel emberassed about posting something like that in public? Or do you get paid for it?
I mean, i have been hearing lots of of developers talking out of their ass the last two decades, and EVERYBODY thinks that he will be creating the "best thing ever".

[cbarcus]

Originally Posted by imsabbel

Dont you feel emberassed about posting something like that in public? Or do you get paid for it?
I mean, i have been hearing lots of of developers talking out of their ass the last two decades, and EVERYBODY thinks that he will be creating the "best thing ever".

No, I'm not embarrassed, but I often forget how people are going to react to what I'm saying. Before you pass judgment, please familiarize yourself with the ideas I'm referring to. If I didn't interest you enough to check out any references, I'm sorry, this is all very preliminary. Many of us have been conditioned against certain ideas. Some of those ideas are essential to our health. For example, take the book Good Calories, Bad Calories, which challenges the established wisdom regarding nutrition in the USA. I think the book is an essential part of the solution to the obesity epidemic, yet convincing people of this is very difficult. If you can understand what I'm saying about obesity and Gary Taubes' book, then you can figure out what I mean about Spore.

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by cbarcus

No, I'm not embarrassed, but I often forget how people are going to react to what I'm saying. Before you pass judgment, please familiarize yourself with the ideas I'm referring to. If I didn't interest you enough to check out any references, I'm sorry, this is all very preliminary. Many of us have been conditioned against certain ideas. Some of those ideas are essential to our health. For example, take the book Good Calories, Bad Calories, which challenges the established wisdom regarding nutrition in the USA. I think the book is an essential part of the solution to the obesity epidemic, yet convincing people of this is very difficult. If you can understand what I'm saying about obesity and Gary Taubes' book, then you can figure out what I mean about Spore.

Time will pass judgment and while Will Wright has already been part of creating one of the most popular game franchises ever, I still doubt if you could get more than 1 in 100 people to recognize the name, so claiming he's going to be the next homer based on an another game/project is pretty bold (and I'd say highly unrealistic).

[cbarcus]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

Time will pass judgment and while Will Wright has already been part of creating one of the most popular game franchises ever, I still doubt if you could get more than 1 in 100 people to recognize the name, so claiming he's going to be the next homer based on an another game/project is pretty bold (and I'd say highly unrealistic).

If Spore gets enough praise as being the best use of nearly everyone's spare time, then many players of a great variety of platforms will get immersed in Will Wright's model of the universe (or the galaxy at any rate) rendered with the innocuous aesthetics of a Shigeru Miyamoto game. The game will be able to train more people to think in a longer-term fashion; the lack of which lies at the base of a great many social problems. The game is a test of his thesis that the videogame art medium is the greatest teaching tool we've ever developed.

This game is one of the very best (of a great many) ideas I've come across trying to address world problems.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

I still doubt if you could get more than 1 in 100 people to recognize the name, so claiming he's going to be the next homer based on an another game/project is pretty bold (and I'd say highly unrealistic).

Discounting the Simpson character, I'd say one out of a hundred is also a pretty generous estimate for people knowing who Homer was...