spore is fun :)
interpolator
Are you guys playing spore? Im loving it. 
Having a little trouble with save games though, I swear I saved multiple times after entering civilisation stage and got all the way to having space craft and was just testing them out when I had to ho out and it wouldnt let me save so I just quit.
So now I load my savegame and it seems to start right from the beginning of the civilisation stage
P.s. looked for a thread on here about spore since its release and cant find any ?
Having a little trouble with save games though, I swear I saved multiple times after entering civilisation stage and got all the way to having space craft and was just testing them out when I had to ho out and it wouldnt let me save so I just quit.
So now I load my savegame and it seems to start right from the beginning of the civilisation stage
P.s. looked for a thread on here about spore since its release and cant find any ?
Replies
Is it the sort of game that people who enjoy Civilization or Populous would like?
It's a peculiar game. Brilliant on some levels and horribly limited on others. Something Awful described it quite aptly as "like having Michelangelo carve the greatest, most detailed Warhammer miniatures for you, only to find that you can only play chequers with them on a 3*3 grid". None of the stages have any depth at all. Some of them still work despite this - theres plenty of fun to be had in the cell and creature stages but tribal feels more or less like it was added simply because they needed to have a transition between creature and civilisation. I haven't played the later stages enough to have formed an opinion.
It's an interesting game and a worthwhile experience despite the large number of questionable design decisions. Whether you want to wait for the price to go down a bit depends mostly on how much fun you're likely to have with the creature, building and vehicle creators.
http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/spore-technical-support/335136-spore-can-t-see-my-internet-connection.html
Edit: I think windows vista's firewall blocks it by default for some reason.. hmm
The game is really fun! Its presentation is awesome. Not sure how deep the 'game' part of it will be, but so far I dig it on the same level as the very much forgotten E.V.O. for SNES.
nitzmoff: yes! E.V.O. was an awesome game.
Lots of fun. My gf and I are both playing. The only bad thing is, EA is using this to force gamers into using their poorly designed Download Manager in order to access any online content and features. But, there's plenty of content to use offline.
Interesting...
... brutal, one and a half stars now...
Reviews that I've seen seem to say what I pretty much feared, gameplay itself is fairly simplistic and uninspired, the content creation is the important bit. Which sucks, cause I tend to not be into that stuff.
We'll see, I may still pick it up.
What do you who have played it think? Is there more to this game than the content creation? Still worth getting for those of us more into the actual gameplay?
So far Ive really enjoyed the experience of spore. In my mind its a series of sandbox style mini games that are linked together behind the scenes throughout the game. It doesnt really come off as one solid experience so it hasnt really succeeded in that regard but it is nonetheless a very enjoyable and creative experience that will have alot of shelf life for alot of people. Im still exploring what is possible with this game and so far Im a little confused as to how much online activity is actually happening or wether the game is just downloading user made content and applying it to NPCs? or are there actual players out there and I just dont know?
I didnt notice any DRM and I havent installed the EA download manager. Am I missing something? does the DRM come with the game straight off the shelf cause I bought this at GAME? If I did install the EA download manager what would be the benefits of that?
Oh, I thought they said long ago that you'd be able to share your stuff with other people so your race of weird monsters could exist in someone else computer. Not sure if it made it to live.
I dont know if the EA download manager has anything to do with that cause Ive definitely bumped into other peoples monsters on my world and I didnt install the EA download manager.
I also need to know if the securom shit is in the EADM. I'm ok without it.
I really want to buy Spore, after playing it for two days. Yeah, I cheated... I couldn't resist... Forgive me!! So, anyway, the game is great. It's weird, I've read a bunch of reviews ranging from amazing to mediocre and I agree with every one of them. As a game, Spore doesn't have a lot to show. Gameplay elements are scarce and repetitive, at best. But what goes on behind the scenes is absolutely incredible. It doesn't take very long to forget how the entire galaxy you're playing in has been generated from scratch, uniquely just for you. Almost everything you see in the game will be something someone else's baby. And you end up getting really attached to your own creations.
It's just a real shame how linear it all seems to have become. This is not the same game as the one Will Wright showed on GDC 2005. That game was an open-ended evolutionary simulator. This Spore has been severely casualized. There's no blood anymore, a bunch of procedural stuff has been cut, presumably to make things more stable and predictable for the developers. There's no water stage anymore. In the GDC demo, Wright described the "city building game" and the "civ game" as seperate things, but now the city building has just become a minor, somewhat repetitive chore. Just like building your tribe's village in the tribal game. There's a grand total of nine buildings you can make. And you can't customize any of them. And you can only put them on pre-determined spots. And you'll never have all nine at any given time because they fit different playstyles.
Then there's the space game, which is amazing and awful at the same time, in my experience. Far from the sandbox we were promised. Often, it feels more like an extension of the civ phase. You're not alone in space. In fact, the first thing you get to do is set up a colony, then find another intelligent lifeform. And then you'll find another, and another. I have five different species surrounding my own "empire". Three of which are hostile and I can't do anything about it. They attack often. And there's no way to automate your defenses, so you have to manually fly around from planet to planet and fend them off, leaving little to no time to explore and set up more colonies. A lot of people have complained about that on the official forums and in reviews. It's odd to see such a huge flaw in a complete game, and one that took eight years to make...
But the longer you go in the space game, the less severe things become. And the more you'll find you can't stop playing the freaking thing. It actually has a bit of this Elite/Freelancer feel going on, exploring new systems, finding new people to trade with (or blow up), establishing trade routes. You have to manually visit all your own colonies to pick up their stuff so you can sell it, though. There's no way to automate that, either. There's a LOT of automation I'm missing, in fact. Like placing down turrets around your cities. I'd like a button that fills every turret spot with a turret, instead of having to drag them down one by one for each city I own. I think, in their quest to make Spore as simple and casual as possible, Maxis grew blind to how complex some things had actually become.
And, I'm a bit surprised to find how huge the space part is compared to the other parts... It took me two sittings to go from hungry cell to spacefarerwith three colonies. And I estimate it'll take me two or three more long sittings to complete the "story" from here. It's just slightly odd that the game has so much focus on the highest phase of the game, yet is named after the lowest, shortest one, and places the most focus on the ones inbetween. Most of the time, people think Spore, and they think "evolution", while in reality it's mostly a space game! With some really awesome stuff thrown in before it, of course.
Okay, I'll stop breaking the forum with my ranting/reviewing. I'll just say this: I haven't bought this game, but I want to, and I feel bad for not having bought it yet. That should be a testimony to how much I love it despite countless flaws and mostly bland gameplay. I just wanna find more planets, get more money so I can buy more spaceship tools. I wanna make more awesome vehicles in the AMAZING vehicle editor. Then I wanna make more creatures with different styles, and evolve them in different ways... There's no telling when I'll manage to stop playing this game.
Ah, screw it, I'm gonna buy it now so I can be done with the shame!
heres my first creature and a fun little helicopter....airfox hehe
download these pngs to your game if you want to play with them.
spore prototypes are available for download
I've found out the hard way that diplomacy is the way to go, or rather that's how i like to play. Gang up against those unfriendly species :P
1 star at Amazon, 740 reviews
All this shit about 'oh after 3 installs in a lifetime you're FUCKED' is retarded. I can't find it anywhere where its officially stated that this is the case. All I read is, "It's speculated that...", "Gamers are upset because..." etc.
I can't find a hard fact that 3 installs in 1 life time is how it is. I do, however, see multiple readings where its 3 installs active at one time.
From what I can tell, people are assuming SPORE's DRM is the the same as Mass Effect since they were lumped so closely together. It was stated, however, that Spore's DRM will not be as harsh as that and it looks like my first sentence is the case.
This is, from what I can tell. I'd like to read otherwise though so that my faith in gamers can be renewed.
one more thing, I thought this was an install token like Adam mentioned not a install per lifetime like Windows uses... which makes me think, all those reviewers can't be Linux or Mac users so there's a butt-load of hypocrites in there.
"SecuROM's product activation facility was still used to impose a limit of three times that a customer is allowed to activate the copy of Mass Effect they purchased. The game becomes unplayable after the activations are used up, until EA's customer support is contacted to reset the activation limit. Unlike Bioshock, uninstalling the game does not refund a previously used activation."
And perhaps they have learned from Bioshock, and the activations are refunded. But that's the point. It's not officially stated. It's there, but nothing about its functionality is disclosed. The user DOESN'T KNOW! And what the user doesn't know, could cause later headaches that will not be easily relieved by EA customer support. It's a pain in itself to have to search the web to hear what may be happening. It's an unappealing aspect of PC gaming.
I refused to buy Bioshock because of DRM. And by the time a non-DRM version was availabe, then entire plot had been spoiled for me by obsessed fanboys. Spore may be different, because some things are worth the hassle. And maybe all this talk will have EA change their methods. What's the point if it's already been cracked and torrented? They're only punishing the ones who purchased their product.
I'm only a little annoyed that I can't register a Spore account with my gf's game disc. Why can't games be more like movies? One disc per household.
Spore has the M.U.L.E theme from the C64 in it.
I don't know why. Well, I kinda know, but it strikes me as random...
But it's awesome and I love it, and the game earns an extra point for it.
and just as I had found a planet full of "human" non maxis made spore creatures that were at war in the civilisation stage(i was destroying one of the citys hehe) it crashed
I checked and I dont seem to have EA download manager installed anywhere but I seem to be online and interacting with creatures.
I'm wondering about the theme selection when choosing planets. There was nothing to select when I first saw it. I've tried looking it up. Nothing in the manual. Nothing online.
My best guess is it either has something to do with:
1. Music - i read that when you reach city building, you can create your own music as an anthem for your city, and share it with friends. but, the auto generated music is nice.
2. Planet appearance. I dunno, some of them are ugly.
I think it's unique how you can share creatures simply by sending PNG files, and dropping them into a creator or a directory.
Also, is it a bug in the game where you're allowed to start a new planet, and select a stage you haven't achieved yet on any other planet? If so, does EA even have a QA department?
I dont think you can select a theme for the first planet you evolve on but as soon as you hit the space stage you start to get terraforming tools and can create whatever kind of planet you like, flora, fauna, atmosphere, mountains etc and colonise it.
also Ive seen that diplomacy is really important in the space stage, gotta get things right and be quite lucky in order to avoid constantly being attacked(which would make the game less fun in my opinion). Some nations will declare war on you simply for refusing to give them a gift.
And yes. Diplomacy is important in the space game. I was hostile to everything throughout the whole game and it worked fine, but as soon as I reached space, I suddenly had two sworn enemies who hated me, and two neutral people. I had no choice but to befriend the other two as fast as I could, while constantly getting killed over and over by random attacks from the hostile guys... The early space stage could REALLY use some tweaking. It seems almost everyone gets stuck in a situation where they get attacked constantly the first couple of hours.
It doesnt protect anything and installs questionable software without telling the user, thats whats the problem with it.
Space isn't very linear. I'm fairly sure you're free to just go about doing whatever. Find other races, trade spice, earn money, put up colonies elsewhere. If you HAVE to finish that mission, you can come back to it after earning yourself a volcano thingamajig or whatever. If you can't buy it already, check out the badges under "My collection" next to the Sporepedia icon. Most badges gives you more tools to buy once you earn it. Those tools are pretty damn expensive, though.
Just been reading the 'about page', some rather predictable comments :P So ye, i cant really see it corrupting the young minds of today, but there we are..
I'm actually surprised it took this long!
"Proof EA is converting children to believe in evolution" is one of my favourites.
Also, wasn't there some militant atheist type (?!) who made some fuss about Spore encouraging intelligent design some time ago? Oh, videogames, when ever did you start single-handedly shaping the brains of mankind?
name is TheViciousMoose, think you have to add buddies on the website!
so far all ive seen from polycount is Zromm?
can we make groups? Polycount Sporecast?
I hope that it prefers Buddy Content before random content; but at the same time i like variety
The search feature in the Sporepedia kinda sucks hard too... but whatever. The content is pretty overwhelming, wish there was an easier way to wade through for the coolest looking stuff (people dont seem to be rating much)
these ones are sick: http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-mo289|2263170133
also, Dom, I totally mutilated a village of kovichi. EAT IT!
Im called MegaHamster on spore cant find myself in the UK sporepedia though, but I can find some of my stuff on the american sporepedia.
As for Antispore - spore is a computer game! and as for judging Will Wright , "ye without sin cast the first stone". Im a Christian and Im far more interested in seeing people loved and blessed by Gods people, not criticised and condemed, most Christians Ive met feel the same and probably wouldnt like Antispore.com. For me God is still creator, and Im glad science gives us more detail on His methods for creating and sustaining such an amazing world.
He's awesome. And unbelievably Christian.
Religion's a good thing when people don't screw it up, like that guy is.
The thing that bothers me is that spore claimed that I could interact with other peoples creations, which is true. But they neglected to say that I would be interacting with AI npcs that have been skinned to look like other peoples creations through downloaded content. Is there really no real player and player action online? is it all npcs or am I wrong?