Spore thoughts.

[SwiftSpear]

So far I'm a bit disappointed... I was hoping the procedural elements would have more ingame relevance than they did. Most of the gameplay seems dominated by these simple stats catagories... and some of their interactions just don't make much sense... Why does the fat bipedal ape run faster than my sleek quadrapedal creature? I even have high quality feet and movement enhancements attached... It costs alot of points attaching 4 legs rather than just 2... it'd be nice to get something worth while out of it.

In Sims there was alot of gameplay relevance to the procedural elements. If I put the ------- on the opposite side of the house from the TV room, my sims would waste alot of time walking around. If I put the bed in the TV room it would have negitive effects, if I didn't lay out my bathrooms well my sims would constantly interrupt each other.

Spore has SOOOOOO much effort put into the procedural structures of the game, but it's basically entirely art based. The customization was really nice... but realistically, it's the one feature I hated from Gal Civ. I'm not sure how this is supposed to sell the game (asside from hype).

But honestly, by FAR the most disappointing thing for me is that spore was supposed to be the title that would show the gaming world that procedural gameplay was doable, and rewarding. I don't mind procedural gaming being associated with poorly developed story lines, vauge objectives, and occationally dull sandbox gameplay... but I'm disappointed that spore didn't really even try procedural gameplay at all... yet it's still going to become the monicur of procedural gaming for the next 5 years. The worst thing about it is, I'm really not sure that Will Write has created the next sims here... The failure of spore could effectively mean that high end gaming studios don't touch procedural gaming for the next 10 years for fear it's somehow a formula for failure.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate spore... but if you strip the advanced art content and advanced AIs out of it, you basically have a game a beginner game developer could put together in a year or so solo. It's fun... but I agree with pretty much all the reviewers, it lacks the depth I associate with procedural gaming.

[AF]

My creature couldnt reach the fruit on the trees so I made it taller hey presto

And Hoi if you double click on the gray bit in task manager it goes like that and the title bars dissapear etc, and if you double click again it goes back to normal. This is not EAs fault, this is your fault and its quite simple to undo.

And the 10 day thing was actually in there but there was a big ruckus over it with mass effect so EA undid it. Spore was mentioned because at the time ti was known it would share the same DRM, but people apparently didn't take note of EAs retraction

[smoth]

And Hoi if you double click on the gray bit in task manager it goes like that and the title bars dissapear etc, and if you double click again it goes back to normal. This is not EAs fault, this is your fault and its quite simple to undo.

HA HA

And the 10 day thing was actually in there but there was a big ruckus over it with mass effect so EA undid it.

yeah I know, I found that out in my fact finding post research.

[AF]

Me thoughts you did, but nobody mentioned it, so I said it anyway for everyone else.

[manored]

Edit: Yeahhhh, i gave up on Hard Space. That shit was ridiculous.

Kinda gay that i have to kind of repeat a few hours of game play.

Whats more gay is that the new speicies I started has a really really really gay voice.

I think spore space on hard level is like DF, that is, you CANT survive in the first try :)

[AF]

It depends how close you started to the galactic core. The clsoer tot eh core you get the more sentient life forms and the more powerful adn aggressive theyg et.

Whereas the galactic rim and the ends of the spiral arms are relatively devoid of life and make for a much easier game.

I can see this immediately in my game. As soon as I started exploring, my first ally was further along the arm than the hostiles were.

[manored]

Yeah but the first instinct of a first-time player is to go out exploring like you did, but that is dangerous since the hostile empires you met might declare war to you later, especially in hard level I suppose...

A good tip for space is that then you run into a hostile empire, quickly open communication and greet then and that will elevate your relation to neutral, what is enough for you to travel through their systems winhout getting attacked :)

[manored]

GOT TO THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY! :)

I wont say whats there cause I dont wanna spoil for those who want to find out for thenselves, but I can tell you that then you reach a certain distance from the core your max jump range is reduced so its not as easy as it seens, and i recommend you have the energy tank and engine at least on level 3 each, tough I made it in 2 with the help of the energy recover item. (note tough that you sort of start on level 0 in these 2 things.)

[Muzic]

The mini bomb thing is AWESOME. I thought it was a drop and that was it. Its an actual permanent weapon. Ive conquered 20 planets and i've wiped out THREE empires.

[[TS]Lollocide]

In spore's commentary, I ended up on the space stage after 6 hours of 'Fucking rush this shit to see what happens' game play, but after 18 hours of playing the space stage, I love the fact that I still want to play it (Spore has this mysterious ability to make time disappear when I'm playing it.).

And I love terraforming, I don't know why, but forcing a planet to do what you want and filling it with species just forefills mah desire to be God.

[Muzic]

Fucking grox..

I havent even started to terafrom things..Im so obsessed with maintaing a galactic empire; all i've been doing is blowing the shit out of things

[AF]

The time flying by effect is pronounced. Spore blocks out all other sound and notifications from programs too so theres no sounds for msn messages, its very disconcerting when you exit to find 20 messages and theyve all gone offline

[SwiftSpear]

Getting into the space game... I can see where all the gameplay really is. The first 4 stages are just a deceptive and elaborate hook to pull the casual gamer slowly and painlessly into the last stage of gameplay, which is this genius and amazingly addictive X4/RPG mix that has virtually endless gameplay potential, and, if released alone, would easily be one of the more hardcore gameplay experiences in the last 5 or so years in gaming.

The longer you play this game the more addicted you get to it. At first the early stages seem simple, and end to quick... but when you start seeing them as a setup baseline for the final stage, trying to set yourself up with the best space stage skillset built through manipulation of every earlier stage. I can see myself going through the initial game several times to try to set myself up with the best possible seed world and skillset for the space game.... and the space game really doesn't end either, I could easily see people just continuously playing for weeks and weeks on end in the space stage. I'm starting to see the brilliance in what has been done with this game, how maliciously awesome it has been designed. I'm still disappointed it wasn't a better example of procedural gameplay... but I now admit my first impression was wrong, the gameplay IS definitely fun. Fun enough IMO to hit the sales targets it needs to.

[Machiosabre]

fetch quest, basic diplomacy and space wars with a handfull of ships! fuck year!

[manored]

And I love terraforming, I don't know why, but forcing a planet to do what you want and filling it with species just forefills mah desire to be God.

!SPOILERS! Then you will want to go to the center of the galaxy... !SPOILERS OVER!

I agree, this game is freaking addiciting in space age, I havent been playing spring lately cause im playing spore :) And there are so many options of objectives both hinted by the game or imaginable by yourself for space age...

[SwiftSpear]

fetch quest, basic diplomacy and space wars with a handfull of ships! fuck year!

The fetch quests are a dominant factor in the early space age, but by the time you've got 4-5 settlements and have discovered alien life, you don't really have time for fetch any more, all your time is spent chasing down hostile aliens attacking you/your allies, and terriforming your planets. The richest mission I found paid 80,000 and required tracking down 3 star systems without any real information as to how to find them. My red spice recently sold for 560,000 and took about 4 minutes to collect and trade off. Sure the generation time may have been about 45 min, but I spent the vast majority of that fighting enemy ships I couldn't really avoid anyways.

[manored]

I find it anoying how much battles you must wage in space age... I got 2 empires who declared war against me + the grox. The empires are even reasonable since they can be destroyed, but the grox have a pretty much infinite number of colonies and their ships got 5X more health than normal attackers... really anoying Im starting to wonder if the prize of the galaxy core is worth having awakened then early on...

Luckly the homeplanet is immortal and we can gain a fair amount of money buying cheap spice in one place and selling it high on other, so you dont NEED to take care of your colonies :)

[smoth]

BOW DOWN!

[manored]

Chicken?



He wants it!

[Muzic]

okay what the **** can someone explain to me why my beautiful homeplanet colonies only produce 3-4spice an hour. While some recently bombed colony with less factories produce 36. And then when I max it out, it produces 90+ spice an hour..

That aside, the grox have nothing on me and my mega proton missle. In fact, fucking NO ONE has anything on me with me and my mega proton missle. And my fucking justa bomb. FUCK EVERYONE!