. . .
Wow. You guys really hate this game, don't you? I'm not quite sure if some of you ever gave it a chance. Let's face it, how many games (or game developers, or producers, or whatever) could live up to Spore's expectations? It promised to fly to the moon and, well, it didn't, but not many games do. There are definitely other reasons to be disappointed in the game (I personally find the tribal stage rather boring, and it's true that it's quite simplistic), but one of the major ones is that it didn't live up to the hype (hype that was quite hard to live up to, I think). Could you guys (I'm sure some of you, maybe even most of you have, but some of you definitely have not) at least give the game a break and view it apart from the hype? It was promised (or you just think it was promised but since I can't honestly remember what was actually promised and what was just part of the massive hypefest I'll leave that alone) to be something that I doubt even DF lives up to.
someone is going to point out that df is only an alpha i just know it
Maybe you don't understand how much of a failure spore is.
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Let's say I bump into you on the street. We (in this example) haven't seen each other in a while. I mention that I'm developing this really cool "flying car" idea. It's going to be great. Naturally, you're excited at the concept of a flying car, who wouldn't be! You've been waiting for a flying car for years and can't imagine how much it would change the world of automobiles. So I take you to my garage and show you this flying car prototype I made.
Now, the car doesn't exactly look pretty and it's loud as hell. But it flies dammit. It can hover on the ground or zoom through the air like Back to the Future's DeLorean, it's even got a Mr. Fusion. That's right, no gas! It's wonderful. We say our goodbyes and you leave.
A few years later we bump into each other again at a car trade show. My talents (and ideas) have been noticed by the auto community and by my employer. A lot of hype has been built up about my new flying car. So I give a presentation at the show about the flying car, showing it like I showed you. It can still fly, but I decide to focus more on the hovering this time around. It hovers great, it looks a little better, and I even got the equipment to run a little quieter. The Mr. Fusion can power the car still, but it can't use any old garbage, just "Mr. Fusion pellets" along with the backup gas tank. Oh well, it's still fusion! Everyone loves it.
A few years pass, with me releasing tidbits about the car and what it can do, how many mpg it gets, top speed, etc. Then we meet up again. "How's the car?" you ask. I take you to my brand-new multi-million dollar garage (paid for by my company because of all the hype the car's gotten). And there it is: sporty, sleek, shiny. It's great looking. I turn it on and let it hover a bit. It's still a little loud, but no more than an average car now. "How's it fly?" you ask. I avoid the question and talk about some of the new frame improvements and how we're using a lighter material and how there is now SIX cup holders.
Some time passes. To increase interest in the flying car, and to reward those people who've been following my progress through the last few years, my company releases a "hover kit". This kit allows people who drive normal cars to experience the thrill of one of the flying car's neatest features: hovering. Well, it lets their cars hover a
little bit, not the full amount. It's a huge success, people love testing out the hover kit on their cars. Being able to experience a small part of the future flying car only serves to make people more excited about its release.
A year or so passes. Finally, the day has come: my flying car hits the market. Millions of excited drivers and auto-enthusiasts hits the dealerships to buy my flying car. They notice how great it looks. They read through our nice little pamphlets about all the great little things it can do. "Hmm, seems to have gone from 4-door to 2-door?" someone says. "That's odd, I remember there being front and side airbags, now there's just front" someone mutters. A nervous voice chimes in: "Where's the Mr. Fusion..." The first buyers drive it off the lot, you being one of them.
Leaning back in your seat, seatbelt on and checked because you're nervous, you hit the hover button. The car lifts, causing the wheels to float a few inches from the ground. A smile is spread across your face from ear to ear. Now it's time to fly. You look around for the "fly" button, but can't seem to find it. Wait! It's there on the side of the steering wheel, kind of hard to see. You push it: nothing happens. Push it again: nothing happens. Push it again: and nothi... wait, something DID happen. What the hell? It didn't make you fly! It just pushed the car up a few more inches before it lowered itself back down! That's not flying!
What happened to that first prototype you saw! Where was the car presented to you at that trade show! You call me up: "Oh, but it can hover! Isn't hovering great! How many other cars let you hover as much as this one, if at all" I say. "The car was never about the hovering," you interject, "it was about the flying. The hovering was just a feature, not the focus!".
But that's what you got. You were promised a flying car. For years you were told about a flying car. And I released a car that can hover. Sure, hovering is cool. Everyone likes messing around with the hover button. But a "hovering car" is not what you've been waiting for. It was not what you were presented, what you were teased with.
The "flying car" is a moderate success. It's good looking, so a few people buy it for looks. It has the hover feature, so a few people buy it for that even though it was supposed to fly. It's mileage is okay, so some people buy it for that even though it was supposed need no gas. But for the most part it is ignored, even hated. "Why doesn't it
fly!?", "Why the hell do I need to bring it in for
monthly maintenance!?", "What to you mean I'm only allowed three repairs before they refuse to repair it! Oh, how nice of you to allow me to negotiate for more repairs. So kind of you!", "Why the hell can't I let my family/friends drive it? The key only works for me?" "
Where is the flying!"
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TL;DR version: Consumer is lied to about features up until the product is released without features. The flying car is Spore, "my company" is an automobile EA, "hovering" is the Creature Editors, and "flying" is everything else about early Spore.
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Do you understand? You say "view it apart from the hype". No, because they didn't just "hype" Spore. They
promised Spore. They
showed us Spore. They held Spore in front of our faces like carrots on a string and taunted us with kind words about the future. If Will Wright hadn't given half-hour and hour long demonstrations of great features, actually
showing the features, we wouldn't be upset that they were gone. If Will Wright hadn't talked about and shown everything you
could do (not what you
will be able to do, but what you could actually do in that build) then we wouldn't be upset that the features were gone. I said something similar earlier in the thread (I think) and I still stand by it: if Toady suddenly released "Dwarf Fortress 1.0" tomorrow, and it turned out to just basically be NetHack, we would be flabbergasted. Sure, NetHack is a great game. There's a lot of unique and fun features in NetHack. But NetHack lacks even a percent of the features DF 1.0 will have.
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Topic: Spore (Read 100365 times)