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[Okenido]

According to Will, they decided that they'd rather have a very dumb game which can appeal to everyone, rather than a very in depth game which a smaller proportion of people would actually care for. They trimmed off god only knows how many years of developing all the complex features, and that was who knows how much funding down the hole.

Why couldn't they have just had a 'full' mode and a 'simplified' mode?

EDIT:
AHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAH. Oh god I can't stop laughing.

He explained that he'd rather have a dumb game like Sims 2 than an in depth niche game like Half-Life.
For a 'dumb'/simple game, he used his own Sims 2 as an example.
Half-Life an in depth and complex game?

Ironically Sims 2 is more complex than Half-Life. (Except for the physics.)

[Servant Corps]

He explained that he'd rather have a dumb game like Sims 2 than an in depth niche game like Half-Life.

The reason is that in a dumb game like Sims 2, you have your own stories, rather than the stories that is shoved down your throat. There's more room for customization, and more room to decide for yourself. Spore, Sims 1 and Sims 2 are all sandbox games, rather than lineral games.

Plus, I can't blame Will Wright. Gaming is a business.

[Areyar]

Spore's not really sandbox.
you are required to follow all the tutorial quests to get anywhere/thing.

a sandbox should give you the option to skip the 'storyline' and get the stuff without penalties.

[Dogman]

Spore, ... [is a] sandbox game

A sandbox in which the only choice is to make friends with the other persons sand castle or stomp it. While the game may not tell you directly that you have to do this or that, or how to go about it, in the end all Spore comes down to is "do I take over that sand castle now with force or later with words/money".

[Areyar]

They do seem to have confused
"nothing is mandatory"
with
"nothing matters really"


They also reversed the desired 'losability' in the stages: in cell/creature, I'd love to lose often. But in civ or space I'd rather just get on with the exploring or terraforming.

(Idea for roguelife: cannot 'lose' or win in civ: doesn't matter which civ wins, you play UN and end up with the dominator's culture in galactic.)

[Reasonableman]

Okay then. I've been too busy playing Spore to even come to these forums, so let me just ease back in by posting what is more likely than not an incredibly inflamatory review of the thing that I wrote on the XSpore forums.

http://www.xspore.com/community/spore-user-reviews/9755-spore-game-has-many-characters.html#post189165

It sums up most of my feelings about Spore.

[Servant Corps]

It's not really inflammatory. Everybody would agree that Spore is, well, er, not exactly manna from heaven.

Dogman: Actually, the goal of the Space stage is not to go out and conquer other races but rather

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

to enter into the center of the galaxy

You don't have to go out and conquer enemy races if you don't want to, but meh. Your point still stands and is valid.

[umiman]

Geh, I too just got the game and took it for a spin.

I don't understand why people keep laying on the praise on its space mode. It's clunky, cumbersome, terrible, horrid, disgusting, fetid, painful, and quite honestly, incensing.

It's like in order to enjoy the space mode, you need to completely turn a blind eye to the incomparably bad space based combat controls (and logic) and how the enemy somehow magically teleports an army of ships into your worlds out of nowhere every 5 minutes while your mystical genius race can only build one... ONE... ship. Then we've got the fact that it's so hard to tell height differences, or aim, or do anything remotely useful towards blasting something moving at the speed of light.

Explain to me, how is that fair? Why only one ship? Seriously. Every other race can build a gazillion space ships but you? Even those bloody slug creatures who somehow achieved sentience can do it but my awesome space-raptors can't?

Then we've got the fact that the only advantage your ship has over the enemy is that it has more hp. And the fact that your only planetary defenses are like tofu mixed with hydrochloric acid. And the fact that the diplomacy in the game is so simplistic. Or the mind-numblingly boring task of transferring spice from one bloody mound of mud in space to the other. Or the stupidly tedious task of transporting stuff from one place to the other. Or the absurd travel system. Or the fact that you, for some strange reason, can't decide what armaments to put on your ship initially (not that it would have mattered anyway since the weapon system in Spore is ridiculous).

Really, what was Maxis thinking?

I mean, sure, if there was some way to turn off the godawful space combat and make everyone peaceniks, space mode would certainly be more interesting. For about 30 minutes until the appeal of grinding plant terraforming begins to fade away.

I've been spoiled by Dwarf Fortress.

[Makrond]

Dang... that video made me sad. Yeah, Spore's pretty crap compared to what it was supposed to be.

I still stand by my point that it would be considered fairly decent if it weren't compared to what was shown there.

Maybe an expansion or three later, it will become somewhat comparable. Until then, I'll still enjoy what I have.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Eh, a former friend of mine tends to get super hyped up about a game and then when it actually comes out, ignore all it's flaws and praise it endlessly, getting extremely pissed off at me whenever I try to point out any of it's flaws.  In fact, he told me Spore was awesome over Steam chat, and I told him he was the first person to say that to me, then he got pissed off and left...

Ok, actually I explained that everyone else I'd heard from was saying that it was really dumbed down, and not at all the game it was said to be.  He asked me how it was dumbed down and I pointed out as an example that in 05 how you designed your creature actually affected it's survivability but in the actual release all that matters is the parts you put on it.  He cussed me out, said something like 'how is selecting parts not designing your creature?' and basically told me to buy the game or fuck off.... So there are in fact some people who think Spore is the fifteenth coming of the gaming Messiah.

[McDoomhammer]

PC Gamer UK, who I usually trust, gave it three pages and 91%, while acknowledging that it was what was promised.

I no longer know what to think.

I probably still won't buy it- the spyware copy-protection thing tips it for me and besides I probably don't have the system requirements.  But still.  Augh.

[Tormy]

PC Gamer UK, who I usually trust, gave it three pages and 91%, while acknowledging that it was what was promised.

I no longer know what to think.

I think that PC Gamer UK is bulshitting. 

[Sean Mirrsen]

You know, I think I understand what happened to Spore. Halfway into development, EA hired Derek Smart as the game design lead.

[Jreengus]

Okay then. I've been too busy playing Spore to even come to these forums, so let me just ease back in by posting what is more likely than not an incredibly inflamatory review of the thing that I wrote on the XSpore forums.

http://www.xspore.com/community/spore-user-reviews/9755-spore-game-has-many-characters.html#post189165

It sums up most of my feelings about Spore.

I have to disagree with your 4/5 for it as a game, After about 2 days of playing spore it has become a chore for me to play it anymore (I want to reach the centre of the universe simply so I can feel I have completed it) Now to me any game which is a chore to play after bit can't be higher than a 3 (and that would require it be excellent up until then) so I would have to say as a game it hovers between 1 and 2 out of 5.

[Asehujiko]

Spore is a string of sub-par minigames with some halfway decent cosmetic editors added in. Other then the mere existence of stat boosting parts, nothing realy matters beyond cell stage.