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[Helmaroc]

Maxis has an <B>OFFICIAL</B> release date for their upcoming game, Spore! September 7th, this year!!!<BR>WAHOOOOOOO!<BR> http://www.spore.com/index.php<p>

...too bad it sucked.

[yamo]

i dunno...i want to love this game but i'm not sure how different the life forms will be...it does not seem sandbox-y enough...too pre-defined...and i don't think interaction with other space species will reflect other-ness....

[Kagus]

Yep.  I WAS insanely hyped on Spore, but then I found out more about it.

Then my opinion dropped significantly.

Spore does not simulate evolution, as I thought it did.  You accumulate "points" by doing certain things in each life stage, and when you have enough points, you advance to the next stage, choosing how your creature progresses.

You advance from a Pacman-type single-cell stage, where you eat smaller organisms and avoid larger ones until you advance.  A bit like those flash games you can find everywhere.

Then, through the more complex life stages, wherein it's basically the same deal (you're still controlling the critter, and it's eat smaller stuff - run away from larger stuff), until you advance to tribal stage.

From tribal stage to space age, it's just an RTS with citybuilding elements.  Smash this army, build that wall, build another town hall.

Only at the very end of the game, the space age, do you get more of a sandbox feel, when you're given free reign over less-developed planets and organisms.

What really pissed me off was the stuff about creatures.  If there's an imbalance (say species No.1 is too good at hiding from the current predators, and has grown to huge numbers), they "fix" it by downloading someone else's creature from the web.  It doesn't follow through with what happens to the environment when there's an imbalance, such as food shortages and creature adaptation, it simply hires a random handyman, who may be a 1337sAuRuSLOL, who has testicles growing from his elbows.

This is not something from the creator of SimLife, this is something from the creator of the hundreds of expansion packs for "The Sims".

[JustOnePixel]

5 bucks says they push it back to the holidays.

[Cthulhu]

I don't think they'll push it back.  Technically it was never delayed at all, because there was never a release date.

And Kagus, you can control the content that comes in, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to turn off the balancing creatures.

[Torak]

10 Say it will be more of a horrible disappointment than Fallout 3 will be.

[subject name here]

Fallout 3 will rock simply because it'll piss off the NMAfags so much.

I am wondering how long it will take for the furries to ruin Spore after it's released.

[ February 13, 2008: Message edited by: subject name here ]

[Cthulhu]

lol@Furries.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>10 Say it will be more of a horrible disappointment than Fallout 3 will be.</STRONG>

I fully expect Fallout 3 will exceed expectations. It is a game from a solid company that has been massively dumped on because the company isn't planning to do it exactly the same way as the first two. People just need to realize that there isn't going to be a Fallout 3 done the same way as the first two. That company died and got buried and the funeral has already dispersed. I'm just grateful that the spirit of it will have a second chance to be reborn in the hands of a good company, even if it will look and play very different.

Spore, I expect will not exceed expectations, being that expectations are sky high. How well it meets them depends on how well they were able to take their ideas and make it a *game*.

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>This is not something from the creator of SimLife, this is something from the creator of the hundreds of expansion packs for "The Sims".</STRONG>

Not the expansion packs, but yes, it draws much more on The Sims than on his earlier harder simulations. The concept of allowing you to create and design content yourself (not the game doing it for you) is hugely critical to their vision, and it's because of the community that has sprung up around The Sims to create content. Spore seeks to harness that potential as an integral part of the game.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>
I fully expect Fallout 3 will exceed expectations. It is a game from a solid company that has been massively dumped on because the company isn't planning to do it exactly the same way as the first two. People just need to realize that there isn't going to be a Fallout 3 done the same way as the first two. That company died and got buried and the funeral has already dispersed. I'm just grateful that the spirit of it will have a second chance to be reborn in the hands of a good company, even if it will look and play very different.

Spore, I expect will not exceed expectations, being that expectations are sky high. How well it meets them depends on how well they were able to take their ideas and make it a *game*.</STRONG>

Bethesda hasnt been a good Company for 5 years, even since they started catering to the 3d Hog Halo generation (i.e. Oblivion, horrible game, especially considering they completely gutted their own story to make it more actiony)

I've read up on what F3's story will be, it's going to be that the BoS managed to magically appear on the Eastern North American Continent (With a very strong presence), along with the Mutants (Which are also in power). Now, anyone with no knowledge of the game assumes "Alright, they traveled, so what?" when in reality, with F2's end, came an end to the mutants, also The BoS was damn near disbanded and had little to no ability to do anything anymore.

It right there where I can say F3 will be a Flashy CRPG set in a mind-numbingly broken and contradictive universe. It's a tribute, not a sequel, and Im sure I'll just stop looking at new games that come out anymore because it's just not worth the time to watch it all spiral into a haze of Graphics fueled idiocy.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>

Bethesda hasnt been a good Company for 5 years, even since they started catering to the 3d Hog Halo generation (i.e. Oblivion, horrible game, especially considering they completely gutted their own story to make it more actiony)

I've read up on what F3's story will be, it's going to be that the BoS managed to magically appear on the Eastern North American Continent (With a very strong presence), along with the Mutants (Which are also in power). Now, anyone with no knowledge of the game assumes "Alright, they traveled, so what?" when in reality, with F2's end, came an end to the mutants, also The BoS was damn near disbanded and had little to no ability to do anything anymore.

It right there where I can say F3 will be a Flashy CRPG set in a mind-numbingly broken and contradictive universe. It's a tribute, not a sequel, and Im sure I'll just stop looking at new games that come out anymore because it's just not worth the time to watch it all spiral into a haze of Graphics fueled idiocy.</STRONG>

I disagree with the idea that if the game isn't specifically to your tastes it's horrible. Oblivion was well done for what they set out to do, with many experimental features, some of which were better than others. It was extremely popular regardless.

The Fallout 3 backstory doesn't redact existing canon, and that's pretty much all there is to say about it. It explains the presence of the BoS with justification that meets the existing motivations for the BoS (not a military force of expansion and might, but a research expedition to unearth technology possibly found nowhere else in the world but Washington DC), and gives them limits to their power based on their institutionalized prejudices. It portrays the current presence of the BoS as factionalized, underpowered to deal with the situation, and isolated. They are powerful in the sense that everyone else in the area is extremely weak except the mutants, so people put all their hope into the BoS fragment there. It explicitly restates that the mutants have been defeated in Fallout 1, and portrays the presence of mutants in the DC area as a confusing aberration and an unsolved mystery. As in previous games, it will likely be the responsibility of the player to solve the mystery of who the bad guys really are and why they exist.

A sequel that doesn't expand upon the world and tell a new story is pretty awful. I could give many of the criticisms you've given in response to Fallout 2. NCR from Shady Sands is a joke so bad it's not even funny. Ex-Vault 13 crew becoming "tribals" is simply insane. The deathclaw in Fallout 1 was a unique monster -- now there's magically a whole race of intelligent deathclaws, living in Vault 13 no less? And somehow, you have a nice town sheriff mutant in your party. Fallout 1 backstory gave the BoS cutting edge technology from before the war, and they worship it and research it, but for some reason there's an old oil rig in the middle of the ocean with even better technology and they have a big military force. They might have been on the cutting edge before the war, but so was Maxton's force. What makes the Enclave, isolated on an oil rig, somehow so much more capable of progressing technology than the BoS, who literally worship it? And if you accept that the Enclave (the former US Government) had FEV, you have to accept the possibility that there is FEV in Washington DC for someone to make a mutant army with -- if that's the explanation that turns out to be the case.

The irony is that Fallout 2 was attacked for being a betrayal of the original. Even Van Bruen, virtually deified these days, was going to have the BoS, who "damn near disbanded and had little to no ability to do anything anymore", be in open war with NCR.

Fallout 3 will do what all non-sucking sequels do -- it will change and expand the universe and tell a fresh new story. It will doubtlessly do some things badly and other things well. Bethesda will continue to experiment with combining RPG and action elements, as they have been, and it will continue to have some strengths and some weaknesses. And fans will continue to complain that the game is not basically a Fallout 1 expansion pack. But Fallout fans have been angry and resentful for long before Bethesda picked the IP up, so that's no shock.

[Guy]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus
<STRONG>
Spore does not simulate evolution, as I thought it did. You accumulate "points" by doing certain things in each life stage, and when you have enough points, you advance to the next stage, choosing how your creature progresses.</STRONG>

So, I have few restrictions and can therefore create any crazy or awesome creature I want. Cool.

quote:Originally posted by Kagus
<STRONG>
From tribal stage to space age, it's just an RTS with citybuilding elements. Smash this army, build that wall, build another town hall.</STRONG>

You're still able to design your own buildings and units, right?

quote:Originally posted by Kagus
<STRONG>
...who may be a 1337sAuRuSLOL, who has testicles growing from his elbows.</STRONG>

quote:Originally posted by subject name here
<STRONG>
I am wondering how long it will take for the furries to ruin Spore after it's released.</STRONG>

This is the one thing that I truly fear.

quote:Originally posted by Jonathan S. Fox:
<STRONG>
Not the expansion packs, but yes, it draws much more on The Sims than on his earlier harder simulations. The concept of allowing you to create and design content yourself (not the game doing it for you) is hugely critical to their vision, and it's because of the community that has sprung up around The Sims to create content. Spore seeks to harness that potential as an integral part of the game.</STRONG>

Seconded, Armok style.

Seriously, not all games have to recreate the universe to be fun. What about Tetris? Pac Man? Guitar Hero?

[Kayla]

I'm going to focus on counterpointing Kagus really quick. As far as I know, Spore was never intended to be an evolution simulator in the way we have evolution as a knowledge base. It was intended to be an artistic endeavor thats both fun and cool. Thats all.

Example, building your own creature, I expect will be extremely awesome. So what if your creature doesn't manifest random mutations and slowly evolve through algorithms over time, that doesn't matter when I can make a mix between a dog and a snake and call it...a dake!

Further more, The whole idea of the 'counter' creatures being downloaded is A, to support community creatures. He wants people's stuff to interact with other people's stuff, but without the drawback of people messing up other people. B, while it may be lazy to someone who hasn't programmed, but programming something that can realistically evolve to match whatever you do, is something AI programmers have been looking for years. Theres a reason it hasn't been done in a capable way yet. C, We have 'millions' of planets, have creatures randomly evolve in a capable and realistic way, would completely decimate machines. It's much easier and less taxing, considering the creature files are all under something like 5KB, to just download them.

Furthermore, one of the end-game 'UFO' abilities will be the monolith, which I personally don't know where the inspiration comes from, but it will rapidly evolve and make intelligent any creature that touches it.

As a closing statement, I would like to reiterate what I've said. It's supposed to be a fun* game (something that a lot of games nowadays just aren't), that allows your creative juices to flow, and allows you to go about anything the way you want. (Don't want to be a tribe? Don't have to.) Finally, each stage isn't just some 'minigame' (short of the cellular stage). Each seems fully fleshed out, such as the 'Civilization' stage being near or close to what a 'Civilization' RTS probably would be. Collecting resources, trading, all that.

End sentence, 'If you put your expectations high on anything, then you are, for yourself, making that thing fail for you. Keep your expectations low, and you'll be pleasantly surprised most of the time'

Kayla.

[a1s]

uhm... I feel extremely stupid, but where in Fallout 2 does it say that the brotherhood has disbanded?
I can see how the mutants are headed for extinction what with the master (and FEV) being dead, and no reproductive ability, but they still had considerable presence 2 generations after F1, so I don't fully agree on this one either, but meh.

P.S. I don't much care for spore... or any sim-object games.

[Helmaroc]

Thank you Kayla, couldn't have said it better myself.