DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Fantasy & Gaming SPORE is almost here!

I know a few of you wanted me to keep you posted on Spore's release date. Well, it's almost here! Sept 7th is the release date. Something like 7 years in the making! I just pre-bought it today, and can't wait. Even my 4 year old loves make creatures in the free editor already available.


http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/08/14/spore-will-wright-tech-ebiz-cz_qh_0815spore.html


Q&A
Incubating 'Spore' The Wright Way
Quentin Hardy

Burlingame, Calif. - On Sept. 7, Electronic Arts will release "Spore," the long-awaited game from Will Wright, creator of "SimCity" and "The Sims." "Spore" is years in the making and is more than a year past its planned release--the result, Wright says, of broadening the game's communication and social capabilities.

In "Spore," players make choices that evolve a creature from single cell--you cover the first 20 million years pretty quickly--to planet-hopping spaceship pilot, all with Pixar-quality cartoon brilliance of critters and landscape. The choices that players make (carnivore or herbivore? One eye or two, or seven? How deep a mating call? Purple spikes on the tail?) affect the way each life form looks and the way it acts as it moves around, mates and forms tribes, cities and civilizations.

Playing around with the game at Wright's Maxis studios in Emeryville, Calif., "Spore" seems like a winner--rewarding and fun, with astonishing complexity that is easy to explore.

Wright says "Spore" is an "asynchronous multiplayer" game--you evolve the creatures on your own, but share the creations in an online "Sporepedia." You can chat about game play and post photos or video stories of your characters to a "Sporecast." Some 2.6 million different creatures have already been created and posted in Sporepedia. Among the memorable ones: What looks like a man riding a motorcycle, except it rears up to show that the gas tank has eyes and sharp teeth. (See "Spawning Spore's Creatures")

Forbes' Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Quentin Hardy recently sat down with Wright to talk about "Spore," the future of game design and why creationists don't seem to mind the evolution in "Spore."

Forbes: How is this kind of a game different from a traditional story?

Will Wright: What we want out of "Spore" is to have the broadest possible set of stories from players as possible. In television, there is a strong linear linkage of events. In "Spore," you, the author, architect the chain. We're trying to celebrate the user's own creativity--we created tools for self-expression--and want to recognize the plots the player is trying. The evolution of this as a medium is in recognizing this capability.

Evolution is still a kind of story for them though. As you evolve, things become more complex. And people talk online about where they are taking things.

Complexity leads to specialization leads to competition, sure. So a system like that does not surprise me--that is the social value in explaining the ecosystem, etc. We want everyone to be a storyteller and have all kinds of stories. Now we have a ramp from consumer to producer.

One thing that I want to do more of … is build a better model of the player. Right now you can subscribe to the Sporecast, or have buddy lists of people whose creatures you like. We are working on heuristic and feature-level analysis [i.e., artificial intelligence tools] to establish skills levels, suggest things you might enjoy trying.

As the power of the tools increases, the craft gets better. So tools are amplifiers of creativity of the players. Tools have a huge impact on output--in 10 years, I'll buy a game and it will evolve to fit me.

Was it important to have the art so complex, too?

I wanted people to be able to create a Pixar-type character in 20 to 30 mouse clicks. "Spore" is like having "imagination prosthetics"--you are making artifacts that come out of the imagination without having a highly calibrated skill set.

Will the communications functions in "Spore" improve over time? Will that help in personalizing the game?

We wanted to ship a year ago but all the sharing and connections, etc., was what we had to fully leverage. That was the biggest part of the delay. We were going to have the computer move things around for you, too, but we found out how much fun it was to investigate for yourself. Another part is distributing [the information] intelligently. It's how to display millions of things well--the classic filtering problem on the Internet.

Will "Spore" become a full-bore multiplayer game, with one huge, shared universe of individual players?

Multiplayer brings lots of design limitations. Without the liabilities you can be more godlike, in charge of your destiny. But we are looking at this. The grievers [i.e., people who bully or frustrate other players in a multiplayer game] can too easily mess it up for others.

Have you been surprised by anything players are doing with your game?

People are rating each other's stuff and sharing how they make things. They created a tag--"creator tip"--that they give the creature--that tells other people that there is information about how to achieve a certain effect in the description of the character. Everyone started on a level playing field, but they are accelerating each other's learning.

Are you seeing businesses being created around "Spore?"

Not yet. There are other Web sites that are fan based. With "The Sims," it didn't take long before there were fan sites that charged subscriptions. Three or four people made $250,000 a year from their sites. So the idea that an economy will develop is not unheard of.

How many players do you expect to have in six months, a year?

Hard to say. Millions.

What does the success of this game look like to you?

It would be measured by type of stories people tell. People are not treating this as a dollhouse but as a way to communicate in a way they wouldn't have otherwise. And in a safe environment and in which you can teach others.

One last question: Evolution has become a touchy subject in some American classrooms. Have you been attacked for building a game around the idea of evolution?

It's funny--we have a forum on a Web site, and people were talking about civilizations. A huge battle broke out in response to the different strategies we offered different types of civilizations: The military had armies, economic powers had trade and religious groups had a plague of locusts. Lots of folks were offended by the religion superpower. These were atheists! They wanted no religion in their game, just pure science. Other people said, "It's just a game, get over it." Other than that, we have heard nothing from the religious people.

Interesting comment about "creationalists" hating the game. Seems like nobody has complained, even though some people expected it. The funny thing is, that it doesn't really point to one "side" or the other, since the game goes through stages of evolution ... but the evolution doesn't occur without help from a supreme being (you).

Looks like it will be worth the wait ...

found out my computer cant play it, pretty mad...

My computer has no chance at this game. Hoping it comes out for Wii. If it doesn't, whatever system it eventually winds up on is the one I'll most likely buy.

I was kind of shocked that the graphics requirements were so high, considering that Sim City and the Sims isn't TOO intensive. Oh well, at least my system will handle it ... too bad my wife's computer can't.

So, I'm not a computer geek...how do I know if my computer will handle the game?

#Processor: Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2180 (2.0 GHz)
#Memory: 1024MB DDR2 (2 x 512MB), 667MHz (PC2-5300), expandable to 2GB. Total: 2 DDR2 slots available: 0 DDR2 slots
#Hard Drive: 160GB SATA II (7200 RPM)
# System Bus: 800MHz
# Cache Memory: 1MB of level 2
# Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
# Video Memory: Up to 224MB shared (PCI-Express slot available for upgrade)

You should be good Michele.


I don't think these requirements are that high. These are 3 year old PC standards.

# FOR WINDOWS XP
# * 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
# * 512 MB RAM
# * A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
# * At least 6 GB of hard drive space

# FOR WINDOWS VISTA
# * 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
# * 768 MB RAM
# * A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
# * At least 6 GB of hard drive space


# For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least:
# * Intel Integrated Chipset, 945GM or above.
# * 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent.
# * 768 MB RAM


MAC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
* Spore requires at least the following:
* * Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
* * Intel Core Duo Processor
* * 1024 MB RAM
* * ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
* * At least 4.7GB of hard drive space for installation, plus additional space for creations.*

Great, thanks!

You might have to increase the amount of system memory being allocated to the video chipset, but other than that you should be all set.
As for how to do that.. without seeing the machine it is kinda difficult to explain, but it is probably a BIOS setting.

Contrary to popular opinion, life does not begin at forty. It is not a bowl of cherries, nor is it anything like a box of chocolates.

Life is a game. And a damn fine one at that.

The brainchild of Sims honcho Will Wright, Maxis' long-awaited Spore lets gamers create a new species and guide it from the dregs of the primordial soup to the apex of the intergalactic food chain. And that's just the half of it. From its amazing Creature Creator to its downright groundbreaking integration of user-created content, Spore aims to please gamers of all kinds -- and for the most part, it will. This isn't the game of evolution, it's the evolution of games.

Several games, actually. Spore breaks life down into five stages -- Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization and Space -- that increase in both difficulty and complexity, each crammed to the gills (or paws, or thumbs, maybe) with customized goals, features and mechanics. The fear was that this would result in a disjointed mess, but somehow the designers keep the five stages nicely tethered together with a streamlined design aesthetic. Whether you're nibbling on an opposing cell's flagella, serenading a potential ally, gathering baskets of fruit for your tribe, storming an enemy civilization's stronghold or terraforming planets from the comfort of your spaceship, you'll know just what to do. Spore never feels overwhelming.

It also never gets stale. You can play aggressively or passively (the former is, unsurprisingly, far easier), and the way you behave in each stage has direct ramifications on later levels. You're constantly presented with achievable goals, each pushing you closer to triggering the ability to move to the next evolutionary rank (you can even skip straight to any of the five levels provided you've played them at least once). It's a not-so-subtle design shift that saves the game from the common sim pitfall of plodding repetition and increases the game's instant-play appeal tremendously.
"Spore aims to please gamers of all kinds -- and for the most part, it will. This isn't the game of evolution, it's the evolution of games."

That is, until you get sucked into the black hole of the game's lengthy final stage. You'll spend far more time in Space than anywhere else, and it starts out great. Astonishing, even, especially when you realize the ball of rock you call home is but one of millions, all accessible with your trusty spaceship, and many of which contain hidden treasures or alien life.

But as you expand your empire and interact with other sentient beings, the game starts acting up a bit, inundating you with repetitive tasks in an odd, manic attempt to keep you from wandering off. Wars turn into constant homeworld invasions, prompting you to just start making friends with everyone so you can get cracking on solving the game's final riddle. Exploring is still fun, but you'll soon miss the simple joy of evolutionary experimentation.

Or more specifically, you'll miss tinkering around in the amazing Creature Creator, the infinitely flexible, 3D Mr. Potato Head that lies at the heart of Spore. Much of the early game is spent acquiring all manner of claw, foot and maw as you continually evolve your creature from a floating ball of tissue to a sentient, multi-limbed monstrosity; eventually, you'll use the Creator to build vehicles, buildings, and UFOs in the Civilization and Space stages. Best of all, you don't need a degree from Pixar U. to feel like a master craftsman. The robust yet easy-to-use tool might be the star of Spore's show, as it routinely steals the spotlight from the core game. You can (and will) lose hours plucking, pulling, nipping and tucking your creations, and by and large, what comes out of your handiwork will actually look and sound pretty cool.

And you don't have to do a thing to show it off. Every one of your creations is silently uploaded to the massive Sporepedia, then used to populate everyone else's game world. Not only has that scale of user-sharing never graced a game before, but it works like a charm. Obviously it's a bit hit-or-miss -- not every Spore player is a Rembrandt, leading to some ghastly evolutionary misfires. Regardless, the endless pool of content makes each world feel truly unique, and unless all Spore players suddenly stop creating, the well won't dry up any time soon.

Occasionally -- and perhaps unavoidably -- Spore buckles under its own weight. Hardcore strategy buffs accustomed to waypoints and build queues will be put off by the total lack of such features, while the oversimplified AI can suck some of the fun out of diplomacy. But to stare at the fine points is to miss the beauty of the view -- and make no mistake, it's a bee-yooot. Spore takes so many risks and introduces so many new concepts, it's far more than the sum of its parts; it's video game history in the making. Join in.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/spore/spore-review/1244284

I got a phone call earlier today saying it's in the store tomorrow morning!!!! I can't wait!

It was a pleasant surprise too ... I was thinking it was coming out on the 10th. I'll take it a few days earlier than I thought. I've ONLY been waiting 3 years for this thing to come out.

the first few stages or levels are too easy and quick. just got past tribal stage and have to create buildings and vehicles

looks like we got a pirate on our hands...

australia got it early. ithink aweek or two ago. take my serial i bought online, add image of aussie game= early play

hm, good thinking.

yup.

I have the full version of the Creature Creator and it is fun to play around with.
I plan on buying Spore retail this weekend. (I think)
But it is worth the price from what I am reading and those of you who own it are seeing?
Or maybe should I hold off for Crysis Warhead & Far Cry 2?
So many games so little time.

Well, it sort of depends on your taste in video games. Spore is geared towards "Everyone", so it might be a little too "kiddish" for some people. I'm in the creature stage right now as a herbivore, and I'm going around doing dance moves with other creatures trying to get them to like me. That might not be your cup of tea.

Then again, you can play an entirely different kind of game, by being a carnivore, and trying to attack your way through everything. When I was doing that, it almost felt like a simplified verison of "World of Warcraft" ... where you had to use various attacks, and tried to pick off one creature from a pack, at a time (or get pummeled!). And the creature stage is just one-sixth of the total game ... I haven't even reached the tribal stage yet.

So I'm guessing it's a little bit "kiddy" (it also looks a little "kiddy"), but with the broad scope of what you can do, you can make the game anything you want.

I like these kind of sim games, and I'm really enjoying it so far. My 4-year old keeps trying to kick me off so she can play ... my wife HATES video games, and she's even talking about a 2nd computer so SHE can play it more.

Puff the Magic Dragon owns all.