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Spore Editor Available June 17th
Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica heralds the coming of the creature editor for the highly anticipated Spore. A previously promised downloadable demo of the creature editor from the game, due on September 7th, will be available June 17th. Furthermore, a full version of the creature editor will appear as a standalone product at the same time for $10. According to EA: 'The demo lets players shape, paint and play with an unlimited number of creatures, using 25 percent of the creature-making parts from Spore. Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube.'"
No mention of it, so it sounds like you will be paying this as a premium just to try out the editor before the game is finished, which doesn't appeal.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Spore has generated a great deal of hype. But endless delays and brief glimpses of demos are starting to give this whole project the feel of vaporware.
I see this game as one that "could" bridge the gap between "The Sims" crowd and the rest of us. Easy to pick up, fun to play around with, enormous levels of depth. IF it can live up to the hype which is going to come thick and fast as the launch date approaches. Some of the previews so far look promising though: SPORE Hands On: http://www.fracknaps.com/read/?p=LETTDC9B http://www.fracknaps.com/read/?p=G21DY3W6
his is viral marketing at it's best: build up the excitement for years, finally announce another far-off release date and charge people for a preview of it.
Also, pun intended.
Like many here, I have been waiting and watching all of the endless demonstrations of this game, because it really caught my attention. However, my interest is waning with each new demo.
Am I the only one who doesn't like the direction the artwork is going? Maybe it's partly the presentation format but there's more to it. The early demos had a nice art style, realistic colors used in a gentle way, subtler textures. The more recent demos have shown the same super-saturated colors that plastic toy manufacturers (and Redmond OS designers) prefer to use. Even the space shots and primordial ooze scenes seem less realistic and more schematic in nature lately. In short, What was M. C. Escher is now M. C. Hammer.
Maybe they're spreading themselves too thin with an insanely aggressive multi-platform release (hello, Nintendo DS simultaneous release with 2D pixel art!?). Maybe there are some real technical challenges to making this "pervasively online yet not at risk from griefers" panacea they appear to promise. But honestly, don't make it suck on purpose.
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Editor is cool and all, but what is the current ETA of the game iteself and what platforms will it be released for? PC?
No offense to the starving college students in the audience, I was one once and I've been there, but: $10 is far, far below my care threshold these days. I'm a grown-up, I earn a salary, and $10 for an oodles-of-enjoyment toy is an absolute no-brainer for me even if it doesn't come with a discount for the actual game. Typically, nothing I buy for $10 is intended to last, anyhow. That doesn't even cover a sandwitch or movie ticket these days, and I can virtually guarantee that I will get more child-like glee out of that critter editor than I did out of seeing, e.g., Jumper.
(Maybe I can mock up that Anakin Skywalker guy, just so I can feed him to hungry predators.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
this is the EA side of spore showing its (dark) colours. Some executive going "OMG! this has taken too long, can't we sell something right now?"
Who wants to play with just the editor??? I'd have thought the first stage of spore would have been a much more interesting as a standalone, buy the first part (for DS, PC, Xbox, PS3, mac) download the full game for just XX.99 extra
The timing is just right for a "omg it's just around the corner", but the completely wrong part of the game is being sold off as a standalone.
Conspiracy theory #2 is that they don't want to pay artists to create the models of things for the final launch, better to sell the useless editor and make people do the work for them.
Am I right? Or am I right?
Who, here @Slashdot, needs a virtual spore editor when almost every nerd already got one in his own kitchen? And another one inside his keyboard ;)
That editor would be free and fully functional if there were some smart people within EA. Imagine all those people downloading it to kill a few hours. "Oh wow, this so cool! Haha, look at that!". They end up getting hooked and then get curious as to how their creations will behave within the game. And there you go, sales stats +1. Given that you pay 10 bucks for the editor and probably 60 bucks for the full game, it seems pretty straightforward: The sales potential of a creature editor for 10 bucks is limited since you can't do much with it. However, it would be a low-cost advertising tool for the game. Separating out the creature editor, making an installer and then the bandwidth cost is probably not that many minutes of advertising on TV?
Greed is good. But the EA leadership kind of greed is obviously of the unimaginative kind.
Stop the brainwash
Hey, it's that or we bring back Roland.
SIG: HUP
All my wife wants to do in Spore is make creatures, heck, all she does in the Sims is make us and then produce 10 spawns from "us". She's got a real bun in the oven now though, so maybe she'll get over this faze, but the whole point of this is: if I can spend 10 dollars to make her happy until we have to take care of a real spore, I'll take it.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I have been awaiting Spore for quite a number of years, since I saw it demoed the first time in person, even though it really isn't a game I would normally enjoy. Since then I have had one massive concern which is already proving out... that I am going to be totally brought out of the experience with stupid/inappropriate user generated creatures.
Sure they can be marked offensive and eventually removed, but I will still have to play against boob-shaped creatures, and flying butts. Leave it to nerds to instantly go for the juvenile garbage. Even national gaming mags have pieces where they state they can't wait to make crap like that.
Ugh, I've lost my interest. Sorry EA this is going to be the downfall. Guaranteed.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
A lot of people in the comments of the linked article are complaining/debating about the "cuteness" meter. I think it could be a rather fun feature. Have something that looks at-first-glance like a "cute, cuddly widdle kitten", but with an geiger/aliens-style secondary mouth or perhaps some freaky tentacles hidden away for unsuspecting victims.
I wonder if creatures will be able to "mate" in the game. It would be rather fun to copy somebody's cutesy creature, but add a few surprises and then chomp on unsuspecting victims when they come by.
That's good, because I don't think bridging that gap is even legal (except in Utah).
I can't find any details in the Ars Technica links about the creature editor regarding AI. Will this game involve people programming the creatures to do things and interact with each other autonomously? That would be really cool. I wouldn't even care about the graphics if it just had an accessible AI dev environment. Kind of like the old Apple ][+ game, "Robot Wars," but not programming in assembly.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
An interesting thing about spore is that it uses a proprietary version of puredata (puredata.info) to enable rapid prototyping of the Spore audio engine (search the pd listserv). I think it's called EAPD. Unlike Max/MSP, Pd runs the interface and the audio/dsp engine in separate processes, enabling headless patch execution.
:-) then ask away...
The rest of this thread should still be somewhere in the archives- I've pasted a bit on the license issue:
onsidering that I have had to deal with this legal minefield, I can say the following:
Work with Miller to understand what is covered by the BSD license (not all of it is)
There are a number of "game engine" issues which you need to address when using Pd (this is at the technical/code level)
Don't worry about the patches. Any game is going to have encryption and other copy protection stuff on it.
Please don't ask me to comment on the details of how PD has been/is being used. However, if you want to talk about the theory of PD being used in games, especially on a certain game console which I care about
Note: if you are dealing with a game publisher on the legal aspects of PD, then it is likely that my company has enough legal agreements with them for me to talk about concrete uses of PD. Let me know in private email.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Senior Manager, Developer Support
SCEA
This editor will allow is to finally reanimate Duke Nukem to kick some mutant ass, in... Duke Nukem SPOREVER!
So, lemme get this straight. You have to pay for an editor for the world's first "Massively Single Player Game" that mines it's install base for interesting content?
They should be paying us as developers!
No offense, Spore is the ONLY game I am looking forward to, but I just think this is pushing the definition of "demo"... Even if they gave it away, it wouldn't be freeee....
There seems to be some outrage at the idea of selling the creature builder for $10. People complain about the price of various things (gas, food, widgets) all the time, and the answer is usually the same. Why are they charging $10? Because people will pay for it. Why wouldn't they charge for it?? I think it's great that there will be a free demo, at least. As others have pointed out, $10 isn't much, and if the editor is anything like they've been describing, it will be worth it.
Clovis
^ Clovis, look! It's that guy you are!
I wrote The Sims character animation for Maxis, and also a tool called "SimShow" that we released before the The Sims release date.
SimShow enabled players to view and create their own character skins, so that when The Sims was finally released, there were already web sites publishing hundreds of characters for the game. (Many of them would have been impossible for EA to legally publish themselves, like Spiderman, Star Trek characters, etc.)
The Sims was much to complex to release a demo version, because it required a critical mass of objects to work. We could not release a stripped down version with only a few objects or levels, like most other video games. Instead, by releasing a tool to create content instead of a hamstrung demo, it improved the game when it was eventually released, instead of delaying it.
That approach worked quite well for The Sims, so it's no wonder that EA is repeating it with Spore.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
or are you selectively blocking out those 'tech preview' versions of the linux you can get at best Buy?
For only $10, I'll probably buy it, and not care if I get a discount on the final game. If they want to generate even more community content, they could offer to pay $20 to the creator of any creatures they incorporate into their game universe.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Thanks for the nice (free) tip for iPhone 2 launch date, EA.
"a full version of the creature editor will appear as a standalone product at the same time for $10."
BOOOOO!!!!!! Bad developer.... *thwack* *thwack*
Ruby 1.9 is available, and is bytecode compiled.
'Sporn'
If no one used the editor prior to the actual release of the game, would there be no content? I think not. The public demos already show lots of creatures, and Mr. Wrights' public explanations of the game reinforce the fact that they do have pre-packaged content.
/. but these negative comments, especially those also rambling about Spore being 'Vaporware' are setting new records for community idiocy.
So, you download the demo or pay the $10 for the 'full' editor or wait and buy the game itself, which comes with the ability to create the creatures.
Where have you lost? Did you lose when the Sim you made and posted online got pulled down by someone and used in the game? Does Mr. Wright owe you a check for that?
NO! YOU LOST NOTHING, YOU WILL LOSE NOTHING. YOU ARE BEING OFFERED THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE COMMUNITY. Your game will still work if you don't enable sharing or use the editor.
Listen, naysayers, you are getting MORE CONTENT than is usually sold OR given away for a game title, and you are complaining? I realize this is
Sorry, rant over.
This just smacks of the hype surrounding "Black & White" when it first came out. I wonder if I'll end up with another retarded monkey that eats rocks and poop.
I'm sure this will start a flame war, but it really isn't intended to. I've seen Spore videos, and read Spore reviews -- and from what I can see, the game "may" be decent, and "may" not be.
I can't understand all these people who are so certain that it's going to be the greatest thing ever. Do they not realize that they're just re-spouting the hype that's being fed to them by a multimillion dollar hype machine?
I'm not flaming the game. I hope it's great. But come on people... it's not out yet, and we all know how this industry works.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )