Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

EA's (Limited) Creature Creator For Spore Released

Posted by timothy on from the this-spore-won't-reproduce dept.

JimboFBX writes "The Spore creature creator has been released. It's a limited demo, but it lets you make a full creature and test drive it a little. It gives some insight on what you'll be able to do with your creatures. Personally, the novelty already wore off within 10 minutes. From what I can tell, the full creature creator is a separate purchase from the actual game. Gotta love EA." An anonymous reader points to a thread at More Awesome Than You alleging that this creature creator also contains some phone-home features which might be cause for concern.

14 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. About the payware version by Mascot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Has anybody seen any logical explanation for charging for the full version? The entire idea of releasing the creature creator is to have a population of creatures ready for when the game is released, as far as I've gathered. If so it makes no sense to limit it.

    Is it as simple as "we think we can get a few bucks off of this so let's charge for it", or is there some other reason?

    1. Re:About the payware version by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Informative

      You've answered your own question. People are willing to pay for both the creature editor and the game. So EA lets them and rakes in the cash.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    2. Re:About the payware version by k_187 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would also imagine that charging $10 for it allows them to easily weed out all the people making penis head creatures and uploading them.

      --
      11 was a racehorse
      12 was 12
      1111 Race
      12112
    3. Re:About the payware version by mobby_6kl · · Score: 3, Funny

      That doesn't seem to be working that well.

      Anyway, it's not surprising that it "phones home", considering that it's supposed to be online/sharing oriented, and needs to contect the servers. As far as SecuROM, the version I got from TPB works fine, although that doesn't mean SecuROM didn't install silently.

  2. Typical... by Stormwatch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Legit version has malware-ish features. Warezed version will certainly be clean. Do they WANT people to pirate or what?!

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
    1. Re:Typical... by cephah · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have never experienced any negative consequences of using warezed versions of ga--
      Dear cephah,
      Your pants' key from her bedroom!
      JUST FOLLOW THIS WAY>>
      Sincerely, egor chao-li.
      --games, so I can't really relate.

  3. SecuROM by FnordX · · Score: 4, Informative

    The "free" demo does also come bundled with SecuROM, so, downloader beware.

    Also, it includes about 8 items out of each of the menus. If you're wanting to, you can pay the full price for the demo and get everything, and then proceed to upload your content to help out the developers by allowing them to have content ready when the game launches.

    So, basically, you're paying EA to make their game world better, and they don't even trust you enough to give you access to the limited edition of the demo without some pretty intrusive spyware. And EA wonders why they get such a bad rep?

    --
    ____________________
    Clouds in the Sky,
    Water in a bottle
  4. WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK by the+brown+guy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Gotta love the penis monsters....nothing beats getting your entire civilization wiped out by being that rock with their cocks out....

    <a href="http://kotaku.com/5017350/when-spore-penis-monsters-attack">When spore penis monsters attack</a>, you can't beat the title.

    --
    Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
    1. Re:WHEN PENIS MONSTERS ATTACK by Radish03 · · Score: 4, Funny

      This news story was in the Sci/Tech section of Google News this morning for me. Definitely did a triple take upon seeing the words "Penis Monster" in the headline.

  5. The goatse creature by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Funny

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvbyzvXOOc

    That one had me laugh out loud at work today. ;)

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  6. On "Phoning home" by Suddenly_Dead · · Score: 5, Informative

    The game does utilize an internet connection for legitimate purposes. The banner at the start seems to be loaded off the internet (advertising the full game). There's a section in the "Sporepedia" that has links to purchase the game, advertisements for Spore merchandise and other things which I would think are loaded dynamically off the net. And the game of course lets you create and upload creations.

    More, you know, evidence of malicious intent would be nice before people start running around like the sky is falling.

    1. Re:On "Phoning home" by hopelessdeskmonkey · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, you're right, just because someone has their hand in your pocket doesn't mean that they're going to take anything out. Oh wait, I don't like having someone put their hand in my pocket. To be honest the phone home feature isn't as onerous as the 3 validation limit. If you change video cards, hard drives, OS, or make a variety of undisclosed changes to your system they break your game. Why bother paying for that? I change components frequently, and would have to pay for this games 3 times a year, no thanks.

  7. sporn by Dillenger69 · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're being inundated with penis monsters.

    It's a new category: sporn

    yay for innovation.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  8. IT COUNTS AS A PREORDER by azuredrake · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hey guys,

    I just wanted to point out what nobody has said (for North America, anyway) yet: If you buy the Creature Stand Alone, it counts as a preorder for Spore, in that if you buy spore at the EA online download thingy you get the CSA's price back off your purchase.

    Now I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to stop most readers here from just warezing it anyway, but breaking the law is breaking the law; so for those of you who want to do it legit, this will save you money.

    --
    Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?