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Spore Expansion Announced, Another Coming In 2009
EA announced this week what many suspected for a while, now: Spore expansions are on their way. The first, due out in November, will be an addition to the creature creator, offering more parts for players to use. The next, due in Spring 2009, will provide new gameplay:
"The expansion will give space-faring species the ability to beam down from their ships to explore other worlds and complete missions. And along with this, the expansion will include an Adventure creator, in which players can build — and then share — their own customized missions."
Personally I'm not interested until my creatures can have IKEA furniture and Starbucks coffee. Then again, given the rate at which EA expansion packs come out, I won't have to wait too long. ;)
. . . How about a reduction? Like in DRM?
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
In the demos there was a stage between the cellular and the land, I was disappointed with this not being included. I had hopes for being able to build underwater colonies, but this was made impossible. It also seemed like creativity was stifled, as it took points to add parts but you needed to be sure your stats were effective.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Rootkit?
Just looking at the state of the game out-of-the-box, it was clear that there would be multiple expansions. I believe we'll see at LEAST one expansion for each stage (in order to make them more "complete"), plus an outrageous amount of spare parts. The first expansion's a parts one, since that's easy to do. Second's a space overhaul, which is a given considering this is the game's best aspect right now.
What will we see next? A Spore: Sim City expansion for the Civ stage? A Spore: The Sims expansion for the Creature stage? Either way, I bought the game and now I'm feeling like I got a bit raped there. Was I to want to buy any of those expansions, I'd wait for the Deluxe pack that's bound to appear.
Oh and, what about a DRM-removing expansion? 5 bucks to get a DRM-free game... I'm sure people would buy into this wicked, twisted scheme right now, despite how evil and money-hungry it is.
These are most likely going to comprise mainly of parts that were intentionally stripped out from the game for the sake of selling it for more.
And most likely the "part pack" will be much much cheaper and bundled with future part packs / expansions in the future.
Given the nature of the game I dont see a reason to pay for this. It only rewards the company for basically with-holding something they had already put money into developing. I understand, despite EA's greedy practices, it isn't even making a profit, but that has more to do with the massive amount of money it puts into marketing, its stubborn hiring practices that gives it a very luke-warm talent pool, and its poor management. Thinking about it, I dont understand why spore is lacking so much unless it was simply a lack of programming talent that prevented them from accomplishing what they wanted to within the timeframe they had. Closely looking at the game models when they move and such makes you realize that there isn't as much complexity as you would hope.
To put things in perspective, EA does the equivalent of spending more money on making a car commercial than actually in designing the car itself. I forget where I saw their budget break-down. Maybe that's changed, but seeing who they hired in Red Alert 3 for the cut scenes (that goes towards marketing), I doubt that's turned around.
The patch caused many people's games to not work at all, and many more to have frequent crashes, sound stuttering and delays, invisible graphics and creatures, and more. That was more than a month ago and they've yet to fix any of it. But there's an expansion pack coming yay! I guess that's all that matters to them.
The game is fun the first time through. Unfortunately, it only takes a few hours to get through the game, and then you're out of anything to do. It's basically a bunch of editors tied together with short stages of gameplay and not at all the epic-scale sandbox it looked like in the original presentation video from 2005.
I downloaded the pirated version, played it until i got to the space level - played a few missions in there and felt that i played enough. I personally didn't feel the fun of creation that was expected. The entire game felt quite directed.
The molecular stage i found fun, even though it was quite simple. The creature stage got quite boring since it was quite directed - you wouldn't be going anywhere unless you completed the stupid collection quests. It would be more entertaining if they went a WoW route with that - making other peoples creatures your AI-powered neighbors isn't enough.
The tribal stage was warcraft. Nuff' said.
The civilization stage was frustrating, because depending on the type of society you pick, you are limited with what you get. I picked the capitalism-based one (instead of a militaristic or religious one from what i remember), and i could only buy and sell things; make deals. If someone attacked me I didn't have tanks that could take them out - I would have to buy myself out of a war. Now that I think about it - it definitely made it interesting.
In the end I go to space, get little quests, etc. I felt like I was getting no where. So I finally turn the game off so I can go "browsing" at YouPorn - it was then when I realized that it was 9pm and I didn't go to work that morning.
It has SecuRom. I won't buy it.
Perhaps they could make it more interesting by allowing real alliances that go beyond lending a single ship or attacking a single star system and develop coordinate attacks on a massive scale to completely wipe out the Grox!
It's just too repetitive, too simplistic and the non-cooperative single player nature of it is boring after a few days.
It looks more like some random bits and pieces that could easily have been created by players with a "part and pattern editor".
Ah well, I guess it's the publishing equivalent of "would you like to supersize your fries?"
Wow. I gotta hand it to EA, I totally did not see this coming. I played Spore for 10 hours and feel like that was sufficient to get my $50 out of it, but I was completely let down. Expansion will be download if it even has enough to entice me, otherwise I won't even bother to torrent it overnight. I am waiting for somebody to come out with a good mod that makes it more interesting, perhaps a procedural monster generator? Something like what I expected the game would include, rather than stock monsters that you see on almost every single planet...
I've been thinking that a good (though completely unlikely) thing to do would be to release an expansion pack for each stage, turning each into more of a game in their own right.
Start with Cell. Turn it into a Cell/Fish stage (or just add a Fish stage instead).
Add something more to the Creature stage than just fighting or making friends with other species. I don't have any suggestions off the top of my head, but the possibilities are limitless.
I'm not sure what they were going for with the Tribal stage. It seems to be a simplified version of the Civilization stage, with some elements of the Creature stage. But perhaps it can be improved by making it not just about winning over (in either fashion) other tribes, but about building up culture and technology in order to unwittingly prepare for civilization.
Civilization stage. Bares little in common with the game of the same name. It's basically a really simple RTS. Easy solution: make it more complex and strategic. Oh, and make making religious units actually practical.
Space stage. Well, they're already working on expanding this one.
Allow players to choose to play the original or expanded version of each stage (or maybe make the expanded version something you "unlock" after beating the original version). After all, we already have the ability to skip stages already beaten.
Spore is a game with so many brilliant elements (generated music by Brian Freaking Eno, for fuck's sake!) and yet it's very mediocre at best on the actual gameplay. As it stands, it's a game for people who love the concept, not people looking for gameplay. But it could be so much more. Do it!
Property is theft.
Milk it...Oh did I say Milk it.
Spore already feels like a really cool game engine with just some demo content.
Anyone who has played the first phase, where you can add flappy bits, fins or a jet... carnivore or omnivore mouth... and that's about it... already knows they so dumbed down the content as to leave you with essentially no actual game there.
Same holds for many of the later stages. A few very core pieces used in unimaginative ways to solve a simple puzzle and then be done.
When your core gameplay is near utterly devoid because of too few interesting combinations... to then sell what can't be argued as anything other than an essential part of the core, a second time, is sickening.
The stupid thing is, had they made the core game fun then added to it, like they did with The Sims series, I'd be buying add ons. This time, they went so far as to leave you feeling like your time was wasted with the original and cause you to lose so much faith you doubt the add on will rememdy it.
EA's best bet, right now, would be to give away a massive parts pack as a free download, turn the original game back in to something fun and not an empty game engine... then charge for real upgrades to a product people can actually care about.
How about they release a patch to fix the constant crashing problem. Not to mention the license issue, tech support told me it's a known issue that every time I launch the game it registers as a new installation. It's a nice game I just wish we could play longer than five minutes before another crash.
"The expansion will give space-faring species the ability to beam down from their ships to explore other worlds and complete missions."
This feature was promoted by Will Wright as a part of the whole Everything Sim experience. It's retarded that people would have to pay extra for it now.
I'm happy I didn't buy Spore.
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EA is the anti-Midas: they touch gold and it turns to shit.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Ea patch something that will fix the issue? hahahahahahahahahahahaha... Wait not done. hahahahahaha. They will try to fix the issue causing 10 more and then be like oh wait! we no longer support that game. If you don't believe look at command and conquer generals. Most lan games crash and half of the stuff in the game is OP.
Spore is such a simplistic game, especially the earlier levels, it was such a disappointment. 5 of the simplest RTS games ever made, rolled in to one package just weren't worth what I paid. Maybe if the expansions were free I'd feel better.
The space stage has one drawback, which makes it unplayable after a few hours: you have only one spaceship. As your empire grows, you're going to need more. And if you ever hope to conquer the entire galaxy, as the game is supposed to allow, you're going to need a LOT more.
I found that if you combine Spore with their DRM, a rootkit, a virus and decent zombie bot, the amount of time you spend trying to keep your system from completely melting down is a great game. It's fun to watch your creatures go through unintended and unexpected mutations.
You just have to be creative with what is out there! Other than that, the game is boring as hell.
Spore is an evil game (Evil (TM) Microsoft). My kids won't leave it alone and play it every chance they can. They already killed my older Windows XP box, are now hogging my laptop by booting it to XP, and are upset because the computers I built for them run Linux and won't run spore. I'm going to have to purchase a new computer just so they can run spore.
And now they are talking about an expansion pack?
HELP!
I've been closely following coverage of Spore for years now, and I bought the game when it first came out. I've had fun dealing with the DRM, and a few days of fun with the game itself. The handling of the game, the game itself, the terrible patch, the ridiculous "DRM cabal" statement the other day, and now these expansion packs have made this the worst game experience I've ever had. Others, obviously, feel the same way.
However, there is this strange thread; it's all EA's fault. If only Will Wright could escape from EA, everything would be better. These expansions are EA's marketing team's idea. This isn't the developer's fault, it is the publisher's fault. Blah blah blah.
No. There is only one person to blame for every aspect of this debacle. The man who has been a gaming god to me and so many other people, Will Wright. If EA is to blame for anything, it is for corrupting Will, but that doesn't change the fact that he is now corrupt. Unless Mr. Wright comes out with an explanation of why all the original features of the game are going to be nickle and dimed out of his loyal fans, the only explanation is that he is extremely greedy.
Will Wright used to like gamers, I think. I think maybe deep down inside he still does. If gamers start calling him on these transgressions, and not EA, I'm sure it would affect him. Maybe he can be turned from the Dark Side; probably not. But, please, let us start placing the blame where it is obviously due, on the shoulders of Will Wright himself.
Clovis
^ Clovis, look! It's that guy you are!
The hardcore PC market is near dead. Two games sell. WoW and The Sims. WoW because you can't pirate it and appeals to everyone. The Sims because it appeals to everyone else and they don't know how to pirate it.
Selling a single game with no expansions and no online mode is suicide. Sure, you might be able to recover your investment, if you are lucky but the road is long and difficult and so why bother when their are two examples of games that are not just succesful but massive cash cows.
Will Wright isn't looking at a difference of a million or 2 million in profit but at 100k in profit vs half a billion. Oh okay, I made those numbers up but look at the sales results for the The Sims and ANY other game except WoW.
Spore is NOT The Sims, it lacks the creativity for that. The editors are there but they don't edit anything. You can't really create anything in Spore. Not like in The Sims. Neither can you introde art or have entire websites making money selling hair styles.
Spore for now is selling because it is a simple game. Not sure if it is ever going to appeal as The Sims but you can't blame Will Wright for going this route. It is were the money is.
EA is following the market. If you can't make money with straight box sales of complete hardcore games then rake in the dough by casual games with a ton of expansion packs.
It also explains their DRM, trivial to circumvent but just hard enough to make casual copying impossible, together with the online mode, making it easier for the adults this game is aimed at to just fork over the cash. Same as it is easier to just pay Blizzard for WoW even when not playing until the expansion then letting it lapse or playing on a free server.
Maybe going after the money makes for lesser games, but frankly I think Spore sucked from the start for the hardcore gamer. We wanted an evolution sim, a creature designer for survival. What we got was a creature designer for looks. I lost intrest when I realized the build of my creature didn't matter at all. Just slap things on and you got the points. You couldn't even bulk up on parts to get better stats.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
From the makers of "The Sims" and their bajillion expansion packs, now we have the same with Spore! I, for one, am not buying any expansions until they all come out together in a big group like a 10-pack for $30. I might have to wait 2 years, but it'll be way cheaper, and I don't want to play an incomplete game anymore. I did that with The Sims and The Sims 2, worked like a champ. The thing that disappointed me most about Spore wasn't the DRM. It was that the game could have been incredibly awesome right out of the box. But instead of that, they chose to release an incomplete game and a jillion expansion packs.
You have got to be kidding me. Charge me for an expansion when we still have a broken game? You'd rather your developers work on content that writes itself instead of fixing the obvious broken game you have before you?
This shows the world how messed up their priorities are. The first release was crashy but playable. This new release crashes at known points with known saves. I have a constant crash on my game, so I can't even play it any further.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
I am interested to know if any more is available with the right cmd line whatnot.
http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/spore-
game-discussion/341482-states.html
The space stage has one drawback, which makes it unplayable after a few hours: you have only one spaceship. As your empire grows, you're going to need more. And if you ever hope to conquer the entire galaxy, as the game is supposed to allow, you're going to need a LOT more.
You can deploy Uber Turrents on all your planets to make almost all enemy attacks fail, although pirates still occasionally get away with spice, but there's no way to completely turn off the attack spam. I was buying huge quantities (sell a full load of pink, purple, or blue spice for lots of creds) of Uber Turrents, deploying them and concentrating on building turrents for colonies first. That meant I could go anywhere in the galaxy and ignore attack warnings. The colonists got annoyed next time I saw them but that didn't seem to have any consequences.
That didn't solve the ecological collapse missions though. It was such a pain having to remember which wormholes navigate to where and if I failed to respond to those missions either one of my planets would start to collapse or an ally would get annoyed with me for not sorting out their problem!
Spore is so close to being a great game, it's just not quite there yet. They should have held onto it for another year for some massive playtesting and tuning and they should've released this forthcoming away mission add-on as part of the game.
Nick