So what happens once satellite photos are the same quality as photos taken from a few metres away?
Some people think Google can already do this and more. I showed my Mom Google Earth, and she told a friend about it. My Mom called me a few weeks after that with a question that was so insane I was almost embarrassed to answer. Her friend had something stolen from her backyard a few weeks ago, and she wanted to know if I could find out who it was with Google Earth!
It is sometimes surprising how much people think technology can do. To see this for yourself, show a technophobe this card trick at snopes: http://www.snopes2.com/humor/info/card1.htm
I've had people actually believing the computer was reading their minds. And if that's not it, they'll come up with an even stranger explanation like, "It must be using a complex algorithm to decide which card you picked based on how you move the mouse." Or maybe find a way to "trick" the computer by pointing (with their finger) at one card, but choosing another. Hilarious.
If it is not an "official variant", she may have gotten this from the game Rummikub. There are two blanks in it, and you can replace them with the matching tile. However, you are then required to immediately make a new play using the blank.
To be on topic, you can't copywrite the rules of a game, but can copywrite the actual way they are explained. If it is possible to patent a game, then I don't understand what a patent is. You can definitely trademark the name "Scrabble" and various aspects of the look of the board. The makers of Scrabulous really should have picked a different name. A reasonable person could think that "Scrabulous" was the internet version of "Scrabble" created by Hasbro.
Hopefully this game is a recovery from Spark's last foray into gaming with their somewhat-less-than-stellar Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.
No, TP:LOF was very-much-less-than-awful. The opening cutscene is interesting, but then you start moving around and shooting. After that it becomes an extremely generic shooter with Nazis and bugs. BTW, why is this a story? What is news about a run-of-the-mill (yay hyphens!) game being released? And why am I commenting on it??
Not impressed by WoW and its artificially slow leveling system
Levelling is slow in WoW? I just starting playing, and I've found it to be lightning fast. Besides single player RPGs, I've only played DragonRealms and Tale in the Desert. They both featured insanely slow levelling systems. It took weeks to gain a level in DragonRealms. I was like level 14 in WoW in about 8 hours maybe. I know it will slow down as I go, but I thought that WoW got a bad rap for having a super easy quick leveling system.
Oh, and don't pat yourself on the back for buying the $2 trial. While stealing would be the wrong word for it (there's no property to steal), it's clearly immoral to use the trial like that. The cost of the game is obviously subsidized by the monthly fee to play it. You could at least drop $20 on the full version. Regardless of how good a game it is, clearly thousands of hours went into its developement. You'd at least be consistent if you simply downloaded the free trial and never paid them a cent because you don't believe in copywrite/IP, etc. I guess you would also be ok if you only played the game (on any server) for 14 days.
I'd like to know how the truly religious cope the fact that the book they read today has been rewritten over and over and perverted so many times that it can hardly reflect what was 'supposed' to be there.
No problem, just join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons. Part of the official dogma is that the Bible has been horribly translated over the years. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, is the "most perfect" of any book on Earth. It's also possible that a Prophet may provide the Church with a correct translation of the Bible some day. Joseph Smith, the founder, actually started on that.
Also, someone mentioned all the confusion after Christ's death. This is also part of the Mormon version of Christian history. Before Christ can return, there must be a "falling away", and Mormon's refer to it as the "apostasy". They believe the Paul was right, but after all the apostles died, or were martyred, that the true Church ceased to exist. So, the great "falling away" is what happened as the Catholic and Orthodox Churches slowly came into existence.
If the average person spent a mere five hours on a creature
It's more like.5 hours. I put my 12 year old brother in front of it for the first time and he made an impressive looking creature in about 30 minutes. It is an amazingly simple tool to use. If the other parts of Spore are as streamlined and elegant as the Creature Creator it'll be one of the most impressive games in years. I doubt that will be the case, though. There are some tutorials on the Spore website. You can watch a Maxis employee throw together a nice mantis in about 5 minutes.
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Stupid NIV. I really wanted to see the word "tittle" on slashdot...
If more companies built stores in SL and sold real goods through it, if newspapers made virtual newsrooms where users could watch and read videos and articles, if other content owners made SL versions of their websites, there would be much much more to do.
Wow, it would be really cool if there was some way to do that stuff on a computer! Oh wait, that's what the internet already is. Doing all that stuff while your avatar and other people's avatars mill about is not an improvement. Do you really like being interupted by a flying penis while reading a news article?? How is walking around a "virtual" store better than simply using the company's website?
I really thought Second Life was interesting when I first tried it. After the initial amazement wore off (in like 3 hours), it got boring really quickly. I remember finding a TV in someone's house and being surprised at turning it on and having the movie "Hitch" start playing. I then started wondering why I was watching a movie on a tiny little screen in a virtual home theatre. Why not watch it full screen on my computer without all the virtal world stuff in the way? Or better yet, in my actual home theatre. Of course, I don't have a home theatre, so I guess I'm stuck with the virtual one...
it's my view that we should spend only money that we have. That's how I manage myself and it keeps me happy and those who deal fairly with me happy.
You're not a homeowner then? Drowning myself in $140,000 of debt has been the best economic decision of my life. In 3 years the debt will be paid off. I'm not selling this year, or any time soon, so my investment will increase in value. I'm not even sure what I'm gonna' do with the money that I won't be paying in rent from the on.
Home ownership can't be directly compared to the national debt, but it is obviously worthwhile to go into debt sometimes. I think the Bush tax cuts were a good idea that probably had some small effect in helping the economy. The Bush spending has been a problem though. He should have learned to use the veto pen much earlier in the administration.
"Casual" vs. "Hardcore" has nothing to do with the time spent. People will play "casual" games for hours and hours. Since it's one of the few games I've downloaded on my phone I've probably racked up 20+ hours of Zuma.
I don't think it's a matter of defining the audience, but the games themselves. Casual gamers play casual games, hardcore gamers play hardcore games. Now, defining the difference can be difficult. Certainly traditional FPSs, RPGs, and RTSs are, or can be, "hardcore". They are games that traditional "gamerz" play. Most "puzzle" games, like Zuma, Lumines, and Bejewelled are certainly casual. Most flash games, and other free internet games are casual. PopTop games like Diner Dash and Virtual Villagers are casual. There's also some kind of inbetween though. What do you do with Puzzle Quest? I don't consider traditional adventure games to be casual, but they are close. They certainly are not hardcore, right? What the hell am I talking about, BTW? This is obviously a pointless semantic argument....
I don't know about you, but I'm always reading a book or something and thinking, "Man, I wish they'd make a game about this!" I was just thinking that the other day while I was reading Finnegans Wake. This game could be the perfect combination of gameplay and narrative, since neither would make the slightest bit of sense. Every character could be made of of 5 different people, and spell their names 10 different ways. Instead of an inventory, all your items would be combined, all the time. Instead of a save system, it'd just load up a random spot in the game. Your every move would completely change the game world in everything in it. Or maybe it just changes constantly on it's own. Who knows? You wouldn't be able to tell if you are navigating a dialogue tree, or are actually speaking to one. Are those monsters you are smiting with a bicycle pump, or your own self-concious desire to be a pudding? Yes! And, of course, you'd know you've won the game when you get back to the beginning...
I enjoy writing my own story too. I almost always have a complicated history of my country running in my head while playing Civ, or any other strategy game. However, the I think the game that has the best "story" is the Sims. You really can't play the game if you are not willing to create the story, and the game doesn't really offer any story at all. The game does facilitate all kinds of stories happening though. It also allows the player to force the story to be exactly how they want, or to let the game mechanics create plotlines for you.
Coverage of GTAIV has mentioned that it allows the player to create their own story too, even though there's actually a main storyline in the way.
I can't see the difference between GTA and Oblivion as far as quests go, except that completing the quests is more fun in GTA. Oblivion really blows you away at first, and does a good job of having a lot of quests at a time. However, they are almost all fetch quests. When the game does get creative it almost never works right. You mention the spy missions. Did you notice that you can literally walk up to your "target" and then simply duck behind the nearest crate? Not too impressive. GTA has follow missions too, but you fail if you get too close.
Oblivion also holds your hand through the game to a ridiculous level. The game mostly involves walking from one highlighted map point to another, and then listening to someone talk. I guess if you took the very best 20 missions from Oblivion it would look impressive, but those are mixed in with like a billion simple missions. The game was fun though;-)
Valve really loves statistics, and if you've ever listened to a commentary track they are very intent on players making it through their games. I wonder if they will be scanning these save game files to create statistics on how far players get in the games they play, or how long they spent in various areas, etc.
Even the save game habits of players would be interesting. I always create a new save game file for every save. I can't remember the last time this was actually helpful. In the past some games would actually make it impossible to continue if you forget to pick up a certain item. If you kept replacing your save game file you were forced to start from the beginning. In FPSs I'm always afraid that I'll start chewing through ammo and get stuck in an area with sparse ammo and be screwed. So I'll make saves with titles like "GoodAmmoGoodHealth5", and "nearlyDead7".
They already have a lot of this information anyway, like how long you play a game, and what achievements you've completed. I'd like to see some of their statistics if they do datamine the files.
I thought the fun part in football was spending 20 minutes trying to decide if a player "made a football move" before dropping the ball.
I really do enjoy the insane wrangling over goofy rules in football; especially with instant replay.
Seriously though, Super Tecmo Bowl was great fun, but it really wasn't great football. Passing was especially dumbed down, and the AI was hilarious. If you got into the open you could turn the whole field into a ballet by running in circles. Oh, and the game was frustrating too, with AI that cheated right in your face. I can't remember how many times I almost threw my controller when an AI runningback suddenly started running twice as fast as I could right when I tried to tackle him. They can leave that part out of the DS version.
Ahh, I did forget the library, which I do use for DVDs, as well. The problem is the selection, which will obviously change from one library system to the next. I'm surprised that any particular library would have more of any category than Netflix. Besides VHS, they seem to have just about every DVD I know of. Then again, I don't watch kid's videos. Over the air movies are edited for content: language, length, nudity, etc. I need a cheap, legal way to watch important boxing matches within a few weeks of them happening. Paying for cable, HBO, and Showtime is not working. Oh, and like someone pointed out below, I feel compelled to use the library since I'm paying for it. I live in a modest home and I'm paying like $10 a month for it! So, the library is only free if you are homeless (renters pay property tax indirectly).
No, that is not "civil disobedience" unless you think some law involved here is immoral. You can't just steal things from companies because they are doing stupid things. Of course, since the DMCA exists, I guess you can pretty much do anything with IP and claim it is "civil disobedience".
I guess I'm incredibly stupid too. I'll still probably buy the game, 'cause I really want to play the game, and I know I won't play it for years on end, so I'll never have a problem. At least not with this game...
While I pretty much agree, it is worth noting that Spore is essentially a network game. You're not really supposed to play it offline. A major point of the game is getting a totally new selection of user created content everytime you play. Playing Spore offline would take a lot away from the game as it's been described. Still, this plan doesn't sound too great.
As a Netflix user, I can affirm that you do not know what you are talking about. Netflix's instant view capabilities are an added bonus to an already nice system. They don't even charge extra for it. The whole point of Netflix is that you are renting movies, so no one thinks they are "buying" a movie when they watch it instantly. You don't even pay per view, you pay a monthly fee, and that fee can be really low if you want to mainly watch the instant view movies. I don't know of a better way to legally watch movies cheaply. If Netflix suddenly goes down, all you lose is the last few days of that month's subscription.
Now, this system in TFA that is being described is a Bad Thing, because when those servers go down I can't play the game I paid $50.00 for. This is the first thing I've heard that makes me second guess buying Spore as soon as it comes out. Then again, I play plenty of Steam games, so I guess I'm not really that worried.
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.
Will this game involve people programming the creatures to do things and interact with each other autonomously?
You are, almost certainly, going to be disappointed. I've never read any indication of a scripting language, or even a Black and White like system of training the creatures. What I have read indicates that the creature's actions will largely be determined by what parts you give it. IE, if you give it teeth for hunting, it will hunt. If you make a really mean looking creature, but give it flat teeth, it's gonna' be an herbivore. The creatures will behave autonomously, but you're not gonna' be able to program them like in Robot Wars.
We're the same people who spent hours customizing CJ in GTA:SA despite that fact that no one but us would ever see him.
What are you talking about?? I think the old lady I beat down with a purple dildo probably noticed my sweet tats. And when I spent an hour running a chainsaw over a pile of bodies in the street, I'm sure the passers by noticed my red mohawk. I know my posse really loved my hockey mask; why else would they stick with me after I shot several of them in the face with a shot gun? Even all those cops probably noticed my platinum watch when I snuck up behind them and cut their throats. And when I was going all "hot coffee" on that chick, she certainly noticed the phat green jeans I was wearing while I was doing it. And who wouldn't notice a guy dressed as a gimp doing drive bys on a vespa? Did you even play GAT:SA??
The more recent demos have shown the same super-saturated colors that plastic toy manufacturers (and Redmond OS designers) prefer to use.
If the game is anything like they are aiming for, this shouldn't be a problem. Just don't make your creatures like that! If you want subtle colors, use subtle colors. It sounds like you can modify just about everything in the game. The Sporepedia, or whatever, should allow you to download stuff from other users with the same asethetic. So you can probably find what you want, even if you can't create it yourself. If you want OMG PONIES!!! planets you can have them, or you can make your creatures in Hercules Monochrome.
I imagine it'd be pretty cool to play Hide and Seek in a 3D environment
Er, like outside in meatspace, maybe?? I'd like to play a 1D game of Hide and Seek.... Or a proper 4D hide and seek... I know he's around here somewhere... but WHEN??
I suppose you mean it is 3D since you can float off the ground, but you can climb up stuff in regular gravity hide and seek too.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people think Google can already do this and more. I showed my Mom Google Earth, and she told a friend about it. My Mom called me a few weeks after that with a question that was so insane I was almost embarrassed to answer. Her friend had something stolen from her backyard a few weeks ago, and she wanted to know if I could find out who it was with Google Earth!
It is sometimes surprising how much people think technology can do. To see this for yourself, show a technophobe this card trick at snopes: http://www.snopes2.com/humor/info/card1.htm
I've had people actually believing the computer was reading their minds. And if that's not it, they'll come up with an even stranger explanation like, "It must be using a complex algorithm to decide which card you picked based on how you move the mouse." Or maybe find a way to "trick" the computer by pointing (with their finger) at one card, but choosing another. Hilarious.
Wow, I sound like a jerk.
If it is not an "official variant", she may have gotten this from the game Rummikub. There are two blanks in it, and you can replace them with the matching tile. However, you are then required to immediately make a new play using the blank.
To be on topic, you can't copywrite the rules of a game, but can copywrite the actual way they are explained. If it is possible to patent a game, then I don't understand what a patent is. You can definitely trademark the name "Scrabble" and various aspects of the look of the board. The makers of Scrabulous really should have picked a different name. A reasonable person could think that "Scrabulous" was the internet version of "Scrabble" created by Hasbro.
No, TP:LOF was very-much-less-than-awful. The opening cutscene is interesting, but then you start moving around and shooting. After that it becomes an extremely generic shooter with Nazis and bugs. BTW, why is this a story? What is news about a run-of-the-mill (yay hyphens!) game being released? And why am I commenting on it??
Levelling is slow in WoW? I just starting playing, and I've found it to be lightning fast. Besides single player RPGs, I've only played DragonRealms and Tale in the Desert. They both featured insanely slow levelling systems. It took weeks to gain a level in DragonRealms. I was like level 14 in WoW in about 8 hours maybe. I know it will slow down as I go, but I thought that WoW got a bad rap for having a super easy quick leveling system.
Oh, and don't pat yourself on the back for buying the $2 trial. While stealing would be the wrong word for it (there's no property to steal), it's clearly immoral to use the trial like that. The cost of the game is obviously subsidized by the monthly fee to play it. You could at least drop $20 on the full version. Regardless of how good a game it is, clearly thousands of hours went into its developement. You'd at least be consistent if you simply downloaded the free trial and never paid them a cent because you don't believe in copywrite/IP, etc. I guess you would also be ok if you only played the game (on any server) for 14 days.
No problem, just join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons. Part of the official dogma is that the Bible has been horribly translated over the years. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, is the "most perfect" of any book on Earth. It's also possible that a Prophet may provide the Church with a correct translation of the Bible some day. Joseph Smith, the founder, actually started on that.
Also, someone mentioned all the confusion after Christ's death. This is also part of the Mormon version of Christian history. Before Christ can return, there must be a "falling away", and Mormon's refer to it as the "apostasy". They believe the Paul was right, but after all the apostles died, or were martyred, that the true Church ceased to exist. So, the great "falling away" is what happened as the Catholic and Orthodox Churches slowly came into existence.
See, now it all makes perfect sense!
It's more like .5 hours. I put my 12 year old brother in front of it for the first time and he made an impressive looking creature in about 30 minutes. It is an amazingly simple tool to use. If the other parts of Spore are as streamlined and elegant as the Creature Creator it'll be one of the most impressive games in years. I doubt that will be the case, though. There are some tutorials on the Spore website. You can watch a Maxis employee throw together a nice mantis in about 5 minutes.
Stupid NIV. I really wanted to see the word "tittle" on slashdot...
Wow, it would be really cool if there was some way to do that stuff on a computer! Oh wait, that's what the internet already is. Doing all that stuff while your avatar and other people's avatars mill about is not an improvement. Do you really like being interupted by a flying penis while reading a news article?? How is walking around a "virtual" store better than simply using the company's website?
I really thought Second Life was interesting when I first tried it. After the initial amazement wore off (in like 3 hours), it got boring really quickly. I remember finding a TV in someone's house and being surprised at turning it on and having the movie "Hitch" start playing. I then started wondering why I was watching a movie on a tiny little screen in a virtual home theatre. Why not watch it full screen on my computer without all the virtal world stuff in the way? Or better yet, in my actual home theatre. Of course, I don't have a home theatre, so I guess I'm stuck with the virtual one...
You're not a homeowner then? Drowning myself in $140,000 of debt has been the best economic decision of my life. In 3 years the debt will be paid off. I'm not selling this year, or any time soon, so my investment will increase in value. I'm not even sure what I'm gonna' do with the money that I won't be paying in rent from the on.
Home ownership can't be directly compared to the national debt, but it is obviously worthwhile to go into debt sometimes. I think the Bush tax cuts were a good idea that probably had some small effect in helping the economy. The Bush spending has been a problem though. He should have learned to use the veto pen much earlier in the administration.
"Casual" vs. "Hardcore" has nothing to do with the time spent. People will play "casual" games for hours and hours. Since it's one of the few games I've downloaded on my phone I've probably racked up 20+ hours of Zuma.
I don't think it's a matter of defining the audience, but the games themselves. Casual gamers play casual games, hardcore gamers play hardcore games. Now, defining the difference can be difficult. Certainly traditional FPSs, RPGs, and RTSs are, or can be, "hardcore". They are games that traditional "gamerz" play. Most "puzzle" games, like Zuma, Lumines, and Bejewelled are certainly casual. Most flash games, and other free internet games are casual. PopTop games like Diner Dash and Virtual Villagers are casual. There's also some kind of inbetween though. What do you do with Puzzle Quest? I don't consider traditional adventure games to be casual, but they are close. They certainly are not hardcore, right? What the hell am I talking about, BTW? This is obviously a pointless semantic argument....
I don't know about you, but I'm always reading a book or something and thinking, "Man, I wish they'd make a game about this!" I was just thinking that the other day while I was reading Finnegans Wake. This game could be the perfect combination of gameplay and narrative, since neither would make the slightest bit of sense. Every character could be made of of 5 different people, and spell their names 10 different ways. Instead of an inventory, all your items would be combined, all the time. Instead of a save system, it'd just load up a random spot in the game. Your every move would completely change the game world in everything in it. Or maybe it just changes constantly on it's own. Who knows? You wouldn't be able to tell if you are navigating a dialogue tree, or are actually speaking to one. Are those monsters you are smiting with a bicycle pump, or your own self-concious desire to be a pudding? Yes! And, of course, you'd know you've won the game when you get back to the beginning...
I enjoy writing my own story too. I almost always have a complicated history of my country running in my head while playing Civ, or any other strategy game. However, the I think the game that has the best "story" is the Sims. You really can't play the game if you are not willing to create the story, and the game doesn't really offer any story at all. The game does facilitate all kinds of stories happening though. It also allows the player to force the story to be exactly how they want, or to let the game mechanics create plotlines for you.
Coverage of GTAIV has mentioned that it allows the player to create their own story too, even though there's actually a main storyline in the way.
I can't see the difference between GTA and Oblivion as far as quests go, except that completing the quests is more fun in GTA. Oblivion really blows you away at first, and does a good job of having a lot of quests at a time. However, they are almost all fetch quests. When the game does get creative it almost never works right. You mention the spy missions. Did you notice that you can literally walk up to your "target" and then simply duck behind the nearest crate? Not too impressive. GTA has follow missions too, but you fail if you get too close.
;-)
Oblivion also holds your hand through the game to a ridiculous level. The game mostly involves walking from one highlighted map point to another, and then listening to someone talk. I guess if you took the very best 20 missions from Oblivion it would look impressive, but those are mixed in with like a billion simple missions. The game was fun though
Curses! You just ruined my chance to point out that Sgt. Joe Friday never actually said, "Just the facts, ma'am."
What kind of maniac actually uses the correct phrase from the show when making a Dragnet joke?!?
Oh, and faxed signatures are kinda' dumb.
Valve really loves statistics, and if you've ever listened to a commentary track they are very intent on players making it through their games. I wonder if they will be scanning these save game files to create statistics on how far players get in the games they play, or how long they spent in various areas, etc.
Even the save game habits of players would be interesting. I always create a new save game file for every save. I can't remember the last time this was actually helpful. In the past some games would actually make it impossible to continue if you forget to pick up a certain item. If you kept replacing your save game file you were forced to start from the beginning. In FPSs I'm always afraid that I'll start chewing through ammo and get stuck in an area with sparse ammo and be screwed. So I'll make saves with titles like "GoodAmmoGoodHealth5", and "nearlyDead7".
They already have a lot of this information anyway, like how long you play a game, and what achievements you've completed. I'd like to see some of their statistics if they do datamine the files.
I thought the fun part in football was spending 20 minutes trying to decide if a player "made a football move" before dropping the ball. I really do enjoy the insane wrangling over goofy rules in football; especially with instant replay. Seriously though, Super Tecmo Bowl was great fun, but it really wasn't great football. Passing was especially dumbed down, and the AI was hilarious. If you got into the open you could turn the whole field into a ballet by running in circles. Oh, and the game was frustrating too, with AI that cheated right in your face. I can't remember how many times I almost threw my controller when an AI runningback suddenly started running twice as fast as I could right when I tried to tackle him. They can leave that part out of the DS version.
Ahh, I did forget the library, which I do use for DVDs, as well. The problem is the selection, which will obviously change from one library system to the next. I'm surprised that any particular library would have more of any category than Netflix. Besides VHS, they seem to have just about every DVD I know of. Then again, I don't watch kid's videos. Over the air movies are edited for content: language, length, nudity, etc. I need a cheap, legal way to watch important boxing matches within a few weeks of them happening. Paying for cable, HBO, and Showtime is not working. Oh, and like someone pointed out below, I feel compelled to use the library since I'm paying for it. I live in a modest home and I'm paying like $10 a month for it! So, the library is only free if you are homeless (renters pay property tax indirectly).
No, that is not "civil disobedience" unless you think some law involved here is immoral. You can't just steal things from companies because they are doing stupid things. Of course, since the DMCA exists, I guess you can pretty much do anything with IP and claim it is "civil disobedience".
I guess I'm incredibly stupid too. I'll still probably buy the game, 'cause I really want to play the game, and I know I won't play it for years on end, so I'll never have a problem. At least not with this game...
While I pretty much agree, it is worth noting that Spore is essentially a network game. You're not really supposed to play it offline. A major point of the game is getting a totally new selection of user created content everytime you play. Playing Spore offline would take a lot away from the game as it's been described. Still, this plan doesn't sound too great.
As a Netflix user, I can affirm that you do not know what you are talking about. Netflix's instant view capabilities are an added bonus to an already nice system. They don't even charge extra for it. The whole point of Netflix is that you are renting movies, so no one thinks they are "buying" a movie when they watch it instantly. You don't even pay per view, you pay a monthly fee, and that fee can be really low if you want to mainly watch the instant view movies. I don't know of a better way to legally watch movies cheaply. If Netflix suddenly goes down, all you lose is the last few days of that month's subscription.
Now, this system in TFA that is being described is a Bad Thing, because when those servers go down I can't play the game I paid $50.00 for. This is the first thing I've heard that makes me second guess buying Spore as soon as it comes out. Then again, I play plenty of Steam games, so I guess I'm not really that worried.
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.
You are, almost certainly, going to be disappointed. I've never read any indication of a scripting language, or even a Black and White like system of training the creatures. What I have read indicates that the creature's actions will largely be determined by what parts you give it. IE, if you give it teeth for hunting, it will hunt. If you make a really mean looking creature, but give it flat teeth, it's gonna' be an herbivore. The creatures will behave autonomously, but you're not gonna' be able to program them like in Robot Wars.
What are you talking about?? I think the old lady I beat down with a purple dildo probably noticed my sweet tats. And when I spent an hour running a chainsaw over a pile of bodies in the street, I'm sure the passers by noticed my red mohawk. I know my posse really loved my hockey mask; why else would they stick with me after I shot several of them in the face with a shot gun? Even all those cops probably noticed my platinum watch when I snuck up behind them and cut their throats. And when I was going all "hot coffee" on that chick, she certainly noticed the phat green jeans I was wearing while I was doing it. And who wouldn't notice a guy dressed as a gimp doing drive bys on a vespa? Did you even play GAT:SA??
If the game is anything like they are aiming for, this shouldn't be a problem. Just don't make your creatures like that! If you want subtle colors, use subtle colors. It sounds like you can modify just about everything in the game. The Sporepedia, or whatever, should allow you to download stuff from other users with the same asethetic. So you can probably find what you want, even if you can't create it yourself. If you want OMG PONIES!!! planets you can have them, or you can make your creatures in Hercules Monochrome.
Er, like outside in meatspace, maybe?? I'd like to play a 1D game of Hide and Seek.... Or a proper 4D hide and seek... I know he's around here somewhere... but WHEN??
I suppose you mean it is 3D since you can float off the ground, but you can climb up stuff in regular gravity hide and seek too.