Spore!

[vexx32]

Alright, I\'ve submitted the challenge to Amber. I\'ll let y\'all know if she takes it up.

[Ascensiam]

I have Spore.

Cell stage - boring, but would make a good Smart Phone game.

Creature stage - takes way too long. Again, boring.

Tribal stage - Like Civ stage only more boring.

Civilisation stage - This is the stage I like most. Whilst I wish you could actually build cities like in Real Life rather than just jacking other factions\' cities, the strategy involved is fun. I like building HSD land/water/aircraft, so that I can use them here. I also never do the speedercar>disband>slowtank tactic, because I\'d prefer my vehicles be balanced. Makes it that much more interesting, like raising the difficulty level by some.

Space stage - Has potential, but there\'s no actual space travel, and you can\'t have space dogfights. Plus, it crashes all of the time, and there is no autosave feature. That problem has lost me many strong alliances and huuuge... tracts \'o\' land.

Really? At least i am not the only one with that intensely annoying problem. Also, there is no stage i find boring.

Cell - Choose the right weapons and start hunting mega cells

Creature - Epic creature hunting is fun, just as fun as getting nom\'d and tossed across the map.

Tribal - Again, epic creature hunting with throwing spears, intense fun.

Civilization - Epic creature hunting, now with aircraft.

Space stage - Seach T3 planets, then kill epic creatures.

[vexx32]

Well, Spore does have an autosave feature, but it\'s disabled by default... and I haven\'t the faintest idea of how it works once enabled. I\'m an old-time modder, you see. I made the good old PlatinumSpore mod (here), which is an amalgam of both my own innovations and some which were thought up by true geniuses. I dunno if you\'ve heard of Davo or Logarithm64 before, but they made some incredible mods in their day. Davo concentrated mainly on the Creature Stage, while Log just fiddled with anything he found, and sometimes he managed to create some truly awesome things.

As to my deconstruction of the stages (this\'ll be skewed, because I haven\'t played Spore without my mod for a good three years or so; it makes a big difference, trust me):

Cell -- Avoid predators, find food, work out how to progress quickest. My fastest progression from Cell stage was around four minutes, I think.

Creature -- Very interesting with PS. The addition of new abilities and modifications allow a much broader Creature Stage, and it lasts for a bit longer, too (mainly for the benefit of those who just love playing in this stage -- Amber was one), but not too long.

Tribe -- As usual, a fairly short stage. It\'s either conquer, or make friends. I tend to do the latter, since it\'s easier by a factor of ten.

Civilisation -- A good simulation of a planet-wide RTS, but could be more definitive. Tends to be excellent fun fro Religious civilisations, since they can tame Epics.

Space -- Quite literally the Final Frontier. The amount of new things to do here compared to an unmodded game is phenomenal. The basic storyline is the same, but all too often you\'ll find yourself beset by a literal swarm (up to 200) ships defending a reasonable-sized homeworld. The largest and most valuable can have up to 300. This is compensated for by an incredible array of weaponry, but at the start you\'ll just have to take advantage of their poor coordination and evade them.

To be quite honest, I cannot imagine playing Spore again without my mod. I tried it once... and it is quite depressing to see, actually.

Anyway. Also, Amber agreed to try and model a Kerbal for us in Spore. She thinks it\'ll be a ten-minute job.

[LaydeeDem]

The only gripe I have bout the space stage is that I am on the other side of the galaxy, and the suddenly there is a biosphere collapse. I have over 30 systems conquered! That\'s about 30 BILLION people! Go send someone else! >

Anyways, I just reinstalled spore. I\'ll see if I can make a Kerb.

[Ydoow]

The only gripe I have bout the space stage is that I am on the other side of the galaxy, and the suddenly there is a biosphere collapse. I have over 30 systems conquered! That\'s about 30 BILLION people! Go send someone else! >

Anyways, I just reinstalled spore. I\'ll see if I can make a Kerb.

Yeah, that was the biggest complaint. There\'s definitely a limit to how far you can expand because you\'re required to \'save\' planets from collapses and other issues constantly.

There were certain upgrades you could buy to prevent them, but with so many planets under your control, the price would be ridiculous.

I never had any crashing issues in space, and honestly found the graphics of space to be one of the most awesome parts.

[vexx32]

Aye, those get awfully annoying... which is why when i was messing with the code, I figured I\'d lower the rates of those happenings substantially.

[grawl]

I pretty much liked Spore, exploring all the possibilities in cell/creature stage and after, and finding new planets to terraform and populate in space stage is cool ! =P

It becomes repetitive in the long run, but the fact that you can actually design all that revolves around your creature makes it new almost every play (creativity speaking, game mechanisms don\'t change that much between herbivor, carnivor, or omnivor).

I ended up doing some weird anatomies and trying to make it survive best

cheers.

[bandit4910]

I have both games, Creature creator sucked.

Regular spore was OK.

[vexx32]

The Galactic Adventures expansion makes it a bit better, but I decided to abuse that with the help of some others and spice up the Creature Stage with some GA effects xD

[N3X15]

Yes, spore was fun up until space, where the novelty of completely destroying a planet wore off as soon as the first 80 chore missions were done announcing themselves.

SHUT UP I JUST WANT TO INCREASE THE ATMOSPHERE UNTIL IT CRUSHES EVERYTHING.

[vexx32]

Heh. Yeah... well, apart from destroying a planet, I don\'t mind deterraforming it and raising sea levels all at once... kills a fair few. Then, I suppose I could make it uninhabitable... heh. Oh, the things that can be done with modding

[sss]

I just got spore (not creature creator) and i think its awsome, im playing civil stage ATM.

why do people not like spore?

[Polecat Industries]

Well, I tried Vexx\'s mod. It\'s the only one that loads properly for me and I love it. One issue though, the 3d cell editor does not work. Otherwise, great!

[Kryten]

I just got spore (not creature creator) and i think its awsome, im playing civil stage ATM.

why do people not like spore?

Try it the second time; you\'ll be bored out of your skull.

[Warshawski]

I thoroughly enjoyed spore... mainly because I thought it was hilarious to make creatures that looked like they were wearing powered armor and then set them out to conquer the universe.

[hebdomad]

You\'re probably the only person who played spore more than hour after getting it.

I got the collectors edition and thought it was an amazing game... if it was not for the over zealous DRM and the game crashing every 5 seconds I could have played it for more than a hour... No sarcasm here... 8)

I might reinstall it one day... maybe.

[vexx32]

Well, I tried Vexx\'s mod. It\'s the only one that loads properly for me and I love it. One issue though, the 3d cell editor does not work. Otherwise, great!

If you\'ve got above Patch 3 without the Galactic Adventures expansion, you\'ll be missing out on most of the mod. Only a very small portion of its intended modifications will actually take effect. For the full mod, GA is required, but it\'ll work on vanilla patch 3 with only a few minor glitches.

[Charzy]

If Spore hadn\'t fallen victim to executive meddling, it would have been amazing.

I believe the 2005 demo is a good and commonly quoted video to show what spore should have been.

[sss]

If Spore hadn\'t fallen victim to executive meddling, it would have been amazing.

I believe the 2005 demo is a good and commonly quoted video to show what spore should have been.

???

[vexx32]

I can agree with you there. From memory, Logarithm64 created a camera modification to make the space stage ship camera for the on-planet view look like the 2005 demo view. Looks pretty sweet.

[Polecat Industries]

If you\'ve got above Patch 3 without the Galactic Adventures expansion, you\'ll be missing out on most of the mod. Only a very small portion of its intended modifications will actually take effect. For the full mod, GA is required, but it\'ll work on vanilla patch 3 with only a few minor glitches.

No, this is running with GA. Would C&C interfere though?

[Warshawski]

I just re-bought spore

Currently heavily enjoying it. I have also heard rumors that next year\'s E3 will showcase a new Spore game (Core spore, not Darkspore)

[Amram]

really, they\'re making another one?

~shudder~

i wonder if this one will also manage to bag the title of most downloaded game ever. i know Spore has long since lost its hold on that, but for a time after it launched, it was undisputed as the most downloaded game ever. Mostly because of its DRM scheme.

Anyways, do not let me stop you, to each their own.

Spore must have done alright if they are doing another.

[Cthulufaic]

I think that EA really dumbed down the Original Spore, and that if EA isn\'t making the new one, I would totally buy it.

[Warshawski]

EA\'s community managers actually know how PO\'d people were with original Spore, and have *gasp* paid attention, so they say. Time will tell.