SPORE Impressions

[CeeKay]

having so fun so far-  I'm still at the creature stage.  Listed my ID in the buddy thread, and since some people may be playing with kids I promise no penis creatures.

[Orgull]

More impressions. I don't like Space Stage at all. I can see why many people would, and I'm not saying it's bad, but it's my least favorite stage. The learning curve is a cliff.

When I get home from work later I'm going to start a new game and try being a herbivore this time

So for me

1) Creature
2) Cell
3) Civilization
4) Tribe
5) Space

Although Space will probably get better as they patch, update and expand the game. Just needs some more tool tips and better mission information. "Return to Bladoo" What? Where in the universe is Bladoo? Turns out it's a planet. In what system? Sorry we're not going to tell you, you have to search 45,000 systems to find it. 

Otherwise the game is terrific!

[namatoki]

So still no problems with SecuROM? 

[JCC]

Anybody know if the user manual is available online? Do they provide it to you if you order online on the EAStore or D2Drive? I really wish Steam had this as they always let you read the manual before purchasing. I am on the fence for this one. This might be something my wife would like, and I am curious about it too. I wish I could read the manual to make a more informed decision.

[TiLT]

More impressions. I don't like Space Stage at all. I can see why many people would, and I'm not saying it's bad, but it's my least favorite stage. The learning curve is a cliff.

When I get home from work later I'm going to start a new game and try being a herbivore this time

So for me

1) Creature
2) Cell
3) Civilization
4) Tribe
5) Space

Although Space will probably get better as they patch, update and expand the game. Just needs some more tool tips and better mission information. "Return to Bladoo" What? Where in the universe is Bladoo? Turns out it's a planet. In what system? Sorry we're not going to tell you, you have to search 45,000 systems to find it. 

Otherwise the game is terrific!

I'm really enjoying the space stage (4 titles away from max now), and it's by far the most fleshed out part of the game. I hate the micromanagement in it though. I can't just relax with a bit of terraforming without being interrupted every 2 minutes by another eco crisis or pirate attack. I wish those would be reduced in frequeny as you reach the higher levels, as they stop being a challenge at that point.

Finding mission objectives is never a problem though. If you're having trouble finding the system they're sending you to, just zoom out a bit (and enable the Missions part of the star filter). The mission area will have a circle in its general vicinity. I still wish there was a search feature for those rare cases where two stars are so close to each other that I don't notice the mission target, which has only happened to me once so far.

[Huw the Poo]

I've played the tribal stage for a short while now and I love it, definitely my favourite of the three I've played.  There's more to do as a tribe than as a cell or single creature, and interactions with other species are getting more interesting.  It's a fun little RTS - and yeah, of course it's a very stripped-down RTS, but it's one stage in a five-stage game.

My initial experience of tribal is reminiscent of any other RTS - you don't do so well at the beginning when you're still figuring stuff out, but once you get to grips with the nuances you start making huge progress.  The in-game guide is far more useful than the paper manual by the way.

[Destructor]

It is a shame you just end up min/maxing certain things to get what you need rather than just designing stuff that is pleasing to the eye. I would rather they had just let you earn points you can put on to the body parts rather than having to use a head that has 5 for bite even though you'd prefer a head of 2 but won't use as it makes it harder to progress or even impossible. Multiple arms/legs/eyes really aren't worth it, neither are multiple mouths.

That is a surprising decision, considering that what made the Creature Creator so fantastic was that people weren't trying to 'optimize' their creature. They were just doing it for looks.

[Godzilla Blitz]

So still no problems with SecuROM? 

The limit of three installs is keeping me on the fence for the time being. I can see myself going through those pretty quickly. I've got a Mac/Intel laptop, and I'd prefer to run it on the Mac side. But my experience with Mac games is that they generally suffer from performance issues, in which case I'd want to uninstall and then put it on the Windows side of the laptop, where performance is generally better. If I put it on the Windows desktop downstairs as well, I've used up my three installs already.

If you use up your installs and contact EA about it, do you think they'll release more installs, or just tell you that you have to buy a new game?

[Huw the Poo]

To balance out all the praise I've been pouring on Spore in this thread, I do have one gripe - it's pretty easy.  I've been playing the tribal stage for about 90 minutes and I'm almost finished with it.  Purely accidentally, I've discovered a formula for progressing through it which is pretty much infallible.  The next time I play this stage with another species I'll know exactly how to breeze right through it.  The same can be said for the creature stage, although the cell stage is different enough to be a modest challenge every time IMO.

I'm playing on normal difficulty (out of easy, normal and hard) so next time I'll play on hard and hope it's more of a challenge.  But unless the civ and space stages are radically different, at the moment it's looking like Spore will ultimately be all about the creativity and community rather than the actual game.

Still, it's very enjoyable, at least the first time through.  I'm still loving it and definitely not regretting buying it.  Even though each stage can be figured out very easily, I think that designing vastly different species will make playing it all through again palatable enough each time.  That's certainly what I intend to do anyway, although I can definitely see that one play-through and then onto pure content creation will be enough for some people.

[kadnod]

My impression is that Harkonis monsters keep eating me!

[CeeKay]

got to the tribe stage and have been busy ganking all the other tribes.  so far it seems like the only really tactic is to wait for the enemy to attack me and then send in my troops after I've wiped out their invading force.  I got to subjugate some of Kadnods creatures too.

[namatoki]

Ok, so I installed Spore from my DVD and tried to run it, but it's telling me that I need the lastest drivers for my 8800 GTS SLI set up. Um, I checked nVidia's site and it tells me that my drivers are up to date. So do I have to install the beta drivers with that physics crap in it? The last time I did it, it hosed my PC.

[MythicalMino]

I hope that there is a way to create new planets? I deleted 2 games I had started, and now the planets are completely gone....and I cannot figure out how to add new planets. Maybe I am just blind and not seeing how to do that?

Chris

[kadnod]

I got to subjugate some of Kadnods creatures too.

I, for one, welcome our new CeeKayian overlords.

[hepcat]

Does simply adding folks to your buddy list ensure that their creations appear in your game?  Or do I need to enable some option?  So far I don't think I've run across anyone's creatures.   

[JCC]

Can you have multiple saves/multiple players/creatures at once? (ie. can my wife and I play different games on the same pc?)

[Kurt Stevens]

Ok, so I installed Spore from my DVD and tried to run it, but it's telling me that I need the lastest drivers for my 8800 GTS SLI set up. Um, I checked nVidia's site and it tells me that my drivers are up to date. So do I have to install the beta drivers with that physics crap in it? The last time I did it, it hosed my PC.

I had the same issue with my 8800M SLI for my laptop.  I was using the latest Dell drivers but when I updated to the latest NVIDIA drivers it worked fine for me. A quick google search lead me to a couple of websites with people having the same issue. This is why I mainly console game anymore. This kind of crap drives me crazy. My game time is so limited that I don't have time to deal with things like this.

[CeeKay]

OK, not loving the Civilization portion.  basically the red civ zerged the whole map- I'm not sure how the heck they got so many units so fast but all of a sudden all the spice was theirs and about 10 enemy units were attacking my city with some kind of beam weapon while my turrets were doing absolutely nothing.  wtf am I doing wrong?  did I over engineer my units when I designed them (they cost 1000 each) and they just made cheaper units?

[JuniorDan]

OK, not loving the Civilization portion.  basically the red civ zerged the whole map- I'm not sure how the heck they got so many units so fast but all of a sudden all the spice was theirs and about 10 enemy units were attacking my city with some kind of beam weapon while my turrets were doing absolutely nothing.  wtf am I doing wrong?  did I over engineer my units when I designed them (they cost 1000 each) and they just made cheaper units?

Holy shit.... I came on to grip about the same thing, for me it was the blue. Other than that I loved every part of the game up to this.  I just need to figure out how to get off this planet.

[mirage775]

Well, after playing for 10 hours, I can honestly say, it's fun!  I too am not thrilled with the space stages although, I loved designing my ship but, that's about all.  I like the other stages in this order:  Cell, Creature, Tribe and Civilization.  How exactly do I find the rest of you in the game?  I haven't even messed with it yet, lol.  Well, going to bed.

[kadnod]

OK, not loving the Civilization portion.  basically the red civ zerged the whole map- I'm not sure how the heck they got so many units so fast but all of a sudden all the spice was theirs and about 10 enemy units were attacking my city with some kind of beam weapon while my turrets were doing absolutely nothing.  wtf am I doing wrong?  did I over engineer my units when I designed them (they cost 1000 each) and they just made cheaper units?

Holy shit.... I came on to grip about the same thing, for me it was the blue. Other than that I loved every part of the game up to this.  I just need to figure out how to get off this planet.

Yeah, I just lost on the Civ part as well.  The tutorials for this section aren't particularly well done.  I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to cram as much crap on my vehicles as possible, since design cost doesn't seem to influence cost to produce the unit.  I'm iffy on how to persuade other cities to join, too.


No option to start over from the last stage, either. Just a re-boot to an earlier, but still unwinnable, point in the Civ stage.

[kadnod]

Does simply adding folks to your buddy list ensure that their creations appear in your game?  Or do I need to enable some option?  So far I don't think I've run across anyone's creatures.   

I know you can set things so you will only get your buddies' creatures.  Otherwise, I think it's random, with buddies' critters having a greater chance to appear.

[CeeKay]

OK, not loving the Civilization portion.  basically the red civ zerged the whole map- I'm not sure how the heck they got so many units so fast but all of a sudden all the spice was theirs and about 10 enemy units were attacking my city with some kind of beam weapon while my turrets were doing absolutely nothing.  wtf am I doing wrong?  did I over engineer my units when I designed them (they cost 1000 each) and they just made cheaper units?

Holy shit.... I came on to grip about the same thing, for me it was the blue. Other than that I loved every part of the game up to this.  I just need to figure out how to get off this planet.

Yeah, I just lost on the Civ part as well.  The tutorials for this section aren't particularly well done.  I'm still not sure if I'm supposed to cram as much crap on my vehicles as possible, since design cost doesn't seem to influence cost to produce the unit.  I'm iffy on how to persuade other cities to join, too.


No option to start over from the last stage, either. Just a re-boot to an earlier, but still unwinnable, point in the Civ stage.

well, on my second try with the Civ stage I just did my own zerging.  I went and grabbed all the spice mines I could, then focused on the same cities on my continent.  the part that stinks is there is no way to transport troops over seas, so after a bit you have to rely on special abilities to capture enemy cities to get a foothold on new continents.


On the bright side, I did nuke one of Harkonis's epic creatures 

I finally made it to space.  Here's my creatures and their new spaceship:

[Razgon]

Ceekay, your creature is positively scary! Let me guess, Herbivore? ;-)

anyways, as I posted over at OO, the game has faded a bit on me, space section was, boring and repetitive, and without charm once I played it for a few hours...

The dumping down of the games depth has made this a bit too, well, empty for me - the only thing that matters in your  creature design, seems to be the poison and the spike thing, all other things is purely cosmetic, since having a trillion legs doenst make your creature go faster, or anything else at all...

On the other hand, some people are incredible at this - at my last game, I ran into a christmas gnoe thingie that scared me a LOT!

[Tokek]

Started a new game today and while I was at my creature stage I saw a UFO from one of the people in my buddy list (can't remember whose).  It came down low, snag some animals and vegetations, lingers a little then took off.  That was pretty darn cool!

I'm also getting a good mix of buddy's creatures in my game now.

[Harkonis]

More impressions. I don't like Space Stage at all. I can see why many people would, and I'm not saying it's bad, but it's my least favorite stage. The learning curve is a cliff.

When I get home from work later I'm going to start a new game and try being a herbivore this time

So for me

1) Creature
2) Cell
3) Civilization
4) Tribe
5) Space

Although Space will probably get better as they patch, update and expand the game. Just needs some more tool tips and better mission information. "Return to Bladoo" What? Where in the universe is Bladoo? Turns out it's a planet. In what system? Sorry we're not going to tell you, you have to search 45,000 systems to find it. 

Otherwise the game is terrific!

So far every mission I've had that says to go to a planet tells me the system in the mission details.  Also, if you turn on the travel trails (which the tutorial tells you how to do) the path to your mission planets/systems is highlighted as a giant line.

I'm not digging the combat interface of space mode, but I've had no problems finding my way around.

[Harkonis]

Ceekay, your creature is positively scary! Let me guess, Herbivore? ;-)

anyways, as I posted over at OO, the game has faded a bit on me, space section was, boring and repetitive, and without charm once I played it for a few hours...

The dumping down of the games depth has made this a bit too, well, empty for me - the only thing that matters in your  creature design, seems to be the poison and the spike thing, all other things is purely cosmetic, since having a trillion legs doenst make your creature go faster, or anything else at all...

On the other hand, some people are incredible at this - at my last game, I ran into a christmas gnoe thingie that scared me a LOT!

Rewatching videos of the game from 2 years ago and such, it's a shame to see so many aspects 'dumbed down' from what they were trying to do.  They showed off the procedural animation so much on the creature stage and then in the release you can't actually do the eating/dragging of meat and such.  Now it just eats when you click and if you move it stops.

[Lockdown]

I got beaten to a pulp by some creature while playing yesterday and immediately looked to see if it was one of CK's!

It wasn't.

 

[Destructor]

Cute - apparently people have been leaving a TON of negative reviews protesting the draconian SecurROM DRM included with the game. According to the review numbers right now:

545 Reviews
5 star:    3%     (19)
4 star:    2%     (12)
3 star:    1%     (6)
2 star:    2%     (15)
1 star:    90%     (493)

And this review sums up the negative onslaught quite nicely:

First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because "it's not financially feasible" to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

This basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it. The game WILL stop to function in the future. That's inevitable, because even if EA keeps the activation servers going, there IS going to be a time when EA will simply cease to exist because of financial issues or federal laws (like most business eventually do).

Wow.

[Huw the Poo]

As disgusted as I am with this scheme - and I'm seriously considering never buying a game that uses it again - I have to say that that quote is overly pessimistic.  There's no reason EA or Maxis couldn't eventually release a patch that will remove the need for activation.

Of course, it's unlikely because in their own words, EA say they're in it for the long haul and making a brand out of Spore.  However, that also means that the activation service is unlikely to go down, too.

[Blackadar]

Cute - apparently people have been leaving a TON of negative reviews protesting the draconian SecurROM DRM included with the game. According to the review numbers right now:

545 Reviews
5 star:    3%     (19)
4 star:    2%     (12)
3 star:    1%     (6)
2 star:    2%     (15)
1 star:    90%     (493)

And this review sums up the negative onslaught quite nicely:

First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you'll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That's not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because "it's not financially feasible" to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

This basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it. The game WILL stop to function in the future. That's inevitable, because even if EA keeps the activation servers going, there IS going to be a time when EA will simply cease to exist because of financial issues or federal laws (like most business eventually do).

Wow.

Edit:

What Huw said.

[hepcat]

I gotta admit, I'm a little annoyed by the DRM they're using.  However, I always enjoy the opportunity to use the word "Draconian" in a sentence, so it's not a total loss.

[Unagi]

I gotta admit, I'm a little annoyed by the DRM they're using.  However, I always enjoy the opportunity to use the word "Draconian" in a sentence, so it's not a total loss.

I totally agree abou that.  And I'm also a bit annoyed with the DRM thing too.

[kadnod]

I gotta admit, I'm a little annoyed by the DRM they're using.  However, I always enjoy the opportunity to use the word "Draconian" in a sentence, so it's not a total loss.

They're my favorite new race in 4th editon.

[TiLT]

I gotta admit, I'm a little annoyed by the DRM they're using.  However, I always enjoy the opportunity to use the word "Draconian" in a sentence, so it's not a total loss.

They're my favorite new race in 4th editon.

If you don't remember the name of your favorite race, what hope is there for the rest of them?

[Huw the Poo]

I've just beaten the civ phase in one go.  Predictably, it was a piece of piss.  Within the first couple of minutes I'd hit on a winning strategy and was nowhere even close to challenged by any of the other nations.  At least there's more to it than the tribal phase, though.

As for the space phase...I only played the first couple of missions but it looks like there's finally going to be a hell of a lot to do.  That galaxy is fucking massive, and the thought that it's going to be populated by almost exclusively user-generated content is awesome to say the least!  I love all this badge, mission, device, trade stuff; it hopefully means that the space phase will provide a lot of game.

However, I have braved the EA forum once or twice, and it's full of people saying that the space phase is ruined by constant threats to your homeworld and colonies.  I'm hoping they're just idiots who don't know how to play the game properly.  They're also clamouring for a patch and EA says they're working on one.  Ah well, let's wait and see.

[CSL]

I'm hoping they're just idiots who don't know how to play the game properly.  They're also clamouring for a patch and EA says they're working on one.  Ah well, let's wait and see.

The Space phase that I played it was fairly common to have to run back to individual colonies to put out fires, enough that it would get seriously annoying.

[crumsteel]

it was a piece of piss. 

That just made me laugh... I have to use it tomorrow.

[Victoria Raverna]

As disgusted as I am with this scheme - and I'm seriously considering never buying a game that uses it again - I have to say that that quote is overly pessimistic.  There's no reason EA or Maxis couldn't eventually release a patch that will remove the need for activation.

Of course, it's unlikely because in their own words, EA say they're in it for the long haul and making a brand out of Spore.  However, that also means that the activation service is unlikely to go down, too.

While EA is in it for the long haul, you never know if EA will screw up and suddenly have to close down. While it seems like EA is too big for that to happen, gaming history show us that big and successful company can go down or being bought by other company then disappear. When the company is going down and people are being laid off, do you think they'll suddenly remember that they need to release patch to remove activation? More likely they have more important thing to do than to release patches.

And since pirates have it before the US's release date, I think the securom protection failed. That left them with the cd key protection for people who want to play online, if they tie the cd key to EA user account and people have to login to play online, there is no need for the securom 3 install limitation. Let's say someone share the copy online, suddenly the cd-key will be used by 100 people trying to register, EA can then just ban the account with that cd key and that'll work much better than the securom 3 installation limit.

I can accept copy protection that have limited installation if the publishers state in advance that they'll remove the protection after 3 months. Since copy protection's goal is to delay piracy, after 3 months there is not much reason to have draconian copy protection. And if Spore is not a good game, I guess after 3 months no one will bother pirating it.

[CeeKay]

I'm hoping they're just idiots who don't know how to play the game properly.  They're also clamouring for a patch and EA says they're working on one.  Ah well, let's wait and see.

The Space phase that I played it was fairly common to have to run back to individual colonies to put out fires, enough that it would get seriously annoying.

hell, I'm not that far into the Space portion and being called back every 5 minutes or so if getting pretty repetitive.  I'm also loving how each planet has it's own fleets compared to my one ship-  I have no clue how the hell I'm supposed to conquer anything.

oh, and being attacked while in transit without being able to defend myself?  fucking priceless, let me tell you.

Personally, I'm talking with a couple of other friends who may send some money my way for the remaining 2 installations, so at least the game won't be a total loss.