If I break a promise to someone, I might as well have lied to that person, they will never, EVER, believe a word I have to say after that. Unless of course I change my lies back to promises or make good in some way, that is no guaranteed way to fix things however.

It seems the only reason people are even here to begin with, is that they have hope... that this game will become what it was promised, because it was lauded by the greatest mind of this genre.. WILL WRIGHT...this doesn't even seem like it belongs to him... someone else made it, I'm certain.

I have hope that this game can become like it was promised. It can... and should. I believe that if this game has just a few of the MOST IMPORTANT changes made to it, based on the prominent views of the actual ones who play the game. Money will come flowing out of places they didn't even know it would flow from. Honesty pays off in the end. Greed and lies, In my humble opinion, breed nothing but disaster and chaos.

I hope that they fix this mistake of business, and get "back on the ball" so to speak. It would save them in my eyes... and many others IMHO.

What saddens me the most, is that this game was nothing like I was lead to believe... just a binder, for the book. They kept the darn book. It seems they are now taunting me, and are going to continue taunting me with expansion after expansion... preying on the hope.. hope that this game will become what was promised. I will still hold on to that hope.... no matter what. I know that they can see the light, and change their ways. All they need to do is listen...

It would be a miracle... if a statement was made tomorrow...... a statement of apology.. I know I'm not in the wrong here, as a group of scientists, with experience well beyond anything I could dream of at this point... gave the game HORRIBLE markings.... one even said.. something to the effect of, this game does not simulate evolution like the ads say. Not to mention all the postings that I've read in the past weeks stating the same things over and over and over...and .. well, what else can I say.. OVER.

How many more people need to say something, before its drummed into the iron walls of EA.....I do not know. Hopefully the walls come tumbling down really soon.....and they realize the error of their ways. The sooner the better.. In my humble opinion. I have faith that a megapatch will come tumbling out at some point. What happened here is quite an abomination, one is almost required.. in my humble opinion.

Thank you for reading this

Red

P.S. Feedback is welcome.. Remember this is my opinion... based on fact and many posts and polls here in this forum.

So much depends on why you brought the game and what your expectations were. For me it was, first and foremost, about having fun. I knew the gameplay wouldn't be deep, you only had to look at the live demos at, I think E3, to see that. A lot of the fun was in the creators. The whole look and feel of the game was refreshing compared to all the FPS's I see with blood, guts and gore and normally a horror feel. It's a game where I could play, let my 5 year old daughter play and not have to worry too much. As such I have not been frustrated.

I do understand where people are coming from when they say it's not what was promised. More scientific ideas could and should have been included. What better way to teach than through play and yes this lack does disappoint.

Saying that though with all the negativity on these boards, often based on rumour, other times based in "cloud cuckoo land" and only rarely with practical ideas put forward, I find myself losing any sympathy with the people complaining. There are many different views on how much "science" could and should have been included. Science on it's own would be boring to play. No matter how much science was put in some people would complain. Argument of Science vs Cute to me is a no go. Both are feasable and would have fulfilled my desire to have a game for teaching scientific ideas. I didn't get it but I did get something both my daughter and I enjoy.

Well this is going to most likely be the last science oriented game Will Wright will get to do. He pretty much burned his bridges with that community. Not only with the end result but how the DVD falsely depicted their views and thoughts after the editing process.

I could tell you at this moment Northwestern and U of Chicago are through with the man. UofC Paleontology, Biology, and the Hospital are rather peeved to the point of having made written departmental statements.

What people may concider in cuckoo land differs a bit though.

Not all that was shown and was 'promised' belonged in said land.

Will Wright will never get to work on something like this again.
TheSims were a fluke. He got lucky.

No magical insight, or a keen eye into the business.
A fluke.

What I was expecting to get out of the game has no relation as to how it was adverticed.
Sure, it wasn't going to be the game to end all games.
But what was shown was definatly more engaging then what we have now.

If they only were smoke and mirrors. Fine, I accept that. Some things were indeed smoke and mirrors.
But I never had a small announcement in my newsletters or in my trips to the live demo's that the overal aproach to Spore had so radically changed.

Infact the science article that was posted yesterday, is yet another piece of evidence that lieing was an accepted marketing strategy for Spore. It does not mather anymore how much I still like this Spore.
A lot of damage has been done on long term customer relations.
We were lied too. Not even marketing spin.
No, we were purposely deceived.

Well naturally I'l throw in my 0.2 cents here

I could have forgiven the lack of "real" science. I could, initially I did. I have no problem with cute.
But my reason for being disgruntled ?

I was promised a banquet and was tossed a half-eaten cookie instead. It "smelt" good, on first bite it tasted quite good.
But ultimately it has proved to be lacking in substance.(Even the creators are restrictive without modding)
To add insult to injury ,to continue the analogy, now They want to sell me the rest of the cookies one at a time.
I will continue to hang around here. Eternal optimist ,I guess.
But I am done with future EA games and Will Wright.

I don't think the delivered Spore is Wright's game. Not that I'm a worshiper anyway. I'm not really that keen on Will Wright. Never been. I like Sim City but not all of it.
But I think this is Hecker's and Hutchinson's game. Will Wright for unknown reasons, maybe respecting democracy and friendship too much, maybe apathy, let go of most of it. As long as he still got a finger in the Space stage he must have figured everything would be ok.

There are many things that bother me about the whole deal. Hecker is a nobody. He was a bum living off his wife until she got pregnant. He was "into the indie game scene", yea right - he never delivered anything.
Suddenly this guy starts to have ideas about Spore. - And he's propped up!. He starts to appear in interviews and stuff. Becoming a public face for Spore even. How did that happen? He's an inexperienced nobody with zero merits!

I think we see a glimpse of how exactly EA manages to mysteriously turn everything they touch into poop here.

Another glimpse: Before the release of Spore, Will said something along the lines "the message from EA is to not screw up!"
That's baffling. Does EA trust Maxis creative freedom or not? Does EA think they (EA management) have anything to contribute to Spore to ensure a "success"?

I think we see another glimpse of how exactly EA manages to mysteriously turn everything they touch into poop here.

EA have truly severe organizational problems!

There's another chain of mysteries:

The failings of Spore are starkly obvious!
Why didn't anyone react? Again it reeks of apathy on part of a lot of people. Who abused those people into that "I don't care anymore and just do as I'm told" -mode?

The delivered Spore is NOT the product of a 80 strong team over four years. It's rather like 17 people and 7 months.
So where is the rest of the work? A common theory is that it is withheld to be released as expansions. I don't believe that for a minute. No I think that the work has been discarded. And more than one time. Spore exhibits signs of having been derailed several times during it's development and turned into something different.
My theory is that it at some time has been severely crippled and reduced due to an imposed requirement that it should be portable to Wii. An ambition that was eventually abandoned due to impossibility, but Spore still wears the scars.

I think the failure of EA management is most brightly exposed by the DRM scandal. Again everything is starkly obvious. If decisions were up to the thinking processes of a single human mind, it should be obvious that 3 installs only would be unacceptable for most people. Most of my friends change their bios settings a couple of times a year. And that's not counting hardware changes. And when EA takes down their validation server, then what? These problems are obvious, in your face unaccaptable. Yet no one reacts and EA goes ahead.

And Securom has been to court multiple times already. And it has lost every time. Again it should be obvious to any executive that using it is begging for a class act lawsuit. And yet EA not only brings it on but also assures their own loss in that lawsuit by not making any mention at all of its inclusion in Spore.

These are failures that cannot be understood. It goes so much farther than gross incompetence and idiotic stupidity.
I certainly don't understand it. I can only speculate that there is some kind of corporative culture in EA that isn't in any way connected to reality. Like a sect that insists on that the world is flat.

Bumping in light of parts back being offered for free... to NEW customers on DUTCH EA site.

http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/10088.page

I think it's worth a note that I have forgiven some of the most egregious things done against me after a simple heartfelt apology. (Body language and tone are key.) If I see a video of Will Wright just saying "Look, I'm sorry. I forgot what I was doing there for a second. We'll fix it," I'll be more than willing to forgive, pretty much completely. (Same with EA about the DRM, but it has to be honest.)

I will admit that putting the words "Spore" and "Evolution" in the same sentence is a mockery of science. Poor Will Wright. I imagine that really angers him.