...there were suggestions that it might be cool if the creatures wore sneakers.

Oh dear...

"Your creature cannot advance to the Tribal stage until it learns to tie its own shoes."

nykara wrote:

darwintheory wrote:That guys a freakin idiot (not Will he cool). I simply fail to understand why the
cuteness was nesscary. Look at other games (hunting, RPG, FPS) they don't need
cuteness and they sell millions of copies. *sigh* maybe some day they will create
a realistic add-on to make the game look better. Don't get me wrong, I like the current
Spore but that "Cute Man" should be fired as I see him as the reason Spore dissappointed
many, he killed Science Spore!

Yeah but then you need to look at World of Warcraft over a lot of the other MMO's that are out there. It's the *most* popular out of all of them and it is cartoonish. The fact is cute sells. There's also a reason why the alliance side in WoW was always more popular then horde - again because people want cute little gnomes or night elves instead of things that look like Bulls or have huge ugly tusks.

Some people in here have made some very realistic and not-cute designs and other people have made cute designs. My personal tastes is for cute (That's why my favorite animals are things like rabbits and koala's and dogs and cats because they are all cute) the way I see the current set up though is that it caters for all kinds of styles and preferences.

If you think the graphics are why wow sells you really should never get into game development.

Your projects will tank.

I find vultures cute.

I find inner cellular workings fascinating.

I play a game only when I think it is worthy. Last one I played with any regularity was PlanetSide. That was a fun game - until support stopped. Then it started again, and four years after not playing - I played for two months. It was fun, but again, because of the lack of real options it got boring again.

Black and White 2: I anticipated that one for a long long time, thought I had something special. Thpbpbpbpbpt. Stopped playing a week after I got it.

Black and White (original): I still have this game installed, and I still play it. It is still awesome, fun, and engrossing to me. I also still make maps and modify things so I can play new stuff. No armies, none of that RTS stuff they did with BnW2 - just building your village, blowing up your neighbors, etc. Fun. Also it can get complex if you let it - and you can establish trade with other villages. It's a heavy version of what I wanted in the tribal stage of Spore. Honestly.

Soldat: Need I say more? Got bored with that only after four years - made maps and new things to do all the time in it. Got to make things. Then play them.

Sim Tower: Still have it installed.

SimCity4: Yes.

Sims2: For a while. Kinda got bored, and ended up becoming a Serial Killer (I wanted a huge graveyard. I advise you never visit Dr. Jykell's house. Ever. But have not played for more than two years)

Half-Life 1 & 2: I used to love it, but grew out of it years ago. But, playing the same game for nearly 10 years... that's a good record (two major mods were and are still HL1 only)

Homeworld: Played that for about seven years.

Homeworld Cataclysm: Played that until last year - because it was a great expansion that was stand-alone. Good story, great art, and you could tell they really put alot of effort into it. I rank it higher than the original Homeworld.

Homeworld 2: Five days. Really. They simplified so many things...

So - games I have played and still play (even on occasion)

Black and White
SimTower
SimCity
Spore

Additional games I have played in the past year
PlanetSide
Soldat

I'm very selective about what I game, and the fact the game we're discussing now drew me in means to me, before I played it, I thought it was something worth the investment. Whether or not that is still the case remains to be seen. I would have sided with science, all out.

I would have probably kidnapped the 'Cute' founder and sent him to an undisclosed location in Canada until the game was released. I say this in jest of course, but I will take science over cute any day, any time, any place.

A relative I showed this game to, who is 10, looked at it, watched it, played a little of it, and said to me point blank "This is a little kid's game." He then went back to playing the Sims 2 (with several expansions he has hand selected and is awarded for good behavior) where he has an entire neighborhood filled with houses, sims, pets, and everything else that he made - and he makes these huge houses, and all of his sims are filthy rich - something I was never able to do without a certain console code

He would rather play The Sims 2, than Spore... and soon he's getting the season's addon which he gleefully explained everything about it to me. Seasons, storms, snow, heat-stroke, lightning...

Eh realistic or cute...


If it dosent have something i want it gets eaten/lynched/planet-busted


and if it does have something i want it gets eaten/lynched/planet-busted

I think people might be thinking wrong. It is not necessarily ugly graphics vs cute graphics. I think it is intelligence vs cute. Which is to say something an adult SHOULD enjoy, if they like thinking as opposed to being a zombie, or a 5 year old kid would enjoy, which they DO but I am not a 5 year old.

Marketing departments are one of the top five most diabolical and insidious forces known to mankind.

They will make you cry, and then sell you tissues.

...and then make you sneeze, and sell you more...

And of course, those tissues will make you cry again and the cycle will never end.

You can stop buying tears inducing tissues and start using your hands to wipe the tears >_o

They'll have put mace on all the rails - you won't even be able to do that.

aznparker wrote:I think people might be thinking wrong. It is not necessarily ugly graphics vs cute graphics. I think it is intelligence vs cute. Which is to say something an adult SHOULD enjoy, if they like thinking as opposed to being a zombie, or a 5 year old kid would enjoy, which they DO but I am not a 5 year old.

Yep. Important distinction.

This issue is not anything so trivial as the style of graphics. It's the substance of the gameplay.
The graphics were just a symptom of the underlying approach to the style of gameplay.

Instead of "cute," they might as well have said trifling, light, superficial, oversimplified, trivial, etc. etc.

It is cute in the way that balls of fluff can be cute, but also lack any solid substance.
Spore is fluff.

Fluff that is supposed to dry tears but only creates more

Btw what rails. Hand rails? Train rails? What? o_o

All of them. Anything your hands could touch actually.

The cake is a lie.

jackuul wrote:

A relative I showed this game to, who is 10, looked at it, watched it, played a little of it, and said to me point blank "This is a little kid's game." He then went back to playing the Sims 2 (with several expansions he has hand selected and is awarded for good behavior) where he has an entire neighborhood filled with houses, sims, pets, and everything else that he made - and he makes these huge houses, and all of his sims are filthy rich - something I was never able to do without a certain console code

He would rather play The Sims 2, than Spore... and soon he's getting the season's addon which he gleefully explained everything about it to me. Seasons, storms, snow, heat-stroke, lightning...

I played with the creature editor with my 8yo sister and we both loved it. We were excited about spore when it came out. She played the game for 3 days and promptly started playing Sims 2 again. She then told me a few days ago that i was right about there needing to be more depth to the game(previously she was against it because it may be too hard) since it was "boring".

I LOVE cute, but to sacrifice the intelligence for the cute factor was monumentally foolish.

renlar wrote:

jackuul wrote:

A relative I showed this game to, who is 10, looked at it, watched it, played a little of it, and said to me point blank "This is a little kid's game." He then went back to playing the Sims 2 (with several expansions he has hand selected and is awarded for good behavior) where he has an entire neighborhood filled with houses, sims, pets, and everything else that he made - and he makes these huge houses, and all of his sims are filthy rich - something I was never able to do without a certain console code

He would rather play The Sims 2, than Spore... and soon he's getting the season's addon which he gleefully explained everything about it to me. Seasons, storms, snow, heat-stroke, lightning...

I played with the creature editor with my 8yo sister and we both loved it. We were excited about spore when it came out. She played the game for 3 days and promptly started playing Sims 2 again. She then told me a few days ago that i was right about there needing to be more depth to the game(previously she was against it because it may be too hard) since it was "boring".

I LOVE cute, but to sacrifice the intelligence for the cute factor was monumentally foolish.

You know who has been saying this sort of thing about games for years and barely gets any mention because he can't afford advertising?

ME! Motherfreaking me!

Ok I wanted to get that out because I'm a very egocentric guy and when people start talking about stuff I already beat to death across the internet for years I get antsy in my pantsy.

I am going to purchase some commercial time one of these days and get people to know who I am ;p.