Generously created by world_piece.


Hey, y'all:

I read so many posts by people frustrated by their inability to get folks to see their hard work, to get comments, to get some sort of recognition. Personally, I love seeing a new name hit the Most Popular New (MPN) list. I also love being exposed to new and -- often -- great creators and creations that have gone unrecognized.

In this guide, I hope to pass on a few tips for people interested in trying to make it in the Spore Community. Please realize that this guide is based on the tips I've garnered from creating my own creations and trying to find a place in the community. To be fair, many creators inspire my creations, and I only consider myself a middling creator. Having said that, here are my opinions -- mine alone -- on how to find mentors, buddies, and recognition for your work:



COMMENTING

1. Do As You'd Have Done to You: If you want comments, you have to be willing to put in the time to comment on others' creations.

2. Quality of Comments: One word comments like "cool" or "awesome," while very nice -- because it is a comment -- you can better show a creator that you've really spent time looking at their creations by picking out one or two details that you like and commenting on them specifically. Creators are far more likely to spend that extra few minutes to look up and comment your creations if you take the time to thoughtfully comment theirs.

3. Quantity of Comments: Spend time on the MPN list. Start commenting and rating those creations that you truly like. Never rate or comment simply to comment. Be honest. Comment what inspires you. The more you comment, the more you are exposed to inspiring creators, and the more your own name gets thrown out there.

4. Help Others Break on Through to the Other Side: Spend some time on the newest creations list. Run through it, comment on what strikes you, help other creators by commenting, and again, the karma will come back to you.


FORUMS

1. Use the Forums: If you stumbled onto this guide by accident and are unaware of the forums, check them out. To get there from your My Spore page, click on Community in the menu bar at the very top of your screen. Once the community page comes up, click on Forum in the menu bar at the very top of your screen.

2. Where to Look: The second section titled Community will probably be most helpful to you. The specific forum that you're looking for is the Creator Corner.

3. What to Look For: There are several threads that can help you get your name and creations out there for other people to see. Look or use the forum search feature to find threads with names like Show Off Your Latest, Feel Under-rated and Overlooked? or The Popularity Thread. And use the forums to help yourself and others get your creations out there.

4. Self-Promotion: Many people throw up threads that are simply self-promotion. I, personally, find it classier to create a thread where you give the opportunity for other lesser known creators to also promote their creations. Again, in the Spore Community, we're all dependent on each other. To put it in a somewhat crude nutshell: "You pat my back, and I'll pat yours."

5. Promote Others: There are often threads in the forums asking which creators you like best, or asking which creators you'd recommend. Be generous and honest. By naming creators you admire or see as up and coming creators, you have a larger chance of being named yourself.

5. Contests: Look for contests announced in the forums and participate in them. This is yet another way to get your creations seen and to make contacts with other creators.

7. How to Post Creations: Here's how you post a picture of your creation in a forum thread. Type: [url=Put the webpage link to your creation here.][img]Put the image link of your creation here.[/img][/url] To find the image link, right click on your creation's image, go to properties, and there is a link there. That's the image link.


BUDDIES

1. Buddy Up: Start buddy-ing the creators that you like, that inspire you. Keep up with their work, comment when you particularly like something. Even people with 1000+ subscribers only ever get a tiny fraction of comments from their subscribers. Don't be a lurker. Be pro-active in letting creators know you appreciate their creations. They'll return the favor.

2. Don't Be Opaque: Let creators know when you buddy them or rate up their creations. So much of the interaction within the community is reciprocal. If you help others, they're very likely to help you.


CREATIONS

1. Patience: Be willing to wait for some of these tips to take effect. You may not get instant glory and success, but it should begin to slowly trickle in and grow.

2. Reasonable Expectations: If you're taking the time to look at and comment other creators' creations, you'll begin to get an idea of how your creations compare. Accept modest recognition. Don't expect to be the number one creator of all time. You may never be. Be okay with this. Don't consider it rejection, and don't let it stop you from creating.

3. Refine Your Creatures: Be willing to ask for and accept constructive criticism. There are threads on the Creator Corner forum, such as The Creation Rate Game, that allows other creators to rate your creatures, and often, creators will provide feedback on your creation at the same time.

4. Dissect Other Creations: If you find a creation you like, download it, take it to the editor, and deconstruct it. Look at how the creator put the creation together. It'll help inspire you and teach you tips and tricks to use in any of the editors. Be sure to exit without saving the creation so that you don't accidentally appropriate someone else's work.

5. Creator's Block: Templates are an excellent way to spur creativity. Another creator has done most of the work for you. All you need to do is decorate and color the template. Be sure, however, to give credit in the creation's description and tag to the original creator who made the template.

6. Finding Templates: Many creators have sporecasts in which they've gathered templates that can be used by others. Subscribe to these sporecasts so that you have easy access to the templates in the editor. As I don't know the names of anyone with such a sporecast off the top of my head, I'll provide a link to my own Templates To-Do List sporecast, which is far from complete. There's also a forum thread called The Template Club! And ZEE_EXX has a template sporecast called omega template collection with over 600 templates.

7. Creator Tips: Using the Sporepedia search feature, you can search for "creatortips" in tags to find creations on which creators have left tips and tricks on how they made their creations. There's also a forum thread called Post Your Creator Tips. This can help you find new and unique ways to use parts.

8. Tutorials: Spore has several tutorials on their site that provide some indispensable tips and tricks for working in the various editors. These tips and tricks will allow you to make more complex creations, and sometimes, it can even help you make them more quickly.


NEGATIVITY

1. Creators Behind the Creations: No matter how good or bad you think a creation might be, realize that there's a real live person behind creations. Be kind. Constructive criticism is good--if given politely and respectfully. But there's no need to hurt another creator's feelings. If you don't like a creation, move on.

2. Downrating: There are several forum threads about downrating. Creators are being downrated. For whatever reason, it isn't necessary. If you don't like a creation, you needn't rate it. But there's no real reason to downrate a creator's creation unless you find it vulgar or offensive. And even then, you can use the report creation feature. Creators work hard on their creations, there's no need to hurt their feelings or make them feel insecure. Never do this to get your own creations to the top of the MPN list. It's underhanded and unkind.

3. Being Blackballed: The best way to find yourself isolated in the Spore Community is to post negative comments, suggest that creations aren't worthy, consistently downrate creations, steal them, or make creations based off another creator's work without giving proper credit in the creation's description and tag. If you think you might offend a creator by using their creation as inspiration, ask them first. Most will be flattered. For the number of people who play Spore, the Spore Community is a small place. Word gets around. And it can make or break your growing reputation.


COMMUNICATING

1. Mailboxes: A lot of creators have mailboxes where you can leave comments unrelated to their actual creation. You can often find them by looking through the creator's creations or sporecasts, or even ask the creator if they have a mailbox and for a link to it. You can even create a sporecast with your own list of mailboxes for your buddies. (Here's a good tutorial on how to make a sporecast.) If you'd like to make a more personal comment that you don't want published, simply put "DELETE" or something similar at the beginning of the message.

2. Private Messages: If you have some longer, more private message you'd like to leave a creator, you can send them a private message. The option to send a private message is at the top of The Spore Forum - The Official Spore Forum entrance page. On the same page, there's a link to your profile called My Profile. In here, you can set your settings to e-mail you when you get a private message.


QUICK RESOURCE LIST

Here are some great resources and threads to check out:

Contest & Challenges
Challenges and contests are one of the best ways to get your work out there and seen. Not only are you posting your work on a thread that other people interested in the contests and challenges are watching and keeping tabs on, but your work will probably end up in a sporecast that quite a few people will be browsing.

Promotion & Rating Threads
These are the threads that will help you promote yourself, get ratings, comments, and help from other creators. It's easy to go through these threads, comment on the other creators' work, and make those connections.

Unofficial Tools for Creators
A great thread with the most common tips and tricks in each editor, as well as a complexity and color chart.



I'm sure many creators could add other helpful hints here, and I'd encourage anyone who'd like to add something to do so. Hope this helps those of you new to the game or wishing to find a way into the Spore Community. We all benefit from seeing a varied number of creators and creations, and remember, we all started at square one, too. Look at creators' early creations, and you'll see that they had a learning curve just like you.


Toodles!

awesome job! I was going to do this over the break, but you beat me to it .

Great job on the how to, I think I'll put it to the test right now! and thanks for mentioning the Template Club.

-laugh- Sorry to steal your thunder, Dadltondmd. Please feel free, though, to add anything I might have forgotten! And you're most welcome, Asylvan.

A very helpful list. I hope all the newer people get to see this. It should be stickied!

This is a wonderful post! All of these tips do work, and everyone would be better off if more people tried them. You did a great job with this; I can't think of anything else to add.

Kemeiki wrote:This is a wonderful post! All of these tips do work, and everyone would be better off if more people tried them. You did a great job with this; I can't think of anything else to add.

Thanks so much, Kemeiki. :>

1. Use the Forums: If you're unaware of the forums, find them. From your My Spore page, click on Community in the menu bar at the very top of your screen. Once the community page comes up, click on Forum in the menu bar at the very top of your screen.

How would they read this without being on the forums.

CopperWolf wrote:

1. Use the Forums: If you're unaware of the forums, find them. From your My Spore page, click on Community in the menu bar at the very top of your screen. Once the community page comes up, click on Forum in the menu bar at the very top of your screen.

How would they read this without being on the forums.

Good point

lazywnch wrote:Don't expect to be the number one creator of all time. You may never be. Be okay with this. Don't consider it rejection, and don't let it stop you from creating.

unless ur name is didzo, who's almighty bubble of ego would not let him comprehend 2nd place

Unobtainium wrote:

lazywnch wrote:Don't expect to be the number one creator of all time. You may never be. Be okay with this. Don't consider it rejection, and don't let it stop you from creating.

unless ur name is didzo, who's almighty bubble of ego would not let him comprehend 2nd place

No, its an Evil Dark Bubble Cloud, remember?

Very nice guide
I will now make it a habit to download and really look at all the creations I comment on

hattrickster wrote:

CopperWolf wrote:

1. Use the Forums: If you're unaware of the forums, find them. From your My Spore page, click on Community in the menu bar at the very top of your screen. Once the community page comes up, click on Forum in the menu bar at the very top of your screen.

How would they read this without being on the forums.

Good point

Haha, I wondered the same thing at first, but then it occurred to me that it might also be published somewhere outside of the Sporum.

Thanks for this guide, it should help a lot

That's a very nice thing to do, Lazywnch. I'm sure that many sporeons will benefit from this information