Now, before I begin, I know you are all probably very tired of these threads. But all I'm going to say to that is if you don't like the look of something which I am perfectly within my right to post, you leave. You do not post idiotic whinings, because all you do is make yourself look stupid.

With that in mind, I'll get started. These are all my ideas for SPORE which I would enjoy seeing implemented. These are all the stages that I want to see, in order of play:

Planet Sculpting Stage
Molecular Stage
Cell Stage
Aquatic Stage
Creature Stage
Tribal Stage
City Stage
Civilization Stage
Space Stage

Planet Sculpting Stage (For lack of a better name)

The Planet Sculpting Stage is for people like me who want to carve out their own homeworld. It's a lot like Terraforming in Space Stage, but you can't use any atmospheric or heat tools, or anything that makes it less than Tier 3. The other rule is you are not allowed to have a fully land planet, but fully water planets and everything inbetween is allowed. This is because Molecular, Cell and Aquatic stages have to be in water. Besides, what would the creatures drink? Anyway, apart from those two rules you're free to carve out what your planet looks like and colour the land and ocean as you see fit.

The cards arn't really important since the abilites will all be discounts - I did this because making cards for planet sculpting isn't very fair but I need it to make there be eight cards rather than seven. Eight is double the original number, making it easier for how you get your archetype - Just double the requirements.

Anyway, the card chart for the stage. This was done by knightadder, all credit goes to him:

100% Land - Can't Play
70%-90 Land: Green, but you can't be an aquatic creature from Creature stage and onwards.
60%-70% Land: Green
40-60% Land: Blue
40-30% Land: Red
20-0% land: Red, but you can't be a land creature.

If you skip the stage, then a random planet landscape is set out exactly like in Spore at the moment. However, just like the random planets in Spore at the moment, they will all have an equal amount of land and ocean, because you don't want to pick out a random planet then be forced to not have the option of going onto land. So 50% of each when randomised.

Molecular Stage

Molecular stage can start out just like in SPORE's Cell Stage - A meteor crashes to your new homeworld and a cell comes out, except it's molecules instead of a cell. Did they think of that, I wonder.

Molecular stage is very simple. It's very much like tetris but with no boundries, like Cell Stage is to Pacman. Basically, you use the right mouse button to click and drag the screen around the gene pool. You are in charge of a race of green molecules and it is your job to drag one and merge it into the other colours floating around, giving you DNA points. You can 'merge' in two seperate ways. You can have your molecule eliminate the other colours by 'consuming' them, thus giving you less challenge and more chance for your blob to grow diverse and detailed with no competitors in your evolution, or you can react with them to split them, making more and diversifying your molecule again through molecular reaction.

Basically, this means you achieve the same thing at the end of the day, it's just your playstyle that determines how. Destruction of other molecules gives you the red card, reacting the green card, and an equal number the blue card. After you acheieve a sufficient amount of DNA points, you go on to Cell stage as normal, and are required to make your first cell from scratch. How you played the Molecule stage does nothing in this - Everybody starts off the same in Cell, whether they were destructive or reactive molecules. So you could be a destructive herbivore or a reactant carnivore.

Aquatic Stage

After the brief Cell Stage which we all know and love, we are introduced to the by far most famous of the lost stages - the Aquatic Stage.

The Aquatic Stage is really just a more detailed Cell Stage. Your species has grown enough to find itself as a small animal living in a little coral reef. You have the same diet, of course, but your behaviour in this diet is what determines the card. If you're a carnivore, you can either hunt other creatures or eat their eggs which gives a red card, or eat small cells which you just evolved from for a green card. For Herbivores eating normal plants gives the green card, eating the eggs of other creatures gives the red card. Omnivores are the combination - Plants and plankton are green, eggs and creatures are red. And as is the usual, an equal number of red or green food gives you the blue card. Controls, by the way, are akin to Space Stage planetary controls. There is also sonar, from another good ideas thread, which help with finding other creatures in the 3D plane by displaying them on the map. Black icons on the sonar represent animals below you, whilst white are those above you.

That's all there really is to it. You can swim away from the reef, but then you'll be eaten by an ordinary-sized creature. Don't worry, though - You can get them back if you choose to stay in Creature stage.

Aquatic Creature Stage

Now this is what people really meant when they said they wanted an Aquatic stage. When your creature is done with Aquatic stage, it'll move out of the reef and up to the beach. Then, as is the accepted norm, thought bubbles appear over your creatures head. The left one shows a creatures swimming away from a beach. The right one shows the same creature developing legs and walking onto land.

It is self explanatory - This is where you choose whether you want to be a land-dweller or a sea-dweller. Of course, if you made your planet an all-ocean one in Planet Sculpting you won't get the option, since there isn't any land, and will go straight into Aquatic Creature Stage. Anyway, we already have land Creature stage in Spore at the moment, so this is for sea Creature Stage.

Firstly, oceanic geography. The main problem is rivers/oceans. So I, like many others have, propose the 'continants' be oceanic plates and the 'oceans' be trenches. In Aquatic stage, our old friend the Sea Monster lives in the trenches, giving your creature the same restrictions as those on land.

Nests come in the form of possibly either large anemones or large tabletop corals, though the coral makes more sense. Controls are the same as in the previous stage - Space Stage planetary. That is, depth is scrolling the mouse and movement is arrow keys. That's how I do it, anyway.

Sonar also returns from the Aquatic stage. As usual, the animals show up on your map, black blips are those below you, white blips are those above.

Apart from all that, it's creature stage all over again. I'm sure you've heard all the examples of creative parts people have said could usable for the stage, like tentacles etc. There are still epic Aquatic creatures swimming around, (These are NOT the Sea Monster, he's in a different role) and your species will change 'nests' occasionally and you'll be interacting with other species to continue. The consequence abilities are exactly the same.

Moving on...

Aquatic Tribal Stage

Everything is made of coral and shells. Huts and buildings completely of coral, tools are made from both, yadda yadda yadda. It's just an explanation for the realism freaks since forging is very primitive at this stage meaning no metal, and you can't exactly have wood in water, as it'd rot. Explaining discovering the fire is tricky. I'm just gonna say your species finds a volcanic geyser, finds out it can keep them warm in cold water and builds the village around it. It's not like you'll fit a village on a tabletop coral, anyway.

Again, it's the same premise as in Tribal Stage. You can't leave the oceanic plate you're on, and you're interacting with other undersea tribes. The only difference is the unique tools, and food.

Food

Meat - Meat. You're eating the same thing as on land, but the creatures you hunt and eat are underwater.
Fruit - Seaweed, gained from small rocky lumps covered in them that equate to plants.
Eggs - Fish eggs, duh. Though the embryo shouldn't be shown for the kiddies. Mermaid's Purse looks strange but, eh, maybe that could work too. Enjoy your caviar!
Fish - Like on land, herbivores fish plants rather than the fish that omnivores and carnivores harvest. Your species will go to the trench with their spears, and the omnivores and carnivores will fish for small trench dwelling animals just like what you were in the Aquatic stage, so it's just like land fishing except in deeper water. Herbivores harvest those coral relatives, them transparent jelly-like ones that catch dead things falling down. They look a bit like venus flytraps, watch episode 2 of the Blue Planet and you'll see what I mean.

Tools

Social

Horns - Ocarina - So oceanic I'm amused few people use it in their ideas.

Marracas - Clam Shells - Call me unoriginal, but they are actual musical intruments and keep with the ocean theme. You just clap the shell pieces, I think. I like the noise of clapper instruments, speaking of which.

Digeridoo - Conch Horns - Again, call me unimaginitive. Conch Horns arn't actually instruments, they are a type of large conch shell that look like a horn. They could easily have something stuck in the gaps and wholla, a working horn. Thus, the tribal digeridoo of the deep blue sea.

Agressive

Axe - Coral Trident - I like tridents. Tridents are cool. Poke Poke. Yeah, if you've got underwater tribes then it's a crime not to use the iconic weapon of the sea. A crime. Anyway, it's made of coral, perhaps the prongs could be sharp seashells.

Torch - Jellystick - A poisonous jellyfish on a coral pole. Used to poison the coral huts and kill them. A borrowed idea, I found it very cool and creative.

Throwing Spears - Coral Harpoon - I'm anti-whaling but it's the only thing that makes sense. Looks like a pole with two prongs, one above the other, at the end. The top one is shorter. Like the trident, the pole is coral and the prongs are pointy sea shells.

General

Healing Rods - Coral Healing Rods - No real reason to change them much.
Gathering Cane - Seaweed Scythe - Made of coral and sharp sea shells, this scythe is used to slice off multiple seaweeds at a time to make gathering faster.
Fishing Spears - Coral Fishing Spears - Just a simple spear made of coral. it's not detailed like the Trident or Harpoon, because it's only used for catching trench dwelling creatures.

That's the Aquatic Tribal Stage. After having allied or destroyed every tribe on the plate, you'll move onto the Civ - Wait one moment, we've still got one more extra stage to go!

City Stage

The City Stage was originally meant to be between Tribal and Civilization stage and to focus on gaining technology. But it was scrapped and now we go directly from tribes living in mudhuts to global empires. That makes sense. /sarcasm

As it was meant to be, the City Stage focuses on technological advancement. Your city won't do much to other cities, because it's all really about developing your own one. Food is still a relevant factor, by the way. Herbivores will need to farm vegetables, carnivores will need to cultivate animals. Omnivores get to choose. What you eat doesn't determine your card, however. What you choose to advance in does.

The stage controls a lot like Civilization stage, except you can place farms outside your city. It is up to you to keep developing your city, a bit like in Civilization by placing the right buildings in a correct fashion. The species has learned to properly forge now, (Seagoing species use those thermal vents we talked about earlier) so you're free to use the building editor and all it's metallic wonder. Vehicles come in Civilization Stage only, however, (Remember, we're still advancing) so the bulding editor has finally gotten a stage to call it's own. If you manage to keep your city well-stocked with food and keep them happy with building placement, you will slowly develop in technology. At first you will be asked what you want to research. You can choose war, religious or economical technology, and this is how your card is determined. You can always change your research, of course. Whatever you researched the most ends up as your card - Religious is green, Warrior is red, and Economical is blue. And what you researched is how you begin in Civilization stage - Obviousley the research type corresponds with your starting method of world domination. Muahahahaha. Don't worry, you can still change the method when you capture a city of a different type in Civilization as we can at the moment.

I haven't done much on this Stage, feel free to give me your own ideas on the City Stage.

Anyway, next up, it's the Aquatic Civilization stage.

Aquatic Civilization Stage

It's the same premise as on land, and pretty much exactly the same, except for spice, which will need to be something else. Frozen Spice geysers, iced due to the oceanic conditions, is the best idea I've seen. Heres the unique oceanic vehicles, anyhow.

Vehicles

Ground - Seafloor Rover - Can keep to only one oceanic plate and captures ground spice nodes.

Sea - Trench Swimmer - A submarine that has a low fuel tank and so can only afford to be used to travel across trenches. Also captures trenchbound nodes which stick upwards from the dark depths of doom. Mwahahahaha.

Air - Submarine - With a superior fuel tank to the Trench Swimmer, the Submarine can travel all over the ocean above the plates and trenches.

With that, capture all the cities and Frozen Spice nodes.


Aquatic Space

Well, from now on spaceships can go underwater. With colonies, it doesn't matter whether your species is land dwelling or water based as it can still place either undersea or land colonies. Land species underwater have an air bubble, water species on land have a water bubble. Also, in the communications screen the aquatic creatures are swimming in water, and their voice has a whale song, or sonar-ish sound to it.

Also, this is an idea I got from somebody else. Remember Frozen Spice from Aquatic Civilization? The same person said that you could only harvest one of them on each planet - Spice or Frozen Spice. This is because harvesting normal Spice diverts the Frozen or something and harvesting Frozen ruins the land Spice geyser stocks, I'm not sure. Since the prices of each type will probably vary from Empire to Empire, you'll need to choose wisely. A certain Empire might pay more for Red Frozen Spice than for ordinary Red Spice because their Empire harvests the land red spice. By the way, this is all under the rule that the two types of spice geysers on each planet contain the same colour - For example, your homeworld has Red Spice and Red Frozen Spice. On all planets the colours must match, it theoretically makes sense.

Thats my ideas list done. Thanks if you could be bothered to read up until here!

Rate my ideas, people!

Awesome Idea!

Googol/10. very good for expolnations and very good ideas. But with the Planet Sculpting stage:
75%+ land: Green
75% to 25% land: Blue
25%- land: Red

Thanks for your feedback. Also, Knightadder, to have 75% plus of your planet (let's say 80% for the example) of, so say, land would be a bit unfair, in case you decide to go aquatic and end up having only 20% of the planet to play in.

Perapsam wrote:Thanks for your feedback. Also, Knightadder, to have 75% plus of your planet (let's say 80% for the example) of, so say, land would be a bit unfair, in case you decide to go aquatic and end up having only 20% of the planet to play in.

then:
100% Land: Cant Play
70%-90 Land: Green (cant be aquatic)
60%-70% Land: Green
40-60% Land: Blue
40-30% Land: Red
20-0% land: Red(cant be land Creature)

Earth: 33.33% land, 66.66% water

That's fine then, I guess, as long as the game gives you a warning that you won't be allowed to be a land creature if you make it all water, and in general how you're limiting yourself depending on the masses you choose.

I'll put your idea into the list.

Along with knightadder's card chart for Planet Sculpting, I've made a few edits to do with descriptions and grammar, mainly in tribal stage.

Well thought out for once. Good detail.

And I did read the whole thing

Thank you, Boinked! It's nice to look at all the appreciation I'm getting.

This is the best stage idea I've seen so far.

Thanks.

You all seem to like it a lot, if I'm lucky this'll be stickied!

Great ideas! I support!

I have to support.This is quite amazing.I want to see these stages in future!

Thanks!

I'm surprised at how popular these ideas are!

I suggest, instead of having the planet sculpting stage, you just give the player an oppertuinity to do so, like the terra sculpting part of GA

This is great! maybe you could have creatures that soar around in the air tho! like air creature and all that. I admit it wold be difficult but awesome!