I know, I'm guilty of wanting that as well, but Maxis doesn't want it to be that way, for a REASON. The creatures you encounter, and can share and download, for the early stages of the Creature Game, are strictly budgeted. Otherwise you're making all kinds of insane creatures. These are supposed to be simple creatures, crude and looking fresh out of the water. If you want to make more complex creatures using Cell parts, then first go into the Early Creature Editor, make something, save it, and then open it up in Sporepedia, and hit Edit. The default editor even for an early Creature is the standard Creature Creator. This will give you a larger bank of DNA, where you can dupe the cell parts you included originally. Then, once your insane creature is done, just use the evoadvantage cheat to put it in the game, and voila. You've trumped the complexity of all the other creatures you're starting up against.

klokkwork wrote:I know, I'm guilty of wanting that as well, but Maxis doesn't want it to be that way, for a REASON. The creatures you encounter, and can share and download, for the early stages of the Creature Game, are strictly budgeted. Otherwise you're making all kinds of insane creatures. These are supposed to be simple creatures, crude and looking fresh out of the water. If you want to make more complex creatures using Cell parts, then first go into the Early Creature Editor, make something, save it, and then open it up in Sporepedia, and hit Edit. The default editor even for an early Creature is the standard Creature Creator. This will give you a larger bank of DNA, where you can dupe the cell parts you included originally. Then, once your insane creature is done, just use the evoadvantage cheat to put it in the game, and voila. You've trumped the complexity of all the other creatures you're starting up against.

It takes all of 30 seconds for them to meter what the first stage of the creature stage can do physically or socially.

Caps are not that hard at all to implement.

If someone wants to spend 5 hours in the cell stage they should be benefited for it.

True, but I think that the Cell Stage engine works a lot differently than the Creature Stage engine. You don't have as much surface area to work with, and where you put things actually matters in what offensive and defensive capabilities your creature has. I'm not even talking stat-wise. It would be cool to have a juggernaut zooplankton creature made of mouths, spikes, jets, epic, and win. But that thing wouldn't really fit the nature of the simple creatures crawling out of the ocean. I think all the Early Creatures are supposed to look like akward slugs (with or without legs) on purpose. A handful of natural weapons and defenses, a tiny creature against the world.

klokkwork wrote:True, but I think that the Cell Stage engine works a lot differently than the Creature Stage engine. You don't have as much surface area to work with, and where you put things actually matters in what offensive and defensive capabilities your creature has. I'm not even talking stat-wise. It would be cool to have a juggernaut zooplankton creature made of mouths, spikes, jets, epic, and win. But that thing wouldn't really fit the nature of the simple creatures crawling out of the ocean. I think all the Early Creatures are supposed to look like akward slugs (with or without legs) on purpose. A handful of natural weapons and defenses, a tiny creature against the world.

No doubt you're aware that you can simply use ADDDNA cheat and make that very same ball of mouths, spikes and jets. Honestly, it doesn't do you very much good in the long run.

Most people asking for the ability to earn more DNA in the cell stage are wanting it for the specific reason of being able to start with a creature that has 6-10 legs because the final form of that creature will also be having 6-10 legs. They don't want to use a cheat or a fairly complicated workaround just so that they can make their uber-spider-beast-thing look right from the start. They want to be able to earn the DNA for the parts in a completey fair way.

And using cheats tends to block achievements from being applied. Editing a creature outside of the game, and then starting a stage with it will also end up clearing the perks for those stages which were cleared. Or having a card counted toward what you will be in the space stage.

If Maxis decides that's how they want it to be, who am I to argue? I'm just saying, I can sort of see the idea behind it, and I'm not against it. Start simple, end up complex. That's evolution. If Will Wright was a supporter of Intelligent Design/Creation, I'm sure the game would start by letting you walk out of the ocean on 10 legs. Err... or appearing out of thin air. I dunno. But the game certainly sets a stage. We have all this freedom. I kind of like going over the timeline and watching the complexity of the creature increase like that. When I'm giving my creature additional limbs, I like to give it nubs first, then stretch it out a little, add a joint, and work my way up to having a new leg. Or sometimes I exercise forethought and put flagella where I intend to put legs later on, and cilia where I intend to put wings. Little things like that.

However, this is a sandbox, and just because the game works the way I like to play doesn't mean others shouldn't have that luxury as well. So go ahead, Maxis. You have my support. Give them the extra zooplankton DNA if you want to. But otherwise, to those who want it, at least understand that it wasn't just that Maxis didn't anticipate it. They didn't make a mistake here. This is just how they envisioned the game.