LegionOfShadows wrote:Okay, I said Halo: Combat Evolved, but this is it on the internet.

And I was posting it as a fact. The Trial, PC and CE servers are still up-and-running. You take into account how old it is, and how much money that particular game is making at the moment(not much, its old) you've got to appreciate the fact that there are kind people in the game business.

Welp, I guess EA abandoned SPORE.

Meh.

And by the way, Uroker, VERY EPIC FAIL. I've onlybeen here 18 days longer than you.

Although it is good that I am treated with the respect I'm due. Since I am destined to be the next ruler of Earth.

I don't know about "ruling the earth" but EA hasn't "abandoned" Spore until the content servers go down. And they have been up longer than most MMO servers (unless you count MUDD servers). I'm not sure we'll have much notice when they crumble, and honestly rather expect the Sporum to end long before the content servers.

I would expect the term of service has a lot to do with lease dates and repurposing of servers. Since we have no idea how long these servers have been committed to Spore, or when the lease on them runs out. That will remain to be seen. Our leases generally ran in 2 year stretches, since hardware evolves fast, but since Spore is a static product now, it could run on rather old hardware.

The thing is, the content servers are very fast for the number of users logged in. I generally hit the connection bug and have to reconnect and share my content directly. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

ashkelon wrote:...rather expect the Sporum to end long before the content servers...

actually,wouldnt the sporum have ended right about now? since its been 2 or 3 years since a new spore update or expansion was announced.

gamemaster04 wrote:

ashkelon wrote:...rather expect the Sporum to end long before the content servers...

actually,wouldnt the sporum have ended right about now? since its been 2 or 3 years since a new spore update or expansion was announced.

The ongoing heat death of the community is a gradual, slow process that doesn't really mark the "end" of anything. What's being discussed here is the hard cutoff point where EA actually takes down the Sporum to free up room for other stuff on their servers.

Xenopologist wrote:

gamemaster04 wrote:

ashkelon wrote:...rather expect the Sporum to end long before the content servers...

actually,wouldnt the sporum have ended right about now? since its been 2 or 3 years since a new spore update or expansion was announced.

The ongoing heat death of the community is a gradual, slow process that doesn't really mark the "end" of anything. What's being discussed here is the hard cutoff point where EA actually takes down the Sporum to free up room for other stuff on their servers.

That's basically what they might do. Then if they do. That will stop everything for spore. It will stop the sharing,downloading. No-more rating creations. That will end it all. Fans will go somewhere else.

Xenopologist wrote:

gamemaster04 wrote:

ashkelon wrote:...rather expect the Sporum to end long before the content servers...

actually,wouldnt the sporum have ended right about now? since its been 2 or 3 years since a new spore update or expansion was announced.

The ongoing heat death of the community is a gradual, slow process that doesn't really mark the "end" of anything. What's being discussed here is the hard cutoff point where EA actually takes down the Sporum to free up room for other stuff on their servers.

@Xenopologist :: I know YOU understand this, but it seems other people keep messing around confusing patches with the Sporum in some sort of weird server-salad. There is a reason most people are not system designers, and more reason why most of them are a massive headache for us logicians.

To point, then ::

The heartbeat slows until there are only a couple cells firing back and forth and one day they hit the url and come up with the 404 / 500 only they "never expected". They linger hopefully, hitting the URL and wondering "when the site will come up" ... and that's all she wrote.

Again, and as always, the SPORUM is NOT SPORE.

Never was.

Most of the 200+ people on my friend list were not people who I know through the sporum, but rather people I connected with through my events log and the content servers.

The people who play Spore, even now, are far greater in number than the number of people who are members of the Sporum. The concerns of the players, in greater part, are not the same concerns as the sporum.

I bought 8 copies of Spore and its associated software, most of which went to libraries and friends with kids. Those are the more typical users. People who log in, play, make things to make their brother mad, giggle a lot... and at the end of the day -- the Sporum is a poor analogy for those players.

So we can talk about the death of the Sporum, which is far from the death of Spore.

Or we can talk about the death of Spore, which will not happen until the content servers are taken down, at which time Spore as a client server application will cease to exist (except for limited servers like mine and the UBD server).

Common erors nothing new.

uroker2010 wrote:Common erors nothing new.

This is in re. what? If you're referencing my post, you are completely illustrating the point I made. LMAO!

Wow I came back after 3 years and find all this? I really enjoyed spore and watching Nerd3/NerdCubed on YouTube play Spore for an entire month and video record his one species progress throughout the entire game inspired me to begin playing again. But now that the community has seemed to disintegrate I don't know if there's much point anymore. I wasn't super involved myself but I would check in now and then and comment on people's nifty creations. I just hope they don't take down the servers. This game was ambitious and it did work pretty well considering what it was trying to do. I wish EA would learn from the mistakes made along the development process of this game and develop Spore 2. They already have the framework. It can't be too hard to make adjusments for new technology. I really liked this game for a while until I ran out of creative ways to make things (until now I guess) and most of my stuff was pretty cool and intricate. But my favorite part of the game was playing and seeing my friends creations pop up in all sorts of places. I don't know if any of this made any sense as I'm a bit exhausted right now but if y'all think reinstalling is a good idea (although, come to think of it, I may have gone over my 3 allowed installs and EA might laugh in my face when I ask for a new one) or am I going down with a sinking ship that's going to be a shell of what it was if they take the servers down soon?

WaterHornet wrote:... don't take down the servers. This game was ambitious and it did work pretty well considering what it was trying to do. I wish EA would learn from the mistakes made along the development process of this game and develop Spore 2. They already have the framework. It can't be too hard to make adjusments for new technology. ...

This is a common assumption made by non-programmers. Even when code changes only entail a recompile with a newer library (and what's needed by Spore is more extensive -- even with NO extensions) the testing is apt to be extensive, intrusive and a whole lot of work. When you talk about changing the threading model used in the code, that means changes to the ENTIRE behaviour of the the programs -- every time ANYTHING happens that spins off or receives results from a thread, assesses the thread pool, opens or closes it -- in short just about every code relationship in the entire client-server application and all of the database operations.

This is a couple months to develop the scripts and test them, before one can start testing the code changes. EA is notorious for cutting testing team members when they run into financial or time crunch, thinking if the testers haven't found problems, the users won't. Obviously not true.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen developers underestimate changes because they didn't allow for adequate testing. I really don't expect lay people to grok it, but code doesn't test itself. And testing is often the most lengthy part of a project -- if you intend the code to work, that is.

Yeah I guess I wasn't clear with what I was getting at. While the actual code of Spore may not be feasible to work with on modern PCs or consoles, the structure of the game play and the concepts and stuff are all in place. Obviously now new things can be added and many games can also "learn" what you have in the first game of a series and creatively carry over aspects and such. The code would have to be written from scratch but I just think EA started something great and for some reason they figured it was a failure and walked away rather quickly it seems. I don't know but it seems like they dropped the franchise and are just keeping this site around because it keeps a lot of people happy enough to keep buying their stuff.

WaterHornet wrote:Yeah I guess I wasn't clear with what I was getting at. While the actual code of Spore may not be feasible to work with on modern PCs or consoles, the structure of the game play and the concepts and stuff are all in place. Obviously now new things can be added and many games can also "learn" what you have in the first game of a series and creatively carry over aspects and such. The code would have to be written from scratch but I just think EA started something great and for some reason they figured it was a failure and walked away rather quickly it seems. I don't know but it seems like they dropped the franchise and are just keeping this site around because it keeps a lot of people happy enough to keep buying their stuff.

The thing is, we really don't know what they are thinking about. Games can be in development and testing for two or more years before they feel like telling the public. One of Will Wright's strategic mistakes was talking about Spore too soon. I really don't think they have dropped it or abandoned the franchise, I think they are just done with this version. But it's all conjecture.

I'd like to believe they will show us an updated version sooner or later.

And you're right, it's the concept that's worth far more money than the code, and the difficult part of any system is the functionality.

Don't write it off too soon. They were involved for more than 4 years if you count DarkSpore.

EA hasn't abandoned spore, don't try to think about it.

My son play spore, and he doesn't know what you've wrote. This thread giving me nervous.

StelioKontos wrote:EA hasn't abandoned spore, don't try to think about it.

My son play spore, and he doesn't know what you've wrote. This thread giving me nervous.

He should just keep playing, and you too. Most of the people who play don't listen to what happens here. This is all people talking who don't really know what EA plans to do -- and that includes me.

We are all just talk. So enjoy the game and see what happens later.

Oops I didn't intend to make anyone nervous. Yes please keep playing. I'm just getting back into the game myself and I've forgotten how much I enjoy it. I think that EA really throws everything they have at The Sims 3 which is a really awesome game and I'm glad they're churning out expansions to it left, right, and center. But I just feel like Spore could have had a TON of content added such as a flora designer, a planet pack, more parts packs, etc. I do not have DarkSpore but I guess it's high time I pick up a copy?

What's Darkspore like? Just pm me.

I heard some people say it "sucks" that might also be part of the reason why EA left. We are very uptight as a community I have noticed. Like, in some posts I have read we talk like:

"I hope Creature Keeper doesnt come out! It looks like it sucks!"

And that January Project drama...

They might have given up on us because its never good enough. I havent been in this community long and I dont know the first thing about gaming industries, but I've seen a lot of posts where people complain about Maxis's work which in my opinion might be a reason why.

I've seen people complain about Darkspore calling it "a crappy spinoff"

Well at least they did something ya know? They could have completely shunned us and not have done anything, yet they made Darkspore and that is good enough in my book. Just my thoughts.