So either

A) Maxis completed a game and vivisected it to bring us a game shell and expansion packs extravaganza while leaving game remnants and bugs for all to enjoy.

or

B) Maxis had a concept demo, changed the direction to "cute and trivial" to appeal to a wider audience all the while failing to incorporate crucial elements from the demo and still have a bug riddled game.


Sounds like a poll

Michlo wrote:
Seriously, to people reading this thread who are seriously considering buying the parts pack: Hold off on this purchase, I implore you.

Problem is, that strategy needs to involve retailers, as they are the ones EA sells their stuff to. Got to convince retailers not to buy it in the first place, otherwise EA gets paid long before the consumer buys, or doesn't buy the product. Eventually, retailers will get the hint when nobody buy's EA stuff from them, but the problem is, EA isn't just Spore, they are NCAA, NFL, NASCAR.... and are big in a bunch of other platforms. If a retailer says hey, we don't want your PC games, they risk losing EA as an account, which would be more detrimental to the retailer than it would be EA.

I don't mind the stuff pack in theory. The "stuff" packs added a lot of stuff to the sims 2 games.

What totally bugs me is that:

1. They are releasing the pack while so many of us are still waiting for a fixed patch. The other patch broke so many games that many can't even play the game yet.

2. This stuff/part pack had to have already been finalized before spore shipped. You can't get together that much stuff and test and press a disk in under 2 months. This is stuff that could have easily been added to the spore game. Yet EA is trying to hold things back just to get more money.

Now if this pack had been released a few months down the road and after all the bugs and patches were fixed, I would have no problem at all. But this is clearly EA and maxis milking all of us for whatever they can get. There is really no way that this parts pack could have been started after spore was released. EA said for the sims 2 that the stuff packs take about 4-6 months to do. And those are just stand alone items or clothing. They don't have to mesh with creatures and have the functionality that spore creations do. This is the main thing that angers me. Spore feels like it is only partly done. It is too empty. Why? Because they held things back for this "part pack." So now people have to pay $20 more for things that could have very easily have been shipped with the game.

Again, I am not against stuff packs and parts packs at all. I think that it could be a good way to add more levels more game play elements. But I don't like being milked and I don't appreciate it at all.

Hindsight89 wrote:

Neruu wrote:this is the fine whine thread, with great whine from people who find that price expensive seeing as we don't pay to play this game.

Hun, I would GLADLY buy this expansion, if the original game weren't full of so many holes. EA and Maxis should be trying to FIX the problems in the original (AT NO COST TO THE CUSTOMER) rather than putting out an expansion.

THEY'RE RELEASING A PATCH SOON!

Just a thought, since I haven't had one single issue with this game - how many people, that are having problems, are trying to run it on older computers? I have an AMD 9500 Phenom on an ASUS M3A32-MVP with two ATI 3850's in Crossfire config and 8 meg of OCZ. Now I realize that is alot of computer, but those of you with issues, have you tried to run at lower res and other graphic settings? You maybe bitchin' for no reason other than the capability of your system. If you tried this solution and still have problems and your computer meets the requirements for running the program, then SPORE away, if not try it and see if your problems go away. EA and MAXIS are not going to come to your house and figure it out for you and as near as I can tell they are making every effort to make this thing work for everyone they can. This is a huge program and it must be worked through line by line, it takes just a little time. As I stated in another thread, try counting to a million sometime, bet you can't do it.

StevenMC wrote:

Michlo wrote:
Seriously, to people reading this thread who are seriously considering buying the parts pack: Hold off on this purchase, I implore you.

Problem is, that strategy needs to involve retailers, as they are the ones EA sells their stuff to. Got to convince retailers not to buy it in the first place, otherwise EA gets paid long before the consumer buys, or doesn't buy the product. Eventually, retailers will get the hint when nobody buy's EA stuff from them, but the problem is, EA isn't just Spore, they are NCAA, NFL, NASCAR.... and are big in a bunch of other platforms. If a retailer says hey, we don't want your PC games, they risk losing EA as an account, which would be more detrimental to the retailer than it would be EA.

You make a very valid point, but it still doesn't hinder me from at least trying. I've heard horror stories from various retailers in this area (names withheld) about them and EA. So it might not be as hard as you think The least I can do is HOPE that all my time spent reading and writing in these forums will at least bite a little bit and get some things changed. I do not think those expectations are too high.

asano wrote:

Hindsight89 wrote:

Neruu wrote:this is the fine whine thread, with great whine from people who find that price expensive seeing as we don't pay to play this game.

Hun, I would GLADLY buy this expansion, if the original game weren't full of so many holes. EA and Maxis should be trying to FIX the problems in the original (AT NO COST TO THE CUSTOMER) rather than putting out an expansion.

THEY'RE RELEASING A PATCH SOON!

They said they would, but they also said that they were upping the limit to 5 accounts.. they have not done that. And theres speculation that it will only be good for new registrations...

RedLightning777 wrote:

asano wrote:

Hindsight89 wrote:

Neruu wrote:this is the fine whine thread, with great whine from people who find that price expensive seeing as we don't pay to play this game.

Hun, I would GLADLY buy this expansion, if the original game weren't full of so many holes. EA and Maxis should be trying to FIX the problems in the original (AT NO COST TO THE CUSTOMER) rather than putting out an expansion.

THEY'RE RELEASING A PATCH SOON!

They said they would, but they also said that they were upping the limit to 5 accounts.. they have not done that. And theres speculation that it will only be good for new registrations...

Not to mention I'm not only talking of game play fixes. I'm talking about protecting user content form being stolen by other players. REMOVING THE DRM WHICH HAS NOW CAUSE ANOTHER GAME THAT I DOWNLOADED ONLINE TO NO LONGER WORK! I had to go through a 3 hour process to REINSTALL the game. How do I know that it was SecuROM? Because I've been playing this game for FOUR years and NEVER had a problem with it. Yes, it is an MMO, and we had a major patch. I finally got done patch and I couldn't OPEN THE GAME.

So yeah, that "patch" they're releasing, unless it includes the removal of SecuROM/DRM and improves the game, no parts pack for me...

CANNIBAL wrote:Just a thought, since I haven't had one single issue with this game - how many people, that are having problems, are trying to run it on older computers? I have an AMD 9500 Phenom on an ASUS M3A32-MVP with two ATI 3850's in Crossfire config and 8 meg of OCZ. Now I realize that is alot of computer, but those of you with issues, have you tried to run at lower res and other graphic settings? You maybe bitchin' for no reason other than the capability of your system. If you tried this solution and still have problems and your computer meets the requirements for running the program, then SPORE away, if not try it and see if your problems go away. EA and MAXIS are not going to come to your house and figure it out for you and as near as I can tell they are making every effort to make this thing work for everyone they can. This is a huge program and it must be worked through line by line, it takes just a little time. As I stated in another thread, try counting to a million sometime, bet you can't do it.

If you split up 1 million lines of code between 20 people that's 50,000 lines a person. Now we assume the average person can read 3 lines per second (realistically you could do more accurately). That's 16,666 and 2/3rd seconds per person. That means it would take a team of 20 moderately talented people 277 minutes or 4.6 hours to read one million lines.

So you get me 19 other people and I'll be glad to prove I can do it.

1 Million is only a lot if you try to do it by yourself. No multi million dollar project has 'one guy'.

Also the fact that so many people ARE having problems is proving your point null. When its one or two people it's the people, if you have thousands of complaints (so many that they can barely keep up with the reports) then there is an issue with compatibility.

Then you take into account most people have 9-10 other games they play without errors which compounds the issue. I 'personally' haven't had any other than the occasional crash but that's not to say the game is perfect it just means that with my particular setup and my drivers it doesn't find any conflicts.

@CANNIBAL
I played on the lowest settings possible.

@theultimateend
For some reason, I love you!
Not to mention I LOVE your sig...the XFire stats are HIL-LARE-EE-USS!!

Hindsight89 wrote:@CANNIBAL
I played on the lowest settings possible.

@theultimateend
For some reason, I love you!
Not to mention I LOVE your sig...the XFire stats are HIL-LARE-EE-USS!!

Time to update it actually.

There we go. Nice and updated .

theultimateend wrote:

Hindsight89 wrote:@CANNIBAL
I played on the lowest settings possible.

@theultimateend
For some reason, I love you!
Not to mention I LOVE your sig...the XFire stats are HIL-LARE-EE-USS!!

Time to update it actually.

There we go. Nice and updated .

I'd like to go skiing down that stat mountain LOL

RedLightning777 wrote:

theultimateend wrote:

Hindsight89 wrote:@CANNIBAL
I played on the lowest settings possible.

@theultimateend
For some reason, I love you!
Not to mention I LOVE your sig...the XFire stats are HIL-LARE-EE-USS!!

Time to update it actually.

There we go. Nice and updated .

I'd like to go skiing down that stat mountain LOL

It is cute that every few days people pop in to see if its been patched and then leave again .

It's sort of like looking on in your old grandma (the one you didn't like that has you in her will) to see if she is still breathing.

theultimateend wrote:

RedLightning777 wrote:

theultimateend wrote:

Hindsight89 wrote:@CANNIBAL
I played on the lowest settings possible.

@theultimateend
For some reason, I love you!
Not to mention I LOVE your sig...the XFire stats are HIL-LARE-EE-USS!!

Time to update it actually.

There we go. Nice and updated .

I'd like to go skiing down that stat mountain LOL

It is cute that every few days people pop in to see if its been patched and then leave again .

It's sort of like looking on in your old grandma (the one you didn't like that has you in her will) to see if she is still breathing.

ROTFFLMAO Thats funny stuff!