We Found Who to Tar and Feather!

I saw the Creatures Series mentioned here, and FWIW, it may have had hard science, but it, too, had "Cuteness" and appealed to all ages. Members in the community ranged from the single digits to their 40's. It was cute, but there was hard science behind it. So, obviously hard science won't detract, and something with a cute façade doesn't necessarily mean it has to lack hard science.

Where Spore went wrong was the early demos showed a lot more being put into the hands of the player than there is now. Everyone remembers the Willosaur dragging is prey. That was cool. Verbs could be combined to create composite actions.

What happened is the demos promised the world, and what we got was significantly less that what the demos appeared to show. For one reason or another, featrues were culled from the game as it neared release. I don't know how much (and neither does anyone else, save for those who were involved) was culled by the cute team.

The main thing that has baffled me from the day the game was released was the lack of relevance the test animations really have. Oh, yeah, and the parts pack will have more irrelevant and completely useless test animations. Hmm. I suppose their only purpose was to make neat videos to send to Youtube. The other thing was the change from being able to stack attributes of parts, to only the highest part counts. That was baffling as well. Making morphology count would have been great.

I'm bumping this becasue if all of this is true then this "person" stole Will's game and ruined it for all of us.

Seriously, who on Earth has the right to overrule Will Wright on game design. Sure you can question things, but it's Will F'kn Wright.

ok lets get him them, who is gonna bring the tar and feathers?

serioulsy tho he should be fired

Finnical wrote:<Very long post>

Didn't read it all, but I think I agree with you. That guy ruined the game by making everyone backtrack and remove stuff.

. . .I swear to god if the 'Cute and Creepy Parts Pack' has -Sneakers- as something for our creatures. . . . . . . . .

And yet, there are days that I don't wonder if Chris Hecker didn't dumb-down Spore enough...

Guineh wrote:I saw the Creatures Series mentioned here, and FWIW, it may have had hard science, but it, too, had "Cuteness" and appealed to all ages. Members in the community ranged from the single digits to their 40's. It was cute, but there was hard science behind it. So, obviously hard science won't detract, and something with a cute façade doesn't necessarily mean it has to lack hard science.

This speaks volumes. The changing of the game was to appeal to a larger audience, but the result is a game with less depth and less options. How does this appeal to a larger audience? Just because it has hard science doesn't mean it's "E = mc^2 The Game". The hard science was behind the scenes. The front was cute, flexible, and free. The results were unpredictable and surprising, which pleases people of all audiences. I think you might find that seeing the reaction vary based on what you make would make people more creative, and more amused.

A real sandbox is still bound by the laws of physics and gravity. Using water, one can make more solid sand structures. But you can't just pick up the sand and leave it in the air. Does that mean it's inappropriate for children? No. The children don't have to do the equations for how the sand falls. It's just realism, not hardcore science nerdiness. We weren't expecting a game where you have to carefully design the central nervous system of your creature. We just wanted something that was more dynamic, more exciting, and more realistic.

Parvati wrote:Agh, its not worth it to ruin someone else his life over a game.Chris isn't the only one to blame you know.
Will always had the final vote.

I think they have gotten the message.

All they have to do is comment on the situation.

Indeed. Will must have agreed, but I imagine he was choosing what he saw as the lesser of two evils. Reaching his original vision may have caused too much strife inside Maxis, for example. However, not reaching it caused a lot of strife outside, so it's hard to say.

Chris Hecker is the poster boy of a larger mistake. If he still has his job, which AFAIK he does, then he must be a very talented and dedicated person. Losing his talent to see blood would not be worth it; the past cannot be changed. But we'd like to see acknowledgment that mistakes were made, by someone somewhere, and that this mistakes will be fixed.

I think they have gotten the message. It's possible their comment on the situation is simply the announcement of the new expansion. However, I'd like to hear a straightforward statement that they plan on fixing the depth issues in many stages of the game, especially the Creature Stage.

Mowglia wrote:Ideally the player should have NO input over the evolutionary process other than simply to control the actions of their creature. The evolutionary changes in the creatures ought to be the result of the environment, creature behaviour, interactions with other creatures, and the sequence of events over time (i.e., chance).

Okay that might be a little too far.

Another excerpt from the Seed article on a more positive note:

Seed Magazine wrote:Stephen Webster, a science communications expert at Imperial College, London, answers unequivocally when asked if he feels Spore could further muddy waters already clouded with ignorance and misinformation: "No, I don't, and I'll tell you why. My experience of working with science and communication is that people separate quite clearly one domain of their life from another. These games work not because people think they're teaching them science, but because you can do the manipulation... You can see the results from what you do." It's this latter element which may make Spore much more useful as an educational tool than its omissions and inventions might suggest. "No one feels involved in evolution," says Webster. "It's hard to imagine evolution, and it's very hard to see, because of the lengths of time involved. When people talk about evolution happening in front of your nose, they're usually talking about bacteria — it's not something you can see."

Letting the player experiment and make their own creatures is a way of anthropomorphizing chance, in a way. If we wanted to see natural evolution, we could watch bateria with a microscope. (Okay, that'd be slow and boring. But at least you could see the evolution in your lifetime.) This is about letting people be the ones to make the mutations and be the result, and let them see how natural selection affects even their own behavior. (This is, of course, now missing from the complete game, which is more about making yourself look like whatever you want while playing a basic RPG.)

RaptorZefier wrote:. . .I swear to god if the 'Cute and Creepy Parts Pack' has -Sneakers- as something for our creatures. . . . . . . . .

Oh god, I hadn't even thought of that.

I will literally ban any creature wearing sneakers from my game. There's a line between cute and directly mocking nature.

compared to the GDC video i saw when i first heard about spore, the current version is more like a game about evolving teddy bears.

btw, what is this "creatures" game that everyone is talking about?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 10/14/2008 20:07:02

When I first saw about him and the 'Cute Team' thing I got really pissed, but then when I saw he was the same guy that said the stuff about the Wii I though: "Why isnt he dead yet?". Seriously Chris, you should start running. But I dont think Will should have let him do that do the game, bet Will dosent really care. I felt sorry for Chris, but after I saw he said the Wii thing I realized he didnt understand anything about games. And now he copies nintendo trying to do a cute game. Didnt work.

I remember reading Chris' statement about the wii. The most amusing thing is he pulled a "wii." He took a good game and dumbed it down for the casual gamer. That is what most wii game makers are doing. He caused spore to pull a "wii."

I for one preordered the game when it first became available for preoder. That was when they were still referring to the 2005 videos, screenshots, and gameplay. The closer it got to release, the more things changed. Unfortunately it was preordered so long that they wouldn't let me cancel the preorder.

I have learned to never preoder anything again.

mager56723 wrote:compared to the GDC video i saw when i first heard about spore, the current version is more like a game about evolving teddy bears.

btw, what is this "creatures" game that everyone is talking about?

Well the game Creatures is a 1990s game by Steve Grand. Wikipedia article here.

I also sometimes use "Creature Game" interchangeably with "Creature Stage".

I'm surprised they didn't use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOLCODE to make the game.

SnuggleFairie wrote:I remember reading Chris' statement about the wii. The most amusing thing is he pulled a "wii." He took a good game and dumbed it down for the casual gamer. That is what most wii game makers are doing. He caused spore to pull a "wii."

I for one preordered the game when it first became available for preoder. That was when they were still referring to the 2005 videos, screenshots, and gameplay. The closer it got to release, the more things changed. Unfortunately it was preordered so long that they wouldn't let me cancel the preorder.

I have learned to never preoder anything again.

I'm just glad I never did. I considered it. As a policy, I never pre-order, in case the game isn't what's advertised. Turns out that was a worthwhile precaution. The only company that consistently beats my expectations is Stardock. Maybe because they know how to advertise. They're the only ones I would consider pre-ordering from now, and it's not likely.

deity wrote:When I first saw about him and the 'Cute Team' thing I got really pissed, but then when I saw he was the same guy that said the stuff about the Wii I though: "Why isnt he dead yet?". Seriously Chris, you should start running. But I dont think Will should have let him do that do the game, bet Will dosent really care. I felt sorry for Chris, but after I saw he said the Wii thing I realized he didnt understand anything about games. And now he copies nintendo trying to do a cute game. Didnt work.

He needs to stick to what he does best. My understanding is that's programming, and AI programming specifically. My guess is that at first he was angry at the Wii for being such a success, but then realized maybe he was being too hardcore about the whole thing and decided to go cute instead. Which was also a questionable choice. Pick your target audience, Chris.

On the other hand, the current Spore game might be perfect for the Wii.

Jackuul wrote:I'm surprised they didn't use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOLCODE to make the game.

I love the internet.

Weight support?
Cell with no eyes?
A creature creator with better coloring?
<font c size="1">fun..?</font>

I'm too stupid to understand these terms. Therefore I must buy part packs to feel better about myself!

And so, instead of becoming the ultimate science project, Spore gradually became the ultimate game.

lmao

Output: ERROR! DO NOT WANT - KTHXCHRIS

Caps are from coding.