I would like to point out a few things.

-Spore was deliberately dumbed down for public consumption. It seems as if there was some false advertisement on the part of EA.

-Spore looked amazing at first glance, but most people will grow tired of the actual game play. Sure Maxis made some fun editors to make cells/creatures/airplanes etc. the actual GAMEPLAY experience seems to be thrown together and seemed very uninspired and repetitive.

-As a student of Biology and a reader of Dawkins, Gould and Diamond, evolutionary biology CAN be modeled mathematically.

HOWEVER, this process does not take years of corporate code crunching but rather a team of bright, creative people who understand the sciences involved in modeling life.

FIRST
-Why isn't mass/volume or bigness a MAJOR factor in food requirements etc.
-Why can you put wings on a creature and it automatically flies, A winged creature is the "optimal creature" so much maligned, Instead by not taking into account trade-offs aka the ENGINEERING of life.
-Why do you only lay eggs and why does every other creature lay eggs?
-Why no amphibians?
-Why no creature stage in the water?

The list goes on,

To me the cell/creature/tribe stage alone could have been the richest, most complex game every devised. BUT instead it was neutered and blanched by EA.


Everything is dumbed down to a pretty game of "Paint-A-Silly-Creature" rather than a revolutionary combination of graphics and science.

The creature stage alone could be use to generate entire ecosystems with infinite complexity.

HOWEVER the most bothersome part of Spore, that irks me as a student of science is the fact that EVOLVE = Progress in a linear fashion. Evolution is NOT advancement from bad to good, from simple to complex. The most successful living organisms, microbes and insects are far from advanced compared to a mighty reasoning human.

The issue here is how WINNING is defined. Why couldn't a species of TINY creatures, who could because of their small size and fast reproduction take over the planet? The reason is because of the concept of trade-off I'm talking about. The reason there will be no optimal creature in my model is because the potential food to be had will be capitalized on by larger predators. However some kind of equilibrium will be reached. By randomizing climate changes, catastrophes etc, one could "play" the story of an entire ecosystem, responding to the environment.

Just my $0.02

P.S. Maxis/EA didn't listen to anyone who knows anything about biology.

You paid for a BETA. EA doesn.t give a SPORE what you think. Save your breath and your money for the real LAUNCH

Sorry.

But it appears to be true. I meant no disrespect toward YOU personally. I re-read your post and find your ideas sensational! They should be implemented immediately. But reality looms nigh.