Messages posted by: ZJBDragon

They really need to add a way to restart any stage, particularly the space stage. If you get off on the wrong foot in space stage you're absolutely screwed. The first empire I contacted in Space stage immediately declared war on me which has ruined the entire game.

I could handle taking on 5 hostile enemy empires in Sins of a Solar Empire on hard mode. I cannot handle even one in Spore because they have so many advantages over my single little measly ship. I don't have a word to describe this situation.

- can't figure out how to add ships to my fleet
- can't figure out how to purchase this ubercannon thing
- can't handle multiple attacks symultaneously
- player only has one ship while enemy can attack multiple locations simultaneously with an unlimited number of ships
- military path upgrades are worthless and underpowered
- planets won't defend themselves unless I show up
- colonies won't rebuild after an attack
- enemy in which has been pulverized still won't surrender and has an unlimited number of ships
- enemy ships do not obey jump distances
- can't remotely manage planets

- can't seem to enjoy space stage, even when cheating

Who do you think this guy is...David Braben? There's not a chance Will would come to these forums. The only two companies in which I've ever seen VIP's come to online forums like this one are Frontier and Stardock. Oh, and there was Epic Games, but when your VIP's come to the forum to ban people and delete their requests for bug fixes that's the complete reverse of what people really want.

Space stage is impossible, even while cheating.

I have to completely agree with the original poster. I've been trying to enjoy space stage, but I've just had it. I unfortunately had a hostile aggressive empire as my neighbor and have been having multiple planets attacked sometimes simultaneously. I have one ship, yet I'm supposed to be in multiple locations. My enemies appear to have an unlimited number of ships unfortunately.

I was hoping that Space stage would either play out more like the Windows 3.1 shareware game Warpath or like the modern game Sins of a Solar Empire. Space stage, as it is now, is a complete crap shoot. I haven't even come across the Grox yet and I'm getting my butt kicked so badly I just give up now. I can't be 4 places at the same time!!! Maybe I'll try again, but not under that creature/planet thing. Sure, the guides and tutorials early on were nice, but it becomes clear that Maxis/EA ran out of time since most of the stuff in Space stage doesn't appear to have any description or help for using it. I've found myself completely clueless as to what to do next.

Everyone kept saying the space stage is what makes Spore shine. I reiterate my feelings that the creature, vehicle, and building creators need to be stripped out of Spore and put into some other game.

I think the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" perfectly describes how I feel about Spore. Now that I've completely played through each stage, here's my take on how things are along with plenty of constructive criticism.

Cell Stage:
8 out of 10
Fun, entertaining, and just the right balance of challenge. It normally lasts the perfect amount of time too. I found this stage to be well polished and enjoyable. However, I wish there was more variety in the creatures you come across. It's always the same creatures which kills the replay value of this stage. There's plenty to do and unlocking parts is actually pretty well thought out here. The creator is basic but gets the job done.

Creature Stage:
8 out of 10
This is probably one of the strongest parts of the game since I feel that the creatures and the way they act delivers what sets Spore apart from other games. Customizing a creature and then seeing it perform in game depending on what you've given it is flawless. Yes, there is a big bug in the placement of nests in the water sometimes. Creature interactions, animations, and abilities seem to work out nicely though. I wish there was more variety, such as the ability to be a water or aerial creature instead of just a ground dweller. I love the fact that you come across so many different creatures in this stage. I was concerned that some top-tier creatures were going to create a lot of trouble for me, but they ended up not being that bad. However, had the game picked different conditions it might have turned out terribly.

I don't care for the idea of unlocking parts individually. The idea of running around on some sort of treasure hunt is really annoying when it's individual parts. It would be better if multiple parts were unlocked for each objective you completed and for each set of remains you found on the ground. I also found some interesting things, like when spaceships show up or finding ruins. It would be nice to see some sort of reaction out of your creature to these events. Having a bunch of buddies tag along for what you're working on is also well done and intuitive it seemed like. Overall, this was one of my favorite stages.

Tribal Stage:
7 out of 10
Out of all the stages, I found this to be the most entertaining. It was a joy to watch my tribe gather around the fire and dance or perform for other tribes. Getting them ready for war and taking out a rival tribe was also the right amount of challenge. This whole stage was pretty enjoyable, but it left me asking for more. It seemed like a stripped down RTS where you just control one type of unit although you can specify what weapons they use. It would have been nice to better place roles on tribe members so someone could defend against food raiders and other tribe members would go out and hunt for food on their own instead of being guided around. Having farm animals was a nice way to recover from those food raids.

I got the feeling while playing this stage that things were overly claustrophobic. There were wild creatures all over the place and tribes not too far away. With all the terrain variation, trees, and other obstacles it became rather annoying to manually tell my creatures how to weave through all that stuff each time. It also was rather annoying to be in the middle of doing something, such as performing with flutes, and get attacked by wild animals. None of this was show stopping though.

I would love to see different classes of tribe members. Perhaps draw a distinction between warriors, caretakers, farmers, and so on. Maybe draw a class division between the have's and the have-not's. These are just two ideas to give some more variety and depth to this stage. As I said in a previous thread, I think this stage has a lot of untapped potential. Maybe my tribe could have tree houses, boats, defense towers, mills, and other things that would add to the game.

Civilization Stage:
7 out of 10
I also enjoyed this stage. However, I was disappointed that you no longer had direct control over your creatures. Designing their vehicles was great fun and so was creating building for them. I didn't like how the cities couldn't expand though. I also found it rather surprising when a foe of mine attacked me with aircraft even though that enemy only had 3 cities instead of the required 4. Communicating between empires was nice, and all the different special weapons you could employ also seemed to be useful. However, they seemed really overpriced.

I wasn't entirely sure what my enemy was up to a lot of the time. I recall seeing this big blue talking creature during an attack and had no idea what was going on. It was also really hard to make allies since they would use any little excuse as a negative. I ended up just forgetting about creating alliances because it was clear to me that would be impossible.

Unfortunately, this stage appears to also lack quite a bit of depth and have a lot of unused potential. I wish this would have gone down the path of a more traditional RTS. I also thought control and grouping of units could have been better and added into the game, respectively.

Space Stage:
1 out of 10
Is this even supposed to be fun? So I've got my home world, a T0 colony in the same system, 1 T0 colony in another system, and 1 T1 colony in yet another system. Right next door is this empire of 4 systems that absolutely hates me and constantly attacks one or more of my systems, sometimes at the exact same time. I set up a trade route hoping for some extra income from the only alien somewhat far away who actually is favorable to me. Another pair of neighbors are indifferent. So I'm trying to at least build up enough cash to go out and purchase some upgrades, but when spice is only trading at $225 per unit at every world I go to, I rake up maybe $2,000 to $5,000 a trip. Then I'm constantly babysitting my colonies from attacks since they can't seem to defend themselves. I try doing missions, but they all seem to be timed, and in the middle of each mission I get interrupted by yet ANOTHER attack or some ridiculous eco disaster. This particular game features a militant aggressive species, yet I only get one little ship while my enemies have an unlimited number that seem to continuously respawn.

I've resigned myself to just going on suicide runs because I have had enough of it. Go to the enemy neighbor, blow up some stuff, get destroyed, rinse and repeat. During this I completely ignore the eco disasters and attacks that seem to show up every 3 minutes or so. I come to find out I lost a colony, lost a pair of trade routes, and then Alt F4 the game in retaliation. I can't figure out how to upgrade the T level of a planet, can't figure out why I'm not getting income from trade routes, and don't know how I'm supposed to rack up some $60,000+ for an upgrade that could be really helpful. Obviously something is grossly wrong, but there is no apparent option to completely restart/reset the stage and try again nor are there any tutorials or helpful bits of information that tell me anything beyond the absolute basics. I cannot remember the last time a game made me this mad. I haven't even come across the Grox yet!

Consider adding tutorials about advanced things you can perform. Try telling the player how they go about sculpting and upgrading the T level of a planet. Offer a restart option for those times when a player, like myself, gets randomly screwed by the way the map was generated. BE CONSISTENT WITH THE NUMBER OF SHIPS! Stop giving my enemies unlimited counts of ships when I'm stuck to one. Remember an old Windows 3.1 shareware game called Warpath? I was hoping space stage would be somewhat like that, but instead it turned out to be a tedious exercise in frustration. Did Maxis/EA even have a QA person sit through this stage for more than 30 minutes?! Yeah, so I'm supposed to be able to build a fleet or something, but I'm getting my butt kicked so much I haven't even come across the ability to do that yet. Not fun.

The Bottom Line:
6 out of 10
Jack of all trades, master of none. If it were possible to just rip the creature, vehicle, and building creator aspects out of Spore and put them into some other fully fleshed out and finished game I'd be all for it. This would probably work best in an RTS, but many other kinds of games would do...just as long as they're not Spore. As a package, Spore seems to under-deliver in each stage. I know this was intentionally done to set it up for expansion pack after expansion pack, but I don't quite see why I would be interested in an expansion to Spore. I've had it for 6 days now and I feel like I'm just about done with it. My current experience with Spore, particularly with the horrors of space stage, have left me disappointed. The shear number of online bugs (from complexity to Maxis-stealing creations) is also very annoying. I've come to expect more out of Will Wright and Maxis. I've enjoyed Sim City, Sim City 2000, Sim City 3000, and Sim City 4 (not that abomination called Sim City Societies). The Sims was decent, but I didn't follow that because there were too many expansion packs.

I wish Spore would have been delayed several months to allow for the proper testing and polishing it seems to be missing. It's not a bad game, which is why I gave it a grade D (6 out of 10, 60%) which is passing, but it doesn't seem to grasp and maintain my attention beyond the creature portion. The shear number of missed opportunities, omissions, and bugs hurts this game quite a bit. It's yet another shining example of EA kicking games out before they're finished. For that reason, I haven't bought an EA game since Sim City 4. I've been reminded by Spore why it is that I avoid EA games.

At the very least, I hope other developers are paying attention and 'borrow' the creator ideas for creatures, vehicles, buildings, and so on to apply to their games.

Turn Spore into an MMO? If it's got a monthly fee, count me out. If it's at no additional charge or advertising supported, then I'll go along with it. MMO's are a dime a dozen these days, and nearly all of them fail except for the big ones like WoW. Multiplayer would be welcome, but it would be complicated to figure out.

EA, in particular, has had very bad experiences with MMO's. They just can't seem to get any of them to stay running.

Nice work on the old Enterprise and the Bird of Prey.

I'm curious to see what the Excelsior version would look like in Spore, but I haven't gotten around to it.

I did make one of those proposed USS Titan models that was out there. It's found here: http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-ZJBDragon|2259192036%3Asast-500046238720 . It was based off of this model (also by me): http://www.personal.psu.edu/zjb105/Images/StarTrek/TitanUntextured.png . I don't have a quick link to the original concept art.

bigrob7605, if you don't feel like reformatting, your best bet would be to download the non-DRM version and use your legal purchased key when setting up an account on the downloaded version. The same problem you described tends to plague people whom run multiple virtual machines and a whole suite of development software. You're going to be on a wild goose chase if you keep swapping out hardware, adding/removing programs, and sweeping the registry to eradicate all traces of programs that might possibly upset Securom. Furthermore, if it's a 64 bit machine there are known issues with Securom and 64 bit operating systems. Just be sure to keep your legal copy handy incase anyone wants to throw a fit about this. Some of us use high performance laptops too, which makes it almost impossible to switch out most components. I did, admitantly, skim over things, but it does sound like your buddy's computer won't ever be able to run Spore unless you do a complete reformat. Since EA insists on using flawed copy protection that obviously causes more trouble on legal customers than pirates, it is the path of least resistance for you to go for the non-DRM version. Otherwise, enjoy your reformat.

smileyfaceman wrote:False advertising laws are tricky. This is kinda like when you go to a department store and they have a sign in the window that says there was a misprint in this week's ad circular. We can cry "Bait and Switch" all we want, but it won't make any difference.

Ever work retail for one of those department stores? Back when I did (which I don't these days thankfully) if someone brought a mistake to our attention before the misprint notification was put out, then we had to give it to them even if it was a misprint. Only after the misprint notification went out could we ignore complaints. The timing was critical because those misprint notices had to go out ASAP since anyone getting the product before the notice went out got it for the erroneous price.

In Spore's case, there is no misprint notification in the readme file. There was no indication prior to the post on this forum in which gave notice that the multiple accounts information was a misprint. Because EA was not proactive in getting the word out, anyone with the money to stick it to EA would likely get so far as a settlement since this would be very bad PR for EA. EA only bothered to give out information about this supposed misprint after people brought it up and started complaining. Timing is everything.

Dayner wrote:guess iam not buying C&Cred alert 3

Why in the world would you buy a C&C game in the first place? I'm sorry, but those games became crap ever since SPORE was kicked out. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Rise of Nations Gold or Sins of a Solar Empire.

EDIT: Did you know that SPORE can't be said? It's the name of a company! W-e-s-t-w-o-o-d. Did EA and that company really get their bridges burned that badly to block the name?

You people need to stop throwing around the term troll around here. When people complain about something they're offering the option to listen to the complaint and correct the problem. You should be thrilled people are stating both what they like and what they don't like as this provides free feedback on how a company and/or product can improve. Unfortunately, the video games industry tends to forget that.

Now for the pirating of this game, a large chunk of those supposed pirates have 1) downloaded backup copies of the game they legally purchased since the copy protection just about makes doing so impossible and 2) downloaded a working version of Spore that can actually be played. I know when I installed Spore from the DVD on a Vista 64-bit machine the game wouldn't run no matter what because Securom kept trying to check the CD but kept causing some cryptic error. Therefore, the DRM on Spore is not compatible with all operating systems Spore works on (or it's upset about some of the developer software I run to do my job at work). A simple download of the non-DRM version cleaned the problem up instantly instead of waiting months, years, or forever for the company to come up with a fix. Anyone ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon 3? For months there was a Securom problem in which absolutely murdered performance of the game at night and while constructing objects. MONTHS! A crack fixed the bug instantly. This is the path of least resistance.

There's also a large chunk of those pirates who are 'renting' the game. Since the video game industry has all but abandoned quality assurance, there's a huge group of people who will 'rent' a game via downloading it and trying it out. If someone ever figures out how to create an online service where people can rent a game legally, there's a major business opportunity there. If there are major problems or if the game sucks, which many hyped games do, then the pirate loses no money on a game they wouldn't have played for long anyway and wouldn't have purchased to begin with. In that case, pirating actually saves both customers and retailers the hassle of arguing over terms, EULA's, returns, exchanges, and all that.

A minority of those people who download a game actually do it to steal it. On top of that, the purported 500,000 number is likely way off. Anyone see when those idiots at Epic Games said their sinking ship called Unreal Tournament 3 was pirated over 40+ million times? Ever see when Crytek whined about people downloading patches and content more times than known registered customers (heaven forbid someone reinstalls and needs to download a patch again!)? Piracy is an exaggerated problem and counts like that 500,000 are more symptomatic of an undeserved market of people who do not trust or like huge companies like EA. There are business opportunities awaiting anyone who actually bothers to take the time to learn why people pirate games.

Here's mine. This is the militant warrior race I brought up from the cell stage. I really haven't gotten too far into the space stage yet. Pictures are linked to sporepedia entries.

Will and pals need to retire or break out of Maxis and go start up their own company, again. The good old days are indeed long gone, especially under EA's rule.

When will companies learn to communicate this stuff in advance?

Jeeze...I'd be fired for doing something like what EA/Maxis is doing right now. Outside of the video games industry, we IT people and developers are actually held accountable for our actions and are responsible to our customers.

This all boils down to a lack of foresight. Creations don't seem to keep record of who their original creator was when someone else uses them. They don't even appear to have to make an edit to the creation...simply using it appears to make it as yours. No wonder there's almost 14 million creations out there and that when you do a search it always results in duplication.

Where's the QA? Didn't someone test this game before release?

"Thank you for buying Spore. Have fun beta testing yet another one of our games!" - EA

Here's mine, although I haven't had much time to make stuff since this past Monday when I purchased the game. That and I just recently picked up some better techniques so I deleted out old stuff. Unfortunately, my eastern dragon and hydra won't share because of that annoying complexity bug. They do look neat in game though, particularly if epic.

http://www.spore.com/view/profile/ZJBDragon

Failan is what I've been playing through all stages with as a carnivore. The civilization version wouldn't upload for some stupid reason (sharing is an absolute pain because it seems broken...I always get Maxis stuff in my game too X_X ). Yakola is going the herbivore route, but I haven't had much time to work on it. I started a third whose name I don't remember in which I want to take the omnivore route. Here's a couple top selections. Hopefully they fix the complexity bug soon because I do have a really neat eastern dragon.

And then there's this thing which was a test to see how featured Spore's creation tools are. Overall, not bad.
Reference model created by me (Maya/XIS/Blender -- originally intended for Sins of a Solar Empire but scrapped): http://www.personal.psu.edu/zjb105/Images/StarTrek/TitanUntextured.png