Messages posted by: CarlSagan1942

signed

joshuaj25 wrote:but somebody wouldnt go and cry about it!

That's what I thought too!
I didn't think people would go and cry about somebody's criticism towards the developers of a game game that he's purchased as if it was a personal insult to them.

You and the OP are doing a pretty good job of crying about it and making yourself look like blind, adoring fanboys by consistently and frequently demanding IN ALL CAPS that critics of the game leave your forum.

Draycu wrote:Suddenly some angry users are jumping on EA for this old reason again? I thought this thread was buried too far down for any to remember its existence.

The reason it got buried is because most players who cared enough to voice their disappointment eventually stopped caring enough to post here at all and like the majority of all people who purchased Spore they went on to play other, vastly superior games that are worth playing.

Even Will Wright could see the writing on the wall, and he abandoned further development on the project.

Some of us are just stubborn and we keep coming back....which is probably pretty foolish since nowadays the only ones left here on the Sporum are the fanboys deluded enough to still be playing this game, so now most of the posts are just made by people like you who take every criticism of Spore as a personal insult and insist on berating the "haters" and calling them "stupid" and demanding that they leave the forums.

Chris, were you really responsible for a concerted effort during development to push the game to be more kid friendly or appeal to a wider audience by simplifying existing gameplay mechanics?

joshuaj25 wrote:Oh yes, because if he doesnt get his 50$ back, the earth is going to blow up!

Being miffed about $50 seems a bit more reasonable to me than you and the OP apparently thinking the Earth is going to blow up because someone posts negative feedback about a video game on that video game's forums.

OneBlackbird wrote:Try contacting EA's CEO directly

The problem is that you're being facetious and unhelpful even if you don't realize it.

Neither her nor you nor I can get in touch with EA's CEO directly, and you must have been born yesterday if you believe he's going to get his $50 back.

A thoughtful discussion on the merits of feedback, even NEGATIVE feedback, and constructive criticism is one thing. Salient criticism of the people who made a product he himself purchased and the right afforded by that purchase to voice that criticism HERE on this forum is fundamentally different from thoughtless jibes directed at *individual users* on this forum like yours made for no other purpose than to shut him up; that's another thing entirely and it's most definitely not constructive.

warmslime wrote:What company in the world would do that?

How about a company that can learn from Maxis's mistakes and our vocal disappointment?

If I didn't care, I probably wouldn't bother to say anything at all about it. There are plenty of crappy games that I've played and not given two seconds thought about afterward other than to come to the conclusion that it sucked.

I fell in love with the idea behind Spore, the concept behind what this game could've been.
I think the more people speak up and let their disappointment be known, the more of a lesson for the future Spore's development will become, and the more other developers (or Maxis themselves) will learn from their mistakes.

I want Maxis to succeed. Hell, I even want EA to succeed.

After all, I'm a gamer and they make games. The thing is....I want them to make good games....

No matter how much die-hard fanboys on this forum belly-ache about people like me, you'll NEVER be able to deny that a significant number of gamers were ultimately disappointed with this game and that less and less people play Spore, and that the popular public image of this game has declined a great deal in the months since its release.

I don't agree with blind hate for its own sake, but for the love of God, there's NOTHING wrong with constructive criticism, with people saying that Maxis should've stuck more closely to the vision presented in the 2005 demo.....FEEDBACK, EVEN IF ITS NEGATIVE, IS NOT A BAD THING!

A game's quality isn't measured by how many people blindly defend it; a game's quality is measured by the impact it has on the community of gamers at large and the place in history it eventually comes to inhabit.

I think that Spore's story in history will be one of what *could've been* rather than what was, and I hope that those that are vocal and persistent in telling this to EA and Maxis will help to ensure that the next game to attempt something as large in concept and scope as Spore won't suffer from the same flawed judgment that ruined this game.

Rodgers5 wrote:WHY ARE YOU ON THE SPORUM????????????

I'm one of those people who was terribly and bitterly disappointed with how Spore turned out and the reason I spend any amount of time here on the Sporum is the same reason I spent two years watching Spore videos, interviews, articles, demos, etc.

I STILL want to love Spore...in spite of myself...I still want the game it might have been.....I still fool myself that there's some kind of hope that maybe if Maxis and EA listen to us, maybe if we're vocal enough and persistent enough, that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE they'll make Spore a better game.

AyaReiko wrote:If many of these things stayed in the game, I probably would've never uninstalled it.

I doubt Spore will get more than one expansion and C&C Parts Pack will probably be the only Parts Pack, both of which was probably planned before Spore's launch. Partly because the general consensus is not very positive about the game. (It really is racking up the Disappointment of the Year awards.) But mostly because The Sims 3 comes out in about 2 months. Most, if not all, of Maxis's resources will be devoted to the Sims franchise.

EXCELLENT POST.

Beautifully stated; simple, to the point.

I take no pleasure in watching a game wither away and die as Spore is doing now with naked attempts at brand expansion like "Spore Hero", abortive attempts at player retention like "Galactic Adventures", and bone-throws to the self-professed fans like the initially over-priced parts pack which was surely the first of others to come.

(bumped)

<--- Check my registered date.
Now check my Sporepedia account and note the last day of user activity.

I spent more than two years regularly looking up information on this game, dutifully watching any and all new publicity videos released, all public demonstrations, all interviews, all articles...

...and I spent about two weeks actually playing the game before I closed it for the last time and decided it wasn't worth running on my PC ever again.

I wanted to love this game...and part of me still does, I suppose that's why I'm spending any amount of time here right now.

I don't think EA or Maxis are "evil". I don't think they intentionally wanted to crush the hopes and dreams of eager gamers everywhere. I don't think they're cackling like witches and high-fiving each other when they read posts like this.

I *do* think that companies are motivated by profit like an indifferent force of nature; they have to be. Like water, they find the path of least resistance.

Whatever it was that resulted in a dev team's mistakes, lack of vision, or inability to step back and view their game from different perspectives, it wasn't a lack of resources, employees, funding, or support from EA. Maybe it was group-think, maybe they grew to love the concept so much they had already biased themselves and all become their own Yes-Men, I don't know.

Maybe, just maybe, Maxis and EA realized that the vision being offered by the 2005 demo was too complex, too "niche", too "overwhelming" for the average gamer, and they adjusted and refocused their development path in order to capture a wider audience and a bigger sales potential...in other words, to play to the lowest common denominator.

There was CONSTANT talk of Spore as a "franchise" in interviews, as the "beginning of a new brand".

I don't think Will Wright was lying when he said in an interview not long after Spore's release that he was happy with higher sales and mediocre reviews rather than stellar reviews and mediocre sales. He pretty much let the cat out of the bag there, and that was that.

"Meh" was fine, just along as lots of people bought it.

Problem is, you don't really make a successful brand without staying power, and a mediocre game perceived as a bitter disappointment by at least a significant and vocal portion of the enthusiast gaming community isn't likely to be a successful brand years down the road as Sim City or the The Sims became.

Spore is more or less dead in the water, and I seriously doubt that there will be further significant allocation of development resources for gameplay expansions or major game enhancements beyond the upcoming Galactic Adventures release. The most we're likely to see in the months and years ahead are additional themed parts packs or minor addons for Galactic Adventures (which will NOT be free).

After that, people will move on to other projects and abandon Spore (as Will Wright has wisely already done), though the game and the Sporepedia will remain in use as creative tools, which is really all Spore is; a 3D creation tool. An accomplishment to be sure, but it's not a "game", heck it's not even an experience.

I'm sure that some day some developer out there will make the kind of game that Spore COULD have been; a game that does justice to the wonders of evolutionary biology and the vastness of the cosmos....and not only that, but a game that actually has more than skin deep gameplay and complexity.

It's hard to imagine a scenario in which such a development team would get as much financial backing and support as Maxis did to create a game of such potential scope, and I'm not holding my breath, but I'm positive it will happen some day.

Spore wasn't that game.

warmslime wrote:I agree, the we-want-2005-video-spore threads are getting rather cliched.

"Cliched"?

Why? Because the same sentiment is shared by a significant number of gaming enthusiasts and fans of Will Wright who bought into the deluge of pre-release hype and were disappointed by a product so naked in its attempt to appeal to the "lowest common denominator" and that failed to live up to the hype by even the wildest stretch of the imagination?

<--- Check my registered date.
Now check my Sporepedia account and note the last day of user activity.

I spent more than two years regularly looking up information on this game, dutifully watching any and all new publicity videos released, all public demonstrations, all interviews, all articles...

...and I spent about two weeks actually playing the game before I closed it for the last time and decided it wasn't worth running on my PC ever again.

I wanted to love this game...and part of me still does, I suppose that's why I'm spending any amount of time here right now.

I don't think EA or Maxis are "evil". I don't think they intentionally wanted to crush the hopes and dreams of eager gamers everywhere. I don't think they're cackling like witches and high-fiving each other when they read posts like this.

I *do* think that companies are motivated by profit like an indifferent force of nature; they have to be. Like water, they find the path of least resistance.

Whatever it was that resulted in a dev team's mistakes, lack of vision, or inability to step back and view their game from different perspectives, it wasn't a lack of resources, employees, funding, or support from EA. Maybe it was group-think, maybe they grew to love the concept so much they had already biased themselves and all become their own Yes-Men, I don't know.

Maybe, just maybe, Maxis and EA realized that the vision being offered by the 2005 demo was too complex, too "niche", too "overwhelming" for the average gamer, and they adjusted and refocused their development path in order to capture a wider audience and a bigger sales potential...in other words, to play to the lowest common denominator.

There was CONSTANT talk of Spore as a "franchise" in interviews, as the "beginning of a new brand".

I don't think Will Wright was lying when he said in an interview not long after Spore's release that he was happy with higher sales and mediocre reviews rather than stellar reviews and mediocre sales. He pretty much let the cat out of the bag there, and that was that.

"Meh" was fine, just along as lots of people bought it.

Problem is, you don't really make a successful brand without staying power, and a mediocre game perceived as a bitter disappointment by at least a significant and vocal portion of the enthusiast gaming community isn't likely to be a successful brand years down the road as Sim City or the The Sims became.

Spore is more or less dead in the water, and I seriously doubt that there will be further significant allocation of development resources for gameplay expansions or major game enhancements beyond the upcoming Galactic Adventures release. The most we're likely to see in the months and years ahead are additional themed parts packs or minor addons for Galactic Adventures (which will NOT be free).

After that, people will move on to other projects and abandon Spore (as Will Wright has wisely already done), though the game and the Sporepedia will remain in use as creative tools, which is really all Spore is; a 3D creation tool. An accomplishment to be sure, but it's not a "game", heck it's not even an experience.

I'm sure that some day some developer out there will make the kind of game that Spore COULD have been; a game that does justice to the wonders of evolutionary biology and the vastness of the cosmos....and not only that, but a game that actually has more than skin deep gameplay and complexity.

It's hard to imagine a scenario in which such a development team would get as much financial backing and support as Maxis did to create a game of such potential scope, and I'm not holding my breath, but I'm positive it will happen some day.

Spore wasn't that game.

I see this thread has 26 pages worth of replies, but I didn't notice that anyone else pointed this out...so I suppose I'll go ahead and do so.

You wrote "Maga Spore Expansion..."

"Maga" is not a word in the English language, and unless it's an acronym or some term created within a fictional context of which I am unaware, I'm going to assume that you meant to say "Mega."

Just a helpful FYI, no harm intended.

I support this 100%.

It's too bad Maxis won't or can't implement the list of features here. AFAIK Spore is pretty much dead in the water in terms of development resource allocation for expansions and significant game enhancements beyond those already announced.

Signed.

Yoshermon wrote:Well, who's to say that aliens can't possibly have the brain proccessing power of a microchip?

They absolutely could. Just not as a result of biological Darwinian evolution as we know it.

While I do understand that atoms are a set size throughout the universe, that doesn't mean that a 2-inch alien can't have as powerful of a brain as we can.

Again, you're 100% right.
In fact, it might be likely. It could very well be the case that any intelligent aliens out there right now are AI based machines.

And you didn't explain giant aliens that well. If what you said is indefinitely true, then giant aliens would be more intelligent then us by far.

If their intelligence is transistor-based, then sure they could be. If they have already reached the microscopic limit on transistor size and have been building subsequent generations of transistors up instead of down, they could potentially be unimaginably more intelligent than us.

But I wasn't explaining giant aliens, I was explaining miniature aliens.

As far as giants in an Earth-like planet, well Elephants and Blue Whales are bigger than we are but they're certainly not more intelligent. First off, their brains are not exact replicas of ours but merely on a larger scale (as would be the case if we were comparing a miniature and giant human being), second off the larger size of their bodies would require a greater percentage of brain power to control and maintain, third in animals (like ourselves) intelligence is sometimes thought of in terms of brain-to-body mass ratio (though this is not a perfect yardstick). Since blue whales, elephants, and humans are all biologically related to a common mammalian ancestor, our brain cells more or less have the same basic size. A Blue Whale's brain cells are more or less the same size as yours, yet its body is so much bigger and its brain to body mass ratio is nowhere near a Human.

And while I understand that a giant organism would be greatly more complex then a human

Nope, that's not necessarily true at all.
I didn't say that a "a giant organism would be greatly more complex than a human"; that's blatantly untrue.

What I DID say is that a tiny creature two inches tall could NEVER have the same level of intelligence as a human IF it arose from natural processes. The scale of atoms makes it impossible.

What happens if you do have this dense form - but it is only as dense as Jupiter - or maybe more, but lacks the mass for ignition. As in, it is just a gas giant with orbiting planets, and no nearby star for light years? Surely one must exist in the galaxy formed by inadequate mass!

What you describe would be a brown dwarf.

The process by which stars forms is called Gravitational collapse; it means that there is so much mass that gravity collapses in the gas and dust, and it means that ONLY an object as massive as a star will form that way and nothing else; not a terrestrial object like Earth or anything of similar mass.

The reason is more simple than you might think:
It's because in order for a body to form within a Nebular cloud of gas and dust the way a star does, it must have enough mass for gravity to make it happen, and the only objects with enough mass for there to be enough gravitational contraction to start such a process in the first place are stars. You could think of this as kind of why a miniature star doesn't spontaneously form out of a cloud of gas and dust in your backyard; there isn't enough mass.

There's an absolute lower limit for the mass required to get the process started and bodies which had *barely enough* mass are objects called brown dwarfs.