Latest posts for the topic "What most people don't seem to realize..."

What most people don't seem to realize...

Worldbreaker276 — GMT

Many people say spore doesn't immitate evolution in any way because you can change your creature at any time.

1. The amount of years in a timeline whenever you change you creature that pass gets bigger with more extensive changes.

2. You are at least 3x (not even exagerating) more likely to get upgraded parts of one you already have than one you never got, and even more likely to get upgrades of parts you have on your creature.

Still, there is the fact that you can continue getting DNA points even after you're ready to evolve to tribal, which I dislike.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

BlackCrown — GMT

Well, I like how you still get DNA after finishing Creature and can go onto Tribal. Becuase at NO point in time to people/creatures stop evolving. Even in space, civ, and tirbe would people evovle / creatures evovle.

What most people don't seem to realize...

tyger42 — GMT

[quote=Worldbreaker276]Still, there is the fact that you can continue getting DNA points even after you're ready to evolve to tribal, which I dislike.[/quote]

Why on earth would you dislike that?

What most people don't seem to realize...

Bones1138 — GMT

If Spore would follow evolution stricter, the game would be a tad longer, I guess..

What most people don't seem to realize...

LoneStarSage — GMT

[quote=bones1138]If Spore would follow evolution stricter, the game would be a tad longer, I guess.. [/quote]

LOL, I have thought the same thing many times when I have read various complaining threads. I guess WW and Maxis could have made a game where you get a nice primordial soup and then you just wait millions of years for something to happen but then we would really have people complaining. lol

I much prefer the Intelligent Design model they gave us. Yes, that is what it is whether anyone wants to admit it or not. You, a god of sorts, decide how things evolve and move the game forward.

Anyway, I agree that the DNA points should be through all phases of the game since in theory we never stop evolving or God never stops guiding His creation depending on how you view it.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

AJF798 — GMT

Agree with above post totally. I have stated in other posts in order to make anything that makes sense in terms of how a human views their world you have to fudge things a little here and there. Besides as with WoW, when you get bored, just do something else, it is just a game afterall.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

RocketGirl — GMT

I was able to go from this:
[img]http://ll-417.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/023/417/500023417427_lrg.png[/img]

...to this:
[img]http://ll-643.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/023/643/500023643467_lrg.png[/img]

...in a single generation. That ain't evolution!

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Herculoids — GMT

[quote=rocketgirl]I was able to go from this:
[img]http://ll-417.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/023/417/500023417427_lrg.png[/img]

...to this:
[img]http://ll-643.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/023/643/500023643467_lrg.png[/img]

...in a single generation. That ain't evolution! [/quote]

Well since we have no idea how long the time frame is, yes it is.

First my credentials, I'm an evolutionary biologist. You can go from a proto-hippo to a great blue whale in about 50 million years. You can go from a treeshrew like animal to a human.

So that part is not unbelievable.

What I do wish is they had more generations so the change could be more gradual. The problem is that the game at that stage is just 'fast'. I find myself enjoying the creature stage the best on hard, but its so quickly over that while it really represents about 300 million years or so of time, it feels far shorter.

Its not so much that its not possible by evolution, its just that it is intelligent design. This was admitted by Will, and is unavoidable. I'd love to see a true 'evolution' game where what you do helps shape it, but thats most likely VERY deep but not very fun for anyone who's not an evolutionary biologist.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Kingmaker010 — GMT

[quote=rocketgirl]I was able to go from this:
...in a single generation. That ain't evolution! [/quote]

So what? Are you honestly saying you wish the game designers had given you less freedom?

Plenty of people have been complaining about the evolution model Spore uses. But quess what? It's not an evolution sim. It's a software toy. It's all [i]about[/i] options and the ability to change things to see what happens. Personally I find the end of a creature phase a creative bonanza. Freed from the constraints of min-maxing, I can instead decide on a look I'll be happy with for the later phases.

So in summary, to all those complaining about the way your creatures evolve not matching evolution: build a bridge and get over it.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

RaekReborn — GMT

I hope you realize that when you progress through cell and creature stage the time line is much larger (like real evolution). It just so happens that the fastest stages are the stages where the most time is passing. Kind of counter intuitive but just think about it. As far as your "one generation" thing goes, considering the creature stage is hundreds of millions of years do you think it would make sense to go through every single individual generation? No. Its just evolution on steroids.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

chezpizza — GMT

the freedom of designing the creatures and everything else it the real saving grace of the game. quite frankly sometimes i think i should just stick to the creature creator and return the actual game if it wasnt for the addition stuff on planet creation and vehicles.

anyways, the DNA points should continue but after the creature stage should be a little harder to obtain because animals evolve mainly thru isolation and need (large groups evolve slower than small ones).

one thing i would like to see added in the mysporepage is a small transforming program that starts the creature from the beginning stages and show it evolve into the next. not a slide show because that would be jumpy but like how Adobe photoshop has the transform tool that shows all the steps between making a triangle into circle (which you can filter into however many segments.

What most people don't seem to realize...

4ferrets — GMT

I don't think evolution never stops, But there are times
when i wonder if it's going backwards. ha ha!!
Anyway it could be for exp packs later on too.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

TunkTunk — GMT

I was also bothered by looking back at my first creature's progress and observing the jumps its form took. Then I took it upon myself to only change a little each generation. I am, after all, in control. This makes for a much more satisfying creature history. But I still have the [i]freedom[/i] to completely overhaul a creature in a single generation; I now just choose not to.

What most people don't seem to realize...

Herculoids — GMT

[quote=4ferrets] I don't think evolution never stops, But there are times
when i wonder if it's going backwards. ha ha!!
Anyway it could be for exp packs later on too.[/quote]

On of the most common evolution myths...

"Evolution has a direction, where things get progressively more complex."

This is not true, evolution is direction less. Things don't go back or forwards. For example, dophins started out as a finned sea animal, which became a 4 limbed land animal which is now a finned sea animal. What direction was that?

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

sagittary — GMT

One that gives us really nice swimming companions?

To add to Herc's notes and to essentially paraphrase something Will Wright has said before about the game, evolution in real life is a -slow- process. It takes thousands of generations and thousands of individuals to produce something interesting; it's not like the popular conception of evolution and mutants where the next generation is all of a sudden sporting tentacles and has laser beam eyes and then the next generation beyond that is ready to go to another plane of existence.

To make a true to life evolution game would probably be very boring as you'd probably at most be changing one or two thing a generation and have to be churning out generations like nobody's business. It might be fun for evolutionary biologists doing some research, but from a gameplay standpoint, there'd have to be a heck of a lot more to make it have interesting gameplay.

What most people don't seem to realize...

4ferrets — GMT

[quote=herculoids][quote=4ferrets] I don't think evolution never stops, But there are times
when i wonder if it's going backwards. ha ha!!
Anyway it could be for exp packs later on too.[/quote]

On of the most common evolution myths...

"Evolution has a direction, where things get progressively more complex."

This is not true, evolution is direction less. Things don't go back or forwards. For example, dophins started out as a finned sea animal, which became a 4 limbed land animal which is now a finned sea animal. What direction was that?

[/quote]

I meant that as a joke, Evolution and Life go hand in hand. Adapt, Evolve or Die "Life will find a way"

What most people don't seem to realize...

StarkFist — GMT

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Herculoids — GMT

[quote=sagittary]
To make a true to life evolution game would probably be very boring as you'd probably at most be changing one or two thing a generation and have to be churning out generations like nobody's business. It might be fun for evolutionary biologists doing some research, but from a gameplay standpoint, there'd have to be a heck of a lot more to make it have interesting gameplay.[/quote]

Oh SWEET I just unlocked a Hox gene mutation achievement and grew another body segment with extra pectoral fins! All I need now is for skin able to survive dessication and I'm heading to land baby!

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Jackuul — GMT

This gave me an idea. I've already been purposefully slowly mutating my creations to simulate evolution... perhaps I should take it a step further.

From the microbe, slowly to the dominating land-beast, and then slowly back down to a fat pudgy stupid looking creature. Unfortunately Tribal stage and Civ lack the ability to use simplified evolution (de-evolution if you will) where my creations gradually lose their fighting ability and degenerate into morons guzzling a gallon of alcoholic Jemeshi-plant juice while watching SFL Sporeball. Then in space phase they could have a ship that constantly has parts falling off, and they need to go find them, while simultaneously they get fatter.

Eventually they go extinct because they do not even put forth the effort to mate - and that game cycle is complete.

If I had that kind of freedom, I would be the king of Devo.

Are we not Spore?

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Tanelorn — GMT

[quote=Kingmaker010] So what? Are you honestly saying you wish the game designers had given you less freedom?[/quote]

Actually, yes.

This is why:

What is the value of something, if anyone can do it, and the material costs are minimal?

That chinese made die-cast evil kinevil motorcycle at toys-R-us? It's $.99. And when your friends see you playing with it, well... they'll make sure you know just what the value of that toy is.

Now.. that remote control stunt copter that you need to spend weeks learning how to fly, and months before you can do your first inverted torque-spin... now THAT's something everyone can appreciate!

Now apply this to the game. The creature creator is a $10 piece of software that is extremely cool as a toy and a creative outlet. The creatures you make with it have value based on their detail and aesthetics (or whackiness).

The creature creator in the main Spore gameplay also gives you massive control, with the only limitation being DNA points from having dance-offs, and the parts coming from dinosaur skeletons. In other words, you don't have to do much work to make whatever you want out of your creature. There are no rules about your evolved creature being derived from your previous creature. There's no competition over food, population growth, etc. that you need to consider in your development. It's all open and up to you. A rabbit with its mouth on its butt is just as effective as a perfectly designed siberian tiger, so long as your hard-found skeleton prizes are stuck on them somewhere.

Now... how do you take pride in your hard work, when there are very few rules or limitations, very little skill required to turn your puddle jumper into velociraptor Xtreme? Wouldn't your 'death bunny' be something you could appreciate more, if you actually had to 'roleplay' it to it's ultimate evolution? The fact that you can take that bunny, and turn it into a skateboarding tortoise in one visit to the creator, completely drops the value of both creations. It also makes the game feel hollow and pointless.

Games are about reaching goals by overcoming challenges, even if your goals are self-determined. Even in a sandbox game, the creations don't have much value if you didn't have to do anything special or meaningful to make them.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

kethdurazh — GMT

[quote=tanelorn]
The creature creator in the main Spore gameplay also gives you massive control, with the only limitation being DNA points from having dance-offs, and the parts coming from dinosaur skeletons. In other words, you don't have to do much work to make whatever you want out of your creature. There are no rules about your evolved creature being derived from your previous creature. There's no competition over food, population growth, etc. that you need to consider in your development. It's all open and up to you. A rabbit with its mouth on its butt is just as effective as a perfectly designed siberian tiger, so long as your hard-found skeleton prizes are stuck on them somewhere.

Now... how do you take pride in your hard work, when there are very few rules or limitations, very little skill required to turn your puddle jumper into velociraptor Xtreme? Wouldn't your 'death bunny' be something you could appreciate more, if you actually had to 'roleplay' it to it's ultimate evolution? The fact that you can take that bunny, and turn it into a skateboarding tortoise in one visit to the creator, completely drops the value of both creations. It also makes the game feel hollow and pointless.
[/quote]

I was actually quite impressed with how well the DNA points seemed to limit the evolution of a creature. Of course, I have been thinking about my creature evolving rather than taking it apart and reconstructing it differently, but all of my creatures have had a relatively smooth evolutionary build and I haven't noticed many significant jumps.

I think that part of the idea of the ban feature is to be able to eliminate creatures from the game that you don't think are valid, are vulgar, or that you just don't like.

I would like to see an option to just eliminate a creature from your game though. Just because I don't want a creature in my game doesn't mean I want to ban it and send a message to the devs or make it less likely to appear others games.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

sagittary — GMT

You can delete the creature from your Sporepedia.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Spidrouse — GMT

[quote=herculoids][quote=rocketgirl]I was able to go from this:
[img]http://ll-417.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/023/417/500023417427_lrg.png[/img]

...to this:
[img]http://ll-643.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/023/643/500023643467_lrg.png[/img]

...in a single generation. That ain't evolution! [/quote]

Well since we have no idea how long the time frame is, yes it is.

First my credentials, I'm an evolutionary biologist. You can go from a proto-hippo to a great blue whale in about 50 million years. You can go from a treeshrew like animal to a human.

So that part is not unbelievable.

What I do wish is they had more generations so the change could be more gradual. The problem is that the game at that stage is just 'fast'. I find myself enjoying the creature stage the best on hard, but its so quickly over that while it really represents about 300 million years or so of time, it feels far shorter.

Its not so much that its not possible by evolution, its just that it is intelligent design. This was admitted by Will, and is unavoidable. I'd love to see a true 'evolution' game where what you do helps shape it, but thats most likely VERY deep but not very fun for anyone who's not an evolutionary biologist.[/quote]

I agree the game simulates evolution but since the player is making the choices of the design it is intelligent design. If the enviornment dictated what survived it would be evolutionary. It would be a boring game though because it would be like a screen saver where you are watching it the whole time and can never interact. As soon as you intervene you change the enviornment.

It does teach some things about mutations and survival. If you are constantly being attacked by big creatures and eaten you can survive better by being better at fighting, forming groups, being faster or stealthier. You basically learn that survival requires a change and that if you remain as you were it is likely your creatures would go extinct. Basically those creatures most fit for the enviornment have the easiest ability to survive.

What most people don't seem to realize...

Aznparker — GMT

Evolution is basically reproductive fitness. Spore has nothing to do with reproductive fitness (you can die 12 times in a row and I'm am not sure if you lose anything too significant). Roaches sure aren't buff or "social" but they make lots of babies and are hard to kill so they can make more babies. But I guess they really wouldn't get to sentience (I am not sure if any one KNOWS scientifically why we humans got to it).

Selection factor: You evolve more based on killing, socializing, and eating eggs. I get the eating eggs part, some animals evolve around eating eggs. I might understand the killing part, but killing is not a selection factor in the game (ex does not really give you a benefit, besides getting "dna" and attaining sentience, and they sure aren't preying on you or affecting your reproduction OR competing with you). Socializing could be a selection factor but for the same reason above, not in this case.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Jackuul — GMT

Because the role of sentience is filled.

Lets take a nuclear holocaust. Roaches are left.

Give them 100 million years and no opposition for sentience except the kinds that force thinking, and you will have Roaches in Space.

What most people don't seem to realize...

Aznparker — GMT

I believe roaches existed for 100 million years before we human ever came around.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Herculoids — GMT

[quote=Jackuul]Because the role of sentience is filled.

Lets take a nuclear holocaust. Roaches are left.

Give them 100 million years and no opposition for sentience except the kinds that force thinking, and you will have Roaches in Space. [/quote]

Some basic limitations to their biology would most likely prevent this. It would require a LOT of evolutionary change to do this. Most likely some small rodent or lizard would become the next Noah species.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Jackuul — GMT

Not if they couldn't survive the radiation. It took humans 15 million. So I added an extra 85 for the bugs.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Kingmaker010 — GMT

[quote=tanelorn]
Now... how do you take pride in your hard work, when there are very few rules or limitations, very little skill required to turn your puddle jumper into velociraptor Xtreme? Wouldn't your 'death bunny' be something you could appreciate more, if you actually had to 'roleplay' it to it's ultimate evolution? The fact that you can take that bunny, and turn it into a skateboarding tortoise in one visit to the creator, completely drops the value of both creations. It also makes the game feel hollow and pointless.

Games are about reaching goals by overcoming challenges, even if your goals are self-determined. Even in a sandbox game, the creations don't have much value if you didn't have to do anything special or meaningful to make them. [/quote]

In a true game perhaps so, but Spore is primarily a software toy. Applying this argument to Spore would be similar (not exactly the same, but similar) to saying that there's no value in a painting because you didn't have to evolve it from a blob of paint in the middle of the canvas. The true value of Spore's editors doesn't lie in how they influence the "game". The true value lies in being able to create something dynamic and inventive, and then watch it interact with its environment. Its not art in the truest sense, but it's not a game in the truest sense either.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

theultimateend — GMT

[quote=jackuul]Because the role of sentience is filled.

Lets take a nuclear holocaust. Roaches are left.

Give them 100 million years and no opposition for sentience except the kinds that force thinking, and you will have Roaches in Space. [/quote]

That myth has been busted.

Roaches would not survive a nuclear holocaust.

It was something like fruit flies that would survive but with high mortality rates.

It was some really small insect I might be mistaken in which one but it wasn't roaches.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Aznparker — GMT

[quote=jackuul]Not if they couldn't survive the radiation. It took humans 15 million. So I added an extra 85 for the bugs. [/quote]

I believe they were several million years before us then. And although it is a different species now, I don't think they really changed all that much even though they lived through a mass extinction episode.

Edit: But the point is, so many things existed for a long time and lived through more rapid changes than us (arguably) such as mass extinctions. But dolphins are closer to sentience (if you can even measure it so) than sharks and shark are waaaaaay older.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

TormakSaber — GMT

Ecco the Dolphin is a scary idea of what may happen if Dolphins become sentient/truyl intelligent/civilizaed/whatever you'd like to call it.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

ttemplar — GMT

[quote=chezpizza]
one thing i would like to see added in the mysporepage is a small transforming program that starts the creature from the beginning stages and show it evolve into the next. not a slide show because that would be jumpy but like how Adobe photoshop has the transform tool that shows all the steps between making a triangle into circle (which you can filter into however many segments.[/quote]

Like This

[img]http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/7379/talintb3.gif[/img]

I think being able to look at the transition your creature makes as you progress is cool. However I don't like how each edition gets shared. I have run into several editions of my creature in the further stages and I find that strange.

Also about Spore and evolution. Your creature does evolve as you progress through the whole game. We can only see the drastic physical changes in the creature stage. That is because as many have stated the span of time is greater in the earlier stages of the game.

PS: That gif was made in Adobe ImageReady if anyone is interested.

Re:What most people don't seem to realize...

Jackuul — GMT

99% all the plant, animal, fungi, bacteria, you name it, has gone extinct since the beginning of life.

I give roaches a fighting chance since they have been here before us, and are likely to exist after us.

*wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach *
[quote]Like all insects, the cockroach nervous system is decentralized, with some functions distributed in the ventral ganglia. Though decentralized, the insect nervous system is fundamentally similar to that of vertebrates in terms of development, structure, and mechanisms of function. A decapitated cockroach can still walk and show responses to stimulation of its legs, as can a spinal-transected cat on a treadmill. However, a cockroach can survive complete decapitation for up to several weeks before dying of starvation or dehydration.[/quote]

[quote]Cockroaches are among the hardiest insects on the planet, some species capable of remaining active for a month without food, or being able to survive on limited resources like the glue from the back of postage stamps. Some can go without air for 45 minutes or slow down their heart rate. It is popularly suggested that cockroaches will "inherit the earth" if humanity destroys itself in a nuclear war. [b]Cockroaches do indeed have a much higher radiation resistance than vertebrates, with the lethal dose perhaps 6 to 15 times that for humans.[/b] However, they are not exceptionally radiation-resistant compared to other insects, such as the fruit fly.

The cockroach's ability to withstand radiation better than human beings can be explained in terms of the cell cycle. Cells are most vulnerable to the effects of radiation when they are dividing. A cockroach's cells divide only once each time it molts, which is weekly at most in a juvenile roach. Since not all cockroaches would be molting at the same time, many would be unaffected by an acute burst of radiation, but lingering radioactive fallout would still be harmful.[/quote]

So it will be a battle of dominance between them and the fruit fly. However, roaches are more numerous, and there are isolated populations all over the world (should humanity go pop).

Also, this is great as far as potential for evolution into sentience (if they're not already plotting our downfall):

[quote]Cockroaches live in a wide range of environments around the world. Pest species of cockroaches adapt readily to a variety of environments, but prefer warm conditions found within buildings. Many tropical species prefer even warmer environments and do not fare well in the average household.

The spines on the legs were earlier considered to be sensory, but observations of their locomotion on sand and wire meshes has demonstrated that they help in locomotion on difficult terrain. The structures have been used as inspiration for robotic legs.

Cockroaches leave chemical trails in their SPORE as well as emitting airborne pheromones for swarming and mating. Other cockroaches will follow these trails to discover sources of food and water, and also discover where other cockroaches are hiding. Thus, cockroaches can exhibit emergent behavior, in which group or swarm behavior emerges from a simple set of individual interactions.

[b]Research has shown that group-based decision-making is responsible for complex behavior such as resource allocation. [/b]In a study where 50 cockroaches were placed in a dish with three shelters with a capacity for 40 insects in each, the insects arranged themselves in two shelters with 25 insects in each, leaving the third shelter empty. When the capacity of the shelters was increased to more than 50 insects per shelter, all of the cockroaches arranged themselves in one shelter. [b]Researchers found a balance between cooperation and competition exists in group decision-making behavior found in cockroaches. [/b]The models used in this research can also explain the group dynamics of other insects and animals.

Cockroaches are mainly nocturnal and will run away when exposed to light. A peculiar exception is the Asian cockroach, which is attracted to light. Another study tested the hypothesis that cockroaches use just two pieces of information to decide where to go under those conditions: how dark it is and how many of their friends are there. The study conducted by José Halloy and colleagues at the Free University of Brussels and other European institutions created a set of tiny robots that to the roaches appear to be other roaches and can thus alter the roaches' perception of critical mass. The robots were also specially scented so that they would be accepted by the real roaches.

Additionally, researchers at Tohoku University engaged in a [u]Classical Conditioning[/u] experiment with cockroaches and [b]discovered that the insects were able to associate the scent of vanilla and peppermint with a sugar treat.[/b][/quote]

They may have begun their rise already - we're just a pest to them for now.

[quote]These earliest cockroach-like fossils ("Blattopterans" or "roachids") are from the Carboniferous period between 354–295 million years ago. However, these fossils differ from modern cockroaches in having long ovipositors and are the ancestors of mantids as well as modern cockroaches. The first fossils of modern cockroaches with internal ovipositors appear in the early Cretaceous.[/quote]