Thanks for the link on the first post I honestly enjoyed reading that it made me stop and think that there may be technical issues that we are over looking when we think Spore should be more than what it is. At the same time as a consumer I shouldn't need to read through something like this they should have comunicated with there fan base to the point we knew what they had done to this game a head of time. Share, create & Play in equal amounts? Sorry I still see the play part as getting shafted, Share should be invisible you're best compliment would be having it never mentioned. When the Creature creator first came out I was excited at that time the stats stacked and we seen lots of neat creatures created using that "play" mechanic only for it to be removed in the end. Just that alone and maybe better spacing of the creatures with the space expansion coming up here soon might put Spore back on track.
Exhibit A:Ghosts and Goblins. There are exceptions though go ahead and try the new Castlevania for Nintendo DS (and I love Portrait of Ruin). Someone mentioned Megaman 9 I've never mutch cared for that game series myself but I am seeing this in xbox live and those kind of downloadable games. The bigest factor in all those old games was the old 3 man convention and no saves. That made them more dificult not allways more fun though. Of course I've allways been more of a strategy Rpg gamer myself. Yea they had old creature raising games prior to Pokemon too, (Mail order Monsters anyone?)
Honestly after Spore I now know not to go by what I hear about a game a head of time, to the point of just about giving up gaming alltogether. On the one hand people say read reviews make an informed decision which is what I did by watching any video I could get my hands on a head of time. On the other hand people will say just don't go by what the critics say until you played it. Yes I was getting the idea from some of those they had dumbed the game down "some" I was telling others on other boards that the look of the cities had changed dramaticaly and was told I was over reacting. (Prior to release I noticed how every city made for quite some time looked exactly the same but with diferent buildings). I also noticed the change in the fact you couldn't get out of you're ship but from all that I still didn't know the creature stage had devolved as bad as it had and that tribe was as bad as it is. My ultimate let down though was space phase I never knew how bad it would be before hand. Sculpting planets Is much worse from what I seen. I had no idea how bad the missions in space would be with just a couple of types and that anoying constant ecodisasters and Pirate raids would plague us. I loved the idea of flying around 7 million planets just never thought it would be quite as repetive as it is.
When they originaly talked about Simeverything (later changed to Spore) I thought we would have editors for everything in game. A lot of what they talked about was how the fan base had made such nice things for The Sims with the tools given back then. It would be nice if we had as much control over our environment as we had in the Sims.
Ascus wrote:Considering that the tone was Will was looking in all the way the Spore could be developed and expanded, now he is starting a new project. Spore is Dead.
Sounds about right he was asked early on about masive expansions similar to The Sims lines and he allways denied it with the comment he would expand it in a different way from the Sims. He did mention a Collectable card game based on Spore a Spore cartoon show and a Spore movie. Considering how much of what he said would be in the game itself from back then to now I doubt much of that other stuff we'll ever see (not that I even want to see it.)
Ashloc wrote:As I said I try to avoid bumping now that I understand what it is. I was suspended for a short time for thisd thread because I was trying to keep it on the front page so it would be in their face and force a faster reply. It got a reply just not the one I wanted.
Pavpavpav wrote:I support it.
But no!!! Big companies like EA won't give their customers what they want and because of that all video games now are being dumbed down Example: It takes me a week or two to beat Super Mario Sunshine's story on my ????run but I beat super Mario galaxy in (drumroll) THREE DAYS!!!!!!
I'm a long time gamer, I've been playing video games since I seen Pong the first time. The direction game companies are going with escalating production costs making it expensive to do the artwork required by the majority of gamers is forcing out a lot of gameplay and content. That's why games don't take as long to complete as they once did (with the exception of MMO's that make there money by you never finishing). This is why I had such high hopes for Spore player created content in a game you could play forever. As it stands with the player created content not making me want to play the game long enough to see all that neat content, the poor way that content is brought to us (repeatedly seeing the same things in game with this much content I shouldn't have 3 empires atacking me that look the same). It didn't live up to my expectations for some I'm sure it's enough but not for me, a nice occasional distraction but nothing more. Allmost has me packing up my toys and going home (quiting any future gaming other than any older games). What I would really love to see is a change where people see the huge amounts of content that can be stored on current media and say, "hay why don't we just go back to say PS2 level graphics with all this storage space and make a game that is more about gameplay and content than pretty graphics." Heck at one time I was even hopeing they would do that and use 8bit graphics.
*End minor rant.*
Well in the recent issue of Game Informer #189 on page 20 they had a list of do's and don'ts for Achievments (it was meant specificly for xbox 360 but it still aplies.)
Don't make achievments that are gained from unatural play styles.
Don't make achievments only for playing at higher dificultys.
Don't have achievments that unlock and reveal the ending of the game.
Don't make achievments that are imposible challenges (Grox defeat I'm looking at you).
Don't require people to spend specific time in game with out content to suport that time.
Do chart progress toward unlocking achivements.
Do create achievments that enourage us to return to you're game. (Spore does that well).
Do have achievements that unlock after the game is finished.
Do make sure that achievements back up the time invested in the game. About one an hour.