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Will Wright Presents Spore... and a New Way to Think About Games

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Diesel

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This game, if it ever comes to fruition, sounds like it's going to be incredible in terms of technology, design, concept, and gameplay.

Lots of very cool ideas intergrated into it, and I can't wait to see how it plays out.

Very interesting read, and has a lot of possibilities to impact future games design.

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/595/595975p1.html
 
wow, that's really sweet. i've never played any of the sim games, or had much interest in them, but this looks very very cool.
 
This is amazing, I stumbled over this article yesterday and my mind was all fuzzy for a while. I hope that they release it, and soon, because it is sure to be something very special to me.

Oh, I found a phrase to describe this strange phenomena of brain fuzziness. "Its like a Koala Bear just crapped a rainbow in my brain!" -Murphy
 
man that looks cool! maybe i'll have some time to play it by the time it comes out
 
wow

i assume this game will be for PC? well, weither way, this is gonna be AWESOME. my mind boggles at the concept. what should i do first? build my own world or steal someone elses? i really can't wait for this, stuff the nintendo revolution, this is the real revolution. i don't spose there's any word on a release date?
 
Yeah, so far, the announcement is for PCs only, not consoles. I'm not quite sure how such a concept game would translate to a console platform, given the lack of control options on those platforms.
You can always add a gamepad to a PC. It's not quite so easy to add a keyboard and mouse to a console and get the same seamless control options.

According to http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/spore/616537p1.html there's not even an announced publisher for the game yet, and no release date.

My favorite line from the article:
As we explored the galaxy during the demo, I took time to note that every planet was very different. Some were cratered balls of ice, some were lifeless chucks of rock, and even among the habitable planets there was a lot of variety. Our starting planet was a humid jungle with a dense atmosphere. But another world we visited was dry and arid, with very little water and lots of reddish-yellow sand.

Naturally we blew the other planet up with our doomsday weapon.
Click to expand...

But more importantly:
Spore looks to be a unique product. From what we can see it'll feel more like a toy than a game. It's less about achieving your goals and more about playing around and creating cool things. That might not hold the attention of hardcore gamers, but it'll definitely find a huge audience. Stick around for more details!
Click to expand...

Frankly, that suits me just fine. I consider myself fairly "hardcore" when it comes to gaming. I play most of the major releases, and have some dedicated servers setup for multiplayer action. However, the idea of something that would allow me to immerse myself in a concept, rather than following some lame linear storyline, seems like it would be a very welcome change. It's definitely the concept that appeals to me here, not necessarily the gameplay.
 
woah

this is all so awesome. no goals! well there is one goal...to control the entire universe!!! MWHAHA. lol, i can imagine it now, how cool would it be to zoom from planet to planet, spending days on each, crafting new cities there, or taking old ones, and when you've finally dominated that planet, moving on to the next. after weeks and months you'd control entire star systems, i wonder how many planets you could control at once...i'd be fun to see just how far u can spread your creatures, city and culture across the universe.
 
Well, even greater is the idea that you get to interact with other players, so essentially everyone can link together. And in the article, Will Wright said they designed it so that, should you decide to go and blow up someone else's planet, the game is designed around that contingency so that it would not ruin the other person's game experience.

THAT is something I'd be very interested to see as to how it's implemented, because in my mind, I see that design concept having some very far reaching implications in other aspects of gaming, where user interaction is simultaneously both the greatest (co-op play, etc) and worst (PK'ers, etc.) aspects of gameplay. If it's possible for people to both run around at the will of their id, and have their actions NOT have disastrous implications on other people's user experience, that could possibly be the biggest revolution of this particular game's design.
 
i'm too lazy to reread the article, but as clarification, this isn't an online game, is it?

it would be cool if you could travel to other players' planets and blow them up, but pretty frustrating for the other players. first one with a death ray would kill everyone else
 
BTW, did anyone else notice in the screen shots of the green creatures that they're a) 3-legged, and b) with the game's engine determining dynamically how they would move, that two of them fell on their faces?

I thought that was both ingenious and hilarious.
 
i did notice that, i guess they can use their tail for something in front of them and that's the only way they could walk? pretty awesome
 
monsieurjohn said:
i'm too lazy to reread the article, but as clarification, this isn't an online game, is it?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's been said if this is exclusively an online game or not, but obviously, there is an online component as there's a degree of interaction between players built into the system, and inherent to gameplay at some level.
 
yeah

yeah, the article says that the creatures have to learn to walk, which will be pretty sweet to watch. yeah, my only problem with being able to blow up people's planets is that there are alot of *******s out there who'd destroy all you're work for no reason. but there are some things to remember.

1. you can fight back, as it said, with lasers and missiles and your own ship to.

2. if it tried to fly away you could possibly follow it and blow up their planet.

3. i'd eat my hat if its not in some way possible to protect your planet with an energy field or something of the kind.

4. they have to find u before they can blow u up. remember, this is an entire universe, and they gotta find u first. the chances of being found can't be sky high.
 
i'd be more concerned with them coming to blow up your hard work before you'd gotten advanced enough for lasers, missiles, ships, and energy fields

but as diesel said, apparently somehow having your planet blown up wouldn't ruin the experience, and we'll all be curious to figure out how that works.
 
From the article:
As the alien world exploded into a splendid sphere of debris and a glorious ring of flaming wreckage, Wright elaborated one of the central points of his game design. "I want players to be able to do this without ruining the game for each other," he explained. You get to share content with other players, and interact with it in godlike ways, but nobody can spoil one another's fun.
Click to expand...
 
More Spore lore:

http://www.wired.com/news/e3/0,2879,67581,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

Some things are clarified in the article.

For instance
While it's a single-player game, everything players create, from huts to spaceships, can make its way into a giant database, which will be used to populate planets in the online Spore universe.

It's what they call a massively single-player game.
Click to expand...
 
An incredible concept indeed, i could hardly believe it when i first heard it.

Well actually, some stuff he said i do not believe, or at least, until i see it with my own eyes.

1. Walking pattern of creatures is recognized by the software, not pre-scripted : I am truly sorry, but has it not been proven that Pre-Script are easier and cheaper to do than having an "engine" that will adapt itself to any custom form the player could give to a creature? Seing how Wrights describe the way they produced that "Recognition", they said it's even smaller and easier.

2. Seing most if it's Sim-Games, i know that they are usually way editable, but will Spore be really THAT MUCH customizable?

3. This is turning into an Multi Mass Online Multiplayer Game, i don't see how they will prevent ruining the fun, except by making the whole game offline, with just downloadable custom content to add to your own universe.

4. While the concept is really insane, and makes me salivate just reading about it, a big lack of all wrights game has always been "No actual goal, objective, or ending". You may think the no goal effect is pretty cool, i do also say so myself, but you while bore, everyone will. Most people already did with SimCity. It's good, but has no actual reason to be played.

Don't get me wrong by my statements. I am a big fan of all Will works. I'm a huge fan of SimCity and most other Sim variations, but i do ask myself questions about the possibilities of such a great game to birth in our era.
 
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