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[SPORE] Galactic Adventures Available Now!
Terrendos
Decorative MonocleRegistered User regular
Decorative MonocleRegistered User regular
Thanks to rayofash for the OP.
What is Spore?
Wikipedia states
The game starts out on a randomly generated planet with you playing as a randomly generated cell. You eat other cells to gain DNA points that you use to evolve your creautre. Eventually your cell evolves into a full fledged creature, which then forms a tribe, which then becomes a civilization, which in turn sets out to explore the galaxy.
Procedural generation?
Procedural generation refers to the concept of making content on-the-fly rather than prior to it's use. Everything in the game is created by the players. The planets, creatures, buildings, units, everything. When you create something you have the option of uploading it to EA's database where it will be randomly sent to other players to populate their game. One of the most remarkable things about procedural generation though is it's compression. Most creatures don't go over 30kb in size, and most content is under 10kb.
If you want to know more about procedural generation you can download the Creature Creator and experience it first hand.
So wait, the players make everything?
Yup, after only a week of the Creature Creators release there were over a million creatures in their database. Some of them are pretty good too:
What are Sporecasts?
There's a lot of content in spore. I mean a LOT! How are you supposed to sort through BILLIONS and BILLIONS (sorry, couldn't resist) of creatures, vehicles, and buildings? Easy. If you see something you like in the world, simply add it's creator to your buddy list and everything he creates will be prioritised. Want creatures with a certain aspect? You can set it to automaticly download creatures with a certain tag. What about a community or your friends? This is where Sporecasts come in. A Sporecast is a collection of various users, and their content, think an RSS feed. Whoever maintains the Sporecast just needs to add the user to it, and everything he creates will be sent out to everybody who has that Sporecast.
The stages
The game has 5 stages: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space, each stage is unique in its gameplay.
Cell
The Cell stage is Pacman. The goal is to go around eating other cells to gain DNA points and parts that you then use to evolve your cell (this may be more eyes, mouths, weapons etc..) As you eat, your cell grows in size and complexity. After you've filled the progress bar (this is usually done by collecting DNA points), the game kicks you into the Creature stage.
Creature
The Creature stage has been compared to by Will Wright as the friend making min-game in The Sims. The objective of this stage is to progress your brain development by collecting DNA points and creature parts. You do this by either socialising with the other creatures (this is done by singing, dancing, or posing), or by completely annihilating them. As your brain grows, you are able to add more people to your pack, which allows you to take on larger, more dangerous creatures. This is the last stage in which you can evolve your creature and collect parts.
Tribal
The Tribal stage is a slimmed down Populous. The goal of this stage is to progress your society by socialising with the other tribes. Similar to the Creature phase, this is done by either playing instruments and giving gifts, or by killing them. Instead of collecting DNA points, in this stage you collect food. The food is then used to either increase your tribes population, or enhance the village by adding buildings. There aren't any creature parts to collect in this stage, instead you are collecting technology either given or taken from another tribe. You may also clothe your creatures in this stage.
Civilization
The Civilization stage is a slimmed down version of Civilization and Age of Empires. The objective of this stage is to progress in society, technology, and to take over the world. You do this by assimilating the other nations, either through conquest, religion, or economics.
Space
The Space stage is Masters of Orion, and SimEarth. At the beginning of this stage you try to complete objectives to gain badges to unlock tools for your UFO. After that this stage is completely open-ended, there is no goal except for the ones you set yourself (although there is a secret ending by reaching the center of the galaxy). You will run into other creatures who have achieved space flight, and you can make peace with them or conquer them, but the real fun (at least for me) is in expanding your own civilization by terraforming planets and abducting other creatures. You can completely wipe out other races, destroy planets, uplift under-developed creatures, expand your content library, you name it.
As you explore the Space Stage, you're likely to run into some people who worship Spode. Thees people are not your friends. These people are nobody's friends:
For all our sakes, be so kind as to eradicate them all.
This OP is a work in progress, more to come...
Seven years in the making. Life as we know it has just changed.
Start as a microscopic cell and evolve into a Galactic God!
Start as a microscopic cell and evolve into a Galactic God!
What is Spore?
Wikipedia states
Wikipedia wrote:Spore is a multi-genre "massively single-player online game" by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation.
The game starts out on a randomly generated planet with you playing as a randomly generated cell. You eat other cells to gain DNA points that you use to evolve your creautre. Eventually your cell evolves into a full fledged creature, which then forms a tribe, which then becomes a civilization, which in turn sets out to explore the galaxy.
Procedural generation?
Procedural generation refers to the concept of making content on-the-fly rather than prior to it's use. Everything in the game is created by the players. The planets, creatures, buildings, units, everything. When you create something you have the option of uploading it to EA's database where it will be randomly sent to other players to populate their game. One of the most remarkable things about procedural generation though is it's compression. Most creatures don't go over 30kb in size, and most content is under 10kb.
If you want to know more about procedural generation you can download the Creature Creator and experience it first hand.
So wait, the players make everything?
Yup, after only a week of the Creature Creators release there were over a million creatures in their database. Some of them are pretty good too:
What are Sporecasts?
There's a lot of content in spore. I mean a LOT! How are you supposed to sort through BILLIONS and BILLIONS (sorry, couldn't resist) of creatures, vehicles, and buildings? Easy. If you see something you like in the world, simply add it's creator to your buddy list and everything he creates will be prioritised. Want creatures with a certain aspect? You can set it to automaticly download creatures with a certain tag. What about a community or your friends? This is where Sporecasts come in. A Sporecast is a collection of various users, and their content, think an RSS feed. Whoever maintains the Sporecast just needs to add the user to it, and everything he creates will be sent out to everybody who has that Sporecast.
The stages
The game has 5 stages: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space, each stage is unique in its gameplay.
Cell
The Cell stage is Pacman. The goal is to go around eating other cells to gain DNA points and parts that you then use to evolve your cell (this may be more eyes, mouths, weapons etc..) As you eat, your cell grows in size and complexity. After you've filled the progress bar (this is usually done by collecting DNA points), the game kicks you into the Creature stage.
Creature
The Creature stage has been compared to by Will Wright as the friend making min-game in The Sims. The objective of this stage is to progress your brain development by collecting DNA points and creature parts. You do this by either socialising with the other creatures (this is done by singing, dancing, or posing), or by completely annihilating them. As your brain grows, you are able to add more people to your pack, which allows you to take on larger, more dangerous creatures. This is the last stage in which you can evolve your creature and collect parts.
Tribal
The Tribal stage is a slimmed down Populous. The goal of this stage is to progress your society by socialising with the other tribes. Similar to the Creature phase, this is done by either playing instruments and giving gifts, or by killing them. Instead of collecting DNA points, in this stage you collect food. The food is then used to either increase your tribes population, or enhance the village by adding buildings. There aren't any creature parts to collect in this stage, instead you are collecting technology either given or taken from another tribe. You may also clothe your creatures in this stage.
Civilization
The Civilization stage is a slimmed down version of Civilization and Age of Empires. The objective of this stage is to progress in society, technology, and to take over the world. You do this by assimilating the other nations, either through conquest, religion, or economics.
Space
The Space stage is Masters of Orion, and SimEarth. At the beginning of this stage you try to complete objectives to gain badges to unlock tools for your UFO. After that this stage is completely open-ended, there is no goal except for the ones you set yourself (although there is a secret ending by reaching the center of the galaxy). You will run into other creatures who have achieved space flight, and you can make peace with them or conquer them, but the real fun (at least for me) is in expanding your own civilization by terraforming planets and abducting other creatures. You can completely wipe out other races, destroy planets, uplift under-developed creatures, expand your content library, you name it.
As you explore the Space Stage, you're likely to run into some people who worship Spode. Thees people are not your friends. These people are nobody's friends:
For all our sakes, be so kind as to eradicate them all.
This OP is a work in progress, more to come...
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(PM me if you want to be added to this list.)
Useful tips and stuff:
1.There is NO AUTOSAVE FUNCTIONALITY. It is suggested that you save often in case of crashes.
2. If you're getting really tired of all the constant attacks, then there's a mod to help. This is a link to that mod, but I think you have to start over from the beginning for it to work.
3. The ` (Tilde) Key will pause the game when in space, which is helpful if the Grox are raping you.
4. Holding Tab while editing a piece in an editor opens up 3d rotations on X, Y, and Z axes.
5. Sexually explicit creatures/vehicles/etc shared on the Maxis servers can earn you a temporary (or possibly permanent) ban from your online account, which effectively prevents you from downloading from sporecasts and the like.
6. Hitting "C" in-game will take a picture."V" will start a video.
7. Clicking and holding on a color while coloring a creation will expand to a chart of similar colors, e.g. black goes to a greyscale from dark black to nearly white.
8. Terraforming an opponents' colony/homeworld from T1-3 down to T0 will reduce the number of cities to one automatically. Alternately, terraforming a Grox planet to T1 will completely obliterate them.
9. Progression Paths: Depending on how you play your species to the Space Stage, you will accrue special attributes that will eventually result in a final character class. For example, if you choose the "blue" path for every stage, you are designated a Trader. This chart shows all the different paths you can take: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk69iGFA5QTJmJeL8zUBWZw
10.Terrendos's quick and easy guide to terraforming:
To raise a T score, look at the minimap and press the little world button to go to the terraforming miniscreen. Look on the x/y axis for the yellow dot, representing the planet's current conditions. Your goal is to get it as close to the point (0,0) as possible, right in the middle of the bull's eye.
You do that by manipulating the atmosphere and temperature levels. Temperature is the x axis, and can be raised with meteor showers and lowered with ice comets, both available in systems the galaxy over. Atmosphere, the y axis, is handled similarly, with atmosphere generators and vacuums. These are temporary solutions; if you don't do anything else, the planet will rapidly return to its prior state. If the orbit of a planet has a green tail, then it's already close and it won't be hard to terraform. If it's blue or red, then it will be more difficult to do so.
In order to permanently alter the environmental conditions of a planet, you need plants. Have at least one each of a small, medium, and large plant in your cargo hold, then begin terraforming. Once you temporarily raise the T-score of the planet with the generators, vacuums, comets, and meteors, you must deposit the plants on the surface. This will stabilize the T-score, preventing it from going back to its barren state.
Once you've got a full set of plants established, you'll need two different species of herbivore and a carnivore/omnivore. Deposit all three onto that planet and you will complete that level of terraforming and will gain access to improved colonies on that planet. If you so choose, you can continue to improve the T-score further if you wish, but keep in mind you will need 3 more species of plant, 2 more species of herbivore, and one more new omni/carnivore.
Note that you cannot raise a planet's T score by more than one at a time. You must take it up once, stabilize it, fill out its food chain, and then proceed to the next level. After you've done this several times, you will eventually gain access to better terraforming tools that are more powerful or run off the ship's power.
11. Tired of the forced Symmetry? Try this:
p.s. I want expansions already, congrats Maxis, you've hooked me.
I will repost this here because it sums up my experience with space and I'm sure anyone who has encountered the Spode people can sympathize. Spoilered for HUEG
I still think that more time should have been spent in the actual development of Spore, to flesh it out more. Sims 2 was similiar, playing the game on it's own was a fairly bare-bones expierence, so to get the best out of it you really had to buy all the expansions.
Holy shit, that's one hell of a business plan.
And yeah, those Spode guys are total dicks. I'm fine with all the otehr religous guys, but those Spode guys pretty much declare war on me when they find out I actually worship something else entirely:
Lets all look for it!
All hail the Hypno-Spode!
Edit - you get the secret ending by travelling to the centre of the galaxy.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
Thats not the secret ending. Already been there. Thats the ending. I think if you collect all the badges before going to the middle you get the secret ending.
All hail the Hypno-Spode!
We are doing a great disservice if this is NOT added to the OP.
Eh, the problem I see is that it's hard to "flesh out" a game like Spore. You're shooting for the lowest mark you can hit while still making it not overly simplistic. By that, I mean, some of us are hardcore RTS fanatics, but you don't want to scare off a majority (yes, I posit a majority of the target audience would NOT want something deep and complex for Civ or Tribal) of your target audience because you can always add expansions or release updates to add into that later. Hell, it fits better as an expansion. If you don't want to deal with a more challenging Civ/Tribal stage, you don't have to. You could do this with difficulty modes, but if you had different resources and tech trees and all of this common RTS stuff, you're going to scare off the casual gamers, which is a bad thing.
Basically, I think the game has been completed/polished enough to accomplish what it was trying to accomplish. Sure, it's not perfect, but The Sims/The Sims 2 weren't perfect when they came out. The original Sim City was good for what it was at the time, but retroactively, wasn't "great" either, even if its later iterations improved on it. Spore is a hell of a concept with lots for Maxis to improve on, and I'm perfectly happy with that. $80 well spent, IMO.
EDIT:
Reading some of the comments make me laugh. People wanted a deeper Civ/Tribal stage, but are pissed off by the "micromanagement" involved in the economy at the Space level. Lawlz. Or in other words, they want what they want WHERE they want it, but if it's applied in a different area in a different way, God forbid that happens.
I think the spice trading makes sense. Is it meticulous and downright boring? Yeah, it can be. But look at it this way: It makes sense within the constraints of the game. You can't just beam out to hundreds of the other empires there are in Space. Hell, you have to be close or in their star system before you can even talk to them. That right there necessitates traveling. Sure, I agree that trade routes should help out in cash instead of just giving you spice that you have to go sell. But the thing about selling the spice is that it gives the player freedom to find the best price for a resource. If that was done automatically for you, you're taking away choices from the player and simplifying the game. Maybe you don't feel like trading with the empire you're at war with, even if they have the better price. Sure, this choice wouldn't have an impact on the play of the game (would it?), but I am all in favor of having that choice. Another important thing this brings up is this: look at Spore's UI. Almost the entire game is devoid of menus. That's a good thing, if you ask me. To add some of the stuff we want or want to change, you'd bog the game down in a ton of menus. That's not what the game is about. This isn't supposed to be the best RTS ever or anything CLOSE to it. Shit, it's not even supposed to be in the RTS genre as a game.
Ok, you win.
The hardcore gamers get to spend lots of moneys on HARDCORE CIVIVSPOREAWESOME, and everyone else who doesn't really care just doesn't spend any money.
That's an even better business plan, dammit.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Is that where William Shatner fights a giant floating head with his Klingon battlecruiser?
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Weird.
Are they actually touching the ground, or have you got any other propulsion stuff on it?
If neither of those, I don't see what's wrong. I believe I've made a mech that walks, but my memorys kind of hazy after about the 20th vehicle.
It could be because you are zoomed out too far.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
It's, "Who is Spode?" And the answer is, "I don't mind Spode so much; it's his followers that I can't stand."
Edit: question posited by a coworker of mine: can your homeworld start in a binary system?
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
They are actually touching the ground in the editor, yes, and I don't have any propulsion on it.
The mech glides on it's legs no matter how close to or far from it I am.
I bet Spode is a pretty nice guy. He probably just sits around all day, helps a few species out on the path of evolution, then kicks back for the rest of the day.
Which is when his worshippers take over, DECIMATING EVERYTHING HE MADE.
I don't believe so, though it's possible. You'd have to be incredibly lucky/have a LOAD OF SAVES.
Binary systems are just plain awesome anyway.
All my complaints about this game being too 'casual' were immediately dismissed when my 12 year old sister had a shot at playing this.
She was having a great time, but she was having a lot of problems figuring out how to run things even though the controls were very simple RTS in tribe mode. I think if you consider the target audience, spore makes perfect sense as a game.
Yeah, it actually took me three tries before I got it. The best way is to pause the game a lot and constantly re-affirm your course, especially since you (like me) are probably going to just run from all the Grox.
Ditto. I spent a good half an hour on the phone with Mom just trying to get it installed and registered.
No...while the casuals are buying Spore Pets and Spore Civ Entertainment District and Spore Wild Weather and all of that stuff, the hardcores will buy what I proposed. Or, to put the argument another way, in my opinion, it's ALWAYS better to have the complaint be "it's too easy/simply" as opposed to "it's too hard/complex." Especially in regards to the casual gamers.
That, and that's not how it would be marketed at all. I think you can get the casuals to buy into things like more building/function options, tech trees, and additional resources for new options, but starting them OUT that way would have been a poor choice.
EDIT:
Anecdotal evidence of target audience people enjoying this makes me really, really happy. It also justifies in my mind why there has been a Sporepedia genocide of wang creatures and vagina monsters.
And basically anyone will enjoy it, because they haven't seen that bloody GDC video, or any of the stupid hype that somehow 'ruined' it for literally dozens of players (read:trolls)
OLOL IT EES NOT SIMEARTH+SIMCITY+EVERYGAMEWILLWRIGHTEVERMADE ROLLED INTO ONE
FAIL.
edit: also in regards to expansions I think there was an interview a while back where they were discussing expansions and Wright said they were considering to stick the underwater phase back in as an expansion
Apologies, I misread what you said.
You're right, my dad and my sister have both enjoyed it, neither of them particularly play games much, and after running through the controls, and they've especially loved the creator, but it seems there isn't a adult/child/small toddler on Earth/the Moon/Spode IV who hasn't played it and loved it.
First group I contacted were Spode. I did like...seven missions for them and they stayed
I killed them all, and intend to kill any other Spode-worshiping races I find.
While we're on this thought:
I hope you're right. I really enjoy Spore, but the transition from Civ to Space is extremely disjointed. The fact that the game takes on new and different playstyles during each stage is fantastic. What is NOT fantastic about this is previous features are removed. IE. The ability to create and control vehicle units for your colonies.
It doesn't matter that I conquered my home planet with a fleet of ships that blotted out the sun, because apparently space aliens are completely invisible to all the colony controlled vehicles. They fly/drive around aimlessly, while the turrets shoot haphazardly into the air shooting everything except for our enemies.
Basically, I hope the next expansion enables Civ mode while still in space. I would really like to be able to drop a colony onto an inhabited planet and take it over with my armies, rather than my spaceship. Or, y'know... have colonies that can defend them-fucking-selves.
Make it so.
And kill the UrgglBrggl. There just annoying.
On another note... my first attempt at a fully clothed creature:
And if I am the first person to think of talking about this (even though im not the first to do it)...
DIBS.
All hail the Hypno-Spode!
Being able to make fleets, or something similiar, and station them at planets would be extremely helpful. It's kinda disheartening when a empire comes at you with 400 guys and you have yourself+about 4 othetr guys, and it's even worse, and slightly depressing, when you actually win.
Although, as Twisted Fate said in his post, that owuld obviously be one of the ULTIMATEHARDCORE packs..
Also, who else would buy a advanced Terraforming expansion so damn hard?
Also! I've a T1 world with a colony. I wanted to upgrade it, so I dropped an atmosphere thingy... aaaand nothing happened. How can I increase the terrascore without using the atmosphere generatorathingy?
You can unlock terraforming tools that run on ship energy instead of having charges for a cost.
Are you sure that planet NEEDS more atmosphere? If you check the circle thing on the left, where the minimap usually is, you can see the condition of the planet and what you need to change.
That's one ecodisaster too many my friend.
I never asked for this!
I could write up a extremely long guide, but basically:
You have to balance temperature and denseness of atmoshphere to get closer and closer to the middle. Of course, I'm guessing you haven't got the temperature tools yet, so you'lll have to wait for a bit till you can get those. Apart from that, it's not too complicated.