Spore

[Dragoon Knight]

Well, I received my copy this morning (by morning, I mean 4pm, when I woke up).  Started playing it very shortly after opening the package, haven't stopped until now... almost 12 hours straight.  I have no qualms about dubbing this the greatest Simulation game I've ever played.

It's got enough features to class it as at least 5 games in 1.  The entire first stage is a rip-off of flOw for the PSP, granted, but that doesn't make it any less amazing.  The stage afterwards is a lot of fun, too, allowing you to build and experience your creature's abilities.  I made mine excellent jumpers, with wings that allowed them to glide.  Tribal and Civilisation stages are more similar to classic Sim / RTS games, but the sheer customisation is astounding.  I love being able to make my own everything.  I've only just begun the Space stage, but I've done a heap of missions and fended off pirates from my homeworld, so I feel I've got a good grasp of the entire game now.

I would really recommend buying this game if you haven't already.  It just has so much to offer - well worth the years of waiting. :)

[IxianMace]

I picked up my copy four days ago and have been thoroughly enjoying the game since. I've also reached the space stage after shaping my own race from its most humblest beginnings as a micro-organism.

So far, I'm allied with three alien races, and am helping one of them against their enemy. I'll probably be going to war with another species too, since they have an annoying habit of asking for tributes more often than I can tolerate. Once I unlock the 'Uber Turret' and fortify my colonies even more, I'll be making it my personal duty to exterminate each and every one of their planets. >:( Or maybe I'll abduct some of their citizens and drop them on a planet with no atmosphere. :D

Have you made any creations or anything that you'd care to share? Besides my own creature, I've designed a couple of vehicles, an aircraft, a house, a factory, and a town hall. I'm currently playing in offline mode because I don't want stuff uploading and downloading in the background yet, but if you want to share stuff, feel free to add me as a buddy in your Sporepedia.

My Spore nickname is 'IxianMace'.

[Dragoon Knight]

Sure, I'd be happy to share.  Had some trouble finding another one of my friends using the Buddy system, but I'll try and find you and add you right away. :)

My Spore Screen Name is Leivan.

[Dragoon Knight]

Bah, a word of warning: saving your game is still very important, despite this being a very "online" game.  Just lost a whole day's progress because Spore crashed/closed without warning.  Seems to be quite a few bugs they still haven't ironed out.

For example, one of the space-faring species I met was myself.  A totally identical race, with the same Empire name, but somehow not me.  And when you rush to defend your allies from attack, you'd better hope you don't accidentally shoot one of their ships, because they'll attack you.  Even if everyone else is friendly, they'll kill you.

Same goes for attacking their cities - the game will forever think that you are trying to capture them, and plonk an annoying "you're attacking this star system" sign above the star.

Despite all this, though, it's still a bloody good game.  Think I'll go and start another race now... or maybe I'll be more peaceful in my space relations this time... HMM.  Can't decide.

[Andrew]

Is the DRM really bad?

If you install it 3 times, after that you have to phone EA.

Does DRM guarantee Spore is destined for extinction?

It's rating at amazon.com is nice. 565 reviews giving 1 star, and around 20 giving other ratings.

I also have no idea how DRM is going to stop piracy. I see 50,000 people getting it from just one tracker alone.

[IxianMace]

Sure, I'd be happy to share.  Had some trouble finding another one of my friends using the Buddy system, but I'll try and find you and add you right away. :)

My Spore Screen Name is Leivan.

I've tried searching for 'Leivan' in the in-game Sporepedia a few times now, but it always comes up with zero matches. However I can see your profile on the official EA Sporepedia site, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

Is the DRM really bad?

If you install it 3 times, after that you have to phone EA.

Does DRM guarantee Spore is destined for extinction?

It's rating at amazon.com is nice. 565 reviews giving 1 star, and around 20 giving other ratings.

I also have no idea how DRM is going to stop piracy. I see 50,000 people getting it from just one tracker alone.

I'm not sure what copy protection measures have been implemented in Spore (if any), but I don't see a system such as the one you've described surviving for long. What corporations that implement restrictive copy protection measures such as online authentication fail to understand is that they're just encouraging piracy to proliferate by making the original product hard to use for consumers.

I haven't run into any technical difficulties with the game yet, but I do agree that it needs patching to fix some bugs. If I have any qualms with the gameplay, it's in the space stage. I think that's where the game trips up a bit. Playing the space stage can feel like a bit of a chore more than a fun creative trip through the galaxy. I have to ignore lots of tranmissions, requests, and mission objectives just to get some time to myself in order to terraform, trade, or just explore. I wish the game would wait far longer before pestering me for my attention about some eco-disaster or alien assault. Basically speaking, the pace needs to slow down a lot in the space stage.

[Beonid]

Well, Amazon has deleted at least one of the more outspoken reviews about how shoddy the game is. Just like the old times, with 1 star reviews for Hunters ( possibly Sandworms) of Dune being deleted.

We must rise up against this censorship! Bring out your weapons, and storm the Amazon filth!

Or not...

[Dragoon Knight]

I posted on the EA Spore Tech Support forums, and apparently the whole friends list issue is limited to those users that fall under the EU server's umbrella o' coverage.  The entire domain is apparently borked, and some kind soul posted a solution to it, which shall be re-posted here for great justice.

Step 1:

Go to the US Sporepedia page - http://www.spore.com/sporepedia -- Note the lack of the EU sub-domain!

Step 2:

In the top right hand corner, you'll see a login link - click it! (http://www.spore.com/login.jsp)

Step 3:

View your friend's profile (e.g. a link to mine - http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Leivan) -- Make sure you get any capital letters correct!  And you have to login, otherwise you'll get an internal server error.

Step 4:

Click on the yellow plus sign next to their name, and they will be added to your Buddy List the next time you log into Spore itself.

Note: Never go to The Official Spore

[Kirby Gotenks absorbed]

Well, Amazon has deleted at least one of the more outspoken reviews about how shoddy the game is. Just like the old times, with 1 star reviews for Hunters ( possibly Sandworms) of Dune being deleted.

We must rise up against this censorship! Bring out your weapons, and storm the Amazon filth!

Or not...

I hate it when people do that... Amazon in my opinion are semi-hypocrites.

[Khan]

How can you be a semi-hypocrite?

[Caid Ivik]

The game actually went frozen just after the start, without any crash or making a buglog, and the thing even wanted to access internet. And so I condemn it too...

[Dante]

It's supposed to access the internet. Not vital as I understand it, but certainly an enhancement of the game. It makes creatures from other players available, mixing up the worlds a bit.

I played it and had fun until the Tribal stage. Got bored then. Will eventually go back to it, but right now I have more important things to do.

Designing things is fun though.

[IxianMace]

As far as I can tell, the only time the game needed to access the Internet, was when it was first installed. That was for online registration/authentication of the game and setting up of a Spore account.

Otherwise, the only time I go online with the game is to update my 'Achievements' page and to download stuff off my buddy list.

Speaking of downloaded creations, do you happen to always play in online mode Dragoon Knight?

I've got numerous iterations of what I assume are the same creatures in different evolutionary phases, and I was wondering whether you meant to upload them all?

If not, which ones do you like the most or would you prefer that I keep?

Otherwise, I really like the Celesians. They were fun creatures to interact with in the creature phase. A bit hard to impress though. :-X They can also really stay airbourne for a long time. :O

Sporepedia 1

Sporepedia 2

[Dragoon Knight]

I always login automatically when Spore starts up - wouldn't have it any other way.  The whole idea behind the game is to share creations freely, without barriers.

The Celesians you see there are an earlier version - I deleted them locally.  You can probably see the newer lot if you check my profile again.  But you don't need my permission / advice on which to keep and which to discard.  If you don't like the look of a particular creation, you can remove it from your world.

And yeah, all of my creatures are designed to fly for approximately ten years. :P

[DragoFire]

Well I've been playing it for a little while now and even had the Creature Creator too, my kid love it (easy mode thought), and I've been playing around with it in Hard mode.

But here's one most of you will like!

Direct link to creature details!

[Dragoon Knight]

I saw something remarkably similar to that a few weeks ago, except about 3000 years more evolved.  LetoSpawn, I think it was called - an upright worm with a face and atrophied arms / legs.  Was most disturbing seeing an entire tribe of them wiggling about my planet. :P

[IxianMace]

I don't know about you guys, but many people have been experiencing strange behaviour in game like invisible creatures, horrendous load times, sound delays/out of sync, and so on after patching spore to 1.01. I've been getting all sorts of strange bugs that weren't there before the patch myself. Very annoying, and almost game breaking.

For those of you who are interested in the whole DRM issue, you might like to read this article. Basically speaking, it appears that Electronic Arts is going to review their policy on game activation to make it more flexible and not so restrictive. While this is a far cry from completely removing the utterly useless SecuROM anti-piracy software which allegedly installs itself on the machine Spore is installed on without the user being informed, I feel it is a step in the right direction.

[DragoFire]

I saw something remarkably similar to that a few weeks ago, except about 3000 years more evolved.  LetoSpawn, I think it was called - an upright worm with a face and atrophied arms / legs.  Was most disturbing seeing an entire tribe of them wiggling about my planet. :P

I think I've seen that one. That one of mine I've faced off against in Spore, put it this way I wasn't the one that came out of the meeting better off, even with 3x 250hp in my party(all killed in 5 minutes and only one sandworm lightly hurt!). I think I made it too good, hate to see it as a solo creature or one of the giant ones.

[DragoFire]

I don't know about you guys, but many people have been experiencing strange behaviour in game like invisible creatures, horrendous load times, sound delays/out of sync, and so on after patching spore to 1.01. I've been getting all sorts of strange bugs that weren't there before the patch myself. Very annoying, and almost game breaking.

No issues with any of what you've quoted. I'm running the latest patch too.

I'd be interested in the spec's of those peoples PC's with problems, my PC is over 7 years old and runs it fine. I'm wondering if it's a Vista problem like most game issues these days.

Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz

ATI 1690 AGP 512Mb

1Gb RAM

1Tb HDD Space

SB Live 5.1 Plat

Windows XP Pro SP2

[IxianMace]

Well I'm not running Vista and my specs are somewhat shy of yours. However I'm getting the same kind of bugs other people with machines of varying specs are getting, so I don't think it's system related. There is an element of inconsistency with the bugs though, which is very strange.

The official Spore forums (dubbed the 'The Sporum') have been in an uproar over the past few days and the week immediately following the release of the game. They were in an uproar again following the release of the patch.

I can't remember all the details about system specs off the top of my head, but I do remember that all sorts of problems occurred on a lot of machines of varying configurations.

Bug Report Thread

Spore Crashing. Post your issues and fixes here.

Spore Patch Thread Problems & Solutions

I think there were a few more threads other than the three I've linked to above where people were generally complaining about problems with the game, bugs, crashes, etc. But those should keep you busy if you want to see what people have been saying about the game and the issues they've experienced.

[Caid Ivik]

I guess the problem is in Vista, on XP it runs perfectly. It reminds me of good old Sacrifice, so I take some of the curses back  ;)  Is it possible to make a flying creature? My five-armed being feasts on some dragons who tend to flee upwards...

[IxianMace]

I'm running XP and I'm encountering problems. They do not appear to be limited to a certain type of graphics card or operating system. However some people get them, and others do not. But hey, if you're not having any trouble that's good.

It is not possible to create a real flying creature. You can slap on wings and all those parts which have a good glide stat, but at the end of the day you're still a ground dweller unable to achieve self-sustained flight. Better wings enable your creature to glide further. Think Sugar Glider and not Eagle. :P

[DragoFire]

I guess the problem is in Vista, on XP it runs perfectly. It reminds me of good old Sacrifice, so I take some of the curses back  ;)  Is it possible to make a flying creature? My five-armed being feasts on some dragons who tend to flee upwards...

Ah.. good old Sacrifice, great game shame I never finished it, might have to have another go at it!

[IxianMace]

Long time no post. Just wondering whether anyone here is still playing this game? There have been another few patches out since this thread last saw activity. Some new parts were included in the latest patch. There has also been a separate 'Cute and Creepy' parts expansion pack released. I haven't bought it.

A few months down the road, and how are people finding the game? I've pretty much stopped playing it. I've been from the cell stage to the 'end' of the space stage at least four times now, and the game really seems to lack replay value.

[DragoFire]

Yip still playing this and do have the 'Cute and Creepy' pack. Currently evolving the Klingons! :P