Spore is indeed a huge game with revolutionary features, but much of it could be done better.

I doubt that there is room for Spore expansion packs, since there is nowhere to expand. (A Tetris-sort puzzle, representing chemical evolution, would add to the timeline, but hardly produce any synergy effect.)

After The Sims 3 is released in February next year, Maxis should start working at Spore 2. The game engine and interface are already decent, and could be kept. On the other hand, gameplay needs to be improved.

Here are my ideas:

Simple Start is a recurring theme. Each new game phase should start immediately as the old phase is finished, if possible without forcing the player through a dialog box or a designer interface. This brings the player closer to the game, and makes phases more continuous.

Cell phase - renamed to Water phase
* Simple start: Creatures should start as herbivore by default. Carnivore ability would be available in the cell designer.
* Half-way through the phase, the creature should become multi-cellular, allowing fins, shell, teeth, tentacles, simple legs (eg crab legs) and other body parts. This would allow the player to make animals more similar to fish, squid, starfish or trilobites (or they could keep the original, slug-like design).

Creature phase - renamed to Land phase
* Simple start: Water phase should start when the creature develops air-breathing (invisible). The player should not be sent to Creature designer, instead the creature starts the phase as is - without legs, or with very simple legs (see above). Start-up creatures in this phase should be thought of as Coelacanths, worms, slugs or arthropods. One of the first quests would be mating, entering the creature creator, and adding proper legs.
* Allow creatures to live amphibious, seeking food and shelter in shallow water as well as on land. There should be a Swimming skill too (apparently high in startup creatures with fins). Keep the deep sea off limits, though.
* Offer more missions to earn DNA. Climbing a mountain/tree, building a new nest, gathering an amount of food in the nest, stealing an egg, etc.
* Variable size, possible to change with each generation. Size should also be game-critical. A giant animal would of course be a better fighter, but would easily get starved, and also cause panic among other animals, though friendly. Small animals would rely on stealth and evasion.
* Climbing skill, for reaching trees and mountains. You should even be able to use a treetop as a nest.
* Real flying skill. Wings should cost a lot of DNA, and using them should cost food, dependent on creature size. Too large animals would be effectively prevented from flying.
* Vision, hearing and smell skills, depending on body parts. Smell highlights food and other animals, even when out of sight. Longer nights make sensory skills more important.
* New body parts with special abilities. Womb: can mate outside nest. Fat tissue: Larger food reserve.

Tribal phase
* Simple start: Characters should start naked. An early quest would access the outfit generator.
* Allow domestication of plants.
* Missions to earn food, buildings or outfit details. Crawl into a cave, chop down a tree, kill a pack of predators, etc.

Civilization phase
* Simple start: No vehicles in the beginning, only infantry units. Allow ships, cars and aircraft as technology advances.
* Cities should not be hard-coded as economic, religious or military. They should still be specialized, though.
* Divide the phase into ages - for instance Bronze, Iron, Gunpowder, Industrial, Nuclear and Space, as in Empire Earth and similar games. A player comes to Space phase by advancing to the last age OR conquering the world.
* Buildings should look more pre-industrial.
* Bandits/rebels/pirates.

Space phase
* Simple start: In the first missions in planet view, the player should control an air unit, playing the role of an air-force officer applying for space service. After the planet view mission, the space program officially begins, and the player has to design a spaceship. Then, the player would have to carry out a few missions in the planetary system (maybe building a colony), before getting access to interstellar view.
* A ranking system with more real-world military ranks, with Admiral close to the top.
* No full-scale wars before the player can assemble a large fleet.

What do you think?

Heres mine.

Cell phase: Pretty much the same theres really no room for improvement here.

Sea Phase: I want a real sea phase this time god damnit. Although I imagine it was taken out just for expansion pack hoaring.

Creature phase: Start out as an amphibian, move on to becoming full scalled land creature later.

Tribe phase I think is about as good it will get.

Civ phase Starts in ancient time and you can only be on nyour continent at first. You have to get long sea travel before you can get across the sea to communicate with them. Some sort of tech tree.

Your "Sea Phase" and my multi-cellular level of "Water Phase" seem to be more or less the same thing.

A separate Sea Phase would take a lot of designer work, and hardly sell any expansion packs.

Change you from singal cellular to multicellular is a big change. If I had it my way there would be a eukaryote phase, and a prokaryote phase. Of course I will never get that wish, but changing from one to two cells is jsut stupid in one phase.

I think you are wrong about expansion packs. There will be many expansion packs.

What would this "sea phase" look like, then? Would it be 2D like Cell, or 3D like Creature? If it's 2D, why can't it be part of Cell? If it's 3D, why can't it be part of Creature?

I think you are wrong about expansion packs. There will be many expansion packs.
What would be the themes of these expansion packs, then?

I would like to see a more developed fleet system in the Space stage. Like the ability to recruit a guarding fleet for your home planets. After all, it gets really tedious to have to save all your planets all the time.

What would be the themes of these expansion packs, then?

Spore: Apartment Life
Spore: Free Time
Spore: Bon Voyage
Spore: Seasons
Spore: Pets
Spore: Open for Business
Spore: Night Life
Spore: University
Spore: IKEA
Spore: Kitchen & Bath
Spore: Teen Style
Spore: H&M Fashion
Spore: Celebration
Spore: Glamour Life
Spore: Family Fun Pack
Spore: Apartment Pets
Spore: Castaway

And don't forget of course, COMING SOON!

Spore: Spooky Clothing!

Order yours now for only $39.95!

Spore: Apartment Life
Spore: Free Time
Spore: Bon Voyage
Spore: Seasons
Spore: Pets
Spore: Open for Business
Spore: Night Life
Spore: University
Spore: IKEA
Spore: Kitchen & Bath
Spore: Teen Style
Spore: H&M Fashion
Spore: Celebration
Spore: Glamour Life
Spore: Family Fun Pack
Spore: Apartment Pets
Spore: Castaway

And don't forget of course, COMING SOON!

Spore: Spooky Clothing!

Order yours now for only $39.95!

I don't think any of those will happen, but there will definitly be expansions which are only just worth buying.

What would be the themes of these expansion packs, then?
I think you are wrong about expansion packs. There will be many expansion packs.
A separate Sea Phase would take a lot of designer work, and hardly sell any expansion packs.

A sea phase would probably be about as easy as create corporations for civ (ok maybe a bit harder) but much of the code would already be there as it would be based on the cell stage but made more advanced, the hard part would be making it 3D.

But about expansions, EA Games has already explicitly said that there will be expansions, just the quality of them will be in doubt.

Simple Start is a recurring theme. Each new game phase should start immediately as the old phase is finished, if possible without forcing the player through a dialog box or a designer interface. This brings the player closer to the game, and makes phases more continuous.



This is already done by pressing the ESC button, which makes game time about 20% shorter.

Personally, I think the XP's will add a couple new phases (the missing sea phase between cell and creature) and there will be XP's to increase the depth of the stages (eg: Spore Civ Complete adding tech tree, multiple units, etc) and then there will be XP's purely for aesthetic reasons (eg: Spore wings, and Spore legs etc).

There is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much room to move in Spore I'm predicting at least 10 XP's in the next 3-4 years.

Personally, I think the XP's will add a couple new phases (the missing sea phase between cell and creature) and there will be XP's to increase the depth of the stages (eg: Spore Civ Complete adding tech tree, multiple units, etc) and then there will be XP's purely for aesthetic reasons (eg: Spore wings, and Spore legs etc).

There is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much room to move in Spore I'm predicting at least 10 XP's in the next 3-4 years.

I agree, it is probably the most XPable game ever, with just so much lacking, and just so much it can expand into.

They could make the game be about evolution.

Give it an autosave for when it randomly crashes after an hour or two of playing without saving

Will there be expansion packs? Well, money talks. Today, almost all best-selling games get EPs, for the better or worse.

The ideal EP extends the timeline. Starcraft: Brood War and Europa Universalis III: Napoleon's Ambition are good examples.
However, the Spore timeline already stretches from the beginning to infinity. If Spore consisted only of Cell, Creature, Tribe and Civilization, the Space phase would be perfect for an expansion (since it does not only extends the timeline, but also revisits it).

Maybe Spore 2 should be released in one pack for each episode. The Water phase could be released as freeware, the Land phase as a core game, Tribe, Civilization and Space as expansions, and a MMORPG subscription for Space. Even if EA charges $20 for each EP, they would surely make a profit anyway - since the game is larger than the sum of is parts.

Besides from consumer costs, expansion packs have several problems. The interface gets cluttered, the system requirements rise, and balancing problems and annoying features from the original game usually remain. Also, the sequel gets delayed. I'd rather have no expansions for Spore 1, and Spore 2 in early 2010 (with a space EP later the same year), than two-three expansions for Spore 1, and Spore 2 in 2012.

However, Maxis is already planning expansion packs, probably containing flora editors and underwater creatures.

http://www.sporerevolution.com/spore_expansion_packs/
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2008/08/19/spore-expansion-pack-with-flora-editor-planned.htm

Seems like we are up to something with underwater creatures.

Most of the references in this have been to the sims which has a kajillion expansions.

EA is also cares less about what you wan't then any other game company... ever.

This is already done by pressing the ESC button, which makes game time about 20% shorter.
The editors should remain, but they should not be available in the very beginning of a new phase - the player should need to complete some basic missions first.

Advancement from one age to another is exciting enough, with or without cut scenes. This is, to some extent, spoilt by the design interfaces.

Deepening each aspect of the game, making more interesting choices, and making each phase more like a good game of that focus would be interesting

Tribal, Civ and Space phases have multiple games that they could reference and become somewhat more like in deepening them.

Cell and creature Phase are somewhat unique

Another expansion might allow drastically different life forms
Aquatic Creatures that stay aquatic in Tribal and Civ phases

Creatures that have different Terraforming Targets because they evolved on different worlds

Cell phase with other more basic biochemical choices (oxygen based metabolism, etc.) as opposed to anatomical ones

In each phase you become the dominant ________ and in the next phase you face the same _________ but different new variations

Cell->become dominant Metabolism (kingdom or domain or higher level)
Creature->become dominant Anatomy(phylum or class) of that Metabolism
Tribal->become dominant Psychology/Sociology(species or race) of that Anatomy
Civ->become dominant Political/Economy (civilization or culture) of that Psychology/Sociology
Space->[here you start competing with groups that truly developed seperately]

Your "Sea Phase" and my multi-cellular level of "Water Phase" seem to be more or less the same thing.

A separate Sea Phase would take a lot of designer work, and hardly sell any expansion packs.

It was already "done", 3 years ago. You can GUARANTEE they axed it from the original game for an expansion.


Proof: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Spore&emb=0&aq=f#

Wait for 2 minutes in.

Nice video. But it is apparently the same game engine as the Creature phase.

My point is that each phase has its own game engine. We don't need more game engines, we need more diversity in gameplay. And water creatures could be played both with the Cell engine, and the Creature engine.

I wasn't trying to make a different point than you, I was pointing out the fact that may of the things that many people want for more diversity were in the game working fine and are not there now specifically to make more money in the future. For example, in one of the videos on google video (Not sure which) Will Wright mentions the fact that you wouldn't have to leave the ocean if you didn't want to, you could civilize underneath the waves.

Axed for an Expansion I guarantee.

Just like the Sims, it is very clear now that Spore is a bare bones release, set up to be able to plug in as many expansion packs as EA wants to make.

Although I realize I should have seen this before, I do now. :P

Aquatic Creatures that stay aquatic in Tribal and Civ phases

Not sure about that.

Fully aquatic animals (whales, fish, squid, crabs etc) might theoretically become sentient, and even develop language and hands. But they would never be able to use fire. Without fire - no metals. Without metal - no steam power, internal combustion, electricity or other technology as we know it.

An aquatic animal would have extreme difficulties traveling on land, let alone through air or outer space. (Transporting live dolphins is extremely difficult, even with help from humans.)

But this is a game, and it doesn't need to be realistic, does it?

A Tribal Phase in the sea would need to be completely different. Battles would be in slow-motion. Musical instruments would need a totally new approach. And forget about torching down a village.

A lot of design work would be needed. I would like to see that work invested somwhere else - for instance in improvement of the current Tribe and Civ phases.


Creatures that have different Terraforming Targets because they evolved on different worlds

Totally agree.


Cell->become dominant Metabolism (kingdom or domain or higher level)
(...)
Space->[here you start competing with groups that truly developed seperately]


A very interesting approach to Spore, which shows why the Space phase is so great.

Oh! For the tribal stage, instead of completely separate species, there'd be the same species as you but with different variations. Like how there were neanderthals, cromagnums and homo sapiens and homo sapiens won out.

And to have a feudal age to gain control of your civ region. All the while, the unit progression would be infantry for tribal, armored infantry with mounted infantry half way through the game and sail boats for feudal, then all the parts for armor and ships and aircraft for civilization.

What should be added in Spore 2

-Big planets with diffrent climate zones so diffrent creatures enjoy diffrent climates

-more specilization, creatures would adopt more to the enviorment, depending on existing creatures, making the world feel more alive.

- Make the creature/tribal/civilzation phases more advanced,

-with specialization choices, like your creature just hunt a specific animal or every creature alive, giving both benefíts and drawbacks
. And make the creature phase longer so you can feel the evolution, that its a long process

-add a water phase

Oh! For the tribal stage, instead of completely separate species, there'd be the same species as you but with different variations. Like how there were neanderthals, cromagnums and homo sapiens and homo sapiens won out.

And to have a feudal age to gain control of your civ region. All the while, the unit progression would be infantry for tribal, armored infantry with mounted infantry half way through the game and sail boats for feudal, then all the parts for armor and ships and aircraft for civilization.Hmm, the civ stage already has slight variations- each nation has a slightly different skin colour.

Are you idiots already looking for Spore 2? It might be years before they even consider developing Spore 2!

Get used to Spore and stop getting ahead of yourselves.

The Creature and Civilization stages leave a lot to be desired. Space coudl use some improvements too. What I would lik it see:

1) Instead of adding a seperate "Sea" phase, it should be combined into the Creature phase. Players can chose to go onto land immediately in their slug-like form, or remain underwater and develop legs/fins.

2) There should be more things to do in Creature then just eating(or befriending) things. Instead of finding fossils around, you would do quest for DNA points and additional parts. Climb a tree for better hands. Eat stuff for better mouths. Run/Jump to evolve legs.

3) Both Tribal and Civilization phases should have more tools/vehicles. "Heavy" and "Light" devisions of each current vehichle would be a start. Bombers and Fighters, Tanks and Cars, Armored Cars and Light Caravans are some examples. Also more diplomacy would be nice.

When it comes to Tribe, once again, everything should be doubled. Instead of just instruments, there could be Fireworks, Smoke Shapes and Inscence. The Domesctic part could have Rakes(Agriculture) Hammers(Can build walls and outposts, improve building HP), and Baskets(can carry more meat/fish/seaweed), and weapons could have Club and Shield(Higher HP) Bows & Arrows(hybrid of torch/spear) and an AoE, low-damage weapon, like a very, very large club.



I just have one gripe about space. Give us some freaking patrols we can hire to take care of ecodisasters/pirates for us, even if it costs (a lot of) money. I can't be bothered to run halfway across the galaxy to save an ecosystem if I'm fighting the Grox!

Oh, and some cloaking device would be nice to. Makes you invisible when activated, but consumes double the energy while moving.

Are you idiots already looking for Spore 2? It might be years before they even consider developing Spore 2!

Get used to Spore and stop getting ahead of yourselves.
It's our lives.

I guess that Spore 2 will get released some time around 2011-2012. Major game titles take around 3-4 years to develop, so this is certainly the right time to start making up ideas for Spore 2.

Well for a more pseudo-realistic evolution at all stages game

1. you get Food points to increase your species population (the other members of your species wander in seperate areas and get food points too.. they will tend to follow your lead in terms of cooperating or competing with others for food and what food sources to target)

2. Each species accumulates DNA points based on its total population, once a species has enough DNA points, it spawns a New species. If you control the species, then you can decide when the DNA points will get used to make a new species and HOW they will get used (there is a also a maximum number of DNA points that CAN be used in making a new species, the rest of the DNA points are left with the old species). If you make a new species, you lose control of the old species and need to get food points for your existing species.


3. Also You could select for a % of the DNA spent to be Random when making a new species. So when a new species is made, you can only spend a fraction, the rest of the DNA points are spent making other changes (although none that reverse the effect of the changes you made)

The Random % could either be a setting at the beginning of the game [Design v. Darwin] and/or things cost less when Random points are spent on them

Once the new species was made (with both Designed and Random characteristics) then you would chose whether to take control of the new species or the old one.

4. The division shouldn't be food/friend it should be competitor/cooperator. (so the interactions are ... fight with prey for food, fight with competitor to keep food for yourself, charm partner to share food)

5. If your species died, then you would take control of the nearest "relative" species still alive

6. Different Climates on the planet, in Creature phase, the different 'nests' will all have one 'Climate Zone', but the Climate Zone of the nests can change (since this is over Geological time)



A similar model could be used for the other stages, each would have Evolutionary stages where one X developed out of another
so in Civ one government/Empire would develop from the breakdown of another and attempt to replace the previous empire (Greece, Rome, England, America, the various Dynasties of China, etc.) so if you decided to take control of the Confederacy when it formed, when it died you would get control of the Union (The next closest relative)

so

Creature: basic resource=food, advanced resource=DNA
You control one creature and other creatures of that species act independently (but they follow your pattern)
creatures collect food for the species as a whole,
Food -> Pop size,
Pop size->DNA,
DNA-> spent on modifying/adding/removing parts on a New species
Parts unlocked would depend on parts you currently had... so redesign would be constant
[New species starts of with a pop of 1 creature]
Tribe level would be accessed when you built a species with the parts required for intelligence+tool use
Opponents would be Slightly different variations on your species

Tribe....Basic resource=Labor, Advanced Resource=Social
You control one tribe and other tribes of that region act independently
Pop units of the tribe Either collect food or build tools
Food->pop growth
Tools->improve efficiency of activities, including increasing maximum population/number of territories a Tribe can control
Pop size->Social
Social->increase the list of Tools a New Tribe can build
Tools unlocked for New Tribes would depend on Tools the previous tribe built and tools neighboring tribes built.
Tools which are"unlocked" for a new tribe would still require Socialpoints to make them "Buildable".
[New Tribes start off with 1 Territory, and the population of that Territory]
A Tribe has Territories and Population...
When a Tribe conquers or allies with a Territory that it cannot control, two new Tribes are formed. Each new Tribe gets a portion of the "foreign" Tribe's Tools unlocked for it, and possibly a bonus to their Social based on the "foreign" Tribes's Social.
The population of a MultiTerritory Tribe is divided equally among its Territories.
Civ level would be accessed once you have control of all neighboring Territories (which would require certain Tools)
opponents would all have slightly different variations of your Tool base. (giving them certain starting characteristics)

* you could domesticate other species as either Food sources: Eggs/Milk or as Riding Animals (a key part of the first Vehicles in the Civ Phase)



Civ...Basic resource='Spice', Advanced resource=Ideas
You control all the cities + vehicles of an Empire
Vehicles/Cities (controlled by your actions) collect 'Spice',
'Spice'->Vehicles->Cities through conquest/conversion,
Cities->Ideas,
Ideas->Adding/modifying new Buildings for New Empires

Buildings are the 'Parts' of cities, all cities in your Empire would have the same types of buildings giving the Empire its characteristics (social and technological) like the parts of Creatures.
Buildings would unlock based on the buildings you currently had in your cities.
Vehicle Parts would continuously unlock as Idea levels built up based on which parts were in use on your Vehicles.
[New empires would start with some fraction of the Old Empires cities.. depending on how many of the Old Empires Buildings were removed, so you if you want to remove the Old Empire buildings, you need to breakaway and fight them. If you are just adding buildings, then you will only have a few Luiddite cities to put down.]
Conquering/Allying with a new city would get some of its Buildings unlocked for your Empire.
Forming a New Empire would allow spending Ideas to design your cities by adding or modifying Buildings that have been unlocked, removing them requires no Idea spending, but it provides extra Idea points in exchange for less cities for the new empire.

Space would be reached once you unlocked certain vehicle and Building components

One problem I notice with that is that it would be a lot harder for a species to adapt to its environment or other pressures.

Which brings me to another point, the environment should really have a lot more to do with how your creature should look. If your creature lives in the mountains, short, stubby legs and and no arms probably wouldnt be best. On the other hand, powerful arms but little or no legs would be helpful for forest dwelling or shore dwelling creatures.

Well as for how hard it is for a species to adapt, that would depend on the DNA points... speed of accumulation, cost, etc.

so if your environment changes, then you probably need to create a new species, and hope that you weren't Too specialized for your previous environment.

What about species that dont offshoot new ones? That just change over time? There isn't an old species left behind by those, all of the old species has died out or evolved.

The idea is species would not change... they would only offshoot new ones (and go extinct)

I would really like to have more intricate fleets in Space phase.

Ideally, we should have several ship classes and naval-like battles, inspired by existing RTS games such as Homeworld.

Ooh, that would be very cool.

Frankly, the game could use some feature creep. :)

There's no point talking about a sequel yet. EA withheld a lot of the features that were in the old demo so they can cram them into "expansion packs".

There's no point talking about a sequel yet. EA withheld a lot of the features that were in the old demo so they can cram them into "expansion packs".

Like what?
The only things I can see that is left out are
-creatures mating as in real life= Spore hot date pack
-killing and biting (blood)= Spore Sparing pack
-the so called water stage?=Spore Splash pack
all would be tiny expansion packs.

Alright, a Hot Coffee mini-game in Creatures (not).

I'd say from a biology/evolution point of view, there are lots of details missing from Cell to Creature, though it may be a little questionable if EA will be brave enough to put them in eventually.

And there is still the customization angle which they haven't fully maxed out, like the plant editor. And I haven't quite seen a planet editor in the sense that one of the 2008 videos showed.

I'm a little skeptical about how much the game play will improve, though it needs it. However, the other day in the news, EA signaled that they agree they need to focus on improving game quality of their labels, by axeing 'Tiberium' for having quality issues.

SPORE: Molecular
SPORE: Amoeboid
SPORE: Underwater
SPORE: Shamanism
SPORE: Supply and Demand
SPORE: Solar System
SPORE: Mystery
SPORE: Florical
SPORE: Aerodynamic
SPORE: Attack of the player-controlled Fungus!


Just a few ideas.

The only thing I would want in Spore 2 would be the option to stay underwater and develop a creature, tribe, and civilization there. I don't think being air-breathing or water-breathing would make a difference in how you get to space. I find the whole process very humano-centric, but that is only fair, considering we're all human.

Spore 2 should:

1) NOT have SecuRom. This was Spore's biggest failing. A minor dick check DRM is okay, but nothing else.
2) Gameplay aimed at what most of the people playing will enjoy, I.E., 13+ content. I felt like the game was aimed at 7-year-old girls.
3) More macromanaging, less micromanaging. Some examples can be things like:
- Assigning tribal villagers tasks like guard village/collect food/raid, which they will do automatically without you having to tell them to do something every 3 seconds.
- Recruiting spaceship fleets in the Space Age to defend your colonies or attack rival colonies, gather and sell spice, and other things, rather then having to do everything yourself.
4) Evolution actually having an effect on your creatures. Things like limb placement, size, and number of features(I.E., 2 arms versus 6) should actually have an impact rather then doing absolutely nothing.

Lets just have it so that the design of your creature actually matters!


It was ruined for me when I realised my beautiful, four legged, 2 armed, 2 eyed, poison spitting monster, could be just as successful with 1 leg, 1 eye, and the best mouth.

Lets just have it so that the design of your creature actually matters!


It was ruined for me when I realised my beautiful, four legged, 2 armed, 2 eyed, poison spitting monster, could be just as successful with 1 leg, 1 eye, and the best mouth.

Exactly. In fact, having multiple parts actually penalizes you, because they still cost DNA points but offer no benefit. For example, having 6 legs lv2 legs can cost the same as 1 lv3 leg, but the 1 lv3 leg is faster.

Spore makes the baby Jesus cry.

Spore 2 should like Spore did back in 2005.

I want more editableness and to get rid of that stupid complexity crap. All I want is to make the cool mythological creatures that can eat yours is that so wrong?

Spore 1 is crap. It got ruined by a bunch of designers in Will Wrights team who got EA to support them and force Will Wright and the rest of the programers to go from a truly inovative and simulative experience to a baby-bumper game with absolutely no thought behind it or in it.

And why are we even talking about Spore 2 when both you and me know that EA will first milk this with 10 different expansion packs (oh and then they will ask themselves why people pirate games to). SINCE THEY LACK ANY VALUE NOWDAYS, god.

Spore is indeed a huge game with revolutionary features, but much of it could be done better.

I doubt that there is room for Spore expansion packs, since there is nowhere to expand. (A Tetris-sort puzzle, representing chemical evolution, would add to the timeline, but hardly produce any synergy effect.)

After The Sims 3 is released in February next year, Maxis should start working at Spore 2. The game engine and interface are already decent, and could be kept. On the other hand, gameplay needs to be improved.

Here are my ideas:


I think the idea of spore two is very stupid.

Spore one was crap, and unless I or someone who thinks very like me for the direction of spore gets a stronghold on it, I never want to see another version of it

If i where some game designer with a budget to MAKE spore though I would do it like this./

Cell phase,
This needs a lot of work, Its not that the cell stage is bad, in fact its the funnest most playable stage in spore, and if they released a more complete version of it for 5 bucks I'd probably play it, like a fun mindless action RPG,
But ultimately Cell phase will be the tutorial for playing the game and the changes later will be big so they have to be big here too
1. Give Cells a translucent sort of color, This is important because
2. We are adding organs to the entire game, free floating vacuoles that will help your cell do stuff that it normally cant do, like
3. exist in certain environments.
4. more controll over the shape of your cell, and the shape and organs and weapons or other attachments all have hidden functional value, no rpg points, instead the proceedural system fits together your selection of parts and organs and body shape and decides how good it is at doing something as a result,
5you will play with this system, finding out what works, what doesnt, and allowing you to expand into different environments like colders areas, or areas made of different kinds of materials like sulfur,
6 the way you and your predators evolves are procedural not random and it affects the rest of the world around you, make it first to bread in a vast deserted area and thrive and your species will vastly populate that area,(provided they can do things like eat or absorb sunlight)
7. eventually you will call upon the power of instinct, cells will pair up and work together in swarms or even combine, and when they do, you can start creating different cell shapes allowing you to the advantage of creating stronger organisms
8. Finally you will have enough cells that they can specialize, different cells used for different things, finding what works is mostly trial and error, however despite this, it should be possible to survive,

this tutorial will teach you how to build your creatures, use the tools and test its skills in the world.

Evolution phase.
Sea and land will not be separate, Dogs evolved into marine mammals, and you will meat a host of interesting and actively evolving creatures like yourself, not simply randomly chosen, they, like you, will need to eat, and procreate to survive,
1. Survival and procreation is key, you will no longer have missions, if you can eat procreate and survive each generation, you dont need to change anything, however, the races will be evolving, they will produce offspring with defects, and ones with advantages, by the random procedural moving of parts, organs, and shape, and your species may suddenly find itself at a disadvantages, perhaps someone is out eating your food, or territorial beasts are trampling your slow creatures,
2. the creature stage must build on the cell stage by allowing you to mold your beast in even more creative fashions than before, cells are so diverse they can take properties, like armor, sun absorbing fins, spikes, and teeth, parts will be there but no longer will they be so simplified and one purposed,
the types of material now play an important role,
3. changing environments to challenge your creature, ice ages, levels of oxygen forest fires, creatures that where troublesome before could die out and leave you to thrive, but breed too much and your race will overpopulate driving out your sources of food.
4. Functional environments, Spore now operates on nothing more than a pretty hilly plane, in this version you will be able to interact with everything in some way, trees can be climbed, nested in, or there wont be any trees, landmasses change, materials erode, deform, desert and marsh may change before your eyes as you travel through time thousands of years fast, ground can be dug into, trees burrowed into, your planet is your home, not just a backdrop.

Tribal stage
bigger deeper and better, the tribal stage will simply be more involved, recourses will be more varied allowing you to specialize with what you have, but it will not be cookie cutter, you will be able to customize your culture at this stage, your weapons, and way of life, tribal politics will be a bigger deal, this should idealy bring you into the iron age, technology, monuments, your tribe will have more than how many wars or peace treaties it signed to define its legacy, taking over the world from this stage will be grueling, long, but possible, or you can simply tech up until you lead the world into the day it will take off into an industrial revolution
1. proceedural techs, rather than spending time reaserching something exclusively, actions, events, and resources will all influence your ability to increase your technology in certain directions,
2. this stage will teach you how to manage a small economy for the bigger civ stage ahead,
3. it will have a similar total war feel, real time instead of turn based, but your intelligence can help pause the game and allow you to send troops to intercept any sneak attacks, or manage numbers in a stress free situation (just like the AI would)

Civ stage
More like actual civ, better diplomacy, more victory options, more city customization, Civ stage is fun already, but its a very shallow fun, Civ stage will build off the tribal stage by offering a more in depth resource game, wonders of the ancient age give way to great undertaking of projects, a deeper level of customization in regards to cities, but ultimately while you can win the civ stage by a myriad of ways, you cant advance until you start researching space technology,
1.unlike spore now, the journey into space will be slow and begin in the civ stage, instead of building a giant space ship, it will play out more like a never ending space race, slowly learning better technologies to move into space
2. the game will fully start to encompass a total war game, action will remain real time, but you can pause any time you want and multi manage,
3. it is possible to have a lot of activity, missions, and goals to complete in the civ stage, you don't have to B line the space era, but other civs might beat you to it eventually and depending on difficulty.
4. much more control on aesthetics of buildings, location, think Civ 3 city view thats interactive and customizable aesthetics,
5. entering the space age can be complete before the world is yours,

Space/civ
Its arguably the current worst part of spore, and it needs an overhaul, ultimately I think planets will need to be bigger, they just aren't large enough, to start, Space age will never remove direct control of your civ, you will be able to head back at any time and continue playing that stage from this point, from rebuilding, dealing with rival civs, this is because Space is going to be awfully empty compared to current spores almost harrassment levels of aliens, chances are your rivals will be the biggest threat for a long time before you meet ET,
1. Space ships will be your swiss army knife, but like stages before it, you will suddenly find yourself with a much broader selection of outer space worthy vehicles to trade or colonize you will see borders appear on other planets with your rivals,
2. Planets will be interesting, the only thing you can do now is colonize your different planets and mine their generic spice resource, instead you will be looking for a myriad of important resources for building on planets, their compesition as well as atmosphere will influence your desisions to make them habitable
3. colonies on other planets will enter into a sort of tribal stage of their own of collecting resources, managing upgrades and overall rebuilding civilization on the planet to be like home, this minigame can be automated,
4. terraforming will be more in depth, you can add or remove atmosphere independently of water, check for radiation levels, terrain morphing will not disappear upon leaving the planet,
5. more realistic physics can allow you to do a number of fun things, alter the flow of gravity or weather on a planet by Terra forming large mountain ranges, destroy plant wildlife and watch the oxygen levels drop,
6 civs techs increase with your ship, you can continue to build armed forces to prevent invasion from your fellow planeterrians, or the unlikely extra terrestrial.
7. more interactivity, Many locations do nothing but sit there or have no effect on anything else, barely eye candy, Gas giants, Stars and other objects in space can become much more useful, imagine setting up a ring world, or harnessing the solar energy of the sun by solar plates orbiting it, your galactic empire can do more with its monetary gains than add more missiles and bombs to your space ship,
8. Science!, Much of space is unknown, and while spore has thus far tried to be very scientifically similar to our world, you will be able to make interesting hypothetical discoveries in spore, adding new dimensions to the game, imagine discovering new minerals, or how a planet was formed, its history or geological past time, tracing back the dinosaurs, finding predictable weather patterns, sings of life, these things will celestial bodies will be more than a card, they practically will offer a character sheet of hidden information,

For spore to be a Sim everything, I would expect no less than the things I have given here. otherwise i would not make or buy this game, I see these features as bare minimum to the concept of science in box.

I personally enjoyed the game the first playthrough then... it was just the same thing with no real consequences. There should be more consequences and events to make your creation a bit more unique.

Spore 2 should:

1) NOT have SecuRom. This was Spore's biggest failing. A minor dick check DRM is okay, but nothing else.
2) Gameplay aimed at what most of the people playing will enjoy, I.E., 13+ content. I felt like the game was aimed at 7-year-old girls.
3) More macromanaging, less micromanaging. Some examples can be things like:
- Assigning tribal villagers tasks like guard village/collect food/raid, which they will do automatically without you having to tell them to do something every 3 seconds.
- Recruiting spaceship fleets in the Space Age to defend your colonies or attack rival colonies, gather and sell spice, and other things, rather then having to do everything yourself.
4) Evolution actually having an effect on your creatures. Things like limb placement, size, and number of features(I.E., 2 arms versus 6) should actually have an impact rather then doing absolutely nothing.



1) I agree, securom sucks, but my doctor takes care of the rest
2)Not exactly sure what you mean
3) Agree
4)Good idea, but I don't see how adding that will keep in all the freedom