My problems with Spore and what they should have done different

[Heathcliff]

My problem with this game is that it feels like it's made for kids or people who don't play computer games alot and all phases are very simplistic. Just look at creature phase, you can fight or you can become friend. And if you want to become friend, you can dance, sing or charm... Not many things to choose from at all. And the quests are very repetetive. If you want to become a friendly creature, you should become friends with like 30 different tribes before you go to next phase. Very repetetive.

As I see it, they could have done 2 things to change this:

1. They could have made every phase more interresting, by making it more complex and add a story line. Not just make 3 of this race your friend quests. Could be a new story line each time, depending on how you built your creature.
And all phases could be more like that. I guess there reason for it, is that they target kids as their salesgroup and not adults and not want to have alot of texts and features which adults like, but kids get bored with.

2. They could have taken the full stepp out and made it a multiplayer game for each phase, if you could play with your friends, it would be much more fun. Each phase could easily be transferred to multiplayer style. Most gamers today have gotten used to human interaction today and like to gamble against others humans (like in Dota) or with other humans (like in World of Warcraft). If it's going to be a singleplayer game, it has to be some where you feel you can improve your game as you play. Like Civ 4. I started spore on hardest difficulty and it was easy to beat, if you were warmonger and harder if you played peacefully. But those were my first two tries.

To have made this a multiplayer game for real would definatly have been the best. But EA games shows again it's a coorperation only interrested in making money and make it easy to try to sell it to as many as possible, mainly to people who will only play it a couple of times and then put it in the closet.
Not like Blizzard who only makes really highquality games with great replayability.

 

[Abaddon]

Its the PC version of the Wii.

X-packs will make it better.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

What they should have tried to do was make Hard mode actually for those good at computer games- having a mode for casual gamers does make sense.

 

[Dale]

I guess there reason for it, is that they target kids as their salesgroup and not adults and not want to have alot of texts and features which adults like, but kids get bored with.

Actually, their target market for Spore is the exact same target market for The Sims. Homemakers. People who have an hour or two a day free to receive light entertainment. It is NOT targetted to hard-core gamers.

Once you realise this, you see the game meets it's target audience.

But there are still some core underlying problems, such as extremely linear decision tree and the AI.

The game through it's elimination of adative ability bonuses forces the creatures into one common look. As time progresses we will find nearly all creatures will have a common look, as everyone settles on the perfect bits to max out your abilities. The lack of adative bonuses means there is no strategic decision between having 4 legs for speed and no arms, or having arms and losing two legs. Now you can have one leg and one arm and get the same benefit as having 10 legs and 10 arms.

As for the AI, has anyone seen an AI play outside of the two extreme values of aggressive destroyer or passive friend? There is an obvious AI bias to the human as I see little AI-AI interaction in tribal and civ, but massive AI-human interaction.

But the game still has a lot going for it, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I hope they don't go as far as The Sims 2 with expansions (The Sims2 IKEA WTH????) but I wouldn't mind buying a couple to finish the game.

 

[Chieftess]

But there are still some core underlying problems, such as extremely linear decision tree and the AI.

Hmm, does that mean if I start off as an aggressive carnivore, I can't become a passive herbivore?

The game through it's elimination of adative ability bonuses forces the creatures into one common look. As time progresses we will find nearly all creatures will have a common look, as everyone settles on the perfect bits to max out your abilities. The lack of adative bonuses means there is no strategic decision between having 4 legs for speed and no arms, or having arms and losing two legs. Now you can have one leg and one arm and get the same benefit as having 10 legs and 10 arms.

Yeah, this was one of the concerns I had a year or so ago when they started taking that away. Having 1 leg and no arms should leave you at somewhat of a disadvantage. (At least having no eyes is a bit harder) Certain leg types and configurations should let you run faster, certain body types should affect movement, etc. (like in GDC 2005). That really would've added to the strategy/sim aspect of SPORE. I think that was the one feature I was really looking forward too, being a fan of SimLife. 1 winged creatures shouldn't be able to fly, creatures with mouths on the back side really shouldn't be as successful in attacking/eating... Hey - download my "Chaosfly II" creature and see if that's possible.

I wonder if they'll package all of the expansion packs together when they're finished.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

1- I agree- there should have been more strategic descision making.

2- Perhaps the difference between hardcore and casual gamers was overestimated

3- My creature was a herbivore in the Cell phase, then over the Evolution phase become a predator. If I had done things differently, I could have taken a middle path. (which was avaliable)

EDIT: Actually, it was listed as "herbivore" because in practice I ate just about entirely plants, but it had a carnivore mouth already which I kept.

 

[Dale]

Hmm, does that mean if I start off as an aggressive carnivore, I can't become a passive herbivore?

The choose your food type during Cell phase. The majority of what you were during Cell phase determines what you are for the rest of the game. For instance, be a carni during Cell, and you'll only find carni mouths in creature. Be a herby and you'll only find herby mouths. Omnivore is slightly different in that it can go three ways: eat more meat, get carni mouths. More plants and you'll find herby mouths. Eat exactly the same amount of meat and plants and you'll find omni mouths.

 

[Chieftess]

The choose your food type during Cell phase. The majority of what you were during Cell phase determines what you are for the rest of the game. For instance, be a carni during Cell, and you'll only find carni mouths in creature. Be a herby and you'll only find herby mouths. Omnivore is slightly different in that it can go three ways: eat more meat, get carni mouths. More plants and you'll find herby mouths. Eat exactly the same amount of meat and plants and you'll find omni mouths.

Well, there goes half the things I wanted to try. (Unless I play as an omnivore all the time)


Just a couple of questions -

* Is it possible for a creature to fly with just one (centered) wing? (I'd love to see a video of that if possible, though I really don't think it should be...)

* Can a creature still eat/attack if a mouthpiece is on its' back/rear instead of the front of the creature? For example, like the creature below (note the position of the feet -- the arms and mouth are backwards). That is, will it try to eat/attack as those the mouth is in the front of the creature, or will the creature have to turn around?

 

[Dale]

Well, there goes half the things I wanted to try. (Unless I play as an omnivore all the time)


Just a couple of questions -

* Is it possible for a creature to fly with just one (centered) wing? (I'd love to see a video of that if possible, though I really don't think it should be...)

* Can a creature still eat/attack if a mouthpiece is on its' back/rear instead of the front of the creature? For example, like the creature below (note the position of the feet -- the arms and mouth are backwards). That is, will it try to eat/attack as those the mouth is in the front of the creature, or will the creature have to turn around?

Yes, and yes. Though there is no "fly" it's "glide".

 

[Chieftess]

So, does the creature turn around to attack with its' mouth?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Eat exactly the same amount of meat and plants and you'll find omni mouths.

To get the omnivorous mouths, I need to eat EXACTLY the same amount of plant and meat? What the hell?

 

[Dale]

As far as I can work out yes. It might not be exact, but extremely close. Haven't done the maths yet.

 

[GoodGame]

I'd say they need a real RTS unit tree and tech tree approach to Civilization phase. Just three units deep of each type with more functional breadth to the vehicles's systems.

Same for the Tribal phase---techs, more character and village options.

But obviously this game is the framework for expansions.

Overall when I get bored with Tribe and Civilization phases, I go back to the cell and creatures phase. Just evolving is a trip and way better than sculpting alone in the SporeCC. I'd say those two phases do target the education market ok, and could be structured around some discussion of evolution.

 

[sourboy]

As stated elsewhere, I don't like that the game controls change with each phase. There's no consistency there.

I also agree that each stage could easily be multi-player. Maybe we'll see that in the expansion.

Lastly, as all vanilla's, there could be more content, again -- expansion could correct this.

 

[Catharsis]

To get the omnivorous mouths, I need to eat EXACTLY the same amount of plant and meat? What the hell?

It's not difficult. Just fix your Cell with both a carnivorous and a herbivorous mouth, and watch the History timeline carefully to make sure you end up in the blue box.

 

[cephalo]

I agree with the OP. The creation system is brilliant, but the gameplay is unnecessarily over-simplified, and very much lacks polish. For all the effort and development time that went into this game, one would expect some replayability. I can't imagine wanting to do the pre-space stages more than twice, even that is a bit more repitition than I can handle.

I completely reject the notion that a game needs to be simple to have mass appeal. Complexity is always welcome in the sense that a game should be easy to learn, yet hard to master. Classic games all have that quality. In a game play sense, there is no content here. Without some complexity to continue the learning curve and entice an experienced player to improve on his previous attempts, all you have is repetition. In a few hours, you are done with the cell stage, the creature stage, and the tribal stage forever. The civ stage is a watered down and largely uninteresting late 90's style RTS, although Dune II was better. The space stage, is definately the best stage as long as you can get established before a war starts, but there is not one reason why each of the stages could not also have the variety of experience that the space game has. Each stage has so much potential for engrossing and original gameplay, I can't believe they would pass that up and then say it was because they wanted to make more money. It's unforgiveable! The concept of this game could have carried it to be one of the best games of all time. What a shame.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I agree with the OP. The creation system is brilliant, but the gameplay is unnecessarily over-simplified, and very much lacks polish. For all the effort and development time that went into this game, one would expect some replayability. I can't imagine wanting to do the pre-space stages more than twice, even that is a bit more repitition than I can handle.

I completely reject the notion that a game needs to be simple to have mass appeal. Complexity is always welcome in the sense that a game should be easy to learn, yet hard to master. Classic games all have that quality. In a game play sense, there is no content here. Without some complexity to continue the learning curve and entice an experienced player to improve on his previous attempts, all you have is repetition. In a few hours, you are done with the cell stage, the creature stage, and the tribal stage forever. The civ stage is a watered down and largely uninteresting late 90's style RTS, although Dune II was better. The space stage, is definately the best stage as long as you can get established before a war starts, but there is not one reason why each of the stages could not also have the variety of experience that the space game has. Each stage has so much potential for engrossing and original gameplay, I can't believe they would pass that up and then say it was because they wanted to make more money. It's unforgiveable! The concept of this game could have carried it to be one of the best games of all time. What a shame.

I hear you. I also am fairly disappointed with some of the earlier stages. Right now I'm taking the game as a big toy to fiddle with and it's kind of fun. But it doesn't make me forget what most people thought the game could be. In the end, creature/tribe/civ stages are pretty much the same. They could have left creature stage as it is, with maybe a bit more to do, but tribe stage in particular is exactly the same. It should have been less about fiddling with neighbouring tribes, and more about using your environment to create tools. Right now you don't do that, you just kind of buy them from food and ... use them on other tribes. Just like you used your pack in the creature stage. Oh well.

 

[Daftpanzer]

The civ stage is a watered down and largely uninteresting late 90's style RTS, although Dune II was better

STRONGLY AGREE - IMO, civ stage should lean more towards RoN including scientific progress (except micromanagement of civilians/workers), with combat as in Dawn of War and randomness in battles as in the game 'Z'. And of course, design of vehicles should have an actual effect on the game, and parts/textures should be restricted by tech progress.

Right now I'm taking the game as a big toy to fiddle with and it's kind of fun.

Same for me. I'm just starting the space age, but already coming down from the initial high of having all these toys to play with. Since overall, your designs don't have much real impact on the way the game plays after the cell stage, it is then reduced to a creative exercise relying more on your own imagination to fill in the gaps in gameplay - arguably the best way to make a game, although the gaps here are rather large in places

 

[Dale]

although the gaps here are rather large in places

Yeah, large enough to fit an XP in.