Be Excellent To Each Other

Do you mean in the creature creator?

If so, try holding tab

I mean the second stage of the game.

Sorry, I meant, "you mean when placing body parts?"

Holding tab whilst you mouseover a specific part gives you a bunch more options.

No, in the game. I need to invert the y-axis for looking up and down when I'm running around the world. Like you can in every other game ever.

Mouse forward to look up == WRONG

I'm having loads of fun with this now. I stand by my opinion of the creature/tribal/civ stages being crap, but man, there's a lot of fun stuff to do in space.

Zipping around the galaxy terraforming planets, populating them with plants and animals you've abducted from other places; scaring species still in the tribal phase with crop circles; stealing artifacts from people then selling them back; setting up trade routes and alliances. Brilliant!

There's so much to unlock, too.

Somehow, no matter what they do, EA always end up being the world's best advert for piracy.

Bastard ate my Tricerabottom.

"Eh? What's going on? Why's everyone running away? OH SHI... (splat)"

My world is full of LemonSherberts.

Do we have a list of account names, or have you all been obvious like NervousPete?

"Poddster"

Don't lose all your enjoyment before I get to start popples! I will be back with my computer tomorrow and finally able to PLAY SPORE!!!

I'm therev.

Some things you might like that I've made recently!

Buildings:



City Hall: Meades Hall



House: The Dreamer Abode



Entertainment Building: The Huxley Soma House



Factory: The Kafka Foundry



Air Unit: The Magnificent Beteo
(My personal fave!)



Sea unit: Aubrey



Spaceship: Star Haven
(My second fave.)


And now for some creatures:



Tommy - the lovable vulture WWI infantry buzzard thing.



Zissou - born of my love for The Life Aquatic.



Sherbert Lemon - the dude I'm playing with currently.

I really hope that Spore recognises my old creatures as being mine soon. It's annoying not seeing them crop up under my creations or in game.

I ran into the Zissou yesterday. They were enormously hard to please. I have to admit, I sort've assumed they were a tribute to grumpy slaphead and Italian centreback enthusiast Zinedine Zidane, but couldn't find an "Insulting Remark About Target's Sister" button to check.

I am a little disappointed that this is Spore, for me

Apparently, Spore only allows one user account per disc (despite saying otherwise in the manual). So my wife can't play the game online, rendering it pointless.

I'd not have bought it if I'd known and I am reasonably pissed off.

Interesting, because I was thinking of buying this for myself and I know the kids would want to play too. But you're saying they can't?



Malc

You can have multiple save games on one account, so you could do it that way, but then all your creatures (and achievements?) are jumbled together under one username.

Or the kids could play offline without logging in.

OH, ok, that might be enough. Thanks

Malc

Jesus, yet more shitty copy protection punishing only legit users.

But no, anyone who pirates is a thief, not someone just looking for A COPY THAT FUCKING WORKS.

So glad I decided not to order this when I heard about the system it was going to use.

That's a bit shit, and the FAQ I'm sure said you could. I shall investigate.

In breaking news, Spore is beginning to annoy NervyP! Whilst Space stage starts out fun, having one's homeplanet attacked by pirates necessiating dropping whatever it was you're doing and rushing back there within the minute or losing lots of cash gets a bit annoying. The reason why? Pirates attack about every four to five minutes, I shit you not. And if you start a war with someone by, for example, passing through their star system and looking at them wrong, then expect to double that attack rate.

Also! I had great fun quitting in a rage and not saving when after helping an allied planet beat off an attack I attempted to transporter beam up some cargo one of the enemy ships had dropped. In doing so, I accidently scooped up several allied citizens. Faced with the choice between dropping them to their plummety death and bopping them in the cargo hold before placing them back down again, I naturally went for the latter. Not that I had much choice with the 0.5 second reaction time, mind you. After doing so, the ally immediately declared war on me and attacked me.

So rather than having a war on two fronts and presumably increasing that interupt rate up to every minute, I decided to quit rather than save, negating a half hours work.

Cheers Spore. GNGH.

This really needs a patch, 'cos if you go the herbivore route it assumes you like space battles and gives you one every few minutes. If you go the warlike route it assumes you like to live in peace in space and leaves you more alone. OF COURSE.

I really liked the stages up to space, and I really love some of the space stuff to do such as terraforming and even some of the combat, but its really beginning to piss me off. Or am I just crap?

I have pirates, other nations and the Grox attacking every few minutes at the moment. I can't do any exploring because I need to be around to fight them all off. You should be able to have several ships dotted around the galaxy at your immediate control should you need to break off your adventures to help out back home yet again.

The defenses of your planets are abysmal; I still find the Grox are able to destroy my cities pretty quickly if I don't react immediately, so I have to re-build them every 20 minutes. And you can't use outer systems as protection because your foes can simply hop to the most fruitful of your colonies to start attacking.

It's also nice how your enemies can attack you as you pass by, but you have to waste time going planet-side to retaliate. So by the time you can fight back, your fleet of incompetent AI ships has been destroyed and you're left alone to protect yourself alone.

It's a fun game, but there are a fair few bloody stupid problems I just can't ignore. The whole thing is nowhere near as fluid as it should be; it just feels like five separate half-assed games with vague links connecting them, filled to the brim with repetition but without enough scope to keep it interesting. Aside from the cell level, I've been thoroughly bored of each stage long before I've been able to progress to the next.

The evolution side is just crap. It's too immediate and you have far too much control. You shouldn't be able to make such drastic, fundamental changes so easily. And having to choose a herbivorous or carnivorous route at the beginning just by pressing a button was a bit rubbish.

I haven't been bored by any of the stages yet, though I did harumph a bit at the frivolous stuff like placing fountains in civilization. Stuff you can't even really have time to scroll around and enjoy.

It's this pirate/disaster problem that's gamebreaking for me. Plus so many moments of fiddliness. You shouldn't be able to accidently abduct and piss people off so easily. There's little things I wish it let you do as well. Some Space Rangers 2 style space combat would be tops, rather than forcing you to fight on planets. Most of the time your beautifully crafted ship and the ships of others are little blobs, as are people, in space stage because you have severely reduced camera controls. And you aren't given time to yourself to enjoy exploring satisfactorially.

I also think you should be able to write race dialogue for greetings, mission offerings, mission completes/failed etc for more customisation.

Space is fun.

I was having fun in space, but the number of attacks are just silly. Are you having the same problem? Or did you go a carnivorous route and are thus spared?

Not been playing the space bit long enough to get attacked lots, but I put turrets everywhere, and am allied with all my local aliens, so hopefully I will be ok.

Okay... Am I the only that thinks Spore is a bit boring?

Hmm, well I only played two and a half hours on Sunday and an hour Monday, and nay at all last night. (Though I was watching 'There Will Be Blood'.)

I've found it fun so far, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you may be right, aside from the awesomo creature/vehicle/building creator and the first time experience. More playtesting and a full review for Beteo to come, I think!

"S'poor."

Nope. Each stage is fun for a while, then it just gets old.

I'm at the point now where I've been old to go find the Grox at the centre of the universe, except I can't really do that through all the pirate/Grox attacks on my home turf every couple of minutes. If I ignore them, I'll lose my cities and: game over, man.

I've unlocked most of the interesting stuff, but anything of worth is in limited, expensive supply. So if I want to do fun stuff, I have to play economics.

Eight years in the making, was it? I watched the "The making of Spore" disc, and they said the vast majority of their time went into the creators, making animations work across anything imaginable, and all the procedural generation of content. No wonder there's fuck all actual game underneath.

It'll take you 70 years to explore the whole universe, or something. Pity every planet is the same: empty. Time until you get bored, on the other hand: a few days.

Colour me pretty disappointed.

What were you expecting?

A proper variety of mission types.

Fun events like sling-shotting round suns. Flying round gas giants. Shunting asteroids around, having fun in solar systems.

A feeling that you're actually running an empire, rather than stacking building blocks up again and again as you grapple with a flabby creature bent on knocking them down.

More connection to what you've created in Space Age. You never get time to savour, or are able to zoom in properly on your own ship. Space battles should be of an enjoyable length and be infrequent. Rather than lightning fast and every couple of minutes or so.

Essentially, I wanted Space Rangers 2 but with Sporepedia and creators.

Edit: Ahh, yes. Space Rangers 2. The game I had to give away rather than lose my life to.

Just a good game, really.

I only ever followed Spore through this thread, and quickly forgot about it after each read, so I wasn't terribly excited or anxious to get my hands on it. I just wasn't prepared to be disappointed by a game I hadn't hyped up; I very rarely play games — I just thought it would be nice to play something that looked interesting; something that had potential to be fluid, smooth and fun. I just don't think they delivered.

Still, this isn't a game I've been waiting years for, so I haven't invested enough interest to warrant being overly disappointed outside of writing these posts. As soon as I click 'Submit', I'll have forgotten about Spore until the next time I open this thread.

It might one day be great. With a judicious game-altering expansion pack. And the engine itself should be held on to for future games with player creatures.

As it is, I enjoy it, but I'm worryingly certain that one play through will be enough. In which case, what was the point, eh?

Last game I got at all hyped up about was Lord of the Rings: Online. Remarkably, that delivered far more than I was expecting it to. I fear I am forced to catagorise Spore as a disappointment.

Were you expecting this?

What is the difference between the Spore you're playing and the Spore depicted here. I haven't played Spore all that much, so it's up to you.

988 Bannannananaas/

Ha ha wow.

Thats so obvious that it should be a terrible, terrible joke that is everywhere, But it blind sided me with it's awesomeness.

It is prety much the best thing I have read in a while.

I actually haven't played this yet. I have had it since release but was saving it whilst I enjoyed VP. I am ready to play it now but I am trying not to be too put off by what you have said about it here, so i will go into it with an open mind.

From what I've read, it takes a few playthroughs to appreciate. Esepcailly as this gives you the skills required to "rush" through the first few stages.

Was persuaded by a housemate that I should give Spore another chance, with added incentive that the second patch has just come out and I've only played the patched version. Mulled it over and thought I'd give it a shot now that my ire has died down.

Install. Play. Immediately crashes to desktop. Make sure EA Download Manager isn't running, try playing again. Crash. Baffled as it worked the first time round. Reinstall. Crash again.

FFS. *Throws box at wall.*

Crikey. I'm only 10 minutes into that video, and it's fascinating how much they just threw out for the final release, ruining the feel of gentle evolutionary progress, and replacing every gameplay element with mindless repetition of the same few buttons. *yawn*

Just finished off trying it again with the new patches. A couple of minor new features, a few niggles removed, but unfortunately I was struck with complete boredom a couple of hours or so into the space stage. It's simply not fun at all after the first play through.

My first score stands, sadly.

Anyone else still playing this, or is it the disappointment of 2008?

I never even got it to run, so it's been pretty disappointing for me, yes.

ORLY? How come?

Because the PC gaming community has decided that they get to pick and choose which graphics cards they support their games on, almost always excluding mobile cards. They can fuck off back up their own arse, it's console all the way for me now.

Your Counter Strike chums are sad.

Well clearly, games that actually work I will continue to play, I'm just not forking out for any more. Either that or I'll just blatantly yarr them or something.