RF Generation Message Board

It's been a few years (I think) since we first heard of Spore, and suddenly it's been released. I know some people here have bought it so I would like to know their opinions.

I wouldn't say I was extremely excited about it because I kept putting it to the back of my mind, but it was one of my most anticipated games every time I heard about it. Hearsay about the DRM on it has put me right off buying it, but I'll probably do the British thing of moaning a lot then putting up with it anyway. :P Some people are saying it's very buggy with their PCs on all operating systems (Vista 32, Vista 64, XP etc). People are also saying it's quite short, a game can take under eight hours. Maybe that's a good thing, keeping it going instead of being at the same stage for hours on end.

I bought Spore Creatures on the DS yesterday and played it for about an hour before I had to go do something. It seemed ok but the tutorial was going on for a bit long. The graphics are fairly similar to Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, except the creatures are 2D. It starts off with a couple of slugs who have just escaped a spaceship abducting everything by going on to land. It eventually takes the other slug and the game's story is based around getting it back. You can collect body parts by completing goals, or just by finding them lying around. Some parts have better uses, like defense. But you can't just whack everything on to make your creature the best to start with. It has a points scale which levels up when you achieve various criteria. Each different body part adds a different amount of points to the scale until it fills up.

Not too bad so far but as I said, the tutorial is a bit long winded.

I first read about Spore my junior year of high school (2004) and have been looking forward to it ever since. 

 I picked it up on Sunday and I'm loving it. 

 I'm sure everyone knows the concept of the game where you start out as a single celled creature then evolve into a land based creature, tribal society and then eventually into a space faring race.  Some cool things they did was have the way you play in the first stage effects the outcome of the game.  I played as a carnivore so by the time I got to the creature stage I was pretty much spending all of my time hunting (which itself had more effects on where I ending up in the game).  It doesn't take that long to reach the space stage, but you have to play through to the space stage multiple times to see the full game.  But so far I have to say my favorite thing about the game so far though is that the game play it self becomes more complex as your creature does.  As the single celled organism it's pretty much swim, eat and avoid being eaten.  Now as I'm exploring space, I have to establish and monitor colonies, maintain alliances, fight wars, terraform planets, explore, and so on.   

(God that's my longest post in like two years.)

I'm going to be getting this at some point.

Me too. I don't want to pay the full €50 (or €60?) for it. I'll probably wait until it drops to €20 or maybe even cheaper. I'm never really excited about new releases...I've got alot of patience to wait for the right price ;) Hopefully there'll be a Vista 64 patch by then to make it less buggy.

Sounds like fun, I might look into it when I get a DS someday :)

€50-60? $50 over at
http://www.macgamestore.com/detail.php?ProductID=974

SOOOO Tempted.... Must... Refrain... From... Spending... Money!

See how hard it'll be to save up for that car :P

I know I feel the same way. I want to put it off a little longer though....

Heh... Have you know, I saved up $850 ($350 gifts) for a guitar and stuff for said guitar, $1750 for a computer ($1200 was gifts), $325 for a Wii ($100 gifts), $325 for a GameCube ($200 was gifts), $90 for a bike, etc etc. Besides, I have over $100 dollars in Records, and over $100 in DVD's. In games, well, they are woth anywhere from $1200 and up. I have spent $1126.41 on all of my games (not including consoles), which averages out to $3.90 a game. I have been collecting for about 7 1/2 years. I know how to save money. Don't say I don't, just cause I'm a kid. Kay mate? ;) :D

Cleary you missed the humorous tone of my post.

Oh and I'd like to add that I don't see you as a kid. What makes you think that ???

Because he's one of the youngest people on the forums.

Sorry that I missed that. I just cannot stand people thinking that because I am not of legal age, I cannot do many things, such as save money. Heck, even my family said I wouldn't be able to save for a guitar that long. Sorry if that came out wrong. ;) :D

@Tony: Not any more! ;) (Well... Kinda still... Darn...)

Who buys PC games?

People are pretty irritated about the DMA issue.

Like all those 1 star reviews and such.

Oh well.

Yeah, I saw that. I think it is pathetic to rate a game 1 star for graphics & sound over DRM, and just downright childish. If they felt it ruined the gameplay, then fine rate that lower, but otherwise save it for the overall rating.

No problem. We all misinterpret posts from time to time, it happens :)

I was merely joking with your previous "Must...resist...spending...money" post. I'd have commented the same if you were 24, your age has nothing to do with it, trust me :)

I suppose I'm a bit of a PC game collector. I have more PC games than anything else (at least for a while, given my recent rates).

I picked up the Galactic Edition on launch day. I haven't had as much time to play as I'd like, but I'm getting into the Space stage and I'm really enjoying it. The four stages leading up to space are good in their own ways, but the space stage feels like its own game, in terms of quality, depth, and such. I don't think people are right in judging Spore as a game, considering that it's a Will Wright game. Sim City was a digital toy city, The Sims was a virtual doll house, so the term "software toy" still applies.

I think the best analogy is a pen-and-paper game. The game itself isn't the game, it's a book of rules on how to play YOUR game. If the game isn't fun, it's because you're not having fun with it. The game itself is the tool you use to achieve that experience, it's not the experience itself. Modern gaming has gone the other way, with the narrative of the game being all there is.

My username is nayusdante, I haven't made very much stuff yet. I want to finish the game before I go crazy with the editors.

Normally I'd agree with you, but these security measures seem particularly draconian.. only 1 account per copy, period, and only 3 installs per copy. After you've installed it 3 times, you have to call EA to get another one. What happens when 5-10 years down the road, one wishes to reinstall the game? I doubt you'd be able to call EA to get another install at that point. They're almost encouraging piracy. I can perfectly understand why this is irritating people. In fact, I refuse to buy the game for this very reason.

You know, one account per copy is nothing new. Has anybody played an MMO before?

In any MMO, your account is really what you're paying for when you buy the box. The software has NO DRM. You can install the client on as many computers as you want, but without separate accounts, there's no way to "pirate" the game. If your friend wants to play the game with you, they have to pay for an account. It's fine if they borrow your disk to install it, since they're going to be playing on their own account.

What Spore is doing is taking this model, and screwing it up. How many people would be playing Guild Wars if you could only install the game a few times before having to call in and defend your right to reactivate? Either use a CD key to verify the game installation, like say, Quake IV, or use the CD key to create the account, like any other MMO. Don't use one key for both in a twisted hybrid solution.

I do because I want PC gaming to survive! If no one buys games for the PC, they will disappear.

My biggest beef with the latest generation of DRM is the online authentication. As a gamer as well as a collector I tend to keep the best of my PC games over the years. My oldest PC games are over 20 years old and I have machines to play them on. Now 10-20 years from now when "Game A" tries to call home and there's nobody there answering anymore, the install stalls, I've wasted my time and I now have a set of plastic coasters to get rid of.

So we come full circle here. In the future one will need to rely on unauthorized patches and hacked .exe files to play these legitimate games that no longer have support. :P

If I would have known that they hadn't changed their copyright protection I never would have bought the game.  I would have downloaded it three days before it came out.  So now I'm doing my part to inform others about it and encouraging them to download it instead of buying it.  So far I've convinced about 8 people to download it. 

Although I hope for you it'll last, PC gaming's future isn't the brightest around... :-\

No offense but people who download games rather than buy them are the reason they put the DRM in. I'd understand if you'd not play the game at all out of protest, but not just go and download it.

I don't know where or when PC gaming went wrong. Probably the fact that internet exists has alot to do with it.
How did this stuff started? I think nobody really knows. But here's my theory anyway: (don't have to believe it if you don't want to :P)

A bunch of idiots start cracking the game and putting it online (the same sort of people who make virusses, probably) --> downloading of the game becomes more and more popular --> developers take notice of this and try to prevent downloading with CD Keys, ... --> gamers are pissed off about this and download more instead of buying --> developers take more measurements against downloading --> more gamers pissed off and downloading.

It's a waterfall effect and I don't know how PC gaming is going to pull itself out of it.

Looking at all the stuff PC's/PC gaming had to go through because of some rotten apples in the basket, I fear the worst for console gaming aswell. Now that those are leaning so much on the online aspect aswell, it's only a matter of time until you see downloadable console games and virusses for consoles aswell.

Actually, if you have a chipped console you can play CD-Rs/DVD-Rs which you burnt from a downloaded ISO. I go on another gaming forum where they don't allow any talk of piracy but there are still a lot of posts with "Backups, wink wink, nudge nudge ;)" although the mods are good at stopping them going any further.

They even have a few "official" threads for the M4DS and M3 Simply, or whatever they're called. Flashcarts for the DS. No one talks about what they're used for but it's obviously piracy and not "Homebrew".





Anyway, who likes Spore?

Sirgin said close to what I was going to say. If you hate the DRM so much just don't play it. As people downloading it is the whole reason they had to resort to such measures in the 1st place.

At this point I couldn't tell you how I feel about Spore, but I am currently in a competition to win a copy. If I don't win it, in protest against piracy I'll BUY a copy of it :P

Piracy is good. That is all.





Not really, but consider the facts:

Cracked .exe's are probably NOT made by virus makers. They are probably made by people in the industry. How do you think games get leaked onto the internet? Not by people like you or me, but rather employees that may be pissed at not getting a pay raise, etc.

There was a build of vista on a wink wink site almost 5 months before it was released. Same with every new edition of os x. These companies have their heads so far up their asses it is not even funny. Some nut at EA says 'HEY! Let's use a new type of copy protection that makes you have to buy the game again after 3 installs.' The idiots then thought 'BUY?....MORE?....PROFIT?....'.

As soon as a 'loyal' employee get's their hands on a disk of the final, he starts tinkering. Then, he releases his 'findings' onto the internet, thus ending the need to pay for these games.

Personally, full time pirates are annoying. However, the industry as a whole should bugger off, just because I said so. (The actual reason is a lot more complex, but I need to get ready for school.)

EDIT; And I don't think the game crackers are idiots, if they manage to get through 'fool proof' systems every darn time. A hacker and a virus maker are 2 different people. Remember that.

And why do you think they don't get a pay rise?




I don't agree with piracy at all. Ok, so I've downloaded a few songs but I don't make a habit of it. If you're not happy with the copy protection don't buy it but certainly don't pirate it. It's not a God-given right to play a game you're interested in. Publishers aren't forcing people to pirate games.

Defiantly. I don't prance around and say 'PIRATE!' and that somehow makes it legal. Heck, I can't even remember the last time I downloaded a song. The only things I download are classic games, such as CIV III, which is really crudely put together.

Civ III is STILL SOLD. Check your local Target. The copyright holder is alive and well, and still profiting from their continued shelf-presence.

The industry doesn't get the message. Sometimes I wonder if their strategy is just "make mediocre games that sell to everybody, price them higher than they should be for what they are, and sue for even more profit when somebody pirates our stuff."

Spore took a large development team quite a while to make. These aren't Chinese workslaves making $1/day. $50 for a game at release and an additional $30 for two documentaries and a book is a fair price to the consumer and a great profit for the developers. Given that EA is evil, Maxis will probably just break even.

I'm waiting for Will Wright to make a statement on the DRM. After all, EA seems to be using his great ideas to THEIR advantage, especially with the Sims brand. Will hasn't been active in Sims development since 2, and he had little to do with it. The original concept was a virtual doll house to simulate people's lives and interactions, but EA is tailoring it to be a tool for people to visualize their idealistic dreams of what they think their life should be. I can guarantee that if they institute a reactivation program that requires a fee, Maxis won't see a cent.

Ending the need to pay for these games? If everyone had that philosophy there would be an easy fix, not make any more games since there is no profit to even cover the expenses to make the game let alone do it as a job to survive.  :-\

I would rather steer clear of all of this and not clutter up this thread leaving more room for feedback of the actual game itself. But people who are willing to download the hard work of others not giving them a cent should be equally willing to work without pay for their day job.

Remember, piracy in not a victimless crime  :nono:

I know you don't mean that for real but let me just stress the fact that piracy is very bad and everyone doing it should be ashamed of themselves.

People call it piracy but it should be called theft, because that's what it is.

How would you (and I'm not talking to you in particular logical, don't worry :)) feel if you didn't get paid for the job you're doing? Or do you go to a supermarket and not pay for the things you need? Of course you pay for it and it should be the same for games.

Not personally knowing or meeting the people who make these games doesn't give you the right to just download what they worked on for 3 years or more. These developers are people like you and me, not the superwealthy who don't care whether people actually buy their game or not.

A news update:

Complaint: A legitimately bought copy of “Spore” can’t be activated on more than three different computers — ever.

EA Response: That will be changed, according to the EA spokesperson, who told Multiplayer that the current limit on the number of computers that can be associated with a single copy of “Spore” is “very similar to a solution that iTunes has. The difference is that with iTunes you can de-authorize a computer [that you no longer want associated with your iTunes content]. Right now, with our solution, you can’t. But there is a patch coming for that.” The official timeframe for that patch is “near future.”


Complaint: Consumers fear there is spyware being installed by the SecurROM copy-protection software incorporated into the game.

EA Response: “There’s no viruses, no spyware and no malware…We have located a download off of one of the Torrent sites that is a virus. The thing I would say to the consumer audience is that, if you’re concerned with a virus on your computer, the chances of that are infinitely higher when you’re downloading off of a hacked version than it would be downloading the authentic game. We would never put any spyware on anyone’s computers. That’s not going to happen.”


Complaint: The “Spore” instruction manual claims that a purchaser of “Spore” can allow multiple users to create online accounts with a single copy of the game. The game does not allow this.
 
EA Response: The company has already stated this is a misprint in the manual and referred Multiplayer back to a statement issued by “Spore” executive producer Lucy Bradshaw apologizing for “the confusion.” But EA has not replied to Multiplayer follow-up questions regarding why the company implemented this restriction and what EA makes of complaints from households that include multiple people who want to have separate “Spore” accounts associated with a single copy of the game.


Complaint: The requirement for a “Spore” user to have their ownership of the game automatically authenticated every time they access the game’s online features threatens to render the game useless if EA someday turns the “Spore” servers off.

EA Response: “If we were to ever turn off the servers on the game, we would put through a patch before that to basically make the DRM null and void. We’re never walking away from the game and making it into a situation where people aren’t going to be able to play it.”

So essentially, they shipped it with serious problems, knowingly. But they're saying "oh, we can fix that, just wait until we feel like it."

Bioshock has a license revoke tool. I don't think it took too long for that to come out. And I've used that tool twice already.

The multiple account thing, while I haven't messed with it, would definitely be nice. This would allow internet cafes to install Spore on their systems and let users log in with their own accounts. It would still be a hybrid CD-Key + MMO Account hybrid, but I suppose it fits, given that the game is massively single-player online whatever...

And it's a given that they'll release a patch if they shut down the servers. If they don't, the community will.

Well... All I know is that I'm pissed... Pissed because I have run out of Windows XP activation code reinstalls. We paid $145 for that OS, and I want to be able to use it. The only solution? Buying a new Code. The 'other' solution? Downloading an 'illegal' crack/keygen for windows xp.

Man... Sirgin... If you were to meet my friends brother, you would kill him.... :laugh:

Just call in. After a while, mine started activating online again. Guess they got tired of me calling and just "whitelisted' my key.

I'm glad EA will release some patches to fix this mess, I guess they realise the situation isn't normal anymore.

Only question is why didn't EA include those patches at release anyway? I know I'm evil-minded but I think they saw this whole thing coming and having all this (negative) attention was just part of the plan to get more people to know/buy the game.
Think about it: The DRM causes a giant waterfal of attention. Not good attention, but attention nevertheless. After a week or two EA announces they'll make the DRM a bit more lenient. This is now big news that gets published again causing more people to buy the game.

A bunch of slick marketing people at EA if you ask me...

They may of intentionally done it to flush out the rats.
You'll notice they mentioned an illegal torrent they had a look at. :tinfoil:

...an illegal torrent that they downloaded. EA is a pirate.

True, they have openly admitted it. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law :nod:

Which would mean they have to pay themselves more money than they deserve... Wait, they do that already!