I've learned a lot more about the whole LBP recall incident. It is pretty amazing.

On the UK Playstation forums, a 22 year old kid, goes by the handle Solid_08, types out about the copy of LittleBigPlanet that he managed to wheedle out of a retailer before the release date. On the 'Africa' level, he hears a song by a Grammy-Award winning Muslim artist, currently living in Somalia. The two-year old award-winning song offends him, because there are some snippets of an obscure Somali dialect used as a background track in the song, and he interprets the snippets as being from the Qui'ran (according to the artist, they really aren't, they are just phrases which while weird, are not word-for-word passages). In his particular, small sect of Islam, apparently the use of the Qui'ran in recorded music is considered sacrilege -All Islamic prayers and services are always sung... it just a handful of sects that believe that this singing should not be recorded.

Now in all of Great Britain, there may be but a handful of people who could understand any of this, but Solid_08, who has a Somali mother and knows a little of the language, is offended, so he writes a polite but impassioned request to have the song excluded from LittleBigPlanet on the grounds that it offends Islam, as though he were speaking for the whole of the religion.

Immediately, Sony of Europe goes ballistic and demands the popular song be pulled immediately. Media Molecule, the makers of LittleBigPlanet instantly produce a zero-day patch to eliminate the song being used in the game, but this is not good enough. Sony insists that at least 2% of the owners of the Playstation 3 have no internet connection, and that it is potentially possible that some small percentage of those people might be Muslim, might know that dialect of Somali, and -because they know nothing of Islam- assume that this would trigger a fatwa among all Muslims, everywhere.

So the more than 500,000 copies of the game are immediately recalled, despite already having been shipped to stores all over the world. The cost is tens of millions of Euros, and all of the games will end up in a landfill, a complete waste.

Since then, many more orthodox Muslims have stepped forward stating that this is entirely insane, because for most Muslims, recordings of music containing parts of the Qui'ran are common, and enjoyed in even greater measure than, say, Christians enjoy Christian Rock. This song is basically Islamic Rock, you see. It was very popular throughout Europe two years ago. However, Solid_08 is a recent immigrant.

So because of ignorance, racism, and the conviction that all Muslims believe the same thing, and all Muslims are potential terrorists, Sony has wasted every copy of LittleBigPlanet in a cowardly attempt to placate what they assume is an evil empire of bomb-carrying nutcases just waiting for a chance to blow up their world headquarters. All because of one post by one 22 year old boy fresh off the boat.

This blind appeasement of Muslims is becoming more and more common, especially in Great Britain, and from what I read in their newspapers (such as the Guardian and others), this is pissing a lot of UK folks off. But, Sony has spoken, and they dare not piss off the terrible Monolith that is the threat of Islam!

This is the full story, the full details of the matter. Media Molecule is crushed, they are angry and upset, as are a lot of gamers. Many have sworn to boycott the game as a protest against the increasing loss of their own culture and freedom of choice in order to appease Islam, or rather to appease a generalized, bigoted fear of Islam.

As the current largest religion on earth, recently just passing Christianity in number of adherents, this problem is not going away, and unless people start to grow the balls to dare to let Muslims be offended along with everyone else, we will see more and more of this blind, frightened, reactionary appeasement going on.

That is why I, and others are so mad about this. It isn't the game being late, it is the racist, cowardly appeasement. It's being so frightened of 'towelheads' that no act, however great, or expensive, or dire is too great to avoid making them go Jihad... because there is a belief that 'Muslim' is the same as 'terrorist'.

I find that very, very, very objectionable. Unforgivable, in fact. And I am no fan at all of Islam. I loath it as much or more than I do Christianity. But dammit, folks is folks, and just as most Christians are not terrorists, so most Muslims are not terrorists, and this frightened effort to cow-tow to the image of a turbaned terrorist is completely offensive. It is also a pain in the ass, because it messes things up for everyone.

That's the scoop folks.

I played GGGG-Shaman, making my point of play to never harm any living creature. I was able to follow this code throughout the early parts of the game. The second I hit space, the attacks started, and they continue every few minutes. It never ends, and nothing I do stops them.

I just want to explore the galaxy in peace, make friends, and terraform planets. I would like what I make to survive longer than half an hour before being destroyed by some unknown race that has suddenly decided that I am their enemy.

I just want the response in space to be related to the way in which I have played every other part of the game.

I have been peaceful and kind; I want my space adventure to reflect that.

Instead it is never ending war, surrounded on all sides by vast enemy empires, and no way to make peace with any of them.

All I can do is cheat with 'moremoney' to repair what I have, and never visit my homeworld, so I do not lose my last city.

I have had more fun, and more peace, in dedicated 4X space games like Stardock's Galactic Civilizations 2! At least there I can make peace for a while, or sign a treaty.

In Spore, the future is endless war, and I am armed with a pea-shooter.

A hopeless game that doesn't even recognize that the player has been peaceful is broken, and it needs to be fixed. This is just wrong.

Unless the subtext that Will Wright wants to teach us is that "space isn't worth it, you will just suffer. Stay on your home world, space is nothing but horror and misery." If that is what Will is saying, he is definitely saying it loud and clear.

Maxis has made a game that has taught me that being a Luddite and avoiding space is the only way to avoid constant attack.

I think that sucks.

Space stage is broken. It desperately needs to be fixed. Here is why, and how.

Immediately after leaving my starsystem, a call came from a part of the galaxy I had not even begun to approach.

It was an empire demanding an impossible sum of Spucks that I could not pay, in order to avoid war. Extortion.

Almost immediately, wave after relentless wave of that empire besieged my homeworld, and because I had no weapons of any power, I died 24 times, my cities reduced to only four by bombers wiping them from the map - and no means exists that I can find to replace a lost homeworld city.

I had to flee my homeworld - as long as I do not return, apparently it still stands. When I died in space from a random pirate raid, I respawned on my homeworld, right in the middle of the continuing siege of my planet, and by the time I left, two more cities had been lost.

Now I dare not return, and I dare not die, the game is barely enjoyable at all, and the only way I can play it is to constantly use the cheat menu to add 'MoreMoney' over and over to pay off the constant barrage of calls from empires that want to extort money in exchange for not attacking me.

I cannot explore, or even just enjoy the scenery, because my lone colony, the only one I was able to build after I left, is constantly being raided by pirates. Fortunately the empire that originally attacked has not found me yet.

The early game was marked by gentle play. I could make friends and explore, and this was the pattern set.

The moment I entered space, I have been constantly under attack, purely because I was not wealthy enough to pay off the bullies that surround me, and my only recourse is to cheat constantly. This is not fun, and it is an abrupt change from the flow of the game up to this point.

Spore is broken in the space stage - make no mistake. Perhaps not for every player, but it is broken, and it needs, desperately, to be fixed.

I play a gentle, nonviolent race, and all I wanted was to explore the galaxy in peace, and all I did was to leave my world. Once.

This is not the way space should play out.

It is not the pattern set by the previous stages. It is a broken situation. Constant siege and no recourse but to cheat to avoid total annihilation is not good gameplay. It would not be tolerated in any other game, it is intolerable in Spore.

How this can be fixed:

There must be a subroutine that deals with the amount of attacks the player will endure, the number of extortion calls, the degree of the violence directed towards the player. Nerf that subroutine.

Better still, directly alter the 'player is attacked' setting in relation to how the player has played the previous stages - you keep a timeline already, use it. If the player is peaceful and nonviolent, virtually shut off the extortion calls, the random raids, and the sudden wars from nowhere. Let the peaceful player... play.

Let the space stage progress naturally from the previous stages, rather than become an abrupt nightmare where the player is instantly overwhelmed by constant violence.

Any game that literally cannot be played without cheats is broken.

Any game that teaches the player one thing (say that peacefulness works) and suddenly contradicts itself (constant barrage and loss of cities, constant war whatever one does) is broken.

Space isn't fun. The game was fun up till now, but the space stage, supposedly the crowning glory of the game, is misery.

I came in peace, but I end up in a blackened crater, through no fault of my own.

The only action I did to provoke endless, impossible to win war, was to leave my planet and answer one innocent call from the stars. That is not right, and it should not happen. The empire I face is larger that I can even measure. It has infinite resources, I have a blackened world and one colony. The situation is impossible.

This can be fixed, and it needs to be fixed, and it should be fixed.

A game that isn't fun in the end stage, will be remembered as not being fun.

It doesn't matter that this does not happen to every player. It matters that it happens at all.

MAXIS: fix space. Fix it immediately, fix it now, because the future of your franchise is at stake; I am not the only player suffering this problem and if I did not count myself a moderately hard core player (24 tries before I left my homeworld forever), I would have given up on Spore. I would not be surprised if many do give up on the game once they reach space.

This is not good for anyone, it is not good for your bottom line.

That is why this needs to be addressed.

I made a little comic about my experiences with the Creature Stage of Spore. I'd like to share it with you:

http://pasteldefender.com/sporetaelis.html

Here is what I would have done differently:

All stages: the ability to choose to individually control one creature at any time. To 'become' one creature of your own species at any time, and go about the world. 'Being' an individual creature is taken away from the player at the tribal stage onwards... the closest thing to granting it back is to have a holographic representation in the space stage.

Why?

We are innately drawn to associate and identify with living beings, and we are led from the beginning of the game to 'be' a life form. Later, it is more practical to extend that identification with a larger population, but the desire to be individual still remains.

It is also valuable to be able to walk among your own cities, or the cities of others, to walk the world, or other worlds, and to make contact, or to otherwise interact. This is of greatest importance in the space stage, the enduring stage of the game.

What is the point of travel? To get out and explore. To sight-see. To be there.

It is vastly harder to identify with a floating UFO than a living being, and we are well indoctrinated from every single science fiction story that the point of getting to another world is beam down, land, step through a Gate, or otherwise get out on foot and go see and do things personally. We are wired, as social apes, to want to do things personally, to have a personal stake, to have something we identify with. In games, we need an 'us', a representation of self to feel close to events. A character. An individual.

What would I want to do on a world, or in the Civ phase, or the Tribe phase as an individual?

Walk around, see things from ground level, try to sneak into enemy cities, or stroll through allied cities. Individually participate in the battles or conversions, as an admittedly weak individual with weak individual ability... but front and center, 'being there'. That's the point. I want to go and participate.

I want to land on alien worlds and hunt or scan the wildlife. I want to go search for stuff on foot, I want to make first contact Klaatu style, in person, on the ground, mingling. I want to land out in the hills and walk down to the new species and see what they make of me, an alien, and not just my flashy ship. I want to feel like I am participating as a being, not an abstract ship.

One game of note did this brilliantly - Bullfrog's 'Dungeon Keeper'. In this top-down 3D game, the player was tasked with digging out a dungeon to make it a place that monsters would want to live, while fending off raids from heroes. There was a simple, basic spell in the game 'possess' that allowed the player to pick any monster, any creature on their side and 'become' them. The camera swung down and entered the back of the monster's head, and the player enjoyed a first-person view. One could slash with a claw or whatever, or dig, or whatever single power the creature had, and of course walk about and look around. It was wonderful... one could get a feeling of the dungeon one had built being a 'real' place, a place one could walk through. Brilliant.

This would be so easy in Spore. The mechanism is already in the game, from the creature phase. Just allow the player to choose a single member of their own people and 'become' them, walk them around as the creature they are, take individual control of a single being for a time. A key press or whatever, and the control and view go back to the distant operations of running an empire.

So incredibly simple... the code is already there, it's just a matter of permitting that choice. That's all. Just that.

I wish designers would learn from other games a little more than they do. I also wish that the importance of identification with an avatar was more understood.

I would modify that last statement with one caveat, though... a recent study has shown that there is a difference in identification between males and females... males seem, on average, to find it equally easy to identify with a ship as with a being, while females seem to only truly form a connection with an apparently 'living' being. On average.

But, this said, following the percentages regarding gamers, 40% of Spore's players (maybe more, considering the Sims) are going to be women, like me, and that is a hell of a lot of players who would benefit from what I have described. Almost half, and perhaps even more than half (if Spore gets the same demographics as the Sims did.)

There is a patch for you, Maxis: the 'let us be our creatures at any time' patch. All it would take is a single key or button to activate and deactivate it, the rest of the code for walking around as a creature is already there, and it would make the game more appealing for women, and would not detract from anything at all. Win-win all around.

 

I think the best way to approach Spore when it arrives is to just consciously, deliberately, willfully expect nothing. Push all the expectations and preconceptions out of our heads as best we can.

I am going to try to consciously put myself in the mental space of being a child, of being as empty and open as I can be, as simple as I can be, and push out of my head all those six plus years of waiting, all the articles, all the movies, even the Creature Creator, and just think of Spore, when I first play it, as this cool-looking unknown game I found at the store, something I know nothing about, but, hey, what the heck, I'll give it a try.

If I have to, I'll come back later, maybe late at night, after I install it, when I am tired and half out of it, to get that feeling, to be in that place of 'hmmm...what's this? Let's try it out and see'.

I think that in that mindset, Spore will reveal itself best, and I will get the most out of it, and be the most happy.

Expectations ruin everything cool.

But an empty, open mind can find wonder everywhere... and I dearly want Spore to make me feel wonder.

Anyway, that is what I shall do.

I hate everything listed so far, with one addition that especially tweaks me:

I hate people naming their creatures stupid things, or obscene things. I hate that.

Sometimes it occurs with an otherwise good or even great creature, and that is even worse!

I might come across some amazing spider-moose thing in the 'pedia, and bam, its name is 'Jigglypuff', or 'Cockscarfer' or 'Visit Sporesitewebthing.com' or something like that. Or maybe its '******.com' - some folks seem to be using creature names as spam, as advertising! Once I saw 10 creatures in a row, all named the web address of some (supposedly) Spore fan site in Denmark.

I HATE THAT. Most of all, maybe.

I do not want to be exploring a planet, playing naturalist, and come across a massive herd of the the wild and untamed 'visitmycrappywebsite' beast. That just turns wonder into despair. Seriously. It does.

All of my creatures -all of them- have original names, full background text, and a full set of tags that make sense. Can't everyone do the same? Hell, there is a random name generator right there for the lame, if they need it. It's not very good, but it's there.

It can't be too hard to bother with a few tags for goddess' sake - if your creature is mostly red, then just put down 'red' if you can't think of anything else! Even the severely 'tarded could do that much. I certainly can and I'm real messed up.

And what does it take to type a few measly words about your creature in the description, huh? Even if it is just 'This creature is a big, dumb, oaf'. At least that is some character. At least it gives some feeling other than... -blank-. Fluff is where the depth comes from!

Arrrggh. Arg I say.

Just a little bit of care. That's all I want. Just a little bit of respect for others, for one's own work, and for the experience of others who are going to see your work.

I don't need folks to be brilliant... I just need them to bother a little, and not be total jerks. That's all.

Why is that so hard?

(Don't answer, rhetorical question, I pretty much know why. I just can't bear it.)

 

In this game, like most, players usually die. Afterwards they are brought back to life. Some games like Frogger for the ps2 explain this. SPORE™  takes this path by having an army of clones of your UFO pilot (and apparently leader) constantly downloading your experiences. When you die one is popped out on your home planet to continue your adventure complete with all your knowledge. Does no one see a problem with this? 

Why on earth is this a problem? I don't understand your issue.

A brain is a neurochemical device, and identity and memory are encoded in it as a pattern. Download that pattern to a powerful enough computer, emulate a brain running that pattern, as well as a virtual world, and you would become a machine intelligence. Or, just download that pattern into a replica clone body, and bam, you are alive again.

If you copy an MP3 file, which is data, the copy is absolutely the same as the original, it is indistinguishable from the original.

If you copy the pattern of connections within a brain, which is data, the copy is absolutely the same as the original, it is indistinguishable from the original.

You are a pattern within the meat computer of your brain. You are a fancy hunk of data.

This is not merely simple to explain, it is absolutely possible. Compared to other, more ridiculous technologies in Spore, like the Star Trek inspired 'Genesis Device', or the 2001 inspired 'Monolith', downloading into a clone body is positively ordinary.

Frankly, I do not see your problem at all.

I wish such a thing were fully possible today; I would rush to have my mind uploaded into an immortal machine form, I'd prefer a virtual world to a new clone body every time. But I would settle for a clone body when I grew old or died, no question.

Immortality is pretty much the best - what can top it? Nothing.

It's kind of sad that such technology is more likely to happen in 50 years from now rather than, say, 20 or 30... I won't likely get to benefit. Unless life extension becomes available.

But it will happen. It is only a matter of time.

So what is your problem? It is a reasonable, rational, and inevitable technology (unlike magical Monoliths), so it makes a perfect explanation for being resurrected within the game!