Really... Trash!  Every species produces waste.  Not just procedural pooping, I'm talking about an entire species pooping at once.  Once a species hits tribal they start producing garbage faster than the environment can break it down.  Once they hit city size the garbage starts to infect the living space (requiring sewers, large dumps, etc.) and once they hit industrialization the garbage issue gets so serious that it actively destroys the things this species needs to live.  Hopefully (though we don't yet have history to judge this one by) once the species reaches space age they discover how to re-use their waste to the extent that no actual waste product is produced, everything consumed is transferred 100% into an energy or resource of some kind...  but surviving the intense trash load of the industrial to space era is a dastardly bastardly challenge.

Comments?

This is a thread all about plants.  I think plants are quite interesting and are taking far too distant a back seat to creatures here.  First, how do plants grow across the planet?  How is the ratio of plant A to plant B determined?  What is the plant density?

First Problem = plant dispersal

There are a few ways they could handle populating plants onto a planet, here are some ways they could do it, not including pollination but just plant engineering.

1)  Easiest (and lamest) way:  When you come out of the plant editor that plant is now populated across your planet at random intervals, and/or it populates unexplored areas.

2)  bad way:  The plants you design can be placed anywhere but won't grow on their own.

3a)  The plants you design can be placed anywhere, after which they will start appearing in random areas.

4a)  Plants you design can be placed anywhere and they begin growing radially out from the mother plant that you placed down.

I seriously think that the editor should allow plants to spread in different ways.  Fruiting plants aren't going to travel far quickly, but flowering seeds (dandelions, thistles) will be able to spread very far when reproducing.

Second Problem = Plant Ratio

Plants compete with each other the same way animals do.  Plants steal resources, hoarde resources and kill other plants.  All plants need sunlight and water, so plants with broader leaves should kill other plants if they're taller than the other, plants that group together will kill plants that grow beneath them (both because they block the sunlight.  Vine plants can choke off branches, stems and leaves to stop the water flow or to kill leaves, hence killing the other plant.  I think that plants, just like animals, should be engaged in a constant survival of the fittest (unless tended by the player so that no "enemy" plants can harm our plant).

Third Problem = Plant Density

I seriously hope that we can have forests and not just random plants here and there.  I want to be able to group large amounts of plants together to create vast brush feilds or canopied jungles.

Anybody else have thoughts on plants, their uses and problems and things they hope will be possible?

this new?

a hastily deleted thread prompted a thought...  I'll open with a cut and paste of my comments in the ghost thread, and then a question.

At the moment these are the only two names (Molyneux and Wright) that I care about in the industry.  And, I think it's rather cool that when Wright was asked who he admires in the games industry Peter Molyneux was one of the first names out of his mouth.

I like Peter for god games...  But I've come to realize that Peter's idea of a 'god game' falls miraculously short of being a god simulation.  But, he's a single man who makes his ideas happen and for that I respect him and think he's an important stepping stone in the growth of games.

But Will Wright...  he's got the juice, and he's not thinking game to game, he's thinking of the industry and the development of the industry, he's thinking of the sociological impact of games and how to nurture an entertainment genre into an art medium.  If Peter Molyneux is a stepping stone in the progress of games then Will Wright is an engine that drives it into the future.

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Now the questions.  What do you see happening with games?  And do you see these guys as major inovators in the industry as a whole, as an art form?  What kinds of things do you think they contribute and what direction do you think games are going in?  (I'm not talking about graphics, plots, etc, but more of a philosophical analysis of the gaming industry).

Also, if there are more current names that you think are important to the future of gaming, who are they and why are they important?

I just wanted to warn everyone that at a petition site (don't know the address) there's a petition to have a spore demo released.  I strongly discourage everyone from signing it.  I feel it's pretentious and insulting for the fans to demand that maxis give us a demo.  I definately don't want to appear as an ingrate, and I also don't want maxis to think (though they may be partially right) that we're a bunch of selfish consumers.  I wouldn't call myself a fanboi (since I can be quite fickle, something fanbois are generally immune to) but my appreciation of Wright and Maxis goes far beyond simply 'give us spore'.

I would prefer to leave him at his work.  Sure I would ask for a demo here on the forums, I would almost certainly complain if a demo isn't released, but to sign a petition just smacks of slave and slaver.

my .02$

I just thought of this now...  I fully plan on making a few 'unsuitable' creatures (such as everyone's favorite reference, the penis monster, for example) and not allowing them to be uploaded to the database.  But what if I have somebody on IM or a forum somewhere who likes the monster, thinks it's cool, funny, whatever, and asks me for it.  Will they be able to 'uncheck' it, pollinate it and it still have my name???   I don't plan on spending all my spore time making retarded kid stuff, but at the same time I don't want to be restricted.

Bottom line question, if I get someone else's creatures via mail or website downloads, can these things be uploaded from my computer?

no, not Will Wright, the other one.

Let's go off on a bit of a speculative tangent for a minute.  And please remember (for the duration of the thread) that I'm talking about the game, not real life and I don't want to go off on a tangent for the same question about real life.

Where did we come from?

At some point, we'll be able to put life on other planets (in fact, it's one of the clearly mentioned goals) and actually create life for other planets.  We'll be able to raise life to sentience (sapience) on other planets.  So, were we made by a greater species?  Was our first bacteria sparked to life by an alien ship passing over our planet?  And the most important question, will we meet them?  How cool would that be for an end-game storyline quest and a 'welcome' to the full sandbox mode?  We finally meet the species that created us, and we are now as powerful as they are, they tell us they'd been watching us for millenia.  They had been monitoring us as a personal project.  Perhaps they're hidden somewhere in the galaxy and we can stumble across them by accident, or find clues such as a monolith on a planet that we didn't place.