It's about as good as I expected.
I always kept Wright's words in my mind "Spore will not be a game for the hardcore gamer.", so I did expected it such.
Some parts can improve imo, but some parts are actually better. (for example: cel game)

C'mon you guys stop this endless crusade against EA on this site!
Spore had already enough bashing, this community is also becoming more and more divided by it.
This should be a fan site for gods sake, but instead I constantly see posts turned against EA, DRM, Spore and even Maxis.
Really I'm getting sick and tired reading this all the time here.  
It's plain and simple if you don't find the Creepy&Cute pack is worth $20, then don't buy it. (best way to express your opinion imo)
When you find they crossed the line with this "limited" promotion you really should be mailing EA or at least post it on the official forum.
I'm not saying people can't have a different opinion but does this always have to be this way?
I'm also not always happy with how they handle things but at least I try to give suggestions how I think it should have been done instead.
Most of the time I don't see anybody giving a alternate suggestion for what they think is wrong, only some rants against EA, DRM etc.
Really enough is enough, otherwise go make a anti-EA forum for all I care.

Quote from: Absinth on October 25, 2008, 08:23:31 pm

Quote from: wgooch on October 25, 2008, 07:34:40 pm

Here's a few of my ideas

Exploration of gas planets

Not possible!
Gravity would crush anything that would come near gas giants, not to mention the atmospheres that are mostly hydrogen and helium that blend into the liquid interior.
Some gas giants even don't have a body and on top of that the temperatures are extremely hot.
They also rotate relatively rapidly that's why they have these stripes because of the winds.

Think about the square planets for a moment

You have a point there, still this little bit of realism what's left in the game I wouldn't like to see lost.

Quote from: Absinth on October 25, 2008, 08:23:31 pm

Quote from: wgooch on October 25, 2008, 07:34:40 pm

Exploration of gas planets

Not possible!
Gravity would crush anything that would come near gas giants,

A common, but very false belief.  The gravity at the theoretical "surface" of our Gas Giants is around 2.5 Gs for Jupiter and .9 Gs for Saturn.  The immense size of these giants is counterbalanced by their low density, to produce something at worst uncomfortable, but certainly not instantly fatal to humans.  Jet pilots routinely undergo much stronger G forces.

However the pressure inside the atmospheres of these planets can be tremendous, and comes close to being able to "crush anything", but you have to enter the atmosphere to a sufficient depth before any crushing happens.

In terms of G's you are correct but don't forget to look at the escape velocity which is 5 times as much for Jupiter compared to Earth and 3 times as much for Saturn.
A constant force of 2.5 G's and 55 km's escape velocity isn't what i call uncomfortable.

(Yeah, simple backstory for the omg-excellent planet I found. best / strangest thing, each planet had an identical terraforming requirements - one atmosphere generator, one cold-maker.)

I would start a intergalactic war for a system like that. 

I let everything in my game just in case the buddy content isn't enough to fill my galaxy.
About 100 new creations it downloads every time I play and 99% comes from buddies.

1 Creature, Space
2 Cell
3 Tribe
4 civ

My vote was creature but only because it wouldn't allow me to vote on both.
Sorry but i just cannot choose between creature and space at the moment, i love them both.
I'm sure once the first big expansion is out it will probably become space.
Both these stages also have the most jaw dropping moments and allow me to make the best screenshots imo.
Cell is fun to play and can be challenging on hard when your goal is to try to stay alive through the entire stage.
Tribe is also fun but once you get the hang of it it's rather easy to play.
Civ isn't bad but i expected a little more diplomacy and strategy.

Yeah that someone was me. 
When you remove the pollination.package then your game works again.

http://www.gamingsteve.com/blab/index.php?topic=14711.msg617464#msg617464

Edit:
Just to point out that this is only a fix to make the game work again, because the side effect is that your creations will not be recognized as yours and will end up in the "all creations" tab.

I am well aware that there are like... a dozen topics about this around the boards. However, no one seems to have a definitive way to back up saves. There's always this or that poster saying it doesn't work or that you need to include/exclude this or that folder.

So comes my question: can someone simply say the best way to back up all of your Spore data? Creations and game saves are all I really care about.

Please do not fill this with discussion about your save being ruined or Spore gobbling up your creations. If you don't know, don't post. I'd like to keep this as informative and brief as possible, for the sake of preventing yet another argument thread.

Thanks!

I wonder why it shouldn't work if you used the entire appdata and My Documents folder.
The only reason i can think of a backup that doesn't work has to do with the patches.
Let's say you reinstalled and didn't patch while using a patched backup or if you first patched and then used a non patched backup.
Those might give problems but in other case you basically use the same data as before that did work so it doesn't make much sense to me.