Quote from: DarkDragon on October 28, 2008, 11:00:18 pm

Quote from: Gec on October 28, 2008, 10:55:49 pm

Fixing these development blunders would be an agreeable route for future expansions. But something tells me this is wishful thinking. The Spore we have now may never be as it was.

One thing is for sure Maxis shouldn't be happy about what their devoted fans are saying.

Also, as Sub said I advise anyone to refrain from the Chris Hecker bashing. This was all just a shortsighted mistake.

You're right on that one, Chris Hecker is not the only one to blame for how the game turned out, after all he's not above the whole Development team, he gave an idea and they went with it. (unfortunatelly)

Truth.  Wright has basically said in an interview that sales were more important than the actual quality of the game. 
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/09/07/will-wright-reacts-to-crtical-spore-reviews/

That is not what he said. He said "Metacritic scores"

Quality =/= Metacritic scores
Metacritic is heavily influenced by hardcore gamers. But they are just a fragment of the audience. They have certain values that they expect from games. But these values are not universal. They are just a minority, in this case of a game for everyone. Their specific values doesn't worth more than the opinion of housewives, Christians, soldiers, homosexuals, old people, movie fans, etc. They-are-just-another-minority.

Quality =  Popularity
At least that is how Will Wright looks at it. Games are tools for entertainment, and the more people entertained by it, the better it is. Actually it makes sense. Obviously, a small group of users can not decide the UNIVERSAL quality of  creation, only express their biased opinion about it. So, the number of people who played with it, is a good way to decide if they made something relevant.

Popularity = Sales
This one is obvious. The more people like it, the more people buy it.

Sales = Quality
Conclusion: The sales charts represent which developers managed to reach the bigger audience, and which ones are making niches.

Quote from: Petike on October 25, 2008, 08:52:56 am

You guys are sometimes really weird.

If they would lower the price of the full game to 30$, (as it happens with every product sooner or later), they would also "punish the fans" for buying it earlier?
Because that's it. A price drop, if you get other product.
Of course all of us knew that later Spore will cost less, there were even people who said that they will wit for price drops. We decided to pay for the full game, because it worth the extra money to play with it on the first days.

They never lower the price of a game until at the very least 6 months after release. It hasn't been long enough for the dust to settle. We are being punished...

Ok, so EA is evil because they lower their prices sooner than anyone else? 

Congratulations, you reached a totally new, unexplored level of ridiculousness.

I don't understand what the big deal is. Games get content removed all the time before release. That's part of a game's development. I think you who are disappointed or angry about this are taking it worse than children learning there is no Santa Claus. You are not part of the development team, so you do not know why they were cut.

But think about this: cell is meant to be a short introduction to the game, its controls, and the editors. If there were 5 pages of parts (which you would have to FIND, remember), you could easily lose interest in Spore then and there. You may not find it worthwhile to search for parts, as you're a very boring creature at this point, and then in creature phase continue to ignore finding parts, dampening your creative gameplay because you were overwhelmed in Cell.

Just don't get so offended. Maxis didn't cut content because they hate you; they did it for game playability and stuff like that. Not everyone is great with a computer, creative, and gaming, and those people were the main targets, remember.

QFT.

Usability is more important than the amount of content. Maybe you say you would want that content, but generally, it would be unhealthy for the product.

This is the normal procedure. Remember, WW said that only 10% of the concept was turned into prototypes, and only 10% of the prototypes got into a game. This did not necessarily happen due to technological difficulties, of the lack of time, but also because only the best of the best can get into a game.
Even films are made like this. They record several hours of footage, and later cut out the boring, slow, repetitive, confusing parts. 
Maybe if you are a big fan of Star Wars, you would like to see a 5 hour long New Hope, but for normal people, it would have been a boring film, and it would have failed.

Quote

Spore gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe filled with creations made by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. Spore Creatures, available on NDS, takes players on a quest to save their species and the entire Galaxy. Meet, befriend or fight other creatures in a number of unique Touch Screen-based activities.

"Spore is an incredibly personal and customizable experience," said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of Maxis studio. "Many of our fans have asked us for even more tools to build with, while others are looking to extend their gameplay. As soon as we wrapped up Spore, we turned our focus to creating additional content that caters to fans' individual tastes. With the cosmos as our backdrop, we can take Spore in almost infinite directions, constantly changing and evolving the experience."

Gamers will experience deeper Space stage gameplay with an expansion pack scheduled for release in spring 2009. For the first time, players' space faring creatures will be able to beam down from their spaceships to explore new planets and earn rewards for completing challenging missions. A new Adventure Creator will allow players to build and share online their own custom missions, providing almost endless gameplay possibilities.

The Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack provides more than 100 new creature-building components themed in two distinct styles--charming, cartoon-esque creatures and scary, monster-like creatures. Including body parts, paint options, animations, backgrounds and more, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack allows users of Spore or the retail version of the Spore Creature Creator to give their creatures distinct personalities like never before!

Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack will be available worldwide on Nov. 18, 2008.

CosmicD, where'd you get that info from. The official announcement says more than 100 new parts.  You say 72.  That's a big discrepancy. 

Quote from: TDKenyon on October 11, 2008, 10:46:41 am

http://drh.img.digitalriver.com/DRHM/Storefront/Company/ea/images/home/feature/spore_creepycute_pre-launch_690x330.jpg

The above image is better than the other.

I was hoping to get a look at the parts it offers, but the "creepy" monster is mostly an illustration— i'm not going to draw any conclusions from that.  The "cute" creature looks like it might be 3D.  If those are real parts, they are certainly not something i would ever want to use.

If it represents its content as correctly as the full game's box, t will be good.

Can't we just wait until we find out if this pack is even real?
I'm starting to think that Will should quit EA and start his own company. If he had done this while spore was in production, we most likely, would have gotten the game we wanted.

Yeah, probably.

Especially if you wanted a casual game, with five very simple stages, cartoony graphics, a billion stuff packs, and a million expansion packs. Because he ALWAYS expressed that he is interested in these things.

Quote from: Petike on September 23, 2008, 07:27:34 am

Re: No water creatures expansion pack?

Why don't you change the title to something that is not such blatant bait, and to something that is supported by the content of your post.

Because until now, it was believed that the water stage was cut out only due to the lack of time, or some technological problems, but now it was revealed that they consider its entire design to be incompatible with the current gameplay.

There are more than 20 million creations, they don't check all of them. If you find an offensive creature, tag, etc, report it.
If no one reported and banned it, it means no one was offended.
If someone reports it, and EA bans it, it means someone was offended.