Spore Community Day (Fansites get an invite!)

[Miclee]

How did the tribal phase feel? Was it easy to ally/defeat a different tribe, or was it harder than most think? What difficulty were you on?

[Petreak]

How did the tribal phase feel? Was it easy to ally/defeat a different tribe, or was it harder than most think? What difficulty were you on?

I played Tribal for a few minutes on Easy level. I found it easier to ally with a tribe by playing musical instruments than attacking them. I had 5 tribe members at the time when I went to attack the tribe. I'm not sure exactly what happened when I attacked, because right after I did, other creatures ran in to help the group I was attacking. I don't know if they might have been an ally tribe or domesticated creatures or what, but they helped the group I was attacking wipe my guys out fast. It might be easier with better weapons and a larger group of creatures to attack with. I never got to try again, since I moved on to Civilization Phase to try it since I was limited on time.

[Hydromancerx]

Finally!  I finished uploading the audio that I recorded from the Maxis Interview Q&A.  It took some time as I had to increase the sound of the file, convert it to MP3, and then decrease the audio size from 77MB to 25MB without audio quality loss.

http://www.simprograms.com/?p=1290

or direct link of audio file (hopefully this file won't kill my site with the increased bandwidth  ) - http://www.simprograms.com/images/games/spore_community_day/spore_communityday_q&a.mp3

I'll create a transcript from this audio file after I finish with my impressions from the event.  Man it's been a busy weekend!

The quality is not too bad. Great job! I am glad you got all these because there was no way i could remember all the answers let alone all the questions we asked. You rock Judhudson!

Also around 26:50 you can heard my question about the Chocolate and Gummy 3D models. I think that was one of the funniest answers.

[LadyM]

Something is bothering me. 

What is that drink sitting on Will's desk?  It looks like a Coke can from a distance but there's some kind of funky lettering on it. >.>

I'm not sure I didn't notice it until today but I think it's a coke from another country. It looks like Asian or Arabic writing.

That's the price to pay for the early hands-on....      

   One Easy Question:

How does the UI feel ?  You were playing on laptops. Probably not the top of the range computers. So is the game running smoothly?

I was playing Simcity Society Demo this week and it is a bit choppy and slow response. Is Spore better than that?

I played on a Macbook Pro and it was smooth sailing all the way. The graphic ran great, no hang ups and it was fast.

Great report LadyM!  It is sad to hear that they get upset over the negatives on forums.

I wish people would wait for the game to come out to start nit picking.   Even then we should remember the hard work the Maxis team put in and give gentle suggestions for improvements instead of complaining.

I will try to remember my own advice when I get the game though I have yet to complain about the CC or possible game play.  (OK, I did have a LOT of complaints about the EA forum but good grief it was bad, have not been back in a couple days because of it.)

If people really thought about how much work goes into the game, they'd understand and have more patience. It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of people sitting at desks with piles of things to work on and trying fix or figure out why something is glitching. There is alot of things they cut to get the game ready and once the bugs get worked out they'll bring it in later. The website guy worked the whole time I was there, I never saw him take a break except for pizza. Caryl is in charge of the online part and she said she stays stressed everyday trying to make sure everything stays online. They really DO care about the Sporepedia and the players. The community is very important to them.

LadyM, how come you put up a picture of yourself on your blog, along with Hydro's pictures, but you keep insisting that you would never post a picture of yourself?  Am I missing something here?

I haven't posted a photo of myself on the forum before. I posted a couple hidden in my blog but this is the first time I'm relaxing on the photo thing. I guess Spore just over rides that.

[Judhudson]

That coke can is just regular Coca-Cola.  They are 4 or 5 collectible cans for the 2008 Olympics, this is just one of them   They are very common.

[xDreamache]

Jud, do you mind if I download that file, upload it to xspore, and use it when I post my experience there?  I will give recognition to you and a link to your fansite directly underneath it?  Let me know

[Judhudson]

Sure, go right ahead

[Miclee]

In general, how much(from 1-10, 5 being CC, same as now) have animations improved?
Do creatures attack with weapons you've put on them(spikes and such)?

[ProfPendragon]

That coke can is just regular Coca-Cola.  They are 4 or 5 collectible cans for the 2008 Olympics, this is just one of them   They are very common.

Then I am satisfied. You guys reported things excellently and documented them visually and even with audio... as a fanperson, I couldn't have asked for more!  And now we have also discovered which side of the Great Divide Will sits on. >.> He is a Coke person.  Which is a shame, because I'm a Pepsi person myself.  But I suppose even great minds can agree to disagree.

[LadyM]

In general, how much(from 1-10, 5 being CC, same as now) have animations improved?
Do creatures attack with weapons you've put on them(spikes and such)?

In my opinion the animations are a 10. My creature called Parketor looks pretty bad when animated in the CC but when I encountered it in the game I was blown away by how well it looked. The head didn't flop around like it did before and I never could make friends with it so it was sort of tough.

The creatures do attack with the weapons but you have to click the button to get it to do that. You have to play an active role in the attacks, you can't just point and click attack or you'll die. I found that out the hard way.

[Gorman Conall]

I think you misunderstood the attack question LadyM

In the CC if you have a weapon like a mace on your creature but no hands. It does this weird broken looking animation with no sound if you click the strike button. The creatures in the CC only seem to use the strike attack with their hands.

I think he wants to know do creatures actually use the weapons like the mace.

[Kenotai]

In your creature game I know that you saw your creatures and Ovi's, did you end up seeing other people's creatures or was it saturated with your own?

[LadyM]

I think you misunderstood the attack question LadyM

In the CC if you have a weapon like a mace on your creature but no hands. It does this weird broken looking animation with no sound if you click the strike button. The creatures in the CC only seem to use the strike attack with their hands.

I think he wants to know do creatures actually use the weapons like the mace.

I thought I did answer it. My creature only had "spit" and a spike so I mostly used the bite and strike or spit. It had a place I could select to use those when attacking. I would assume if you had a mace on it, then it would use that to attack.

In your creature game I know that you saw your creatures and Ovi's, did you end up seeing other people's creatures or was it saturated with your own?

I saw my own creatures because it pulled from my own account automatically. I saw Ovi's creatures because I added him to my buddy list to test that feature. Other than that, I only had Maxis creatures show up including the one Will used in a demo.

[Gorman Conall]

I think you misunderstood the attack question LadyM

In the CC if you have a weapon like a mace on your creature but no hands. It does this weird broken looking animation with no sound if you click the strike button. The creatures in the CC only seem to use the strike attack with their hands.

I think he wants to know do creatures actually use the weapons like the mace.

I thought I did answer it. My creature only had "spit" and a spike so I mostly used the bite and strike or spit. I had a place I could select to use those when attacking. I would assume if you had a mace on it, then it would use that to attack.

In your creature game I know that you saw your creatures and Ovi's, did you end up seeing other people's creatures or was it saturated with your own?

I saw my own creatures because it pulled from my own account automatically. I saw Ovi's creatures because I added him to my buddy list to test that feature. Other than that, I only had Maxis creatures show up including the one Will used in a demo.

Oh i see it was i that misunderstood you. thats fantastic news then.

[Judhudson]

Whew!  Finished my impressions of the day.  Since I am a horrible writer, don't expect an award-winning masterpiece  

I wanted to paste it here but it looks better with images...Plus I don't want to spend another 10 minutes formatting it for this post...I'm already pooped out as it is!

Again, found in this post.