So i better go over some personal experiences before i forget them. 1st i must say that i will post pictures later and I have no video since there really was not a good time. Also as a disclaimer I am
not rating
nor reviewing the game. I am just telling you about the fun time i had visiting Maxis.
No that thats over with let me go over some stuff. I was one of the closest and so i has flight from LAX to Oakland Airport. Everything went well and it was only around a 1hour and 10 min flight. No troubles with baggage or anything and i just had one carry on.
Once there the nice Limo Link town car took us to the 4 Point Hotel where i arrived around 7pm. BWT my flight was 5:30pm to 6:00pm. There i walked into the lobby and instantly saw Petreak calling on his cell phone to Artie from Hooked on Spore. Also Gary from xSpore was already there drinking and w all said hi. Soon after Elenor from MySporePage came and checked in but did not say hi. Then LadyM and Judhudson from SporePrograms came in except in separate town cars despite them having the same flight.
We talked then went out for dinner roaming around the streets of Emeryville like a crazy Spore-nerd posse. Eventully we found the Burger King and ate then headed back to the hotel. While I had checked in I never went to my room yet. I was room 225 which was right across from LadyM but i had no idea. I called family and went to bed early since i knew I would have a big day.
In the night I was awoken every hour by some train or noise or something I have node idea what it was but i swear it came from outside. The room itself was great but i was afraid to touch anything it looked so fancy. Also they had some wacky pillows that were too soft. I felt like Goldilocks locks testing them all. Needless to say its a good thing i went to bed early despite my interruptions. I finally gave up and work up at 7am then got ready and went down to the lobby a little bit before 9am. Then checked out and saw the rest of the group was having breakfast. I met Rexer from Simphoni and xDreamache from XSpore. I was not hungry at all due to the Burger King food upseating my stomach from the night before. Then MaxisCactus and greeted us all.
We made out way over going across the train tracks which i bet i herd the night before and then into the Chocolate Factory... i mean EA. There we had to give them our souls ... er i mean sign wavers
And then got name tags and stuff. The sat down on bean bag chair as seen in the press thing awhile back. Don't worry we have pictures. After no one was hungry for bagels we went on the tour. But 1st we put our gear in the aquarium room. We 1st saw the downstairs part of the studio which was part of one building and had other businesses all around it. It was very art loft like. It was great to see everyones desks and the toys they had. All the posters were awesome and i even saw ones i had never seen before. I have some pictures but i am sure the rest of us have some exclusive pics since we were taking pictures like Japanese tourists (i mean no offense Japan).
Next a potty break and then over to the other part of the studio that is in another neighboring building but upstairs. We all packed tightly into the elevator. It was very funny too see. Once there we saw some of the big names such as ... Will Wrights office and his Russian Space console thing. It was really cool to see all the stuff they had.
Once done with that part of the tour se went with Caryl Shaw in the "Garage" which was also upstairs and she demoed a bit but what we wanted to see which was space so she had a lot of my stuff on her buddy list (Thanks Caryl!!!) And then picked my "Killer Cactus" and then Maxis Cactus's Aquarium UFO. We also went into the clothing editor and gave the cactus a cowboy hat which "made him look smarter". Needless to say i was really wanted to get my hands on Spore by then and had lots of questions.
Then another break and back downstairs in the squishy elevator. We has cool Mediterranean food for lunch which had like a pita wrap which was cut like sushi and then something that looked like an egg-roll but had grape leaves around it. It was very yummy!
Once we were fed it was time to play Spore! So they cleared out the creators kids from the room and let us play on lap tops. We were going to have it access our accounts but it did not work for any except the Macs which LadyM was using. This eventually got fixed as you can see from our Sporepedias. We got to choose any phase and used some other events accounts before then. Mine had the tribal already un-locked so i went there 1st. Most everyone else stated at cell 1st however Rybolton from Sporeum went straight for the Spaceship editor and then space. I played a tribe of my Parrot people. It was great i domesticated my Australopithecus man-apes and killed a Fiesta Willasaur tribe. There were rhinos and Kachinas and Tiki volcano people it was crazy since it practically all was my own creations since i had so many.
I did not want to stay on it for too long so once they allowed me to use my account i also got the cheat for space and picked my Nauceans. I Made the sphere UFO, and a Naucean looking sky scraper from the concept art i had with me. The rest of the buildings were weird but i could have changed them but didn't take the time to. I went along for the missions for awhile until i broke it. Yep i broke Spore this time. I completed a mission and came back to go to the communications screen but it would not let me. So i had to save and re-load that game. I then tried to cheat and gave it money and unlocked some stuff. Sadly i did not have enough stuff to get anywhere and kept dying as i trid to cheat my way to the center of the galaxy to see what was really there. I went though like 3 UFOs before i gave up and decided to spend some time in another phase.
I went to the cell phase and started from the beginning. I had a blind creature! Which makes the screen all gray and dark and has limited sight range. Its hard to describe without a picture. Then i took that guy to creature phase and kept no eyes for awhile. I tried to keep it in the middle in creature but my predatory cell stage traits made it hard to be social. This wold had almost all my content as well. You can see what I made on Sporepedia Some funny things that happened was a huge epic flower monster i made kept trying to eat my creature. I did not get too far with my creature and the time ended. We had to stop our games.
After the game we were back to the beanbag chairs with a panel group interview. Everyone had great questions. Hopefully Judhudson recoded them all via his microphone. One funny thing i asked was about hearing that they made 3D figures with chocolate and gummy bear stuff. They were shocked to know where i heard this from since it was true except the gummy bear stuff ended up like jawbreakers. more about the questions later though.
After that we re-group and got loot! We got a signed copy of Spore Creature Creator, Bummper Sticker, Spore T-shirt and a Poster of our Creature! Wooo! After that it wastheir TGIF Pizza Party! They even had funny make a creature cupcakes. Everyone mingled and i MaxisCactus introduced me to a lead tester guy named Brevin Pretorius. He looked over my folder and i gave him my resume and hopefully thing will go well for me getting my foot in the door of the gaming industry. The funny part was he said he had already seen some of my stuff before.
After that i hand my resume to a couple other peoples and then we headed back to the hotel to wait for our rides to the airport. Everyone left at diffrent times. There were 2 main drivers who were apparently brothers. One hardly spoke and the other was talkative and had a thick Russian accent. I told him about Will's Russian Space console and he went on telling me about how his family back in the 70's went in the Soviet Space program and got tested in the centrifuges while drinking vodka and then vomiting it all up. So yeah now i have a Russian Space minute this time.
At the airport i waited from 7:30pm to 9:30 for the flight and then only an hour and 20 minute flight back to LAX where my family picked me out and now i am back home telling you this. Phew. Tats pretty much the overview of what happened however i took some tiny notes and have limited pictures. But i know the rest have a lot more than me. So stay tuned for them as they get back.
