Brian Eno to Provide Spore Soundtrack
Freely available on the official site of the Long Now Foundation is a lecture co-delivered last year by Eno and Wright, in which both creators speak on their own generative projects and elocute on such topics as the nature of culture and the essence of design. (Thanks GameSetWatch)
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SG evaNERV
replyQuestion: Will Spore be a
a) a Black & White type game where it is a cool concept that someone had and then had a difficult time making a game out of it.
b) A Sims remake where it will take the "nurturing" casual gamers by storm?
I am a hardcore gamer...and I think Spore looks interesting for about the first time I take a creature through...maybe the second (herbivore/carnivore)... then... what's the game? Where is the hook?-
I'm thinking (a).
From the start I've never understood how this concept can translate into a fun game. (In fact, it doesn't even sound like a "game" to me--which is fine.) But for whatever reason, the "intellectual gamers" have hyped this as the second coming, almost exactly like what happened with Black & White.-
I don't know of any game that lets you create content to the degree this does. That's something special and makes it very different from B&W or Sims.
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That's great and all but it doesn't actually sound like a fun thing to do. Maybe to tool around with in a novelty/science experiment kind of way, but sounds like it would get old fast. For some reason I put this in the class of things like Second Life--not a game, per se, but "something else" even though it might be called a game for lack of a better descriptor.
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Count me in the same boat as you guys.
I think everyone was amazed when it was first revealed, and the hype train has been intense since day 1.
But a couple months after the fact, I really began to wonder if it would actually be fun, and what exactly people have built up the game will be like in their minds.
I'm sure it'll be a hit, and deserve it aswell, but I think a lot of people are expecting a slightly different beast, and may be disappointed.
I'll be taking the wait and see approach.
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I don't get why people think this game is going to appeal to everybody. If you like sandbox simulators you're going to enjoy this, if you don't you won't.
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How is it not a game? It has many of the same design principles as Wright's other work such as SimCity, and everybody has always called those games.
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From what I've gathered by seeing the game and talking to some of the folks, it's going to be an awesome collection of tools and technology, with a game of sorts to tie it together. I don't think it'll have as much gameplay like the Sims, but it basically gives you the goods to go nuts with imagination. Like all Maxis games, the concept and UI, etc. is based around the idea of casual players enjoying the hell out of it just as much as hardcore players.
Sims players aren't your typical "hard core" gamer, but they are hard core Sims players.-
I don't know, I think there will be plenty of gameplay... as much if not more than the Sims. It sounds like there's going to be a kind of currency attached to each game mode and descrete victory conditions. I know that, in the creature game, you need to accumulate some kind of genetic material points which you then use to spend on parts for your creature. I'm pretty sure you can also create creatures that are utter failures early on in the game, which is why they include free-use of the editors when you "beat" the game.
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Have you played the Sims? It is FULL of gameplay, socials, skills, careers, family, child raising, businesses, etc. The creature game by itself won't be as deep as the Sims game. The strategy game by itself won't be as deep as Empire at War.
Not a bad thing, just not as deep. It's 8 games, plus tools, all in one. It's hard to do each of them to their fullest.
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c) Neither. It will be SimLife/SimEarth/SimCity on a much larger range of scales. There will be relatively few explicit goals beyond "survive and be successful", but within that there will be a lot of things to try and approaches to take.
Based on interviews and such, it won't be as undirected as Second Life, but it won't be as directed as something like Civilization either.
Oh, and in one of the more recent interviews/previews, Wright was showing off the beginnings of a random/procedural mission generator for the interstellar stage of the game. Something where the species you created will request you do things (like defend the homeworld) that are somehow tied in to things you've already done (like annoy that militaristic race in the next star system over). -
a) a Black & White type game where it is a cool concept that someone had and then had a difficult time making a game out of it.
Will Wright is the opposite of Peter Molyneux.
Spore is a big budget Maxis game, it will definitely appeal to casual gamers, except I think you can expect this one to be a bit more hardcore minded. It's a wierder premise then the Sims, and that might turn some people off. -
The goal of Sim City wasn't to win! The goal was to CREATE your own UNIQUE version of what a modern utopia would be. YOUR city. You owned the city, and you designed the city, and it was your imagination that said, "I think reality should be thus!" In such a way you see people struggling with the rule-set (close to reality) to design their perfect metropolis. My city had no factories, only mild residential farms and the occasional outlet for commerce (not to mention fantastic lake views!) THAT was my city, and I was happy that I could design it, and have it function appropriately according to the rules of modern politics/economics/etc.
The goal is not to win. The goal is to see how well your own vision of life fairs against the rules of the universe :) -
I've thought a) all along. But I'm not ruling anything out!!!
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