It looks pretty cool. If you haven' bought it yet...get on it!

Labels: EA, Spore, Will Wright

They're all pretty cool, but no amount of promotion or examples will prepare EA for the content that will be created in the first week this thing is released.

Is there really any other option for your first SPORE creature?

And the Trogdor comes in the NIIIIIIIIIGHTTT!!!!!!!

Good press from the big guys at USA Today.

Wright compares this process of collaborative filtering to Amazon.com's recommendations features. "When you are encountering content other players have made, you will be able to look and see who made it and flag it and say, 'I'd like to see more of this person's content.' It's like a buddy list.

I can already see lives getting sucked down into this world, never to emerge. I just hope I'm not one of them.

We here at EASPORE.BLOGSPOT.COM are always on the lookout for new SPORE content. Some other sites are putting up some creative promotion for a game almost a year away. For starters, check out this comic. Sure, it's not very funny yet, but I like the idea. A game based on user content is already spawning more user content.



Other sites pushing the SPORE journalism envelope include Snooty Spore, Joysytiq has an update on the E3 figurines here, and there's some random crap over at The Spore Zone.

This is a great article in Businessweek explaining EA's new strategy to shrug off sequels and create dynamic new titles:

The company hopes that its next mega-franchise will revolve not around a football star, a boy wizard, or a dashing British spy, but...a microbe. The game is called Spore. Developed by Will Wright, the creator of SimCity and The Sims, it lets players design an invertebrate in its primordial stages and then guide its evolution until the creature's offspring develop into a thriving civilization with cities, religion, and spaceships. EA's ambitious goal is to create more such innovative, internally developed games while lessening the company's dependence on professional sports and Hollywood movie franchises.

Someone is obviously not a Will Wright fan. Who knows how long the original interview was?

Seriously, who knows?

For starters, will this game keep its title? It seems to be FAR too grand in scale to have such a pedestrian title. I read that they considered SIM EVERYTHING but decided they wanted to break away from that series since it is such a huge leap forward in technology. So here are my Top 10 potential new titles for SPORE!

10. EVOLUTION - Probably scare away the religious right.

9. GROWTH - It's not a tumor.

8. MITOSIS - Doesn't work very well beyond the microscopic scale.

7. OSMOSIS - Seemed like a likely progression past MITOSIS, but really makes no sense.

6. CREATION - Technically correct. It puts the user in a God-like position, but it could scare off the scientists. Yet, how great to name a game after the religious belief, yet base it completely on scientific fact and evolutionary theory.

5. HELLO WORLD - An homage to programming 101. In a way, this game could be like a rebirth of the gaming industry. This may move up the list (it is only here because this is when I thought of it).

4. LIFE - Already taken by the board game, but appropriate nonetheless.

3. GENESIS - Again with the bible refrence, but again with the scientific irony. Also, STAR TREK already claimed this forthe Sci-Fi crowd.

2. GENERATIONS - Actually not inspired by the Star Trek reference before it. This title is a little more desciptive than LIFE, yet too similar to GENESIS to be #2.

1. JOURNEY - Really a long shot here. I may need to rethink this order.

0. ORACLE - Taken by the database gurus and again by the Matrix, this puts he focus back on the all knowing creator / user.

-1. GUIDE - That's what you're doing. Guiding the evolution of your creatures.

-2. WORLDCRAFT - Already taken by the software to make other games. Has the right scope though.

-3. MACROCOSM - Look it up.

The legendary game designer presents an alternate way to develop games, and the awesome product of this way of thinking.

Will Wright, the lead designer on SPORE!, the game that will change everything, talks about how gaming has the potential to change all entertainment. I agree:

More games now include features that let players invent some aspect of their virtual world, from characters to cars. And more games entice players to become creative partners in world building, letting them mod its overall look and feel. The online communities that form around these imaginative activities are some of the most vibrant on the Web. For these players, games are not just entertainment but a vehicle for self-expression.

Games have the potential to subsume almost all other forms of entertainment media. They can tell us stories, offer us music, give us challenges, allow us to communicate and interact with others, encourage us to make things, connect us to new communities, and let us play. Unlike most other forms of media, games are inherently malleable. Player mods are just the first step down this path.

Soon games will start to build simple models of us, the players. They will learn what we like to do, what we're good at, what interests and challenges us. They will observe us. They will record the decisions we make, consider how we solve problems, and evaluate how skilled we are in various circumstances. Over time, these games will become able to modify themselves to better "fit" each individual. They will adjust their difficulty on the fly, bring in new content, and create story lines. Much of this original material will be created by other players, and the system will move it to those it determines will enjoy it most.

Procedural generation

Main article: Procedural generation

Because the Spore gameworld is procedurally generated, it can be as large, varied, and detailed as it needs to be without an expensive team designing each element individually. This emphasis of function and algorithm rather than manual data creation also helps users' creatures, societies, cities, and planets to react realistically to a wide range of customizations.
In Wright's first public demonstration of Spore, he created a tripedal creature in the creature evolution editor. The game then figured out how a lizard with three legs and a prehensile tail should walk. Wright then showed several pre-made creatures which moved realistically, despite their exotic design. Other examples showed insectile creatures with multiple heads and six legs, a walking bird whose massive head caused it to tilt while turning, and a dog-like creature with a set of unusual branching limbs. He also demonstrated a creature that looked exactly like a Care Bear, indicating that players could create animals similar to those found in nature or popular culture.
Wright noted that he hired a handful of demoscene programmers and artists because of their familiarity with procedural generation.