Spore, my Impressions...

[Magusigne]

Update:

After my initial disappointment I delved quite a bit deeper into the Space age side of the game.

It seems most of the development was spent on this side of the game and is actually REALLY fun.

 

[smoothvirus]

Haha I'm such a dope.. I was really struggling in the creature stage. My creature is a carnivore and it kept getting its ass kicked, over and over again. I wasn't able to impress any of the friendly creatures either. It was really hard going and taking hours. THEN I figured out that you can ally with your fellow species at your home nest to form a pack.

HEAD SLAP

Duh! Once I got that figured out I wrapped up the rest of the creature stage in like 20 minutes.

 

[Baked]

Damn, take a look at the Spore page over at amazon.com. I don't think I've ever seen so many negative reviews for a single product on amazon.com. According to Arstechnica, amazon.com accidentally deleted all the reviews, but restored it later.

 

[Oceandevi]

I got bored already. The one ship kills me. And the meaningless emergency quests.

 

[BadRobot]

games that were designed to be incomplete and make you buy xpacs are full of FAIL

 

[Dumac]

I'm actually having a lot more fun with this game than I expected to. I think it's great so far.

 

[AbAbber2k]

I'm a little let down that how you design your character doesn't actually affect it's survivability, since that was how they were originally selling the first two stages of the game which, for me, are the best parts. All you have to worry about is increasing your stats. As long as you do that, you could have the most bizarre, illogically designed creature, and you'll still win. Still fun though.

 

[vhx]

They removed the whole fish phase thing? Fail. ;( That looked fun.

 

[EGGO]

I love it, but dear god am I getting tired of my planet always calling for help. As soon as I leave the system they're calling for help and fighting in that ship is a pain in the ass because my cities turrets will always get destroyed and it's a long process to kill the invaders because I can't upgrade my weapons.

 

[warcrow]

What's up guys. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I worked with Ars on some DRM investigation (I'm using that term lightly) and installed Spore a rediculous amount of times on several machines, talked with EA tech support, and reported my findings.

You might be surprised what we found out.

Putting EA's DRM to the Test

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: warcrow
What's up guys. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I worked with Ars on some DRM investigation (I'm using that term lightly) and installed Spore a rediculous amount of times on several machines, talked with EA tech support, and reported my findings.

You might be surprised what we found out.

Putting EA's DRM to the Test

I just read that and came here to ask you about it.
You installed twice on 2 machines, which counted as 2 installs total.

Did you try (and I know this would be a PITA) a fresh Windows install on one of those machines, followed by a new install?
It would be interesting to see if it's just the hardware that needs to remain the same, and fresh Windows installs are fine, or whether you need to install to the same hardware + windows install, and whether replacing components like-for-like will trigger it to think it's a new install or not.

A LOT of complaints seem to be from people who are claim that they need to reinstall windows or replace hardware a lot (ignoring upgrades, I'm talking replacements with warranty due to failure).

If a reinstall of Windows or replacing a component which has broken with another of the same doesn't count as an install/activation, then a lot of the whining should (in theory) be less valid, and making 5 installs for RA3 should (in theory) be plenty for normal users too, even those who reinstall regularly.


But I can understand it might be too late for you to try this out with your copy since it's already gone through its activations

 

[warcrow]

I did delete a temp dir and performed some general clean up--but nothing to the extent of a wipe of my HDD.

I agree--it would be interesting to see if the key is tethered to the OS or hardware--or both. If I had to guess, I would bet it's the hardware. I'm pulling this guess from the conversation I had with the EA tech.

As a side note here (and near the end of the article), I was issued a new CD key with 3 new activations and the secret 4th. The secret being--if you house burns down and you already used all 3, EA will likely unlock the game for you again if you're in dire straights.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: warcrow
What's up guys. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I worked with Ars on some DRM investigation (I'm using that term lightly) and installed Spore a rediculous amount of times on several machines, talked with EA tech support, and reported my findings.

You might be surprised what we found out.

Putting EA's DRM to the Test

That link is broken.

KT

 

[warcrow]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: warcrow
What's up guys. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I worked with Ars on some DRM investigation (I'm using that term lightly) and installed Spore a rediculous amount of times on several machines, talked with EA tech support, and reported my findings.

You might be surprised what we found out.

Putting EA's DRM to the Test

That link is broken.

KT

Doh! fixed it--thanks!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ar...surprising-result.html

 

[torpid]

Is it just me or are most of the creatures you encounter in the game impossible to actually create while playing the game? I tried creating a few and it was not possible - I ran out of points, even when I had reached the end and was ready to evolve.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: torpid
Is it just me or are most of the creatures you encounter in the game impossible to actually create while playing the game? I tried creating a few and it was not possible - I ran out of points, even when I had reached the end and was ready to evolve.

Depends. Ones created in the Creature Creator outside of playing through a game can be a lot different to the ones you can evolve to, because you have access to all the body parts and you also have more points to spend, but then some may also be imported form other peoples' games, which means that they will be as restricted as yours.

But yes, often the creatures you come across will be impossible for you to make your creature into, but you can make them in the Creature Creator outside of playing a game where you are limited by the points you can spend.

 

[Denithor]

This one sounds like best left for the kids on the Wii -- not for me on my PC.

Pass.

 

[smoothvirus]

The space stage is indeed, pretty neat. I spent last night puttering around the galaxy in my ship inspired by this website:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

For the other posters that are playing the game, what's your name on the Sporepedia? It would be interesting to see the creations you guys are coming up with - I'm smoothvirus, same as here.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

So far I've played the cell stage and honestly I thought it was pretty boring. Hope the game gets more exciting.