How would you make Spore?

[Anecronwashere]

If you were given full design reins and told to make a better Spore:
How would you do it?

You have full executive control, you can split it into 17 different games/expansions if you want too. Or keep it locked into one little game.

Only requirements:
Must start at the very beginning. No inmedias res where you release Spore: Tribes first
Must go from Cell - Space (how it gets there is up to you)
Must describe (preferably in detail) the main mechanics of each stage and how you Evolve and gain power before moving to the next

[Leecros]

I think most of the design decisions of Spore were sound. The biggest thing from a mechanical PoV would be the addition of Flying and Aquatic lifeforms...which was something they said would be in early in the development phase. Including aquatic cities or sky cities.

The biggest issue was that other than the Space phase, all of the different phases were so short they just felt like flavor to your species and pushes you to Space as quickly as possible.

I felt the creature phase was all right. i also liked the tribal phase, but felt that it was a little railroady. The first few tribes always were neutral towards you, and the last few were either disliking you or hostile towards you.

Now the civilization phase. The civilization phase should have been the longest phase, second only to the Space phase. The cities should have been much less exaggerated and much more abundant. I also would like it if you didn't suddenly get tanks and things like that, but progressed through the ages. I don't think tribal people immediately discovered how to build tanks after learning how to create cities. It should be a fight for resources. Spice shouldn't be a valuable resource until the Space Age. Overall it should be more similar to the Civilization games that it claims to similar to.

The Space Ages is fine...


It's interesting, I hear this massive misconception that Spore was a bad game. I hear it all the time. Spore wasn't a bad game; it was a disappointing one. It received very positive reviews and sold two million copies in the first few weeks. The issue was that the developers over-hyped the game and basically said that it would be the best thing since sliced bread and it was only about half of what they said.

[Castaras]

What Leecros said, pretty much.

I enjoyed it, but got bored quickly. If we compare it to Sims:

Sims has less width to it. You have one small town to build things in. Spore you have an entire galaxy. But Sims has a lot more depth in what you do with the small place. Spore's depth doesn't touch the top of your foot.

I would add more to the previous ages. Make them more than just mini games. I'm not sure what - that would require ages of designing. The space age, I'd add in more ability to really build up your planets, and also allow you to automate them so that you don't have disasters going on everywhere all the time. So make it so it's a combination of Spore's world and spaceship creation, Sims building design (if you want to customise the world's appearance), and Simcity's (the earlier ones, not 5, having seen the leaked 5 video) city building potential to cover a world.

I'd also make it so you're not disadvantaged if you decide not to go through ages you don't like a second time - so that you could get all the various traits from each age in a space game.

[Anecronwashere]

Maybe have the traits be unlocked? And based off the previous stage?

Ie you go through Civilization and get the Merchant trait. Now when starting int Space you can select the Merchant trait as if you had played Civ for it.
And have branches, Omnivore leads to 3 different options in the Creature stage that are different than the 3 gained if you choose Herbivore


It would require more work, but if we divide Spore into different games (maybe Cell/Creature, Tribe/Civ and Space?) you get more space and more dev time to fill that space with depth.

I'd also like to see Combo choices in the Cell/Creature stage. Being Bipedal with a tail gives X trait. Being a Quadruped with identical Hoof-type feet gives a set bonus etc.
And some Aesthetics/Stat differences. Unlocking a new type of wing that has better stats but doesn't suit the Aesthetic of your creature sucks but if all you needed was set the Wing on, then set the Aesthetics of that wing you can have +4 Butterfly wings or +4 Raptor wings rather than simply just +4 Raptor wings and +2 Butterflies.

[Aotrs Commander]

Aside from the usual complaints that it was much shallower than expected, overall, the space age sorely needed some automation to it. Having to prat about doing busy work instead of playing around an exploring was the reason I've not gone back to it after the first couple of times. Being able to set up trade routes that generate you some stuff would have been far better.

[Slipperychicken]

In space age, my adjustment boils down to "have more than one ship for your species". Let the player make a whole space-navy to bring with him, to reflect the fact he now controls multiple planets (even if it's only one additional mook ship for every 5 planets. Something to make you feel like this whole "space empire" thing is worth it). If he has a galaxy-spanning empire, why can he only field his one ship at a time while everyone else gets armadas of 100+ ships? Also just tell other ships to cart the spice around and kill their own cows, and maintain automated defense forces so you don't have to go halfway across the galaxy or start losing planets.

Refills for the reward you get for travelling to the center of the galaxy.

Easier/faster climate-changing tools. Expensive upgrade to make it instantaneous?

[Avilan the Grey]

I would basically keep it as it was as far as 2/3 into the process.

Keep a more realistic cell stage, without eyes.
Keep the choice to stay in water and develop as a water-dependent creature (with tailfins etc)
Keep the more advanced animations and behaviors (proper running animations, instinctual behaviors)
Keep the original concept of multiple cheap parts adding up (so four or five pairs of the cheapest wings generates the same lift with as a pair of the most expensive).

Own addons:
All stages exept the first one should be more complex.
A degree of auto-evolving / upgrading bodyparts. If you are a very active hunter, you will over time increase the power of the body parts you use. Your teeth will grow longer, or your claws larger, or you can sprint faster depending on choice, etc. You will also find DNA pieces as now but they will be for when you will want to CHANGE appearance, not improve it.
And as stated above: More than once ship for your species. The space age should be more like Galactic Civilizations.

[mistformsquirrl]

Because I'm mildly crazy, I'd do it like this:

Cell stage - as-is, but as others have noted, the ability to remain in the water for the creature stage.

Creature stage - as-is largely; though I'd like some more realistic creature parts to play with. Trying to make a jungle cat in Spore is an exercise in frustration.

Tribal Stage - Much much more involved, your species isn't the only species that makes it this far - you'll see evolved forms of other critters as well, involves researching and finding additional technologies to make life easier on your people. Ends when you reach...

The Classical Stage - Again, you aren't the only species to make it this far. You've developed an actual civilization... but so have others, your goal is to either conquer the continent you're on, befriend a certain number of nearby city-states* or advance technologically on your own to...

The Medieval Stage - The medieval stage is largely an extension of the Classical stage, your civilization has advanced, you control a significant empire, but there are still plenty of other empires on your planet. As before the goal is to conquer, research or befriend to get to the next stage; only now you're doing it in 4x fashion on a grand scale. Significant fork in that depending on how you play, other species may go extinct (leaving yours as the only dominant species on the planet) - on the other hand if you win via diplomacy or technology it's possible that other species will join your society starting in the next stage. (Your species will always be the most common however.)

The Industrial-Modern Stage - An extension and expansion of the Medieval stage, your society has grown and is one of the largest and most powerful on the planet - there are still rivals however. Same goals as before, but on yet an even grander scale; and with the caveat that at this stage it's possible for aliens to attempt to invade! Alien invasions can grant you a significant boost to both diplomacy and research if you helped to repel them... on the other hand you can ally with the invader and use their help to conquer your neighbors!

The Space Stage - Whether there was an alien invasion or not, you've finally made it to outer space. You're basically playing the original Sword of The Stars at this point; with the caveat that you have a custom flagship that can be upgraded and refit whenever you earn new technologies; and said flagship can go on original-Spore style adventures should you so desire.

The basic goals are the same as before - conquer, diplomatize or out-tech everyone else; but at this stage there's an entire universe to explore.


----

While this is what I'd desperately want out of a new Spore game... I also realize the budget and development time on such a title would be absurd - there's very little chance a publisher would try it <x.x> Which is a shame, I think it'd be a blast.

*Via an involved diplomatic system like Total War or Civilization. None of this playing musical instruments crap.

[Leecros]

I feel an addendum to all the stages is the potential for alien invasion to conquer your planet before you actually have space-faring technology. Yes it would be incredibly unfair, but life is unfair. It's always been strange to me that the local space-fairing races just leave your planet be despite it having a ~perfect~ climate.





Easier/faster climate-changing tools. Expensive upgrade to make it instantaneous?

I've never really had any problems with the climate changing tools. The top ones work pretty quickly. Possibly even more quickly than i would like. Climate changing shouldn't be a fast process.

[iyaerP]

Without the bull**** DRM

[Leecros]

Without the bull**** DRM

They removed the DRM in December, three months after they released the game after two lawsuits and it was labeled a "screw up" and a "totally avoidable disaster".

so yeah, the DRM hasn't really been an issue for 4 years.

[Anecronwashere]

What was all that fuss about anyway? I was a bit late to the party, getting my Spore for christmas and only having access to a comp in Jan.

Was the DRM that bad? What was so bad about it?

[iyaerP]

They removed the DRM in December, three months after they released the game after two lawsuits and it was labeled a "screw up" and a "totally avoidable disaster".

so yeah, the DRM hasn't really been an issue for 4 years.

I installed it when it first came out and it corrupted my DvD drive's firmware. When a piece of software is destroying my hardware, then that software needs to go. The fact that my interest in the game petered out about halfway through the civ phase certainly didn't help it any.

[Leecros]

Was the DRM that bad? What was so bad about it?

essentially, Spore used the SecuROM DRM as copy protection, which requires authentication upon installation and when online access is used. It wasn't widely received at all because it required online authentication every 10 days. In spite of this(or possibly because of this) EA still left the software in place to be released with the game and made no mention of it on the box, in the manual, or in the software license agreement. If that wasn't bad enough the DRM software wasn't actually removed upon uninstallation of the game. There was massive outcry against it and after a couple of lawsuits they released a patch to remove the DRM.

[Avilan the Grey]

I installed it when it first came out and it corrupted my DvD drive's firmware.

That is... not possible.

[iyaerP]

That is... not possible.

Either that or it ****ed up the drivers for it somehow. I ended up with the drive not working at all, and getting a whole ton of BSODs with it being the source of the crashes.

It wasn't until I did a full reformat of the harddrive that the dvd drive worked again, and Spore was the only thing that I had installed in the interim time. So yeah, Securerom ****ed up my dvd drive.

[Avilan the Grey]

Either that or it ****ed up the drivers for it somehow. I ended up with the drive not working at all, and getting a whole ton of BSODs with it being the source of the crashes.

I have heard rumors that the original EA DRM could mistake an actual hardware CD or DVD burner for an image mounting program which it was coded to block. My guess that is what happened, in combination of early DRMs to be almost impossible to uninstall. Result: Non-working drive.

A DRM can't rewrite the actual firmware, only specialized programs can do that.