| 30 SEP 2008 at 8:27pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By avatar_58 (30 SEP 2008 8:12pm)
I still haven't finished it because it feels like work.
Yes. QFT.
TheTraveler wrote on Today at 3:48pm:
Ok, you win!
What, already? That wasn't even five posts .
Yes, well, I can't think straight anymore when you make me laugh like that!
You win just for humurous remarks about gas giants! 8-) [smiley=laughing.gif]
Ahem! Ok, Nik, define your (or something) in the comment:The blob has adaptable molecular structure (or something) that allows it to change its volume and density - and how such a molecular structure could be possibly employed by a sentient being who keeps itself secret for the millions of years that humans have inhabited the earth..
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 8:54pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Joined: 16 OCT 2004
Location: US, Texas
Status : Offline | .
The Blob, an ancient beast as old as the universe itself, was just taking a short million-year nap Traveler. Then it awoke, looked around, saw our sprawling, haphazard civilization and said, "What the hell happened to my yard? I guess it's time to clean this mess up."
Cheers, Terry
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 8:58pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By Terry_Penrod (30 SEP 2008 8:53pm)
.
The Blob, an ancient beast as old as the universe itself, was just taking a short million-year nap Traveler. Then it awoke, looked around, saw our sprawling, haphazard civilization and said, "What the hell happened to my yard? I guess it's time to clean this mess up."
Cheers, Terry
Now, here is someone who has been reading a lot of HP Lovecraft....
..but it still doesn't make more sense than space travel and space colonisation...
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| 30 SEP 2008 at 9:59pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
Posts : 1317
Joined: 15 JAN 2008
Location: GR
Status : Offline | Just as Terry said. It is not dead which can eternal lie...
But Traveler, I never presented the blob as logical. My point exactly was that space travel as depicted on "space sims" makes no more sense than the blob. Much as it captures our hearts and imaginations, FTL travel is at this point unfeasible, nor does anyone have any idea on how it could be achieved*...
"Generation ships" are a far more realistic prospect for deep space exploration, despite the immense logistics problems. To my knowledge, the only game that took them into account is Sid Meier's Alpha Century, and only in its back story, not as a gameplay element.
* In a manner that can be used/expoited by humans for deep space missions. I'm too tired to google it right now, but I think that sub atomic particles have been successfully accelerated to faster than light speeds in the lab.
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 7:58am |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By nik2008ofs (30 SEP 2008 9:59pm)
Just as Terry said. It is not dead which can eternal lie...
But Traveler, I never presented the blob as logical. My point exactly was that space travel as depicted on "space sims" makes no more sense than the blob. Much as it captures our hearts and imaginations, FTL travel is at this point unfeasible, nor does anyone have any idea on how it could be achieved*....
Oh, I know your "The Blob" wasn't logical, dear Nik. Yet it was great fun, and pretty imaginative too!
...and did we not succesfully boost our post counts, all the while having a bit of fun?
* In a manner that can be used/expoited by humans for deep space missions. I'm too tired to google it right now, but I think that sub atomic particles have been successfully accelerated to faster than light speeds in the lab
Yes, I also remember something along those lines, but I think that depends on how you look at it.
Quoted from USA today's Cyberspeak:
Q: Why is it impossible to go faster than light?
A: It is impossible for any object to achieve the speed of light by a mechanical acceleration, which, indeed, makes going faster than light also impossible by such means. Suppose we try to accelerate an object of rest mass, m, that's traveling at a velocity, v, up to the speed of light, c— what happens? We can't do it because we would need an infinite amount of energy, as the relativistic energy equation (left) shows: When v = c, the energy, E, required is infinite.
That's not, however, the end of the story. There's nothing in this equation that proves it's impossible to go faster than light by some other means.
For example, certain particles might have always been going faster than light. Thus, they need not reach the speed of light to get faster than light. We have never found such particles (called tachyons), but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Perhaps, the Big Bang created some tachyons, and some remain from that ancient event.
"Articles claiming to have found experimental evidence for tachyons spring up from time to time in the literature, but none have lasted long or held up to critical scrutiny," says physicist Rod Nave, professor at Georgia State University.
Theory is not encouraging, even if it doesn't rule out the possibility of faster than light travel. Einstein's theory of special relativity says, if a particle goes faster than light, then time becomes an imaginary number (the square root of a negative number). And "we haven't a clue what that means," says Nave.
"Relativity is so counter-intuitive" it's good to have conceptual anchors to stop us from floating too far adrift. Nave throws these two out to keep his classes from taking their speculations too seriously:
• Light speed (c = 186,282 mi/s = 299 792 km/s, in a vacuum) is the speed limit of the universe.
• "When you talk about speeds faster than c, that is science fiction, not science." Because there is no experimental evidence of anything going faster than c.
from Wikipedia:
Science-fiction-style space travel, dubbed "True" FTL, in which matter exceeds the speed of light in its own frame of reference, defies known physics.
Under the special theory of relativity, a particle (that has mass) with subluminal velocity needs infinite energy to accelerate to the speed of light, although special relativity does not forbid the existence of particles that travel faster than light at all times, such as tachyons.
On the other hand, what some physicists refer to as "apparent" or "effective" FTL[1][2][3][4] is the hypothesis that unusually distorted regions of spacetime might permit matter to reach distant locations faster than what it would take light in the "normal" route (though still moving subluminally through the distorted region).
Apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity. Examples of apparent FTL proposals are the Alcubierre drive and the traversable wormhole, although the physical plausibility of these solutions is uncertain.
Outside of mainstream physics, others (often without traditional physics training) have speculated on mechanisms that might allow FTL travel to be achieved, often relying on new conjectures of physics of their own invention, but their ideas have not gained significant acceptance in the physics research community
So, sadly, you are strictly speaking correct, Nik, in that sims that employ the use of FTL travel as a premise, are extremely far-fetched. Still, dreams are for free... How impossible did air travel, and indeed, a notion such as walking on the moon, not seem but a mere few centuries ago....
And anyway, how do you know that there isn't really an ancient beast lying at the bottom of the sea, just waiting to be awakened.... :
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 10:58am |
| Deleted User | Oh, and, ladies and gentlemen; "The Best of PC E3 2008 award goes to:" -wait for it-: - " SPORE".
Thunderous canned applause in the background.
Ughh.
So currently, this is the best that PC has to offer?
Well, it's an EA publication, so what did you expect? :-/
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| 1 OCT 2008 at 12:50pm |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By TheTraveler (1 OCT 2008 10:58am)
Oh, and, ladies and gentlemen; "The Best of PC E3 2008 award goes to:" -wait for it-: - " SPORE".
Thunderous canned applause in the background.
Ughh.
So currently, this is the best that PC has to offer?
Well, it's an EA publication, so what did you expect? :-/
It's a popularity contest, Spore is different and was destined to sell a pantload due to supposedly being the next 'sims'. Didn't really matter if it was good or not.
The "best of PC" is kind of a joke anyway, considering many lower budget games would never be considered.
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| 2 OCT 2008 at 4:55pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2539
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | That is a joke, the BEST of PC indeed.
Harumph!
Well such things are indeed inside jobs and this is a sad one indeed.
Harumph!
Admin
3D Worlds and Game Developers
Linkedin
http://3dworldandgamedevelopers.blogspot.com
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| 5 OCT 2008 at 7:21pm |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | When Spore was announced I was so surprised about the hype. I noticed immidiatly that the game was for extreme casuals only and not meant for gamers. Still people brushed the horrible graphics aside and ranted how great that game would be...
Now I can't quite surpress a grin since most people recognized after only 10 to max 20 hours of playing, that the game is absolutely boring and no challange even for the Joey's out there...
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| 5 OCT 2008 at 9:53pm |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Spiritogre (5 OCT 2008 7:21pm)
When Spore was announced I was so surprised about the hype. I noticed immidiatly that the game was for extreme casuals only and not meant for gamers. Still people brushed the horrible graphics aside and ranted how great that game would be...
Now I can't quite surpress a grin since most people recognized after only 10 to max 20 hours of playing, that the game is absolutely boring and no challange even for the Joey's out there...
I don't understand what the graphics have to do with it.
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 12:10am |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | Spore has "kiddy" graphics.Could be ok, though if it wouldn't look like a game from ten years ago technical wise...
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 12:21am |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Spiritogre (6 OCT 2008 12:10am)
Spore has "kiddy" graphics.Could be ok, though if it wouldn't look like a game from ten years ago technical wise...
I don't follow. Sam and Max has cartoony graphics too, and looks like a game from 10 years ago outside of this genre. Doesn't in any way signify the quality of the overall game. Graphics are the least of Spore's worries.
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| 9 OCT 2008 at 10:49am |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | Graphics are important! Sadly many adventure games lack there. Okay, Sam & Max was good except the lousy graphics because it had style and atmosphere. That's why WoW is good as well. Spore on the other hand: just one look at a screenshot and one sees it has no atmosphere and style it's just supposed to be cute.
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 1:18am |
ArkadiaPrivate Detective
Posts : 558
Joined: 1 JUN 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Spiritogre (9 OCT 2008 10:49am)
Graphics are important! Sadly many adventure games lack there. Okay, Sam & Max was good except the lousy graphics because it had style and atmosphere. That's why WoW is good as well. Spore on the other hand: just one look at a screenshot and one sees it has no atmosphere and style it's just supposed to be cute.
Why do you feel that are graphics important, if I may ask?
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 4:03am |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Spiritogre (9 OCT 2008 10:49am)
Graphics are important! Sadly many adventure games lack there. Okay, Sam & Max was good except the lousy graphics because it had style and atmosphere. That's why WoW is good as well. Spore on the other hand: just one look at a screenshot and one sees it has no atmosphere and style it's just supposed to be cute.
Cute is an art style. It may not be one you like, but it's an art style none the less. Even if it had looked like Crysis it wouldn't change the core gameplay or issues.
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 5:52am |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Your damn right cute (meaning colorful, cartoony or funky) is a style and a hugely popular one at that. There have probably been more cute / cartoony images sold since the advent of animated films, television, comics and related merchandise like t-shirts, lunchboxes, decals, etc., than any other style of art.
Hey, Mickey Mouse and thousands of other cute characters have sold in the mega billions. They appeal to the majority of people because they're simple, expressive and fun - all traits that translate very nicely into games.
While free-form sandbox games like Spore are not my cup of tea, from what I've seen of the graphics, the basic creature models used in the demo are actually pretty clever - and of course, they can be manipulated by the players to create a a virtually infinite array of strange cyber lifeforms.
Cheers, Terry
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 12:46pm |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | Yeah, well, sorry that I'm such a "graphics whore". I had simple graphics on the Commodore 64 in the early 80ies. Now there is so much more possible and I want to see it! And even cute and cartoon style doesn't mean it has to be simple. Simple simply means the programmers went the easy and cheap way. And Spore cries that out through every pore: "cheap - I'm a game for extreme casuals who probably play The Sims but never ever a real computer game". And that starts with the graphics and ends with the easy gameplay.
You see, cartoon graphics can be good, Broken Sword 4 is quite okay just not great, WoW uses simple technics but combines this with some nice effects and a whole fitting art style to generate a great atmosphere. Spore just looks simple and cheap, starting with the landscape and flora and ending with the creatures.
That not much effort was put into Spore one can easily see. The controls in every part of the games are different. What an idiot of game designer decided that? It's an absolute "nono" one learns in "Game Design 101".
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 1:03pm |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Spiritogre (10 OCT 2008 12:45pm)
"cheap - I'm a game for extreme casuals who probably play The Sims but never ever a real computer game". And that starts with the graphics and ends with the easy gameplay.
Again I ask how you can have such an attitude on this forum. Need I remind you many gamers do not consider adventure games "real games"? Many folks consider them niche and slam them too for bad graphics and gameplay. The absolute last thing you should do as a fan of this genre is throw stones at other more casual genres. Adventure games ARE casual, believe it or not.
The Sims and Spore are 'real' games, whatever that means. A game is a game. As I said it may not appeal to you, but it does for some gamers. Those like me who play a little of everything especially find it perplexing to hear you say this. I consider the Sims to be just as relevant as Half-life 2, Beyond Good & Evil or Final Fantasy. The industry would be very very boring if the variety didn't exist.
So don't be so quick to dismiss Sims or the gamers who prefer that genre.
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 4:04pm |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By avatar_58 (10 OCT 2008 1:02pm)
Again I ask how you can have such an attitude on this forum.
My attitude is that of a gamer who wants the publishers to release good games. In my opinion they offer games like Spore for casuals because they think casual players don't know anything about computer games and can be satisfied with cheap trash. My attitude is that I don't support such behavior and that a game today has to fulfill some standards gameplay and technical wise.
Need I remind you many gamers do not consider adventure games "real games"?
I presume you mean young kids here who only know GTA and Co. "Real gamers" know adventures and even if they rarely play them they accept them as real full feature games and don't mix them up with casual games like Tetris. That said, casual doesn't mean it is a bad game, Tetris is fantastic...
Many folks consider them niche and slam them too for bad graphics and gameplay. The absolute last thing you should do as a fan of this genre is throw stones at other more casual genres. Adventure games ARE casual, believe it or not.
Why do so many adventure game players feel so inferior? They are NOT casual! Adventure gamers spend a lot of time playing and many adventures take a long time to play. Casual games are games for inbetween, again: They can be good. The problem is when publishers do a cheap game, that I don't support.
Besides that in my small corner of the world adventure games became very popular again and game magazines can't diss them, so games like Ankh, Jack Keane, Secret Files Tunguska and so on get very high ratings because they are good despite the fact that they are adventure games. A piece of trash like The Abbey on the other hand gets poor remarks simply because it is a poorly done game. That's it! And that said, Spore is much, much overrated because of brilliant marketing generating a hype from the moment the game was announced.
And when a full price adventure game nowadays is released with horrible graphics and missing modern standard controls established over the last 30 years I also say it's a horrible game not worth spending time and money on. To be a good game the basics have to be good at first after that we discuss about riddles and story.
The Sims and Spore are 'real' games, whatever that means. A game is a game. As I said it may not appeal to you, but it does for some gamers. Those like me who play a little of everything especially find it perplexing to hear you say this. I consider the Sims to be just as relevant as Half-life 2, Beyond Good & Evil or Final Fantasy. The industry would be very very boring if the variety didn't exist.
Yes indeed, but that doesn't mean the industry should release poorly done products with cheap production values because the target audience is computer and game illiterate. And Spore (not Sims!) falls into that category and openly cries out "I'm a bad game but I was made for non-players who want to play so spend your money on me". It would look opposite if Spore had better controls, a whole lot better graphics and most importantly a good gameplay.
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 4:37pm |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | I'm sorry but I have to just disagree with everything you've said here. I was taught "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
So..... :-X
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 4:47pm |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | Probably you don't understand what I'm saying or do you support bad games?
Or let me give a comparison: Would you buy a 10 year old car for the same price as a new one? I doubt that.
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 5:49pm |
avatar_58Private Detective
Posts : 403
Joined: 27 MAY 2008
Status : Online | I don't judge based on graphics, plain and simple. Otherwise I wouldn't be playing adventure games at all. Games like Tunguska look pretty crappy compared to modern marvels like Crysis, Bioshock or Mass Effect. However I don't care, I judge based on the atmosphere, the story and the gameplay.
Spore is a creature sim - the atmosphere is irrelevant, as is the story. It's based entirely on gameplay. So you either like that gameplay or not, it's not "cheap" simply because the focus isn't on presentation. It's a cutesy art style - like Sam and Max. In fact it's technically (lighting/geometry/etc) superior to the engine used in Sam and Max....and I will not sit here if you'll badmouth that series.
As for that old car remark - I bought Quest for Glory V just a week ago for the price of a brand new game yes. It was a near mint box with CDs that didn't even show use. To me age and graphic fidelity are not relevant when talking about games.
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| 10 OCT 2008 at 9:02pm |
SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | A more appropiate car comparison would have been:
Would you buy a brand new Beetle when they offer you a a brand new Porsche for the same price?
I do have all the old Sierra and Lucas Arts titles (some even on floppy or for computers like the Amiga) and collected Hundreds of games over the decades. As a collector I probably also would pay a high price for a rare gem if it still misses in my collection but thats another subject.
But there is a reason why the latest "Tetris clone" only costs "five Dollars" no matter how good it is (and Spore even costs 10 bucks more then regular priced new PC games). There is a market for low budget productions but only few people would pay the same amount as for a regular full price title. Spore would do pretty well as a Shareware game but it doesn't mean it is good as a full price game (reasons see previous posts) because it has to compete with other full price games.
There is a reason Sam & Max was released in Episodes (and yes, S&M is a great game series despite its flaw (lousy graphics ^^).
I can accept lousy graphics under two conditions: It is an old game (I see it as a classic) or it is a very, very good game (it would have been even better with good graphics but one can't have all). Spore on the other hand is neither.
But I would not buy a game like "Queen's Quest I" that a company releases NOW where people created a huge hype around its famous creator and how brilliant the game is supposed to be when I can play "Broken Bow 4" with top notch graphics and gameplay alike. Again... who would buy the brand new Kia when he get the brand new Jaguar for the same price (and the second is so much better)?
I have a limited amount of money and time...
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| 11 OCT 2008 at 1:54am |
ArkadiaPrivate Detective
Posts : 558
Joined: 1 JUN 2008
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Spiritogre (10 OCT 2008 4:03pm)
I presume you mean young kids here who only know GTA and Co. "Real gamers" know adventures and even if they rarely play them they accept them as real full feature games and don't mix them up with casual games like Tetris. That said, casual doesn't mean it is a bad game, Tetris is fantastic...
So young people who play GTA and the likes of those games are not "real gamers"? Curious. What about the GameSpot reviewer who has played every other game under the sun but vocally classifies adventure games as inferior as genre? Unfortunately, there is a rather large consensus that is in agreement that adventure games are not worthy of the title of 'game', or worthy of spending time or money on. As such, most people on these boards know not to go throwing around phrases such as "these people aren't real gamers" or "this genre of game is not as valid as the rest". It seems rather silly to me to title someone a gamer or a non-gamer based on what genre of game they play - be they shoot em ups, sandbox games or "casual".
Originally Posted By Spiritogre (10 OCT 2008 4:03pm)
And when a full price adventure game nowadays is released with horrible graphics and missing modern standard controls established over the last 30 years I also say it's a horrible game not worth spending time and money on. To be a good game the basics have to be good at first after that we discuss about riddles and story.
Surely you can see that, to many people, gameplay and story are the basics? I would much prefer to play a game with with extremely fun gameplay and a wonderful story with 256 bit graphics and poor controls (Grim Fandango comes to mind, in terms of controls). That being said, I can see that some people prefer very good graphics and intuitive controls. To go back to your car analogy - I think it's more of a what-do-you-prefer question rather than a what-is-better question: would you take the car that handles extremely well or the shiny, pretty sports car that everyone will ogle as you drive down the street?
There should be no real right or wrong when it comes to games, unless the game in question is technically at fault (aka bugged to the point of unplayability). It all comes down to choice, which is wonderful.
In regards to Spore itself - it seems there are many, many people who enjoy the game, both "casual" gamers and hardcore gamers alike. Many were disappointed, but still find it a charming and fun-to-play game.
Originally Posted By Spiritogre (10 OCT 2008 4:03pm)
Yes indeed, but that doesn't mean the industry should release poorly done products with cheap production values because the target audience is computer and game illiterate. And Spore (not Sims!) falls into that category and openly cries out "I'm a bad game but I was made for non-players who want to play so spend your money on me". It would look opposite if Spore had better controls, a whole lot better graphics and most importantly a good gameplay.
The graphics overall are really quite a technical feat, if I'm not mistaken - the fact that a player can completely design their own character from any shape and size and have it animate just as intended is quite remarkable. As for "cheap production values" - I hardly think that you could call Spore a cheap endeavour. The developers did not laugh wickedly and say "Let's ride The Sims and SimCity's fame all the way to the bank and give the public a horrible game to show for it!". If anything, I'm sure quite a lot was riding on this game for Will Wright, he was breaking out of the box a little and I'm sure he wanted to prove to everyone he could do more than just his typical simulation games.
All that being said... if you're so upset about it being a game that was geared toward being friendly toward casual gamers, as it openly announced before the game came out - why did you buy it? :
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