• Ross's Game Dungeon: Darkspore
    37 replies, posted
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2pdvh4uiaM[/media]
This is not a game I would have ever expected him to cover :v: Really wish I could play it again too.
I remember playing this game but never remembered it looking so pretty. Hopefully spore will be rebooted one day, it was never bad, just mediocre.
Damn those brief little clips of that early spore trailer made my nostalgia gland hurt.
every time i hear about spore again i get so disappointed just thinking about it. like it was so very nearly so close to being such a perfect game. i too hope one day they will reboot it, it really deserves it
i love the idea of spore, but the gameplay was gimped from the E3 2005 showing
[QUOTE=Erfly;49772333]Hopefully spore will be rebooted one day, it was never bad, just mediocre.[/QUOTE] I probably wouldn't count on it. After all, Maxis is pretty much dead, so our best chances at getting a "TrueSpore" game would be if some mad determined team of ex-AAA devs got together and executed it just right.
The ending was surprising, but I'm personally feeling up for it. Hearing about the problem of online games "dying" when the developers pull the plug is frustrating, this could help matters. Just need to get my hands on some postage and wait for more mailing addresses to come out. Still, I feel like we could save a lot of trouble if we could just find better ways of getting these games to run offline and work around the infrastructure forced on these games. If we can play them, we have all the files needed, it's just a matter of weaving through the programming, right?
[QUOTE=Drewsko;49772915]Still, I feel like we could save a lot of trouble if we could just find better ways of getting these games to run offline and work around the infrastructure forced on these games. If we can play them, we have all the files needed, it's just a matter of weaving through the programming, right?[/QUOTE] simcity had a crack to emulate servers before they released actual offline i think, and battleforge has had an attempt to make the game playable again for about a year now (idk how good thats even going though)
[QUOTE=Erfly;49772333]I remember playing this game but never remembered it looking so pretty. Hopefully spore will be rebooted one day, it was never bad, just mediocre.[/QUOTE] Spore goes from mediocre to downright fucking terrible once you get to space stage. It's a mess with no real complexity where you awkwardly stumble around and can't truly explore to your convenience because your empire is made of dumb incapable manchildren who can't do shit on their own. [editline]19th February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;49772642]i love the idea of spore, but the gameplay was gimped from the E3 2005 showing[/QUOTE] Apparently Maxis was divided by internal conflicts with a part of the team wanting more kid friendly, easy to access gameplay while the other (lead by Wright) wanted to make the game a "hardcore" experience with a lot more complexity, with a lot more scientific components like actually having to manage your creature's physiology past some arbitrary stat points (stuff like putting lungs in your creature so it could leave the sea, and whatnot). Eventually neither side won and the game turned into a mediocre mess that didn't really know what the fuck to do with its own mechanics.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49773275]Apparently Maxis was divided by internal conflicts with a part of the team wanting more kid friendly, easy to access gameplay while the other (lead by Wright) wanted to make the game a "hardcore" experience with a lot more complexity, with a lot more scientific components like actually having to manage your creature's physiology past some arbitrary stat points (stuff like putting lungs in your creature so it could leave the sea, and whatnot). Eventually neither side won and the game turned into a mediocre mess that didn't really know what the fuck to do with its own mechanics.[/QUOTE] They could have made a kid friendly educational portion that was simple and a more advanced potion aimed towards college aged people or adults.
[QUOTE=megafat;49773316]They could have made a kid friendly educational portion that was simple and a more advanced potion aimed towards college aged people or adults.[/QUOTE] To be fairly honest when Wright starts doing scientifically accurate simulations it typically ends in either a commercial failure or something so incredibly niche that nobody played it because it went [I]too indepth[/i].
That whole 'stop selling it online' scenario reminds me of Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Why does that even happen in the first place?
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49773370]To be fairly honest when Wright starts doing scientifically accurate simulations it typically ends in either a commercial failure or something so incredibly niche that nobody played it because it went [I]too indepth[/i].[/QUOTE] to be fair spore was pretty different and set itself apart from those other sims
[QUOTE=nerdster409;49774373]That whole 'stop selling it online' scenario reminds me of Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Why does that even happen in the first place?[/QUOTE] In Spore's/Darkspore's case seeing as they have similar circumstances of always-online, it was basically a DRM method to prevent people from pirating the game. It's not about the longevity of the title, it's about getting as much profit as possible before the inevitable piracy. Problem is, Spore's DRM system was so maligned by the internet that at launch it became the most pirated game ever, partially because of the game's misplaced hype and partially out of sheer spite for Electronic Arts. I guess Darkspore was so unremarkable and completely average that the pirates either were silent and subtle about it, or no one even remotely gave a damn and the game came and went like an insignificant wave on your ankles.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49773275]Spore goes from mediocre to downright fucking terrible once you get to space stage. It's a mess with no real complexity where you awkwardly stumble around and can't truly explore to your convenience because your empire is made of dumb incapable manchildren who can't do shit on their own. [/QUOTE] Yeah, most of my fun came from the creators, once you got good with it (such as using limbs for body parts) you could make some really cool creations. It was the main reason I never liked darkspore, it went against the whole idea of creating your own creatures, reducing it to just editing ones that were already made.
It really is a bummer, no matter how good or bad a game is, to have them potentially lost/unplayable forever. This is especially concerning on console exclusives as well, like P.T. which is pretty much unobtainable now, with the last copies sitting on the ones who are still lucky enough to have it on their PS4s (I know there was a recent method on re-downloading it if you were able to download it prior with some proxy tricks and all that, but it's a quick solution that probably won't be around forever). Hope any future 'online only' games have an end of lifetime plan where the devs can distribute an offline version or stuff that will allow players to easily host their own servers. Server emulation and stuff is great, they allowed games like Star Wars Galaxies to still be playable despite being official shutdown years ago. [QUOTE=nerdster409;49774373]That whole 'stop selling it online' scenario reminds me of Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Why does that even happen in the first place?[/QUOTE] I thankfully still have the GOG version in my account and downloaded as well, very underrated game.
I want every game dungeon to rant about online only games. I shouldn't have to deal with that ratshit unless it's multiplayer.
[QUOTE=FingerSpazem;49774399]to be fair spore was pretty different and set itself apart from those other sims[/QUOTE] Yeah but Will Wright practically wanted to make it SimLife 2.0 and nobody would have wanted that. [editline]20th February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=nerdster409;49774373]That whole 'stop selling it online' scenario reminds me of Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Why does that even happen in the first place?[/QUOTE] Good thing I own the physical copy of that game. I still need to play it again, what a weird obscure gem.
I genuinely don't get why game companies stop selling games. Movie and music studios as wells as book publishers don't stop selling movies, music, and books when something changes. Why kill a form of profit?
He already got some addresses: [quote]Current best EA executives to mail to: Attn: Peter Moore, COO 209 Redwood Shores Pkwy., Redwood City, CA 94065-1175 USA Attn: Peter O'Reilly, Snr Marketing Director 209 Redwood Shores Pkwy., Redwood City, CA 94065-1175 USA Attn: Gabrielle Toledano, Chief Talent Officer 209 Redwood Shores Pkwy., Redwood City, CA 94065-1175 USA[/quote] Going to make a letter tomorrow.
Shame I didn't hear about this 2 months ago, or I would've taken a crack at writing a server emulator. You know how to go from a 0% piracy rate to a 100% piracy rate? Force people who wanna play your game to pirate it.
Am I really the only one who think's this is basically pointless and just a way to give Ross an semi-IRL personal army? Don't get me wrong, this is for good intention and I really like Ross but at the same time it sounds like it won't go anywhere at all.
Oh boy Spore, I didn't follow the game's development, I just heard about it in a magazine. I thought it was really good since I had not expectations. Darkspore though, that was just sad, I expected Spore 2 and it wasn't that at all.
[QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;49778659]Am I really the only one who think's this is basically pointless and just a way to give Ross an semi-IRL personal army? Don't get me wrong, this is for good intention and I really like Ross but at the same time it sounds like it won't go anywhere at all.[/QUOTE] Well it won't go anywhere with that attitude. Sending a letter costs almost nothing, man. If you don't care, fine. But if you do want to help and it's not a big problem to do so then you should just go and do it.
Spore's editors are really cool and it's shit that they didn't do anything at all with them in Darkspore or make another game that uses them.
[QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;49778659]Am I really the only one who think's this is basically pointless and just a way to give Ross an semi-IRL personal army? Don't get me wrong, this is for good intention and I really like Ross but at the same time it sounds like it won't go anywhere at all.[/QUOTE] Well, is there a downside? However little, it's some well deserved bad PR (and annoyance) for EA. Either it'll be a waste of minimal amounts of the participants' time, or they end up actually changing their tune for the better.
[QUOTE=Dr. Kyuros;49778659]Am I really the only one who think's this is basically pointless and just a way to give Ross an semi-IRL personal army? Don't get me wrong, this is for good intention and I really like Ross but at the same time it sounds like it won't go anywhere at all.[/QUOTE] Maybe it'll end up working out, I wouldn't mind if someone did the same with Valve :v: I don't care about EA, but Valve? I would totally send them a letter if I could.
He's right about a lot of the flaws, but I think Darkspore still did some things amazingly well. I think the MOBA-like simplicity of skills actually worked pretty well in making almost every skill feel like it they had their own useful niche and synergy with other skills. That, and the enemy design also made it a step above any other Diablo-like in terms of making nearly every enemy worth tactical consideration rather than being generic horde. The customization, while probably disappointing if you were expecting Spore, was still really fun to play with. The way you could keep increasing the difficulty in the end game to raise the stakes for the loot roll at the end was pretty cool, and was balanced out by a neat little thing called the "Catalyst Grid" where enemies would drop orbs that you would slot into a grid that you would keep between consecutive rounds, and could arrange to enhance each other for some pretty powerful buffs.
I didn't know they stopped selling it online, I swear I saw it on steam once, many moons ago.
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