Will Wright Presents Spore... and a New Way to Think About Games

its about time someone thought outside the box...that looks very cool.
i wish more games would allow more personalization....
 
I don't think they mention that this is actually going to be produced...I think it's more of a technology demo. They'll probably produce it if there's enough demand, which there probably will be, I'm just saying we shouldn't get our hopes up. Just in case, y'know.
 
finalgt said:
I don't think they mention that this is actually going to be produced...I think it's more of a technology demo. They'll probably produce it if there's enough demand, which there probably will be, I'm just saying we shouldn't get our hopes up. Just in case, y'know.

If Im not mistaken ... the article said that SPORE was a game in production.

Oh

And shotgun designing a race of Murlocks. :D
 
yeah, its going to get made. I think i read its been in development for about a year.
 
He is right about content developement, from wolfenstein to unreal3 there is a great difference in designer workload which doesnt look like it will end anytime soon. But im not so sure how I like the idea of making the programmer figure everything out dynamically. =P

And I wouldnt call the game the greatest thing ever untill I actually see it, people tend to imagine great things when they read a description. Im sure it will be an interesting waste of time nonetheless.
 
very cool.. I'm glad that there are still some developers that don't subscribe to the 'let me make FPS clone #892 and cash in on it" and try different things, new ideas.. I've never bought any of the sim(s) games but I'll probably pick this one up
 
Sounds sweet.

You can expect me to be the guy, flying from planet to planet, blowing everyon els' stuff up...

(9 legged birdsnakes, with 3 beaks and 4 regular mouths, giant eyes on stalks a-la Jar Jar, 9 tails, som form of front appendiges, lacking hands and with 1 giant claw at th end of each, and large spikes, shooting down the back of the animal)
 
didn't you guys ever play E.V.O The Search for Eden? That game was tha shizzle. You could customize your dood. Wings, no wings... horn, the whole nine... Similar to this, but not quite.
 
Whoa, feel that deja vu?

Notice how everyone is fellating Will Wright now?

Don't these people remember what happened with Peter Molyneux and Black & White?
 
Sizer said:
Whoa, feel that deja vu?

Notice how everyone is fellating Will Wright now?

Don't these people remember what happened with Peter Molyneux and Black & White?


eh...i actually liked black and white :shrug:
 
Bob002 said:
didn't you guys ever play E.V.O The Search for Eden? That game was tha shizzle. You could customize your dood. Wings, no wings... horn, the whole nine... Similar to this, but not quite.

I remember that game. That game was totally wicked. Spore is just like that game, only on like cocaine.
 
See, I don't really understand this concept. The whole idea is to limit game budgets by leaving content creation up to the player right? The player is supposed to create whatever they imagine and then use it in this 'sandbox' world. How is this possible? I mean, suppose a player wants a two-headed dragon with 3 tails; doesn't the game have to have a model / texture / animations for said dragon before in can even be displayed in the engine? I really don't believe that Will Wright has developed algorithms complex enough to simulate any creature imaginable without a built-in database of body parts / movements / animations / etc. If somebody has to create this database then the project fails to realize it's goal.

I mean, look at a game like City of Heroes. With the powerful character creation process you can create a replica of almost any kind of hero you want. However, whomever designed the system had to build all those models and textures by hand so that the game knows what a "tall male" for example will look like. All the player is really doing is tweaking variables, setting which options they want to create the kind of character they want. I suspect that Spore uses this same kind of system, however more complex it might be. The fact remains that SOMEBODY has to create the art before the players manipulate it.

-Ace-
 
AceTKK said:
See, I don't really understand this concept. The whole idea is to limit game budgets by leaving content creation up to the player right? The player is supposed to create whatever they imagine and then use it in this 'sandbox' world. How is this possible? I mean, suppose a player wants a two-headed dragon with 3 tails; doesn't the game have to have a model / texture / animations for said dragon before in can even be displayed in the engine? I really don't believe that Will Wright has developed algorithms complex enough to simulate any creature imaginable without a built-in database of body parts / movements / animations / etc. If somebody has to create this database then the project fails to realize it's goal.

I mean, look at a game like City of Heroes. With the powerful character creation process you can create a replica of almost any kind of hero you want. However, whomever designed the system had to build all those models and textures by hand so that the game knows what a "tall male" for example will look like. All the player is really doing is tweaking variables, setting which options they want to create the kind of character they want. I suspect that Spore uses this same kind of system, however more complex it might be. The fact remains that SOMEBODY has to create the art before the players manipulate it.

-Ace-

I think you miss the point.
To make a 2 head dragon with 3 tails you simply take your blobby mass (the body), shape it the way you want and stick 2 necks, 2 heads, 2 legs, 2 wings, and 3 tails on it. Then you put some spinal columns in each neck and along the back. Then you tweak the exact shape of each body part, much like molding clay. Then you throw in things like eyes, ears, teeth, claws, and coloration, and voila, you have a 2 headed dragon with 3 tails.

Presumably there will be parts lists for the body part, but according to the description such things can be resized and possible reshaped to fit your particular creature as well.

Then the game figures out how such a body would move and you're on your way.

The point Will was making was not that they don't have to do art at all for the game. Just that they don't have to do that much compared to other games coming out right now because they give players the tools to create whatever they want, and then they have a program capable of figuring out animation on it's own, thus allowing them to cut the art and animation portion of their work down considerably, and thus saving lots of money.


 
Is anyone else in complete awe???? I was like omg I hope this isnt a pre April fools joke.


I have wanted a game like this since I played Mario, I mean you can do anything ANYTHING!!!!!! OMG OMGO MGO MGO MG wow


wowowow I am so stoked, anything you want you can have. wow


You could make "humans" and stuff and wow, I am impressed beyond belief. This is a game I have been dreaming of forever.


Now how much ram will I need??? Lol
 
That was an amazing read. His idea sounds great for sandbox type games, but I wonder if the technology works as well for say a FPS or a war game.
 
SOrry for my lil freak out :) this game is just everything developers with sanbox games have been promising for years and not delivering. And I have always thoguth what if there was a game would you could just be a person and live life, you could go to your job work 9-5 go home and watch tv OR you could be a bank robber OR a cop OR a navy seal all in the same game and live oyur life how you want to live it. I think this game will deliver the closest thing to that.

I dont think it will work as well for FPS, a war game maybe, it could have logirthims(sp?) for deciding tactics based on amry size type and terrain.

I personally think this could easily be looked back upon as a step equal to 2D gaming -> 3D gaming.
 
I don't get it. I read the whole thing and I don't get it. What am I missing? :confused:
 
The design for this game literally lets you do everything and anything you want practically, ie you think it, the game makes your you idea fit into the whole universe.
 
It all seems pretty cool, to bad it wont come out for a while...

But ya, it's a sweet idea. Pretty much make your own world... Hopefully all of hte players can be in one giant universe, and you can travel to other peoples planets... Unless of course, the bomb nuke thing they talked about is in the game. I would hate to spend like a week playing, finely crafting my people into a giant civilization. Capable of all the glorious technolagical achievements that would be achieved in the future, only for the planet to be blown up by some 11 year old, mad because his fries wern't supersized...
 
Hate_Bot said:
It all seems pretty cool, to bad it wont come out for a while...

But ya, it's a sweet idea. Pretty much make your own world... Hopefully all of hte players can be in one giant universe, and you can travel to other peoples planets... Unless of course, the bomb nuke thing they talked about is in the game. I would hate to spend like a week playing, finely crafting my people into a giant civilization. Capable of all the glorious technolagical achievements that would be achieved in the future, only for the planet to be blown up by some 11 year old, mad because his fries wern't supersized...


That does sound cool. Not the 11 yr old wrecking things part, but everything else.
 
I don't know for sure if this has any kind of precedent (someone please mention if one exists) but its about time someone tapped the "demo" programmers. They can do shit with 32k that would blow your frickin mind.
 
Shakezilla said:
Is anyone else in complete awe???? I was like omg I hope this isnt a pre April fools joke.


I have wanted a game like this since I played Mario, I mean you can do anything ANYTHING!!!!!! OMG OMGO MGO MGO MG wow


wowowow I am so stoked, anything you want you can have. wow


You could make "humans" and stuff and wow, I am impressed beyond belief. This is a game I have been dreaming of forever.


Now how much ram will I need??? Lol

I hope you are, on some level, prepared for enormous diappointment. It seems like you expect this game to be nothing less than Jesus Christ in binary.
 
finalgt said:
I hope you are, on some level, prepared for enormous diappointment. It seems like you expect this game to be nothing less than Jesus Christ in binary.

It does seem very cool.

THe only 2 Video game designers I would consider artists are Will Wirght, and Peter molynuex (Bah, crazy british last name spelling)

Plus, will wright has cool ideas. I liked the sims (omg wtf go to your fooking barbie toys fagg sims is gay etcc...) and the simcitys were always fun (except for the fact that, no matter how many goddamn buisness zones I built, and buildings etc.. I would always have a "Not enough jobs" mesage every 3 seconds)
 
I am prepared to be let down like I am let down by every game I have er played but this game could easily pave the way to a game that will not disapoint me
 
mastercheeze said:
I don't know for sure if this has any kind of precedent (someone please mention if one exists) but its about time someone tapped the "demo" programmers. They can do shit with 32k that would blow your frickin mind.


True. It's amazing what you can do when you STOP using programming tools that waste the machine resources given. ALL modern high level languages are so unoptimized it's not even funny. Blame that on short developement cycles and bad programming practices.
 
As a 32 year old, i would have to say i would have zero patience for this. I want to plug in a game and play. I want production value, graphics and story. If the yo-yo's would do that in the first place, there would not be a need for the discussion of a Spore. If I was 16 or so and I had nothing but time on my hands and I wasn't out chasing skirts and looking for beer/booze...i guess this would have some appeal. ;)
 
Nasty_Savage said:
As a 32 year old, i would have to say i would have zero patience for this. I want to plug in a game and play. I want production value, graphics and story. If the yo-yo's would do that in the first place, there would not be a need for the discussion of a Spore. If I was 16 or so and I had nothing but time on my hands and I wasn't out chasing skirts and looking for beer/booze...i guess this would have some appeal. ;)

I think you miss the point.

You DO simply plug in and play, and there is production value, graphics, and story (though very open-ended story). They also gave no indication of how long it takes to play through, so your comment about the time you will need is totally baseless. For all we know you could have yourself evolved to the "building houses" stage in only 2 or 3 hours, or it could be 10+ hours. We just don't know. Either way, whats wrong with a game you play at your own pace and that allows you to grow and develop?

Also to those worried about 11-year-olds showing up and destroying their civilization, it doesn't sound like its multiplayer at all. They basically said everyone creates creatures and buildings, those items are uploaded to a database automatically, and then the game downloads them to your local PC automatically and then other creatures in the world and universe are chosen randomly from those. That sounds about right to me for a Will Wright product. After all, when was the last time he created an actual online player vs. player game?
 
Just the concept of the idea is what I was referring to, in MMO's its a PITA to just keep rejects from ruining the game for you.
 
I think this model of gaming production flat out sucks. What happens to all the 3d artists out there who depend on the gaming market to make a living? Say this game game gets made, and its a hit. Then other compaines see how the game was made, using just code. Other compaines are like "wow we can make a crap load if we fire all our artists and use just coders" now people like me are out of the job. I understand that technologies can replace people in the work place. But these are creative jobs, one thing that a machine shouldn't be doing for us. I don't like this idea one bit, and I think if it is impelmented, we're going to see the downfall of video games. I know people like customization, but if every single game is totally custom, it becomes the same thing over and over again. Whats next? Customizeable Movies and TV shows, whats the point then? I feel that people shouldn't be personally involved with the game, meaning they customize it to be theirs. The idea is entertianment, not replacement of something that you should be doing in real life.
 
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