Forgive me if this thread has come and passed, I searched but didn’t turn anything up. Let me just say that Wil Wright is a god among game designers. Say all you want about Katamariwhatzitcalled but Spore looks unbelievable. I watched the 30 minute video on google videos three times yesterday looking at all the features.
I wish he hadn’t stressed the functional programming of it so much, I lost count of how many times he used the word, but it was a LOT. However, this game looks so unfrigginbelievable I’m willing to overlook that.
Other’s thoughts? Anyone else adding this to their Christmas / Winter holiday list?
Is this a new video? I’m going to have to search it out. Unless you have a link.
And a quick search of CS for “spore” gives me at least two worthwhile previous threads: Sims’ creator’s latest project - Spores Will Wright’s Next Game.
The more recent of the two threads died in May 05. We’re all just kinda simmering and waiting on the game.
I notice he said “asynchronous” a few times. Obviously you’re meant to get content created by other players, but I wonder if your actions affect other players in any way? That is - when he destroyed another planet, is that only visible to him, or does the other player see it when he fires up the game next time? If not, it ends up being a single player game with loads of custom content. If so, who knows what could swoop down off the web to colonize and/or nuke you…
From the way he talked about it, you have no effect on other players except for them to get access to your creations. IE, destroying that planet wouldn’t affect the other player at all.
I was at the talk where the videotape was shot. The latter is correct – the content is shared, not the world state. Wright began the talk by saying one of the challenges of next gen game development is producing enough high quality content. (Which is very true.) His unique approach is to leverage the fan base as content creators. Maxis is already doing this in a big way with the Sims and Spore just automates the process. The game will ship with a large collection of creatures, but, when you connect to the internet, creatures that you’ve created get uploaded and creatures that other people have created get downloaded resulting in an enormous number of possible life forms that you can meet on different planets. (And it’s not just creatures – it’s buildings and machines that are handled this way too.)
The technology hinges on generating all the content procecurally, which means that you can represent a very complicated entity with only a few bytes of data. Tiny files mean nearly instantaineous downloads and a seamless integration of remote and local content.
In addition to looking like a killer game it’s technologically very sweet.
I’m also hugely drooling over this. Fingers crossed it won’t be a disapointment - there’s so many cool features that a couple are bound to be a bit off.
If you click on the “More Videos” tab to the right of your video, you’ll see the first one is “Will Wright and Spore,” which is the same video, but about 10-15 minutes longer. Coming from what appears to be pretty much the start of his address to the end.
And once again, Pochacco illustrates why I love this board so much: for any nerdy pursuit, there will be at least one member at the forefront of it.
I love Will Wright. Talk about someone who always delivers! Instead of talking about the features his cool new game will have he brings a freakin’ tech demo that looks pretty much complete and shows them off!
Spore is literally the only game I’m looking forward to in the next few years. Well, possibly Neverwinter Nights 2, but that’s still wait and see. Spore, I’m there already!
One question I wondered about was can you still evolve your creature after it’s reached sentience?
I cannot wait until this game comes out. As of now, I have a top of the line gaming computer, and if need be, I will buy a new one, for this game alone.
Sounds like no, then your attention is set on building up your critter’s civilization.
However, once you’ve gotten your UFO, you can access all the editors for free, and breed all kinds of crazy stuff, starting from things other players designed.
I watched the video again and another question popped into my head.
What happens if you lose all your cities? Do you lose the game or do you just start anew? And will there be other sentien creatures? By that I mean will there be like, if you’re a lizard thingy will there be bear cities around?
Gah, I can’t wait for this game.
He didn’t say for the first one but I would imagine yes, as it was possible to lose in similiar ways in most Sim games made by Wright.
I imagine the answer to your second question is yes too, just based on how he was talking. While the second different city he showed was populated by similiar looking creatures to his you do have to remember that as amazing as it looked this was pre-beta code he was showing – they didn’t have the procedural textures down enough for him to show that off for example.
Actually, I heard that once you reach the tribal level the only other species at that level will be your own - so once you reach human-level sentience, your species is the only one you’ll have (until you go to another planet, it seems).
