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Spore

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Matthew J

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Will Wright is making quite possibly the best computer game ever conceived. It's called Spore. He thought of calling it SimEverything, but I think Objectisim is more accurate. This game is just that great. You start as a single cell organism, then gain points to get weapons to defeat other amoebas then youre a sea creature then you evolve legs or whatever you like and then you can become sentient. At this point the game turns into a sort of RTS as your small family of creatures competes with other tribes for resources, and sometimes fights. They can then make settlements, which turn into cities. Then the game is more like SimCity as you try to make the people happy. As they grow and begin to compete with other cities, it becomes a sort of risk game, as you try to take over the world, in whatever way you like, with this people you have created and designed every aspect of. From there the game goes from goal oriented to open ended as you begin to take a swiss-army-ufo into space to terraform other planets, find intelligent life, modify, create, or destroy planets, and eventually gain interstellar travel. I cannot express how excited I am about this game. You really have to watch the GDC movie to understand. Here it is. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=83...0559198&q=spore

I seriously can't wait to play this game. Thoughts?

p.s. The movie is a half-hour long, so beware.

Edited by Matthew J
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Oh wow, I think it could be a rather interesting game by the sounds of it. I used to quite enjoy some of the old SimCity games (I have not played any of the more recent versions), so I think I would enjoy a similar game with much more scope, or at least the parts like SimCity. And I dont mind the odd RTS.

I love that you get to start from such a tiny little speck, and that you gradually get to work up through plantery influence. It sounds like ALOT of fun. It might be one of the few games I will bother playing.

I just hope that my machine will run it, but it should unless it wants a super graphics card.

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Will Wright is making quite possibly the best computer game ever conceived. It's called Spore.

I seriously can't wait to play this game. Thoughts?

p.s. The movie is a half-hour long, so beware.

This game seems potentially massive in scope, but at the same time, to not require gamers to have RTS speed or micromanagement mastery. Something everyone could enjoy? It was interesting to see how much an effect evolutionary choices had on critters (e.g. the three-legged creature's awkward running and difficulties with his tail weapon.) I can't wait to get my hands on it to see just how much variety in lifeforms and planets are possible:)

I can't believe he blew up that planet. :o
:lol: Yeah, that, and the Care Bear, the mating game, dropping the lifeform on the foreign planet, and the ritual dance upon obtaining sticks and fire all had me laughing.
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I got to thinking today... Humans are pretty darn good the way they are built already... but if you were to improve on the design in the game, what would you do? 2 more hands? A tail? lets hear some ideas!

That Matrix-plug would be neat.

You push a button, and then:

I know Kung-Fu. :lol:

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Inspector, my comment stemmed from a similar thread about objectivist computer games, in philosophical premises as well as aesthetics.

For one, the game is a clear proponent of evolution, versus theism.

Secondly, the goal of the game in earlier stages is the advancement of your creature into sentience and ultimate exaltation.

Also, simulations games can be very enjoyable to many objectivists when economy and diplomacy are featured.

Lastly, the game allows the user to create and design on so many levels (including lifeforms, vehicles and buildings) that anyone with an appreciation for metaphysical life-views in art will likely enjoy the ease with which they will be able to express themselves, and then have these expressions interact with one another.

Aside from these, it is not an objectivist simulator in any sense. In fact, I should rather have said that most Objectivists will enjoy this game, and that of the target audience, objectivists will have more capacity for enjoying some of its qualities.

Thank you for the correction.

Edit: readability

Edited by Matthew J
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That's what I thought; thanks for clarifying. This reminds me of the lecture I heard from one of the ARI speakers (I forget which); he made a comment in reaction to an audience member's question that made the point that Objectivism doesn't encompass everything that is good; it describes only the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I don't mean at all to detract from your point, just to make sure that bit is clear. Anyway, I'd better step out before your thread becomes "jacked." :)

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  • 6 months later...

Okay, I just watched this video and it looks like it's going to be one of the best games ever.

So this is apparently an online game, because it mentions that other players affect the environment. I hope this doesn't require a monthly subscription...that seems to be the trend with online games nowadays.

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Its not that kind of online game. How it works is that all the creatures, buildings, etc that you create get sent to a server which then distributes the material to everyone else. So when you explore a new planet, the animals on that planet were made by somebody else. Its sort of a Massively Singleplayer Game. There are going to be no monthly fees, and if you dont have net access, the game should come with more then enough pre-made material to keep you occupied.

The irony is, that although the game shows evolution in action, the player is really working as the "intelligent designer"! This webstrip captured some of the hilarity of this quite well:

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199

Edited by Strangelove
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While it is completely unrelated to Spore as far as I know, there is a small proof-of-concept game similar to the first phase of Spore called fl0w (here: http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/). It's very addictive, even though it's pretty short. It's really fun to play in full-screen mode with a tablet.

-Q

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I got to thinking today... Humans are pretty darn good the way they are built already... but if you were to improve on the design in the game, what would you do? 2 more hands? A tail? lets hear some ideas!

Clearly you've never had sinus or intestinal problems . . . nor are you a woman. Neither do you have my job, where you get to see just how badly peoples' joints degenerate by the time they're thirty. We're put together fairly well if you exempt any plumbing or moving parts or the immune system which can suddenly develop a yen to attack random non-dangerous shit (allergies) or your own body (autoimmune diseases). I won't even go into how badly your teeth disintegrate.

Get involved in anything medical and you start wondering how people manage to stay alive at all. Just because catastrophic failures are rare doesn't mean that the whole system works particularly well.

Sim-style games bore me to tears, btw. I've grown picky in my old age and I don't want to sit that long unless there's some kind of plot. Although I've noticed I still have surprising tolerance for Diablo-style games where all you do is kill stuff to find cool gear so you can kill more stuff.

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It isn't really a sim game until you get up to the civilization level.

My 2 favorite computer games are Diablo II and the Age of Empires series. The early stages of this game appear to have some Diablo-ish elements, the middle stages are kind of AoE-ish, and the later stages appear to combine SimCity elements with those of AoE.

It will be a great game if, for no other reason, to see what kind of cool creatures you can design.

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  • 10 months later...

Yeah, I saw the video when it was first posted, and I was very impressed. It's a brilliant idea. The SIMS guys have really taken gaming to a whole new level. Unfortunately, I'm a Mac-user, and the most recent game they have for Mac is Warcraft III. And my G4 dual-450 can barely run that! Maybe some day...

--Dan Edge

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  • 7 months later...
I got to thinking today... Humans are pretty darn good the way they are built already... but if you were to improve on the design in the game, what would you do? 2 more hands? A tail? lets hear some ideas!

Take off all legs and and two more arms. No hands, just stubs. Then make them race!!

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  • 1 month later...
I seriously can't wait to play this game. Thoughts?

p.s. The movie is a half-hour long, so beware.

Toys for the Boys. Enjoy. Objectively speaking, these games are not faithful simulations of anything real in the world. I am an old hand at -real- simulation (pardon the oxymoron). For this you need zillion dollar ueber Cray computers.

ruveyn

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