Tag Archives: spore

To celebrate the release of the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, EA’s put out a new patch containing 24 new limbs for the Creature Creator.

You can get the update here.

In additional, the patch adds the following:

• Fix for esc key not bringing up Options in Galaxy Game Entry
• Fix for creator backgrounds appearing on small sporepedia cards
• Update to help keep achievements on the server in sync with achievements in the game

Press release after the link.

More »

Time magazine has named Spore the 20th best invention of 2008, saying, “It’s blasphemy, brilliance or both to take the entire evolution of a species — from a single-celled animalcule in a drop of water to a space-faring, galaxy-exploring sentient being — and turn it into a video game.”

The retail DNA test was top of the chart, which is kind of fair enough when you think about it. Actually, you don’t have to think about it that hard.

More through the link.

According to this Joystiq report, EA’s confirmed a new Space phase expansion for Spore, to ship next spring.

The new product is in addition to the now-confirmed Creepy & Cute parts pack, releasing in the US in November.

Apparently “players’ space faring creatures will be able to beam down from their spaceships to explore new planets and earn rewards for completing challenging missions” in the Space expansion, and “a new Adventure Creator will allow players to build and share online their own custom missions.”

More through the link.

EA’s posted a listing for the previously rumoured Creepy & Cute Spore add-on on its US store, says Joystiq.

You won’t be able to see it if you’re in Europe thanks to EA’s insane web skillz, but rest assured it’s happening. It’s out on November 18 in the US, priced $20.

Both GameStop and Amazon are listing a Cute and Creepy creature parts expansion pack for spore, and both are listing it for a November 18 release.

There’s no detail outside of that, unfortunately. Expect months of savage debate about how many times you can install the disc to follow its launch.

EA’s moved to address comments made by a Spore forum mode regarding banning users that caused “arguments” over DRM issues, saying the person involved doesn’t work for the publisher and was speaking out of turn.

“These comments are absolutely not true or in-line with EA’s moderation policy,” an EA spokesperson told Kotaku. “They were made by an over-zealous community volunteer who does not work for EA.

“Anyone who looks at the boards will clearly see that DRM and other issues are freely discussed on the Spore forums, alongside other topics about the game.”

So rest easy. No one’s going to ban you for fighting about DRM on Spore’s forums. Have fun.

EA’s announced that Spore’s gone through the 1 million sales mark.

“Spore is a hit,” said EA Games president Frank Gibeau.

“Will Wright’s latest delivers an incredibly diverse game that appeals to casual gamers and the core alike.

“We’re off to a great start moving into the holiday season and believe Spore will deliver a platform of creativity for gamers of all stripes for years to come.”

The millions total sales from the PC, Mac and DS versions.

Spore launched at the beginning of September.

A class action has been filed against EA regarding Spore DRM, as reported by GamePolitics.

According to this CNS piece:

Electronic Arts, a leading maker of computer games, defrauds consumers through its “Spore” game, which “completely wipes their hard drive” and replaces it with an undisclosed program that prevents the computer from operating under some circumstances and disrupts hardware operations, a class action claims in Federal Court.

Blimey. Follow the links for more legal ire over install allowances.

Oh dear. EA’s threatened to ban users from its official Spore forums for causing “arguments” about DRM. This doesn’t just mean banning from the forums: this means having your account banned, thus rendering you unable to play your copy of the game. Yep: that means you’d have to buy another copy if you wanted to carry on playing.

A mod comment from this thread:

SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.

Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.

Too funny. Kotaku, though, did dig this extra moderator comment up from another thread:

You are not going to lose your game for posting a comment. It is okay to discuss issues on this forum as long as it’s done in a respectful manner and there are no personal attacks. This includes the DRM and other controversial issues. Just keep it civil.

Just you keep your nose out of trouble, y’hear? Thanks, Shacknews.

Spore’s been patched, the game’s official site reports, adding a good load of features and fixes. Stuff you get:

• New Cheat: “evoadvantage”. Enter this cheat when are starting a new Creature game to choose any creature from the Sporepedia. Start a new game with one of your more evolved creatures!
• Display part statistics when you are in Build mode. Rollover any part and hold down the ‘i’ key.
• New Cheat: “blocksmode”. Turns creatures into their blocky representations.
• More style filters. Open the cheat window and type: “stylefilter -microscope” or “stylefilter -norainbows” or “stylefilter -nextgen” to see the new styles
• Added 70 new planet scripts with a low terraform score, especially of the “hot and high atmosphere” type

All details through the link.

According to this BigDownload story, Spore producer Lucy Bradshaw has confirmed that EA is to allow multiple accounts per install of the Maxis game.

“We are going to add the ability to have multiple Spore Screen Names for any one Spore Online Account,” she said in an unlinked forum post.

“Here’s how this will work: for each copy of Spore that you have purchased, you will be able to have one Spore Online Account, just as it is now. However, we will be adding the ability to have five Spore Screen Names for that account. When you launch Spore, you will be able to log in with any of those Screen Names.”

Good news for the DRM-haters in the crowd. More through the link.

Data released by EA has shown that less than 1 percent of Spore buyers have thus far tried to install the game on more than three computers.

The figures have been published in response to apparent rage at DRM measures applied to the sim.

There’s a big update on the issue on MTV, with responses from EA to all complaints levelled at Spore’s protection so far.

Speaking to Gamasutra, EA’s said that Spore’s DRM system is essentially the same as the disc-and-key method used in previous games.

“EA has not changed our basic DRM copy protection system,” said EA’s corporate communications boss, Mariam Sughayer.

“We simply changed the copy protection method from using the physical media, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to one which uses a one-time online authentication.”

Spore’s received a battering from “the internet” since it was launched for using the SeruROM DRM system, and is currently being heavily pirated.

Are you getting this yet, EA? CNET’s Dave Rosenberg has called Spore’s DRM measures “seriously misguided” and “plain-old offensive.”

“The video game industry remains one of the last hold-outs in the war against consumption. Instead of encouraging more use, EA royally botched the launch of Spore with a seriously misguided DRM choice,” said the journalist.

He added: “The Spore ‘self-destruct’ mechanims is just plain-old offensive. I can’t think of a scenario in the last few years where I wasn’t reinstalling, changing hardware or otherwise altering my computer system. To render an application unusable is ludicrous–and pointless.”

Spore is currently being pirated by disgruntled punters en bloc, following the implementation of SecROM protection features and the allocation of a wholly generous one account per copy.

Hello, EA? Hello?

According to peer-to-peer research firm Big Champagne, levels of piracy surrounding Spore are off the chart, with more than 35,000 copies of the game being leeched on Wednesday this week alone.

“The numbers are extraordinary,” said company boss Eric Garland. “This is a very high level of torrent activity even for an immensely popular game title.”

As of Thursday this week, the game had been downloaded 171,402 times since September 1.

DRM issues are obviously being blamed for the trend, with some users actively calling for the title to be pirated.

“By downloading this torrent, you are doing the right thing,” said Pirate Bay posted ‘deathkitten’. “You are letting [EA] know that people won’t stand for their ridiculously draconian ‘DRM’ viruses.

“You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face.”

More on Forbes.

It’s been apparently confirmed that each household may only have one Spore account per copy, creating a large thread on the game’s official forum and throwing yet another bone on the “PC protection issue” pile.

This obviously means that parents can’t be playing different games to their children on the same computer.

“There is one Spore registration/account per game/serial code so you are correct in that you cannot make multiple accounts at this time. I have sent your guys’ feedback to the game team though since I can understand the desire to share a game on a system that you entire family uses,” said a rep.

Read the whole thing through there if you don’t have much else to do today. It hasn’t gone down well.

An anti-Spore site has launched in direct protest of the game’s “attack on Christian values,” calling itself Antispore.com.

This is our favourite bit:

You would think that as a member of the Episcopal Church, a smart man like Will Wright would not be capable of creating Spore. However, we must be reminded that the Episcopal Church is the only church in america [sic] that ordains homosexuals on a regular basis.

It makes sense that a perverted church would cause a man to make the creations he has in this game. It just may be that evolution is not the only thing to fear this game teaching your children.

And that’s all we have to say about that.

By Mike Bowden

We’ll put this down to being “unfortunate.” According to this GhostRazor story, Spore will only run on MacBooks made post-2007.

Before then, Apple was making Macbooks with the GMA 950 graphics card embedded, after which it was upgraded to the GMA X3100.

Spore explicitly does not support the GMA 950 on OSX: the best part of all this is that it’ll run on a pre-2007 MacBook using BootCamp and Windows.

No Macbook Pros have this issue, apparently.

Thanks, Destructoid.

Disgruntled Spore buyers have launched one star Amazon scores at Spore en bloc over the fact you can only install each copy of the game three times.

The title’s security system have been branded “draconian” and “a show-stopper” by the hundreds of negative reviewers.

Maybe someone should get the message? You can torrent Spore for free, for God’s sake. These people are trying to buy it.

Speaking to MTV, Will Wright’s pretty much agreed with criticism levelled at Spore in a now-wide swathe of reviews, saying the game targets a casual audience, will sell more than Half-Life, and that’s as should be.

“We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players,” he said. “Spore has more depth than, let’s say, The Sims did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for Sims 2, which was around 90, and something like Half-Life, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life.”

Wright’s also unfazed by the fact many reviewers have claimed the game is a Jack of all trades and a master of none.

“The feedback we’re getting from people is that everyone has some level they like and some level they don’t like,” he said. “A lot of the reviews I’ve read have said that the Space Stage was far and away the best and they were disappointed by the earlier stages because they were too simple. Other people have said the Creature Stage is their favorite and that the Space Stage seems too complicated.

“We knew, since we were using different genres with every level, that everyone would have ones they really clicked with and ones they didn’t. We’ve pretty much seen that. There hasn’t been any consistent feedback. Some people have said the Civ phase is the best.”

More through the link. We love you, Will.