The Spore Supersite
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Spore Community Day
So it has been a few days since I got back from the Spore community day and I've waited until now to post an article for a few reasons. One, I wanted to give the other spore fansites a chance to post their experiences and media at the event so that I could link to them, that way you can check out what everyone had to say opposed to just me. Two, I wanted to let everything sink in and type up this article on a fresh mind. And three, hm, maybe because I'm a *tad* bit lazy.. Errrr. :)
My Story
Alright I'll start from the beginning. Moments after I received the initial invitation email from Maxis, I was blown away. I was blown away by the generosity of them both inviting and paying for the trip, and not just for me, but about 10 others. I immediately thought to myself, "I have to go". So I responded that night by filling out their form which secured my position.
As the time drew nearer, I realized I freaking hate flying. I'm not going to lie, I guess I'm a panzy in the sense that I can't stand turbulence, and haven't flown much. You combine that with the mere distance. I live in Ohio, Maix resides in California. 6 hour flight 1-way. Ahhhhh. So I contacted my dad who's an old foggie and told him of my situation, "Hey old man, I know you have some prescribed drugs on your hands, what ya got?" (and I said it just like that, as if I were a hooded man harrasing an old woman on a walker in a New York alley). Well he prescribed a couple Xanax for me. Being that I've never taken anything like that in my life, he was certain it'd calm down any of my newbie fears.
It was the morning of the day I were to arrive at San Francisco (Aug 21st, a Thursday), and my wife drove me up to the Akron OH airport. We had our movie-like goodbye (you know, like those that depict the long journeys husbands would take on horse (or mule? I really don't know, I suck at history), in order to strike it rich with California gold), except that thought is quickly put to shame by the fact that I would be home within 72-odd hours. I pop in an xanax and it was a near immediate effect. A little bit lightheaded feeling, but I noticed that pressure in my chest was gone; that sort of pressure you get when you accidently let one go in a room full of quiet people, that pressure you get when you're giving a speech but forget the words, or just that pressure you get when you don't like flying I guess.
I board the plane which was first headed to Atlanta GA. It was a piece of cake I tell you. Only an hour and 20 minutes flight. It was the flight from Altanta to San Franscisco that I wasn't looking forward to. The massive 4 hour and 30 minute flight. The xanax still had effect when I left the airport an hour after I landed. Now the thing that sucked about this flight was that I was right against the window, and there were 2 other people to the right of me. That in and of itself wasn't what sucked, but 2 hours into the flight I had to "go". And no, not #2 but -- well screw the formalities, I had to take a piss. So I get up (thus they get up), and I go. No big deal, right? Wrong. For some freaking reason, I had to go 20 minutes later. Except I had about a hour n' a half left of the flight. I thought to myself there was no way I was going to make these people get up again. And not only did I have to stress through the feeling of having to go again, but my stomach was also bothering me; or in other words, I had to let one go. Now listen, you cannot let one go in Coach. People are CRAMMED in there, shoulder to shoulder, face to face practically. Both of those situations made the 2nd half of the flight a bad one, but I survived.
I get off the plane, I follow the baggage claim signs, and I see several suited fellows holding signs up. One had my name on it. I introduced myself and I followed him to baggage claim. I got my baggage (after 10 minutes) and we made our way. He seemed to be Russian, and drove me in a black lincoln. I asked him "how long will this take?", he replies "30 minutes." Those 2 words were the only 2 words that came out of his mouth my entire time with him. The ride there did indeed take 30 minutes, but I felt lame sitting in the back not saying anything. I thought to myself, "Hm, this guy might just be very unsocial and hate me because he's russian, or maybe I'm just uptight and if I want to talk, I'm supposed to talk.. Is that how this whole thing is supposed to work?" Well, I just decided to shut up and text on my cell phone.
We made it to the hotel, which was about 5:45 PST (8:45 EST), I only had a $10 dollar bill on me and handed him that. I figured what the hell, I don't do things like this often anyways. I signed in, went up to my room, and immediately scoured to hook up the laptop. And I *know* I'm not the only nerd that thinks like this. I set that bad boy up, went to the gamingsteve.com's forums because we all have a thread there (those that were attending) and let everyone know I was in the actual hotel.
It was 5:45, what the hell was I to do for that long? I'm used to going to sleep at around 3:00AM. I didn't contact anyone that was going before this event to have any formal plans to meet up. So I said screw it. I took my little room key, strolled on down to the lobby and hit the bar. Ordered a beer, sat there, and just waited to see if anyone that might look like they're here for spore to show up. Sure enough, I met up with 2 people right off the bat. Petreak and Artsi. Now mind you, I really didn't know anyone before this. Then shortly, Hydromancerx showed up. Now I didn't feel so left alone and "wtf am I going to do"'ish. After awhile, more and more people showed up. Then they began to talk about Sims. Now what sucks about me, is I've never played the sims. And I was seemingly the only one there who didn't, because everyone was putting their own 2 cents in about it. I sat there and drank though, and of course I was the only one to do so. I was hoping at least *one* person would have got something, but nope, I was singled out as being the resident spore drunkard!
It was getting a little bit later and we wanted to go eat somewhere. I went to the front desk, barely able to make it, tripped over someone's leg, fell over and smashed my tooth on the floor (har har, no, I'm jk, I wasn't near that point) and asked the front lady hotel woman where we could eat that was decent, within walking distance. She said "Go out there, take a right, and you'll find a place a block down." Cool. We all go out, walk around. Don't see **** cap'n! We take a right and end up down an alley way behind a plaza. It's dark out, there's those weird orange'ish tinted lights, with beautiful dumpsters for our sight-seeing pleasure. We essentially take a mile circle to end up nearly where we started. At this point we spouted off a few minor profanities and said **** it, let's eat at that fancy Burger King over there. So we did. It wasn't too bad, and we left.
We walked back to the hotel lobby and it was pretty late at this point. I can't remember what time it was, but a few sat down in the lobby again and a few went to their rooms. Well, I was thinking of heading to my room. But I had a buzz damnit and I didn't want to let it die. So I purchased 3 beers on the spot, grouped them up in my hands as if I was some sort of skilled bartenders and said my farewell to LadyM and another guy (I can't remember who.) But LadyM gave me this look like "You drunk bastard you." Hah.
I went up to my hotel room, called my wife, I was only able to finish 1.5 beers (and damn, stupid me, those things were $4.50 a piece! Budweisers), and fell asleep. I woke up at 7:45 AM or so (my alarm was set at 8:00 AM) but fortunately the my mildly drunken state didn't screw up my internal clock; besides, how could it? This is Spore we're talking about. You'd have to smash me in the head a few hundred times with the unopened budweiser sitting at my bedside before I'd miss playing Spore. So I get my stuff together, oh but before I did that I had to check the internet. You know, back to the whole internal nerd thing. I went down to the lobby, and LadyM was there along with another fellow and we decide to eat breakfast with a few others in the hotel breakfast area. I had a few waffles. After awhile, nearly everyone showed up, including some people I hadn't met the night before.
After eating, we waited in the hotel lobby and as noted at 9:15 AM, MaxisCactus showed up. I'm an ass I guess, I didn't even know MaxisCactus was a girl. Oh I thought, swell! Since Maxis Studios was only a couple miles away, we walked there from the hotel. It was quite a walk actually, crossing several streets / blocks, bridges, etc.. But finally we ended up there and we entered the studios. They had us sign some legal papers, which were covered by a page with our name, and our featured creature that we specified on the invitation form. Then Sarah brought us back to the breakfast table. Oh? Breakfast was here for us? Sorry, we ate already, g'damnit! But no, I had some orange juice for the hell of it anyhow, I didn't want to let it all go to waste anyhow so I put in my minor consumption duty.
Inside of our little personalized booklet of paper, there was a schedule of events. The first one was the studio tour. The tour was great, we got to see how big their studios are. There are actually 2 big offices in 2 even bigger office buildings within walking distance. We got to see where everyone worked. The play testing, the animation, the audio, engineering, everything. We even got to see Will Wright's office which was cool. At first glance as I peaked into his office, I saw a computer that looked like it dated back to the mid 90's. But then upon further insepection there were (I think) 2 more that fortunately looked more up to date. I mean, we all know Will Wright is old school and all, but to sacrifice performance? I don't even think he's that hardcore.
The tour ended and thus began the next event of the day. The demo. We go into this room called the "Garage" because there's an actual garage door. I don't know if it functions or anything, but we're on a non-first floor and there's a garage door there. Inside we sat around a rounded corner long board meeting type table, and we were given an hour+ demo of spore. This is where a lot of questions were answered. It was cool seeing what few beyond the Maxis team have been able to see at that point.
After that, we ate lunch. And then, the moment everyone was waiting for. We got to enter the Aquarium, which is another large room with about 16 or so laptops (a few desktops) where Spore awaited us. We were able to play Spore for an entire 3 1/2 hours. And I'm talking the full Spore experience. We were even given cheat codes so that we could experience every stage. So I loaded Spore up, and began to play.
I started at the cell phase. We were able to see a lot of the cell phase during the demo, so I wanted to experience it for myself. For being so simple, it's actually quite fun. Your objective is simple, don't get eaten. If you play as a carnivore, you're to eat meat-like pellets. If you play as a herbavore, you're to eat these plant-like pellets. There's a meter at the bottom of your screen and each time you consume what it is that you're supposed to consume, the meter slightly rises. There are several intervals, each time you reach one of those intervals, your little creature grows bigger. You're also given the random option of giving out a mating call. Giving a mating call costs $. Oh and I forgot to mention, each time you eat something, that number also increases. And each time you give a mating call, you find your mate, and then you enter the cell editor. The cell editor allows you to re-arrange parts, and add parts based on how much $ you have. It's a 2d editor. And this is where a lot of people will have a reality check. Everyone is used to the creature creator where all the parts are already available. No, not here! You have to choose your parts wisely, you need to place them wisely, because it all effects your playing experience and your creature's ability to survive.
Once I finished the cell phase (which didn't take too long, maybe 20 minutes), we were automatically transitioned into the creature phase. It was cool, because they have a preset animation that shows you creature rising up from the water, swimming onto land along with a few others of his kind. The creature phase (god, I'm so cloudy on this right now since it has been a few days) is also fun. You have predefined objectives which are stated in the upper left portion of your screen. It's somewhat of a guide, but you don't have to follow it per se. I got to the part where I was able to "mate". It transitions into this animation that you can't control, where they walk around each other with animated stars, and then your guy drops an egg. That egg hatches, and that is the next creature you control and follow. There is a lot to this phase, you still have a meter, and you're still earning $/points. You choose when you want to use them, and you choose which creature parts you want to add. And again, it's all important about how you choose, when and where to add these parts.
After awhile, I abandoned that particular game and went back to the main Spore screen. I asked the main play tester dude what the spore cheat was to unlock all the stages and he let me. Now what is really cool about Spore, is on the main spore screen it features your galaxy. Your galaxy has an initial number of predefined stars that you can start new games on. So you can go back to different stars and continue where you left off, or you can go to different stars and start entirely new "games". I chose a new star, and this time sure enough, all of the stages were unlocked. Where did I go? Space of course!
When you click on each stage, you have to do a few other things. On spage stage, you can either select a pre-existing space ship, or create a new one and go directly into the spaceship editor. I did both actually during my play time. But the space stage itself, you're given the option to follow along as a newcomer, because they have very handy guides for each stage that help you get familiar with the stage. It helps you become familiar with the movement, objects and objective based gameplay for that particular stage. The space stage is big, and I didn't spend all of my time there. The time I did spend actually playing the space stage, I can't even put it into words or into any sort of meaningful analysis because I don't think I tapped into it enough. In fact, it's the stage I least played.
So I started going through each stage. I played the tribal stage a good deal. It was fun. You're given pointers, like go out and eat food. You can select all of them to do one thing or just a few (micro-managing). At certain points, you're encouraged to either rival another tribe, or befriend them. You can also approach random creatures and either eat them or domesticate them. I befriended one tribe, and it took alittle while to get the hang of. I did it through song, and you have to do it right in order for the befriending process to work. Then I received a notification saying that my tribe was under attack. Now let me just say, one of the funnest things about Spore is you're ability to click at one point in a map at the bottom, and watch as your screen animates across the planet to that point. It looks and feels so cool and real, it really ties everything together.
After that point, I manually switched to the civilization phase. Civ phase is cool. You have a ton more creatures, and rather than micro-managing individual creatures, this stage is about managing your civilization. You build buildings, you form alliances or create enemies with other civilizations. Creating an enemy is easy, you take your military vehicles (if you're in a military mode) and attack them. Creating allies is all about setting up trade routes. You have a vehicle that visits a specific civ, you request to setup a trade, and they either approve or disapprove of the action. My experience showed that the first couple civilizations approved it, and we began "trade" with each other. This brings in money to the civilization, which then allows you to create new buildings. Your objective is to also keep your creatures happy. And you do this by making sure you have enough of the correct buildings, and situated in the correct locations within the city. You also still have to deal with epic monsters as you do in the other stages. I kept building vehicles and I'd send them over to attack a rival civilization and I was wondering where the hell they were going! Well I realized in the path that I sent them, an epic creature was apparently destroying them. Err.
The last portion of my gameplay experience, I spent playing around with all of the different editors. The vehicle editors are great. I built a military vehicle, a plane, and a boat. All are setup very well, and just as every bit as fun as the creature creator is. I also built a few buildings and that was great as well. As others who got to play mentioned, we are going to see some very talented people build some very creative things with these other editors, as we've seen in the creature creator.
After the 3 1/2 hours were up, I felt like "wow, that was intense." There's no way I could fully grasp the meaning and purpose of the game. Part of this is due to the fact that I skipped around so much (so that I could let everyone know a little about each stage), and another part is due to the pure size of the game. My overall impression is that this is going to be a great game, and wish that I could have had enough time to play it in a more linear natural fashion. But hey, I'm not complaining. 3 1/2 hours is a long time actually.
We exited the aquariam and then the Q&A period was held. A panel of 5 were seated in front of us with other members of the Spore team hovering in the back. A good number of questions were asked and since my battery died on my camera, and I didn't have a pen or pencil or paper (maybe I'm just lazy), I didn't jot any of it down but rather mostly listened. For those that asked here at xSpore. Many were answered and I will attempt to answer a few at the bottom of this article.
After the Q&A period ended, then we had the TGIF party. Every friday the Spore team has a TGIF party and they have a ton of pizza boxes, and two big barrel like things seated on a table with assorted beer and non-alcoholic drinks. You guessed right, I went for the landshark beer. Never had it before but it wasn't bad. But hell, I couldn't pass it up, free beer ya know? There are a lot of employees there, all younger aged people. We were all just hovering around, talking, etc etc, and that my friends is it.
We walked back to the hotel, I had a few more drinks, we all waited around until gradually one by one, we were all hauled away individually in the black lincoln's. This story is already extremely long, so I'll make this last bit quicker. I get to the airport, and hang out a bit with Rex from simphoni.net. We realized we were boarding the same flight. But somehow, I was in first class (hell yeah!) and he was stuck back 9 rows in coach (ouch). At this point it was 10:45 PM, and g'damnit, I had to deal with that whole pee'ing / uncomfortable feeling the *entire duration of the flight*. Blaaaah! Then the worst part was landing in Atlanta at 6:00 or so AM (can't remember exactly), and realizing I had to wait around for 3 hours until I could get back to Ohio. I didn't sleep once in the plane, I had no sleep at ALL. So I ate a Wendy's breakfast (yeah, I never knew such a thing existed either), and said screw it and fell asleep across a few rows of seats at my gate. Probably slept near 2 hours. I boarded the next plane and flew home. FINALLY!
Some Media
This is the video I took during the tour phase of spore community day:
1. camosnake - Sep 01, 2008 10:29 AM
Check out this sporepedia page, luv2liv has made all the DC comic characters and has done an amazing job! http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=srch-Luv2Liv
2. lucky711 - Aug 28, 2008 11:49 PM
another NEW VIDEO!-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkjV9AX2Bpc
3. lucky711 - Aug 28, 2008 11:39 PM
NEW Cell phase video!!!--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSPDlDxjhwo Happy to share!! :D
4. lucky711 - Aug 28, 2008 08:02 PM
adamdude, did you even read the article or watch the video!! he said they all went and got to take a look into Will office!!!
5. DarkPhoenix - Aug 28, 2008 06:36 PM
i dont wanna make you sad dude but Europe really play Spore two days earlier ^_^ and i hope i play it 3-4 days earlier, just after it comes to transit warehouse *(^_^)*
6. Adamdude - Aug 28, 2008 05:20 PM
ya but 30-to 60 minutes? that's kinda long. i can go to fries electronics and get it in fifteen minutes driving from my house and back including buying it. once i get home it will probley take between 20 and 30 minutes to download (most Ea/MAxis games are like that). so i think i will just buy it. oh and all you cool european dudes out there; whenever your not playing spore within the two days before it comes out. we americans/southern amercians would rally apricitate it. im srry i misspelled so many words but im typing fast because im typing really fast because i have to go somehwere bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh ya and xdream im happy you had fun there. say.............. did yall get to go IN will's office? or no?
7. Sporemenow - Aug 28, 2008 12:54 PM
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/08/spore-now-avail.html Spore avalible for preload!
8. jouryke112 - Aug 28, 2008 09:50 AM
7days in 'ere
9. Dred13 - Aug 28, 2008 08:23 AM
9 days left, to bad school starts today at where im at @.@
10. rankaratar - Aug 27, 2008 11:19 PM
They're handing out Spore Creature Creators with the Sunday mail where I'm from for $2. Dunno if it's full or only 25% though.
11. lucky711 - Aug 27, 2008 08:21 PM
your welcome camosnake! SPORE!! 10 days!
12. camosnake - Aug 27, 2008 06:34 PM
yeah thats old news DISGUSTIPATED but thank you anyway, as a matter of fact thank all of you who surf the web finding these videos to keep us updated, god i cannot wait for this game to come out, the closer it gets, the more i cant wait anymore.
13. DISGUSTIPATED - Aug 27, 2008 05:35 PM
Hey I'm not sure how many of you guys have seen this but Maxis/EA just put out a new video/advertisement for the Galactic edition of Spore. If you want to check it out, here's the link: http://www.dailymotion.com/spore/video/x6j1an_spore-galactic-edition_videogames
14. Glorg The Terror - Aug 27, 2008 03:34 PM
I had always imagend MaxisCactus to be somewhat older.
15. Knightly1818 - Aug 27, 2008 12:00 PM
Wow! It must've been amazing!
16. vetrijar - Aug 27, 2008 12:31 AM
actually, this one is scary. http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/eas-spore-origins-pulled-from-itunes-store/
17. vetrijar - Aug 27, 2008 12:29 AM
oh, here's a link about the Spore download with itunes and removal. http://www.tuaw.com/2008/08/26/spore-ipod-game-now-in-itunes/
18. vetrijar - Aug 27, 2008 12:23 AM
SO, I'm guessing no one was about to download Spore from the ITunes.com site?? went there but guess they still have it off. maybe it was just an early glitch they turned on the download feature.
19. lucky711 - Aug 27, 2008 12:17 AM
yay, they took Spore Origings off itunes because it was having problems on most ipods! No one knows whne it will be back on but hey, no wonder it had some bugs, they released it a week an a half in advance! But i wouldlove to buy it for my ipod, i just wish i new how to lol
20. elfmoo5 - Aug 26, 2008 10:55 PM
Grand review nice detail and such n such etc...one thing YOU CANT USE A CAMERA!!!
21. avmf8 - Aug 26, 2008 09:56 PM
Did Dreame meet Will Wright. Also the guy from Simphoni.net is Huge.
22. Servius - Aug 26, 2008 09:49 PM
HELL YEAH! Landshark beer representing Jacksonville, FL. Its brewed and bottles here. Yeah. Other than that..sweet article my friend.
23. sporefreak - Aug 26, 2008 08:49 PM
happy
24. Masterman619 - Aug 26, 2008 08:40 PM
wow, MaxisCactus is cute.
25. camosnake - Aug 26, 2008 07:29 PM
Ha! xDreamache's video should have been named "The Blair Spore Project" hehe, he holds a camocoreder about as still as i do, anyway, awesome, i envy you, and your a great story teller, you ought to write books, maybe one about a creature you create or something! Just an idea, anyway, its all great stuff, cant wait for the game!
57 Comments