Will Wright's "Spore"

[Grandpa Stu]

in that case i'm going to obsessively create a psycho-monster that will spread like the bubonic plague and wipe out all other players eco-systems the second they retrieve its data.

on a more serious note though.

one thing that would interest me is if you could selectively download other user's data. that way me and a group of friends could create worlds that sorta co-exist around each other.

[[xeno]Julios]

that's an interesting idea - will be cool if they allow such choice - perhaps a different gametype.

[DooMer]

If they took a lot of those elements and put it into a real game It would be cool. I agree with stu though, if they could some how really make it multiplayer, it would be the shit. I doubt the AI is going to be interesting enough so that a non-mong couldn't quickly see through its tricks. Just like the sims was amazing for about 2 seconds before you realize its patterns.

Seeing other homo's creatures just isn't cool enough. Plus i dont even get the satisfaction of seeing my crazy psycho monster owning people.

[[xeno]Julios]

the whole idea of the meta game is that it's the highest form of emergence in the "game".

it isn't about predicting the patterns of AI - it's about creating a universe over which you have some powerful elements of creative control.

I do agree that the concept of "metagame" was left relatively underdescribed by Wright, but I think it is a fertile concept.

[[xeno]Julios]

btw i really recommend the full version of the video - it fleshes out some of these concepts more.

And you get a good insight into the procedural thing that he goes on about, and how it's an alternative to expensive data driven models of game development.

[Don Carlos]

Thats fantastic!

Not something i would play but the idea is amazing

[DooMer]

the whole idea of the meta game is that it's the highest form of emergence in the "game".

it isn't about predicting the patterns of AI - it's about creating a universe over which you have some powerful elements of creative control.

I do agree that the concept of "metagame" was left relatively underdescribed by Wright, but I think it is a fertile concept.

The fun part is watching how the creatures react to what you do in the universe. It's no fun if they keep doing the same shit, and dont keep it interesting. I've been playing games for a long time and have seen the same type of hype being spewed more times than i can count. I would be surprised if they got it right.

[MKJ]

thats true. the whole 6 genres in one is fun though..

[Eraser]

Will Wright is one of the biggest game innovators of this time. It will certainly be interesting to see how this is going to work out. If it doesn't then at least it's good to see an effort is still being made to create games that are about more than shooting other people.

[Grudge]

thats true. the whole 6 genres in one is fun though..

At the risk of sucking at all six types of gameplay. Games that focus on more than one genre generally tend to suck more than games that only try to do one thing, and do it good.

With Spore, you risk having 6 game modes that are to shallow to be enjoyable for more than 5 minutes, just because all the dev time went into the breadth of the gameplay, not the depth.

[MKJ]

this is true, the difference though with other games is that theyre very distinct segments of the game, rather than combining them all in one. so there could be 6 different teams working on each segment :icon14:
and ofcourse the idea that every part of the game is influenced by the rest is pure class

[Eraser]

The level of openness will make or break this game. Like Doomer said, if the creatures do the same thing over and over again. However, by the looks of it, everything influences the behavior of the creatures.

The procedural animation system looks very promising and if the feeling of a free sandbox environment is there, it could work.

I think the central database could be key in this as well. Species from the database that are released on your planet that simply haven't evolved a number of required "features" that a species should have to survive on your planet will probably go extinct.

If it really works like that, I think it could be pretty awesome. Considering that many people are utterly fascinated by something as simple as electroplankton, this should be appealing to a far broader audience than a game like electroplankton.

[SplishSplash]

I thought about this game some more when I accidentally took the wrong train today, and I think it won't be fun for long.

I mean, Sim Life basically had the same premise and it got boring pretty quickly.

[MKJ]

simlife was only one aspect wasnt it. this also has simcity, black & white, civilization, *insert space RTS here* in it as different chapters of the game

[R00k]

I think it'll all come down to how procedural it really is, and how much one player's creations can actually have on another's.

One thing to recognize though, is that even if the game isn't loads of fun, there are aspects of it that could have a very large impact on the industry in general - especially the procedurally-produced verbs.

[SplishSplash]

I think it'll be absolutely fucking amazing for 1 day and then it'll be old.

[Postal]

I'm hoping that the procedural generations becomes more prevalent amongst games because of Spore. In effect, that might allow smaller and more tight-knit game developers (kinda like those fellows who made Doom and Quake) to start making games that compete with EA and the like.


Wishful thinking, though, that game designers might be more interested in making a game than a profit these days.

[primaltheory]

Will Wright always does good, simcity 2000 sucked 6 months of my life away. (That is, once I figured out how to build profitable fucking cities)