Spore

Post by **puzl** » Fri May 09, 2008 10:18 am

I don't think anyone is saying that you should not try to stop piracy, but that you should not OVERLY punish innocent people in order to prevent piracy.
I think a more accurate analogy would be something like "would you support the banning of all knives and guns because some people choose to murder with them"?

I will not be buying mass effect because of this bullshit.

Post by **Aero^** » Fri May 09, 2008 10:35 am

puzl wrote: I will not be buying mass effect because of this bullshit.

This is for me too.

Also how you got that from me saying you can't stop crime I will never know.
Face if we could stop all crime, wouldn't it be stopped by now? Piracy won't stop.

Post by **Flamez** » Fri May 09, 2008 8:40 pm

I think pc gamers are much more cruel when reviewing games because they have had the luxuries of online play, many many games in the same genre of any new release and all the other luxuries.

I'll wait for a pc review of mass effect etc. and if they still stand up to pc review punishment I'll probably buy the games.

If constant validation becomes a problem/gets annoying I'll just crack it. It's true that i shouldn't have to go to the bother of cracking a game I bought legit, but as far as I'm aware the game developers don't decide what copy protection gets put on their titles. I'd like to support them (if they made a good game) more than I'd like to "stick it to the anti-piracy man." (I realise though that there's no incentive outisde my own feelings to support the developers as I have to take the risk of cracking it either way for convenience or need, so I might as well just pirate the game outright. Stupid.) If these games make poor sales on the PC it will be blamed on piracy straight away anyway, not on the different expectations of PC gamers with regards to game quality, annoyance at constant online validation etc.

From my perspective, there's only one thing that can combat piracy and that's resonable prices paired with convenience. Steam hits it on the head in my opinion because the content servers can get you the game at high speeds and you can buy instantly (convenience) and a lot of titles are reduced in price (reasonable prices). The Orange Box was a steal at the price and I'd rather be lazy, buy it, and be assured of customer support, online play on official servers, no risk of my ip/account being banned and constant instantly available updates.

I can still play the games in offline mode if my connection dies, or I have to take a laptop somewhere.

I still think the major problem of pc gaming isn't piracy though, it's stale gameplay. I'm waiting for some bright spark to make a fps game that has the cooperative and social aspects of halo (2 or more people in 1 room having a laugh together while playing) mixed with the fun of online play for the PC. I don't want to have to drag a friends pc over from his house to both play the same game in the same room and start working with networking etc. The only games i've played like that are the Pro Evo series and i'm not too interested in football games.

Post by **puzl** » Sun May 11, 2008 10:33 am

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/10/biowa ... effect-pc/

validation system is being removed !!

Post by **princess** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:05 am

I've had a little play with the Creature Creator and I've quite enjoyed myself. It's a bit pointless seeing as you can't really do anything with the creatures you make... yet. But this is definitely my kind of game. Can't wait for September!

Post by **[*TEF*]42** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:39 pm

Yeah got the creature creator myself. lots of fun making up creatures.. also if you upload them they will be used in the initial population of the Spore galaxy when people buy they're game.

I also found out I can get Â£5 off spore when it comes out if i take my reciept for the creature creator back to the game shop

Hope everyone is well

Tef

Post by **princess** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:38 pm

Post by **Flamez** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:24 pm

Zomg ns2 art leak!!1

Post by **zion** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:11 pm

got my copy this morning

quite fun

Post by **[*TEF*]42** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:49 pm

got my copy, got some weird 'sync' issue with EA.. apparently lots of people have it.. stupid launch bugs

Post by **[*TEF*]42** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:48 pm

Well, its all up working and running now. Just got to the space age.. its an awesome game, you have to try it.

Post by **illusion** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:38 pm

I tried it briefly, and it appeared a bit .. childish ? .. ill try it some more though before I make serious comments.

Post by **[*TEF*]42** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:53 pm

tell me its childish when you get to the space age, people are allying , trading and declairing war on you randomly... pirates are raiding you for your spice and your trying to expand...

tis a hard game when you get to the space age..

Post by **princess** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:40 am

Someone out there doesn't want me to play Spore

It came out just as I went on holiday. When I came back from my holiday I managed to break yet another piece of hardware (the psu this time) so couldn't play it. With a spare psu in my box, I installed Spore and the damn thing crashes before it even loads a startup screen. Woe is me

Apparently there's an issue with the EA download manager causing it to crash so I'll try uninstalling that tonight.

Also, to those of you who have managed to get playing... is it true that the Space age is incredibly buggy?

Post by **Fluffy Kitten** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:01 pm

For me anyway, it worked fine but not as I was expecting. I was sold on the space stage being a big sandbox toy where I'd be free to fly about doing what I wanted, but sadly all of your and your ally's planets' just bitch and whine for attention every couple of minutes like a spoilt child. Boring levels of pointless micromanagement ahoy. The stages (in my opinion) get less fun the further you progress, with space being the least fun of the lot.
Also it doesn't autosave, so if it crashes you lose everything since you last remembered to click through the menu and save by yourself.

And be careful trying to fix your install, prin, you've only got 3 shots with that before it turns into a coaster.

</bitch>

Post by **princess** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:16 pm

I've read some really different reviews so I'm quite looking forward to seeing if I like it. I'll be disappointed if it's pap but as a fan of The Sims and other such games I have a feeling I'll find it fun...I hope

As for the 3 installs, how pants is that? Are there any other games that don't allow more than 3 install attempts?

Post by **Fluffy Kitten** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:12 pm

I like The Sims too, but Spore doesn't give the same fun... making your own creatures is entertaining but it's a bit of a downer to get to the tribal stage and find that nothing that's happened before is relevant anymore. It's all the same regardless of whether you have 8 legs or none.

Similarly with the building editor it doesn't matter what you build and how you build it, it'll all do the same thing...

...Until it gets destroyed by aliens in the space stage while you're off somewhere else trying to have fun, and you're forced to return home, remove the rubble and place down a new building in one of the 10-or-so allotted building spaces in the colony. Of course, while you're doing this some pirates will attack the colony you were just happily building in a different solar system, or you'll get called by an ally asking you to laser 5 sick animals on their homeworld.

And I think Bioshock had something similar with the 3 installs malarky... that's why I didn't buy it. Ditto for Mass Effect. I think this "fuck the legitimate customers" style copy protection is EA's standard for all their PC games from now on.

Post by **princess** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:19 pm

I'm hoping that because my copy is crashing before it loads (and thus can authenticate online) I should be okay.... maybe...

"Games are authorized to your machine when you first install and launch the game." - EA Support Site

Who knows....

Post by **Fluffy Kitten** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:35 pm

You'll have to stop breaking your PC's aswell, as certain hardware changes count as new installs apparently.

Post by **[*TEF*]42** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:21 pm

well i'm nearly up to the last badge on the space stage..

TIP : if you want to stop having to look after your planets.. get the uber protection turret .. one per planet.. after getting civ 4 or warmonger 3 they are unlocked.. i shopped around and found them for 350k instead of 750k (homeworld)

Am looking forward to facing the Grox now (already whooped their ass once)

Post by **Fluffy Kitten** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:57 pm

Yeah, but you still get attacked, and stuff still gets broken.
When I unlocked the uber turret I tried to spam them all over the place, thinking I was finally free of the retarded part of the space stage, only to be told "no you're only allowed 1 per planet for no reason, lol" and then watch them slowly oh-so-very-slowly take out enemy invasions while they bombed my cities.

Someone on the design team needs to be shot.

Post by **Charybdis** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:34 pm

I was bored untill I reached the spage stage, after that, I removed the game. Good thing I did a try before buy (which was never going to happen due to the protection and 3 installs only)

Post by **puzl** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:21 am

In future be skeptical of a good idea with a game built around it. We've seen it before in B&W where the pet training was interesting, but the RTS game that demanded your attention in order to build a context for your pet was absolutely horrifically boring. I can't help but think that Spore has a similar problem. Everyone seems to love a couple of aspects of the game but have major issues with the rest of it. Still, at least the game is doing well in terms of sales, PC gaming needs a few non-subscription hits a few times a year to survive.