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Spore System Specs Released, Creature Creator Coming Soon

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Jun 11, 2008 06:30 PM
from the so-much-waiting dept.
Entertainment Games
Will Wright's long-awaited game, Spore, seems to be nearing completion, with a release slated for September. In anticipation of this release, EA has outlined the system requirements and will still be releasing their Creature Creator demo for experimentation on June 17th.
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[+] Will Wright's Spore To Release Sept. 7th 186 comments
After several delays and much anticipation, Spore looks like it will finally be coming out this year. EA has announced a September 7th release date for the game. The only confirmed platforms so far are Windows PCs, Macintoshes, the Nintendo DS and various mobile phones. Wright wants the Wii, 360, and PS3 to have the game, but they're not firm 'yes'es yet. Newsweek's LevelUp blog is celebrating the announcement with a series of interviews. N'Gai Croal spoke to Will Wright, and the man himself tries to convince us why it's been worth the wait, and (oh yeah) why it has taken so long. Croal also sat down with the game's Executive Producer, Lucy Bradshaw, who explains how the game has settled onto other platforms like the DS and mobile phones.
[+] Spore Editor Available June 17th 119 comments
Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica heralds the coming of the creature editor for the highly anticipated Spore. A previously promised downloadable demo of the creature editor from the game, due on September 7th, will be available June 17th. Furthermore, a full version of the creature editor will appear as a standalone product at the same time for $10. According to EA: 'The demo lets players shape, paint and play with an unlimited number of creatures, using 25 percent of the creature-making parts from Spore. Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube.'"
[+] EA's (Limited) Creature Creator For Spore Released 116 comments
JimboFBX writes "The Spore creature creator has been released. It's a limited demo, but it lets you make a full creature and test drive it a little. It gives some insight on what you'll be able to do with your creatures. Personally, the novelty already wore off within 10 minutes. From what I can tell, the full creature creator is a separate purchase from the actual game. Gotta love EA." An anonymous reader points to a thread at More Awesome Than You alleging that this creature creator also contains some phone-home features which might be cause for concern.
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Spore System Specs Released, Creature Creator Coming Soon 25 Comments More /

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  • ... they just consume all your computer's resources.

  • meh (Score:4, Funny)

    by nawcom (941663) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @06:38PM (#23755957) Homepage
    Ever since he mentioned that you don't need to start at the beginning in order to get to a certain stage, i've just felt like it will be a bunch of mini-games, without present decisions being made in the current stage affecting your options in future stages of, what i assume, is the evolution of your creature(s). I have a feeling that the expansion pack he's been working on [penny-arcade.com] will be a ton better.

    • Not necessarily (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Moraelin (679338) on Thursday June 12 2008, @05:09AM (#23760999) Journal

      Ever since he mentioned that you don't need to start at the beginning in order to get to a certain stage, i've just felt like it will be a bunch of mini-games, without present decisions being made in the current stage affecting your options in future stages of, what i assume, is the evolution of your creature(s).


      Not necessarily. It can just mean you have a bunch of predefined choices at each step. It doesn't mean you can't do better.

      I mean, look at, say, Paradox's games. Different genre, I know, but they do illustrate the point nevertheless.

      You can start Hearts Of Iron in 1941 and get directly to attacking the USSR, or being attacked if you play the USSR. In which case you'll start from the historical situation in 1941. But you can also start in 1936, build up your economy, and build up teh uber-Wehrmacht or Red Army, and deliver some serious smack down when 1941 comes. Or play a USA which didn't wait around for Pearl Harbour to start thinking about war, and is in much better shape to deliver a devastating punch when that happens. Play a France which picked different doctrines and built up its army, and can hold its own at the Maginot Line. Etc.

      Essentially having the option to skip to 1941, doesn't make the 1936 option meaningless. You can and _do_ affect your options in the future by starting earlier.

      Ditto in any other of their games. You can skip to the 1600's in EU2 and get to colonizing America, or even directly at the Napoleonic wars, or start in 1419 as an England bogged down in the 100 year war and work your way from there.

      Heck, IIRC you can even export your world from one game to the next, and play it as one uber-campaign spanning 1000 years. You can start in Crusader Kings, export to EU2 when you reach the 1400's, export to Victoria in early 1800's, and (if you have the expansion pack) export to Hearts Of Iron when you reach the 1930's. The option to start directly with Hearts Of Iron doesn't make the previous stages meaningless minigames. Starting at CK can _massively_ affect your options later. You can end up in EU2 with a Byzantine Empire that regained the former lands of the Roman Empire and has the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum (our sea), instead of being a one-province victim of the Turks. Colonize, get to Victoria with it, and you can try to out-industrialize the English. Make Byzantium _the_ industrial and cultural capital of the world, like in the old days, and the empire over whose flag the sun never sets. Etc.

      You can still ask, "why?" because it gets so ahistorical that it's not even funny. Still, the principle remains. And as Spore isn't a historical game, even that objection vanishes.

  • Quite low (Score:5, Informative)

    by Danny Rathjens (8471) <slashdot2NO@SPAMrathjens.org> on Wednesday June 11 2008, @06:46PM (#23756071) Homepage
    pixel shader 2.0 == directX 9 == 128MB video cards from 2003
    I suppose this is due to the long development. Hopefully the creative gameplay will overcome the lack of shiny and high res texture graphics. :)

    • Re:Quite low (Score:5, Informative)

      by EvanED (569694) <evaned.gmail@com> on Wednesday June 11 2008, @06:52PM (#23756141)
      HL2 Episode 2 only required a DX7 video card, and recommended a DX9 one. I wouldn't exactly call that game lacking shiny and high res textures.

      • Re:Quite low (Score:5, Insightful)

        by lgw (121541) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @08:00PM (#23756927) Journal
        HL2 textures had low poly count and were generally easy to render. The game looked good because the texture artwork looked good. It's the ultimate efficiency hack.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by JorDan Clock (664877)
          I think you meant the models have low polygon counts. Textures are what go on the models. And yes, the textures made the difference. While the polygon counts were up there, they weren't as bad Doom 3 (released around the same time, I believe) and the textures made it all look just that much better.

          • Re:Quite low (Score:5, Insightful)

            by lgw (121541) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @08:44PM (#23757413) Journal
            Ya ya, and they reversed the polarity of the neutron flux, too. My point was, even for it's time HL2 was quite easy to run at high settings, unlike the content-free flop that was Doom3. You can't judge a game by how hard it is to run.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by sznupi (719324)
          I'm perfectly fine with developers doing the homework and trying to make good looking game by all possible means, not just relying mostly on bling of latest GPUs...

          (@importance of textures: http://forums.galciv2.com/310173 [galciv2.com]
          section "The Updated Graphics", also:
          http://forums.galciv2.com/167995 [galciv2.com]
          I couldn't find the post in which they describe how they did it, so: each race has one, detailed, "ships texture", parts of which are used by all ships of given race; apparently it also means only one copy has to kept in

  • Modest specs -- pretty much what you'd expect (Score:5, Informative)

    by merreborn (853723) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @06:52PM (#23756143) Homepage Journal
    I built a machine 6 months ago for about $400 that should work acceptably, according to these specs -- a $100 asus mobo, $100 for an old geforce 7600, $50 for the cheapest AMD dual-core proc, and $50 for 2 gig of ram.

    Glad to see they took the time to make sure Spore will run on low end PCs.

  • Some actual Spore news... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bwana Geek (1033040) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @07:36PM (#23756671) Journal
    Not mentioned in the article or summary is the much more interesting news that the Sporepedia [spore.com] is live. Go check out some of the creatures that the Maxis team has created. Some of them are quite different from those I've seen in previous media.

    • Re:Some actual Spore news... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jthill (303417) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @10:45PM (#23758517)

      So I go check it out, and I see this:

      How do you see one of these Creatures in your Spore Creature Creator? Right Click on the thumbnail image of the creature. Save the image to your desktop. Drag the saved image from your desktop into the Spore Creature Creator. Voila! The Creature is in your game.

      Whoever thought that up deserves a few moments of quiet respect.

  • I had to make room for a more imminent releases like Duke Nukem Forever, The Arrival of Godot and Jesus, The Second Coming.

  • How bout that "Extended Download Service"? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 11 2008, @10:53PM (#23758579)
    If you try to pre-order, you're taken to a helpful, filled-out order form that includes the Spore Creature Editor for $9.99 and an item EA calls "Extended Download Service" for $5.99. WTF? A helpful link next to the item explains:

    "EDS means that with the purchase of your digital product, we'll keep a copy of your file for two full years, so you don't have to. You'll gain peace of mind knowing that we have your program stored and ready for you to download again at your convenience."

    So what it sounds like is, if you upgrade your PC, the only way you can lay your paws on your software that you purchased from EA is if you also pay "protection" money to them. And then only for two years. Swell, huh?

    • Re:After hearing about.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dachannien (617929) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @08:59PM (#23757539)
      They apparently caved to the public outcry (EA listening to its customers? No wai!!) and have scaled back their copy-protection scheme. Now it will require verification when you first install the game as well as anytime you use it to retrieve online content (creatures, patches, etc.).

      • Re:After hearing about.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by arkhan_jg (618674) on Thursday June 12 2008, @08:04AM (#23762195)
        Assuming it's the same securom restriction as mass effect (and previously bioshock) - which it's been said it will be - you'll get 3 install activation 'credits', which must be done online. Uninstalling/reinstalling on the same computer and the same copy of windows will re-use the activation already made, as of course will having your activation checked when you retrieve more creatures.

        Reinstalling windows on your pc, or upgrading hardware will then cost you another of your three activations.

        Once you've hit the limit, you'll need to phone EA tech support - a premium rate phone call in my country - and request permission to install your game, most likely then having to provide proof of purchase. Permission is granted on a case-by-case basis, and not guaranteed.

        They caved only insomuch as providing a more restrictive limitation than bioshock, rather than a more restrictive limit than bioshock plus constant 10 day online activation.

        It's not a purchase. It's a rental. I for one have cancelled my pre-order.

    • Re:After hearing about.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Toonol (1057698) on Wednesday June 11 2008, @09:17PM (#23757679)
      I believe EA has backed off slightly after the outcry over that scheme. I believe now they check upon initial installation and whenever new content is downloaded.

      Which is still pretty obscene, since downloading new content is one of the main features of the game. Your point still stands, I agree with it, and won't be buying this for the pc.

      These registration schemes, along with constantly increasing requirements, are killing pc gaming.

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