How Spore Went From Science To Stupid

[Telefrog]

It's no secret that the Spore previews that everyone saw last year showcased a game that seemed dramatically different from what finally shipped. Here is a fascinating and in-depth article from Seed Magazine (http://seedmagazine.com/news/2008/09/the_creation_simulation.php) regarding the development of Spore and the internal conflicts in the dev team.


This was Spore's central problem: Could the game be both scientifically accurate and fun? The prototyping teams were becoming lost in their scientific interests. Chaim Gingold, a team member who started as an intern and went on to help design the game's content creation tools, recalls a summer spent playing with pattern language and cellular automata: "It was just about being engaged with the universe as a set of systems, and being able to build toys that manifested our fascination with these systems and our love for them." But from within this explosion of experimental enthusiasm came an unexpected warning voice. Spore's resident uber-geek and artificial intelligence expert Chris Hecker was having strong misgivings about how appealing all this hard science would be to the wider world. "I was the founding member of the 'cute' team," he says with pride. "Ocean [Quigley, Spore's art director] and Will were really the founding members of the 'science' team. Ocean would make the cell game look exactly like a petri dish with all these to-scale animals and Will would say, 'That's the greatest thing I've ever seen!' and some of us were thinking, 'I'm not sure about that.'"

Soon rival camps had formed. New recruits were taken out to lunch and covertly probed to discover where their natural leanings were. Quigley's microscopically accurate concept drawings were vandalized with stuck-on googly eyes; there were suggestions that it might be cool if the creatures wore sneakers. It might have been painful for the founding members of the science team, but Quigley acknowledges the need for compromise. "From a single-celled organism through the four-and-a-half-billion year history of life on Earth to a self-projected future where we are gallivanting around the stars? I mean, it is so absurdly vast, so radically outside of any scale that people can really empathize with, we knew we had to turn it into a toy."

The snag is that Spore didn't just jettison half its science — it replaced it with systems and ideas that run the risk of being actively misleading. Scientists brought in to evaluate the game for potential education projects recoiled as it became increasingly evident that the game broke many more scientific laws than it obeyed. Those unwilling to comment publicly speak privately of grave concerns about a game which seems to further the idea of intelligent design under the badge of science, and they bristle at its willingness to use words like "evolution" and "mutation" in entirely misleading ways.

The official forums are going ballistic right now, to include posts from a former Maxis intern that worked on the game and has corroborated certain stories (http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/5225.page).

Creature creation seems over-simplified
This was a big deal for me. In the extremely early versions that I toyed around with, I was able to make creatures that shifted under their own weight. Creatures that exploited the length of their arms or legs for greater reach. Creatures that behave and move true to how they were built. A short bunny-creature would definitely be out-run by the long-legged dragon-giraffe. That was very neat, and it implied several exciting possibilities in gameplay.

For instance, creature morphology actually mattered. This implied deeper strategy to creature creation. You have a small inkling of this in the Cell stage where placement of parts somewhat mattered. For example, spikes placed behind your creature saved you from being bitten when chased. But, the strategy that earlier prototypes implied went beyond placement of parts. The length of limbs or spine felt like it mattered. If you had a forward-heavy animal with legs placed in the back, it would run poorly as it tries (and fails) to counteract its own weight.

I can see the reason why Maxis shifted the design from a "morphology matters" philosophy to a "every design works". Somewhere along the line, someone must have decided that it wasn't good to build creatures that could fail. This emphasizes (hopefully) people to experiment with different looking creatures, rather than focus only on creatures that perform well (or perform at all).

The problem with this is that within "friendly" game design, all creatures became a bland, unified "idea" of a creature. With a game being so inspired by evolutionary design, the game takes so little advantage of the exciting things that could be done with the ideas its selling. I have a strong feeling that this is the main reason why people feel the game-play to be "shallow".

[Ancalagon]

The second quote seems to make the most sense to me. I've never played Spore, I must admit, but the article discusses how Spore allows for experimentation, and really, I wonder if it actually does. What could I actually test if I played Spore?

[Cit Phil Cit]

These are the reasons I lost interest. Most of these flaws were revealed in the gameplay demo: morphology (as described in the text) was removed to decrease the learning curve.

Instead of a game, where you could download different creatures that featured interesting morphological traits (faster running, penalties and advantages for size and placement), you can download creatures that are cool looking.

Like a Simcity that asks you to start drawing a house, then the street, then the block and finally the city without being concerned for budget, water, power plants, pollution, industry, etc.

The tinkering is enjoyable.

[Telefrog]

Disclaimer: I have the Creature Editor, but I never bought Spore because of the crap DRM.

From what I've read and seen from other people, it seems the end product was vastly "dumbed down" from what the media was shown previously. It sounds like the internal debate over science versus cute really hampered the development. It's a shame. I wonder what a purely Will Wright version of Spore would've been like?

[TheFlyingOrc]

I was concerned that the game design was completely impossible to balance with that level of freedom shown originally.

Also, evolution that is driven by your decisions isn't evolution.

[TheFlyingOrc]

It sounds like the internal debate over science versus cute really hampered the development. It's a shame. I wonder what a purely Will Wright version of Spore would've been like?
I don't think it's "versus cute", it's versus playable. The complexity of the problem was just too large. They wanted something playable by Sims players, not something where you had to spend hours upon hours tweaking a character before sending him out in the world.

[Telefrog]

I don't think it's "versus cute", it's versus playable. The complexity of the problem was just too large. They wanted something playable by Sims players, not something where you had to spend hours upon hours tweaking a character before sending him out in the world.

Playable to the lowest common denominator. I get that a big-budget game has to be "fun" for it's audience, but Will Wright was never all that concerned with inserting fun in his games, and more with giving the players the tools to make their own fun. The success of The Sims obviously changed all that and I think the imperative to appeal to the widest audience possible overshadowed the original vision Wright had.

I agree basically, that a Spore grounded more in creature morphology, evolutionary systems, and scale ineteraction would've had a lot less consumer appeal than googly eyes and consequence-less Intelligent Design, but I still consider it a shame to miss out on what could've been an awesome educational game like SimCity. I doubt Spore will ever be used in classrooms except as mere entertainment or a study on game design itself.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I agree basically, that a Spore grounded more in creature morphology, evolutionary systems, and scale ineteraction would've had a lot less consumer appeal than googly eyes and consequence-less Intelligent Design, but I still consider it a shame to miss out on what could've been an awesome educational game like SimCity. I doubt Spore will ever be used in classrooms except as mere entertainment or a study on game design itself.
I still don't see how you could make an actual evolution game. Evolution is more about things dying than things living. If you interact with the system, how are you simulating evolution?

Of course, you could be somewhat of a theistic evolutionist, like myself...:)

[NoName]

I had looked forward to Spore for so long. It was nothing like I had believed from earlier videos. I guess now I understand the reasons why :/.

[Spectre-7]

I still don't see how you could make an actual evolution game. Evolution is more about things dying than things living. If you interact with the system, how are you simulating evolution?

Of course, you could be somewhat of a theistic evolutionist, like myself...:)

I think you could make an evolution game, but in order for it to actually be about evolution, the player would be unable to directly manipulate their hero species. Instead of tinkering with their species' shape and behavior in some sort of quasi-intelligent design game, the player would instead have godlike control over everything else in the environment: they would modify the landmass, select what other types of plants and animals are around, and tweak factors like viruses and solar radiation to control rates of mutation.

The game would basically be about introducing different evolutionary pressures, and watching how the hero species reacts, grows and changes through generations. As evolution progresses, the player could also choose to foster different mutant strains, and introduce them to new environments where they continue to differentiate from the original species.

I dunno... I think it could work, but it would be a sort of high-brow game I guess.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I think you could make an evolution game, but in order for it to actually be about evolution, the player would be unable to directly manipulate their hero species. Instead of tinkering with their species' shape and behavior in some sort of quasi-intelligent design game, the player would instead have godlike control over everything else in the environment: they would modify the landmass, select what other types of plants and animals are around, and tweak factors like viruses and solar radiation to control rates of mutation.

The game would basically be about introducing different evolutionary pressures, and watching how the hero species reacts, grows and changes through generations. As evolution progresses, the player could also choose to foster different mutant strains, and introduce them to new environments where they continue to differentiate from the original species.

I dunno... I think it could work, but it would be a sort of high-brow game I guess.
Yeah, that doesn't sound very fun. I think Spore could have been a more fun Intelligent Design-like game, though.

[J Arcane]

I still don't see how you could make an actual evolution game. Evolution is more about things dying than things living. If you interact with the system, how are you simulating evolution?

Of course, you could be somewhat of a theistic evolutionist, like myself...:)
Given my own conception of theistic evolution, I think that'd be really damn boring.

No offense to God and all, but I do not envy him his task.

[J Arcane]

I think you could make an evolution game, but in order for it to actually be about evolution, the player would be unable to directly manipulate their hero species. Instead of tinkering with their species' shape and behavior in some sort of quasi-intelligent design game, the player would instead have godlike control over everything else in the environment: they would modify the landmass, select what other types of plants and animals are around, and tweak factors like viruses and solar radiation to control rates of mutation.

The game would basically be about introducing different evolutionary pressures, and watching how the hero species reacts, grows and changes through generations. As evolution progresses, the player could also choose to foster different mutant strains, and introduce them to new environments where they continue to differentiate from the original species.

I dunno... I think it could work, but it would be a sort of high-brow game I guess.
Oh, and need I remind people how utterly dull SimEarth was?

[Telefrog]

The game would basically be about introducing different evolutionary pressures, and watching how the hero species reacts, grows and changes through generations. As evolution progresses, the player could also choose to foster different mutant strains, and introduce them to new environments where they continue to differentiate from the original species.

I dunno... I think it could work, but it would be a sort of high-brow game I guess.

I think the earlier versions of Spore were still more slanted towards the player being the creator in an ID setup, but I think the intriguing part was that the choices you made had actual consequences. As Michael Chang (the former intern) notes, there are vestigial elements of creature design consequences in the Cell Stage. Spikes on the backend of your creature only work on attackes from the rear, for example. Having similar choices in the Creature Stage would've been pretty engaging for many folks. In fact, I think it could've been fun for a lot of players to have meaningful give and take in the Editor.

[Spectre-7]

I think the earlier versions of Spore were still more slanted towards the player being the creator in an ID setup, but I think the intriguing part was that the choices you made had actual consequences. As Michael Chang (the former intern) notes, there are vestigial elements of creature design consequences in the Cell Stage. Spikes on the backend of your creature only work on attackes from the rear, for example. Having similar choices in the Creature Stage would've been pretty engaging for many folks. In fact, I think it could've been fun for a lot of players to have meaningful give and take in the Editor.

I agree, and that's really what I'd hoped the game would be. I think the idea of a procedural creature workshop with real morphological consequences sounds like a ton of fun. Instead, (from every review I've read) the final product seems less like an intelligent design game, and more of a civilization game with a really large scope and an extensive skinning interface.

I was pretty excited about Spore during development (who wasn't, right?), but I still haven't picked it up because of the apparent Fable-Syndrome. Maybe I will when it hits $20.

[LongStepMantis]

Oh, and need I remind people how utterly dull SimEarth was?

No. I remember when it came out, I was excited to play the next entry in the Sim lineup...

An hour later, I was still staring at a mostly empty ocean, trying to figure out how to make something happen that was more interesting than watching paint dry.

Spore isn't quite as bad as many think, but it isn't nearly the scope of a game that's been touted for so damn long. Once again, we were promised the stars...and received "meh", imo.

I wasn't shocked though. The tendency for developers to talk about their next game as if it will the be the second coming of Jesus in video game form seems par for the course, depending on who is doing the talking.

[Cit Phil Cit]

If the game was created with "evolution" in mind, I would have been happy with a set of rigid 'world rules' and then evolve a creature that overcomes them. A prominent feature would be making a creature - deciding it failed and then revisit an earlier version of it and play a (hopefully) more successful mutation of traits.

More or less you would have a screen or chart that would show you the evolution of your creature, the failed offshoots and a progression of successful organisms.

If this game was broken into two or three pieces it would be better: a highly detail bacteria game - and the evolution of a small tidepool creature, up to a land animal. Then follow a land animal as it grapples with the new terrain and higher social groups and finally break into a civilzation strategy game into space.

[Karak]

I wouldn't know. My retail version STILL does not work. Hahahaha. Almost 2 months of fail and I keep recieving the same 2-3 answers for my problem. Their customer service passed right passed Fail directly into total shit.

[National Kato]

"From a single-celled organism through the four-and-a-half-billion year history of life on Earth to a self-projected future where we are gallivanting around the stars? I mean, it is so absurdly vast, so radically outside of any scale that people can really empathize with, we knew we had to turn it into a toy."

That quote summarizes why I didn't buy Spore after seeing what it had become.

[BrassGecko]

It makes me sad to see those descriptions of a game I would have loved. :(

[Lint of Death]

If you see Will Wright's interview with Stephen Colbert, for example, it's fairly clear to me that the gameplay was always intended to be more akin to intelligent design than evolution. At the same time, there are a number of things I wish had stayed in the game.

For one, the interface used to be both simpler yet more complex. Basic actions executed by clicking on things, such as biting and moving, and could be seamlessly combined based on timing. While biting some food you could click somewhere else and your creature would drag what it was eating to that spot.

One way that they did keep evolution as a part of the game, which I like, is having your actions affect the overall development of your creature, such as making herbivores vs. carnivores or omnivores, then leading to social or violent tribes and so forth. I wish that figured more into parts unlocks and the effectiveness of the body's layout.

[OrangePulp]

The creature creator as the intern describes it (and as early videos showed it) is infinitely better than the crap the game shipped with. Design was pointless; it only mattered what specific parts you had. You could be playing a tiny blob, with only one leg, but as long as you had a good foot, a mouth or arm or something for offense, and an eye, you'd be just as good as a giant, 4-legged, 8-armed monster with the same parts.

Although even a much better creature creator might not have saved the game from the mediocrity fest that it is. The gameplay in the creature stage itself, I found, got pretty old fast; go make friends, or go kill enemies, both of which were quite simplistic.

It only gets worse from there: tribal, civ, galaxy, there's very little gameplay in these stages. You have a few simple tasks you can do, and you just have to repeat them over and over, ad nauseum. Not to mention the fact that, other than whether you had been a peaceful or warlike creature in the earlier stages, it didn't matter what kind of creature you made in the last three stages. Your creature statistics had no bearing on the gameplay.

In retrospect, I think Spore failed harder than Fable did, comparing what was promised to what was delivered. At least Fable was a decent action rpg, if you ignored what Molyneux said it was going to be; The only part of Spore I thought was any good was the cell stage.

[J Arcane]

Yeah, it's such a collossal failure that it's been at or near the top of the sales charts since the day of the release, and even a fucking glorified demo of it managed the same. :rolleyes:

The comparison to Fable is perfectly apt though. I could also bring up Killzone. Both great games that got shit all over on message boards for no good fucking reason, while the people who actually play games had tons of fun and bought piles of the things.

[Morangie]

Yeah, it's such a collossal failure that it's been at or near the top of the sales charts since the day of the release, and even a fucking glorified demo of it managed the same. :rolleyes:

The comparison to Fable is perfectly apt though. I could also bring up Killzone. Both great games that got shit all over on message boards for no good fucking reason, while the people who actually play games had tons of fun and bought piles of the things.

You know as well as any of us that sales figures are related to hype and brand, not quality. Though the problem with Spore is less that its a bad game, more that its not the game people expected from seeing the original videos. If they hadn't built the hype for a product they weren't going to release, they wouldn't have the backlash.

[KingGorilla]

If my host migration had not buggered all of my stories prior to October, I would post my Spore review. But the Cliff's notes are
Spore was never intended to be true science
Maxis has never made a game without a heavy focus on non-game players.
Over time the focus of Will Wright and his team is less making games and more larger concepts.
Just because some CHUD previewer added in all of these expectations and dreams for what Spore would become, does not make Will or his team culpable for them.
Spore is a game that I have been asking to have for over a decade. If you want to introduce a person to RPGs or RTS, to highly prohibitive genres, Spore will get their feet wet and get them used to certain things.

[destoo]

If anyone's interested, there will be a post mortem for Spore at the SAT next week.
http://www.igda.org/montreal/archives/2008/10/november_5th_sp.html
I'll definitely show up for that one.

"Design Postmortem: Social Mechanics of Spore"

This presentation will be part postmortem and part design critique. Alex will step through the objectives and goals of the social features of Spore, both from the in-game functionality and the "meta" game perspectives. Further, specific design challenges will be explored, along with Alex's thoughts on what succeeded and failed. Humourous anectdotes of working with design legend Will Wright, may be broached...

[OrangePulp]

Yeah, it's such a collossal failure that it's been at or near the top of the sales charts since the day of the release, and even a fucking glorified demo of it managed the same. :rolleyes:

The comparison to Fable is perfectly apt though. I could also bring up Killzone. Both great games that got shit all over on message boards for no good fucking reason, while the people who actually play games had tons of fun and bought piles of the things.

I actually play games, and I didn't have much fun in Spore. I mean, it was cool the first time through, although once you hit tribal you really start to feel the repetition. But I didn't even have the desire to play through a second time, or stick with the galaxy mode for more than an hour or two.

And there's a perfectly good reason for people shitting on games like Fable, and Spore. They're advertised, via previews and such, as having certain gameplay elements, playing in a certain way, etc. Then, when you start to actually play the game, you find it's not much like what was advertised at all. It isn't technically false advertising, since it's all previews, but it might as well be. If you're going to show something off early, or describe gameplay, and then change it without telling anyone... A lot of people are going to be pissed off.

[Telefrog]

Whoops! The story has been picked up by 1up (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171021) now.

But was Hecker really the one responsible for Spore's change in direction? In a recent post on the Quarter to Three Forums, Hecker wrote, "The original post is nonsense. I'm trying to figure out how to handle this now. I've been ignoring it for a month, and it looked like it would fade away on the various forums, but some people seem to need simple explanations and a single person to blame for their disappointment, and now it's hit the front page of digg and reddit."

[sparkfizt]

After the sims people actually thought spore would be a game for gamers and not the casual? Spore appears to be quite like the sims in that it's not so much a game as it is a toy. We tend to look for challenging gameplay and a way to "win", a toy has no need for such things, just interacting with it is supposed to be fun.

While yes we would of liked spore to be more like a creature simulator that's not what it is. I also never expected it to be considering who was making it.

[Telefrog]

After the sims people actually thought spore would be a game for gamers and not the casual? Spore appears to be quite like the sims in that it's not so much a game as it is a toy. We tend to look for challenging gameplay and a way to "win", a toy has no need for such things, just interacting with it is supposed to be fun.

While yes we would of liked spore to be more like a creature simulator that's not what it is. I also never expected it to be considering who was making it.

Wha?? The prime complaint in the linked articles is that Spore is more of a traditional game with a "win" state as opposed to the Will Wright software "toys" he's famous for making. Many reviewers cited the very linear gameplay as a negative.

By "who was making it" do you mean EA or Wright? Because if you've ever played SimEarth, SimAnt, or any of Will Wright's previous games, Spore's gameplay is a huge departure. Even The Sims originally started as a Will Wright experiment in social networking, habitat design, and time management. It only got "gamey" as later expansions added those elements.

[sparkfizt]

Wha?? The prime complaint in the linked articles is that Spore is more of a traditional game with a "win" state as opposed to the Will Wright software "toys" he's famous for making. Many reviewers cited the very linear gameplay as a negative.

By "who was making it" do you mean EA or Wright? Because if you've ever played SimEarth, SimAnt, or any of Will Wright's previous games, Spore's gameplay is a huge departure. Even The Sims originally started as a Will Wright experiment in social networking, habitat design, and time management. It only got "gamey" as later expansions added those elements.

What I'd gotten out of this thread is the complaint that the design of you creature means basically nothing. He'd always stated that the linear path was meant to lead you into the space "toy" stage(I never thougth that was a good idea).

After the success of the sims I pretty much figured that spore would attempt to follow down the same road since it's still EA+will wright. EA would love a game that could make eleventybillion dollars/year just like the sims franchise.

I am a bit of a wierdo though, I've never felt will wright to be some gaming genius... All his games have been some variation of sim city, I played sim earth/city/sims and just never got all that interested. Spore was a neat idea but I figured it would end up similar to the sims. Most gamers would'nt get into it, but that would'nt stop it from eleventybillion copies just like the sims.

I havent read the article linked but i'll be sure to when I get home, as my mind is likely on a tangent.

[Wraith]

What I'd gotten out of this thread is the complaint that the design of you creature means basically nothing. He'd always stated that the linear path was meant to lead you into the space "toy" stage(I never thougth that was a good idea).

After the success of the sims I pretty much figured that spore would attempt to follow down the same road since it's still EA+will wright. EA would love a game that could make eleventybillion dollars/year just like the sims franchise.

I am a bit of a wierdo though, I've never felt will wright to be some gaming genius... All his games have been some variation of sim city, I played sim earth/city/sims and just never got all that interested. Spore was a neat idea but I figured it would end up similar to the sims. Most gamers would'nt get into it, but that would'nt stop it from eleventybillion copies just like the sims.The thing is, in SimCity and The Sims, the decisions you make in the game do matter quite a bit. How you design your city directly affects how it grows, and you have a lot of control over that process to pursue whatever goals you have for a given city. How you control your sim family in The Sims affects their financial and personal success, relationships, and mood. Each Sim has their own personality and quirks.

In Spore, your creature is unique in its appearance, but creature 1 really isn't any different from creature 2, apart from appearance. In cell phase, you see all the same creatures, collect all the same parts, and all you choose is whether to fight or run away, and what you want to eat. In Creature stage, you collect all the same parts, and choose whether to fight, befriend, or some combination. You always move from nest 1 to nest 2 to nest 3. The only real variation is in what the creatures you encounter look like. The same with Tribal. All that you've really affected is how your creature looks and where it is on some predefined scale at the end of the stage.

I never expected it to be some kind of scientific simulation, or for Civ stage to be a great RTS or anything like that. But I came away disappointed that the actual gameplay was relatively bland and you had so very little effect on the world around you. (I know a lot of people voiced doubts about this before the game hit, but I was optimistic.) Admittedly, I need to play more of the space stage, but the first four stages didn't seem to offer much in the way of replayability.

[sparkfizt]

uh, I agree?:P

<anecdote>
I will say with regard to the sims though that anyone I saw who enjoyed the game often cheated around the actual "game" which is time management. They usually wanted to just create wierd interactions between their fake people, and watch their wierd lives unfold.
</anecdote>

[kropotkin]

I stopped playing Spore as I dug into the space section. It consisted of me zipping around the galaxy either defending my own home planet and colonies from invasion or going on endless errands for other allied races. Tedious in the extreme.

I have to agree with the statements here that the evolution element of the game was ultimately flawed in that you could create a completely unviable creature yet it would somehow reach the top of the food chain despite its obvious short comings. This makes the 4 stages prior to space utterly pointless. What your race 'evolves' into has little to no bearing on how you succeed in the space stage which is 95% of the game.

Many years ago I remember playing a game on the Atari ST called Eco. Developed by Dentons and published by Ocean way back in 1988, it required the play to alter the genetic structure of their creature to ensure they evolved to the top of the heap. This relied on the player making careful choices during the genetic minipulation of their creature, to ensure they don't die off and become extinct.

This is what I thought Spore was going to do. It makes you wonder how the hell did Spore get outmatched by a game that was released 20 years ago on a long dead platform.

[Vulture]

ultimately this game turned me off of it. the first few hours of playtime i enjoyed, as it was colorful and i genuinely liked the cartooney style... that only lasted so long.

for me the only saving grace for the game at this point is the creative aspects in the space stage, gathering friend's critters you happen to find and dedicating some wacky custom-designed planet for them... but that fun is almost outweighed by the annoyances to be found in the space stage.

critter stage, and civ stages are crap, and are only good to see your creations animate or used.

i was a big proponent for this game in the beginning, but fuck...there really isn't much there to get into anymore :(

Spore 2 as a more dynamic, choice impact, and "thick" game anyone? anyone think it will happen, or do you think it will just get "dumber?"

[Telefrog]

Spore 2 as a more dynamic, choice impact, and "thick" game anyone? anyone think it will happen, or do you think it will just get "dumber?"

If sales are the only test EA goes by, then expect more of the same in a second game. :(

[ShivaX]

ultimately this game turned me off of it. the first few hours of playtime i enjoyed, as it was colorful and i genuinely liked the cartooney style... that only lasted so long.

for me the only saving grace for the game at this point is the creative aspects in the space stage, gathering friend's critters you happen to find and dedicating some wacky custom-designed planet for them... but that fun is almost outweighed by the annoyances to be found in the space stage.

critter stage, and civ stages are crap, and are only good to see your creations animate or used.

i was a big proponent for this game in the beginning, but fuck...there really isn't much there to get into anymore :(

Spore 2 as a more dynamic, choice impact, and "thick" game anyone? anyone think it will happen, or do you think it will just get "dumber?"

This summerizes my feelings on it.

The game had potential to be groundbreaking. Hell it could have been an educational tool. Instead it ended up being a crap game that wasn't fun at any level for very long. If they had made it an evolutionary simulation people would have loved it. Casual people would have loved watching their one legged blind thing flop around on the ground and be devoured by predators.

In the end it wasn't fun and nothing you did past the cell stage felt meaningful. Your creature didn't matter, just his parts did. It could be an orb with one of each limb and an eye and do as well as Giger's Alien. Once you hit civilization nothing you had done mattered and you rarely even saw your species.