Talk:Spore (2008 video game)/Archive 3

message: Seeing the progress of techniques for skeletal animation, free-form deformation and the early editors - it seems pretty convincing that a lot of inspiration for the Spore game came from this work. Wavelets, subdivision volumes and FFD using forces and time also belong to the procedural generation camp. Seeing the cucumber animation video (amongst others) on the work by Steve Capell et al easily associates with amoebas and so on. One can animate anything pretty convincingly. Illusion and a great story seems central in Will Wright's works - just as in his 2005 http://AAIDE.org Spore presentation  . Marketing and selling a great story gives meaning to customers and extra depth to the gameplay experience. I just hope someone gets the theoretic information they need and open-souce some animation editor and perhaps make some common object format for it so we could all have some fun editing and creating funny creatures and animation tidbits. Maybe even pitting the creatures against each other in some kind of gladiatoresque arena. http://www.Roboforge.net/ ring a bell ? --Scierguy 15:48, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, this is all very interesting, but what point are you making exactly? Do you have a suggestion for the article? — Saxifrage ✎ 00:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am interested in some of the more scientific sides of the game engine being used and am doing some research on this. It's the first time I have seen such a seemingly accomplished and advanced 3D simulation engine used in a game. The proliferation of information about the techniques might also have some effects of helping others continue develop the techniques and similar games. Sadly, many academic institutions are now patenting their visualization techniques (eg. Caltech-developed multiresolution methods). --Scierguy 01:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough; it does sound like fascinating work. What I mean though is, beyond what you've added to the article already, what does this discussion on the Talk page have to do with Wikipedia? Some forum-like chat is tolerated on article Talk pages, but their purpose is actually for editorial discussion and collaboration regarding the article, not the subject of the article. — Saxifrage ✎ 03:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, and the heading with the comment was meant as a lead to others who might have similar interests and perhaps add to the article in some way. The rather bad choice and use of some adjectives I used in the early version of the section I added to the main article probably did not help in any favourable ad-hominem way, but thanks for cleaning it up - I'm just a clueless n00b here anyways and could use all the help thrown at me. Will Smith has talked about Spore users being capable of sharing creations, though - and there will probably be a fair amount of attempts of reverse engineering of formats etc. and this is quite interesting for some. --Scierguy 04:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Now, the game is supposed to procedurally figure out animations and the like on the fly, using some pre-defined rules. (The whole game has been likened to the work of the Demoscene, and the coders may be from there.) The chance of any of that being open sourced, or accessible externally without a great deal of hackery, seems incredibly unlikely. EA, as far as I know, has never been open about any of its works. Very little of this pertains to the article, though. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 07:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the fact how very mathematically and scientifically advanced the animation component seemingly is, using common sense it's unlikely that someone from the demoscene has contributed any central part therein. Sure, MSc and PhD students have taken part of demoscene, and even C64 democoders did 3D vector transformations and other amazing stuff back then. Some great energetic youngsters come from the demoscene - and game developers like EA have always fancied anyone who can work 7 days per week and enjoy themselves at the same time. There are many sides to a story, and some common sense along with good references goes a long way. I find some of the Spore marketing story speculative, unplausible or incomplete - but that's the way any good story goes - and it's the official one. Game production nowadays involves a lot of different types of professionals, and storybuilding is an integral part. Parametric functions and procedural generation is very common in modern computer animation, and linking it connotationally with gaming greats like Elite makes a good story. However, neither critique of game or production is the subject of the article, but they are still associated with researching the game, production, technologies involved and so on. I am so fresh at contributing on Wikipedia that I take some time to get used to it all, and would rather spend my time learning from all that you guys have put in as content or content you keep caring for. Thanks. --Scierguy 19:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Game inspiration stories and marketing

message: Since I don't know how to reference printed publications, I will just give the references here and hopefully someone else can update it.
The figurines were confirmed in the August Issue of Discover magazine. See this thread at GamingSteve: , with an example picture here:  (there are many other pics on the GS forums if you want to search for them, but I assure you they print them out with 3D printers).
The Sporepedia is referenced in the September issue of Edge: .
--81.77.108.98 17:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References for Expanded Universe Section 

message: I actually know the release date: I reserved a copy of Spore at GameStop and the clerk told me that the release date is June 2, 2007. I know my word is not reliable, but it is the best we can get. So, therfore I'm deleteing the Release date section and adding this date to the infobox. Thank you for not reverting it.
70.37.169.101 00:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Retail stores are not a reliable source for video game release dates.  The gamestop clerk was guessing as the myriad of game pre-order websites have (almost all showing their own "release date").  June 2nd is by know means "confirmed" because a gamestop clerk said so.  We link to the section explaining all the discussion regarding the release date because there has been no official date given.  Wikipedia is not for original research, and picking the likely date out of the options is original research.  We simply supply all the information, but thanks for your contributions, and I didn't know they were reserving copies yet, I'll be reserving mine soon :). Chris M. 04:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Amazon.co.uk has been accepting pre-orders for months (at a discount and I have placed mine) with a release date listed of January 2007, and still was as of this morning. The latest interview I read at Gamespot had WW putting release in the second half of 2007, which doesn't conflict with anything else he's said since E3 or with a press release given by EA before that this year. So when is it going to be released? Who knows, but not anytime soon, so give the info so people can make up thier own minds and we remain compliant with Wiki terms. Robovski 04:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The reason to provide information re: a release date is because it is a very prominent piece of information that someone comming to the article right now will want. We cannot provide a specific date and still abide by Wiki terms of synthesis and original research, so that leaves us with the option of laying out all of the information we have and letting the reader draw a conclusion (avoiding synthesis) or we can have nothing and have even more people adding release dates as they visit while failing to provide information on a very relevant topic (the release of the game itself). And please folks, sign your posts. Robovski 01:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're agreeing with each other. :-) — Saxifrage ✎ 21:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Popular Science says Spore will come out in mid-September in the latest issue.Tcpekin 18:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Release Date (2)

message: This game looks like a combination and revamp of Simearth and Civilization_(computer_game). Maybe it should be mentioned somewhere that it might be?
:Although both this game and Simearth have "evolution" as a theme, that's about where the similarity ends.  Aside from the vague notion that creatures change over the course of play I don't see any connection between the two games.
:Now Civilization, on the other hand, does possibly bear a resemblence to the final phases of Spore.  However, it's really just speculation how closely related the two are, so it would be premature to mention the Civilization computer game in this article. Therefore I would suggest not yet mentioning the computer game Civilization in this article, and would leave out Simearth altogether. Dugwiki 16:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simearth 

message: I don't see any invitation on the spore Beta?  At the very least there is an online petition.  http://www.petitiononline.com/SPORECEB/  Mathiastck 11:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean by "invitation"? — Saxifrage ✎ 02:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no idea what I meant.  That word seems random.  Probably I meant mention?  The first thing many people care about when discussing a pre released PC game is.... details about a beta, or lack thereof.   Mathiastck 23:01, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lack of details usually means no mention at Wikipedia. If we can't cite something, editorial guidelines direct us to not bother putting it in the article at all. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not aware of any Maxis/Will Wright games having a public Beta phase- the Sims arrived 'fully formed' as far as I know. Ok, even Microsoft are doing public betas but there is no evidence that we'll get one for Spore (sigh) --Peterleroux 09:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spore Beta 

message: Would you consider Hookedonspore.com? Their USP is that, by participating in the forums, you can collect all sorts of items found in the game (Planets, Creatures, Vehicles, Microbe's etc.). It also is kept rigidly clean of spammers. As a result, the forum is far more active than the other forums (with the possible exception of Sporeum.com, which is also very active). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.173.56.130 (talk • contribs) 
:Gamingsteve has an even bigger forum ( 73,170 Posts vs 10,000ish) which contains much more relevant posts (around 40% of those 10,000 posts have nothing to do with Spore based on the category they're in) and I'm not sure whether or not the item system (I assume like a gallery of virtual items with a simple post to win system, which isn't very unique) would count as a unique feature making it distinct from other Spore fansites. --TheSeer (TalkˑContribs) 23:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hooked on Spore link proposal 

message: I see xSpore is back in the fansite list. Previous consensus was that this didn't warrant inclusion. I haven't simply removed the link again as I'm willing to see what general opinion is at now on the inclusion of other fansites. My opinion is basically unchanged - xSpore isn't a bad site. That said, it isn't as busy as GamingSteve, and I don't want this to become a link depository. Robovski 23:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: xSpore offers nothing useful that and the ones already linked don't already provide as far as I know. Unless it offers a unique and useful service or is particularly notable (which I don't think it is) I don't think it needs to be linked to. --TheSeer (TalkˑContribs) 00:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, that's a day later, I'm going to remove it. If anyone thinks they have a good reason to include it or some other link, please speak up here before putting it in the article. Robovski 22:41, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm going to add the Gamespy site to the list if there are no objections, it is filled with news and will eventually become a site-planet for sure. --Altereifersucht 02:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fansites

message: Can you change the levels of Political, Personal and Economic freedoms in the civ mode. can you create a unique or known governments?NicholasPrakash 22:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been no evidence for this either way. Chris M. 00:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Government in Civ phase?

message: I'm thinking about replacing the old tide pool image (from GDC '05) with a newer image of one of the other phases.  But would replacing that one with two be too many?  I'm thinking of adding a creature phase image and a space phase image (maybe even civ phase?)  I'm not familiar enough with this policy to decide what to do with that, but I think removing the really old image is best at least. Chris M. 01:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is actually fairly long, and only has two images. It can handle maybe four or five. Go ahead and add them! Try to make them alternate left and right, so that on larger resolutions (where the sections are "shorter") they don't run into each other. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, if you think there could be better images for this, you can take a look around sporewiki's image gallery. Chris M. 03:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there any chance we can get some images that are free use? The copyrighted images are nice but we should try to get images that are free to use in line with Wiki (not that I even know if any such images exsist at the moment). Robovski 21:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's pretty much impossible to get illustrative images about a video game that aren't fair use–only. There's just no way to get a screenshot that isn't encumbered by fair use doctrine. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, and what exactly is a non-fair use video game screenshot exactly?  Aren't they by definition in fair use? Chris M. 22:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another screen? 

message: Didn't see any mention of this in the article, and didn't know if it really belonged here or not. I think it's rather interesting and unique, but I'm not sure if it should be included on the Spore page. 
Desire Campbell 140.184.32.65 21:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is mention of the spore figurines later in the article, but as a general.  They have made them for several people. Chris M. 22:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Theirs a whole squad of spore dolls on xspore, makes you wonder how they make them. Toxic Ninja 03:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a 3D printer. The original threads collecting all the figurine pictures posted across the net and talking about how they were made (along with various speculation) are on GamingSteve, btw, if you want further reading on the Spore ones. --163.1.165.116 01:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spore dolls 

message: I just added a link to the Open Directory category Spore (looks like: ). My suggestion is to encourage people who want to link to their favourite fansite here to submit it to the Open Directory instead. Since Wikipedia isn't a links directory but Open Directory is, linking to them and having more fansites linked from there is a nice clean solution to our now-and-then linkspam problems. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a plan - I support this proposal. Robovski 23:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Open Directory link 

message: I recently changed the logo for Spore from a 22KB PNG to an 11KB SVG. If anyone has any objections to this, explaining them on my talk page would be great. The image may need to be cleaned up for use at extremely high resolution, but I think at most resolution it  is presented at, I can't tell the difference. PirateMonkey 20:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logo 

message: First, this article has an "A" class rating which is higher than GA, but that aside I still feel that it isn't up to GA standard and will consider dropping it to "B" class. There are still a few things scattered through out the article that need referencing, some still with  tags. Also the gameplay modes or whatever is very long and in parts over detailed and a bit difficult to comprehend to a non-specialist reader. This is still a fine example of a quality article of a game that hasn't been released but not quite a GA, in my opinion
†he Bread 03:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest I'm suprised that we were ever up for GA in the first place. The article has come a long way though. Robovski 21:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Failed 

message: OK, I deleted Spore Monsters from the fansites section. I believe we had considered the site before and rejected it, and I see no reseaon to reverse that now. Robovski 21:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fansites Again 

message: How much money is being spent on this game? What's the budget? --216.232.97.145 22:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sporewiki's page on Will Wright suggests $30 million USD.  --163.1.165.116 14:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

text: EA's been putting alot of money into this project for the last 5 years.  I don't know if it's 30 Million exactly, but it's definately in the double digit millions.  I have no idea what they've been spending that budget on.  Maybe lots of coffee and sweet laptops (has anyone seen Wright's laptop that he uses for demos?  Top of the line ;)) --Numsgil 00:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I for one read that figure also in an article, but it was quite a while ago now. It seems entirely reasonable for EA to spend that much, considering how long this has been in development and the amount of work that's having to go into what will be one of their flagship games. --163.1.165.116 01:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd have thought it would be higher. --TheSeer (TalkˑContribs) 03:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, it's not uncommon for developers to pour millions into development of a game. I'd have thought that something like Spore might have been far more then 30 million, but I guess that isn't so. Specusci 18:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Budget 

message: I removed the stupid "see below" note in release date, that's not needed. There is no set date, and all the information below is just speculation. I also cleaned up the platforms section: the creator hoping for it to be on systems should be listed in the article... but not in the infobx at all. I hope my changes don't get reverted, they helped the article out. RobJ1981 17:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I cleaned up the infobox

message: That whole section seems like OR to me. There's no citation given - can someone come up with one, since otherwise I think we should remove it. --163.1.165.116 01:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. --Masamage 01:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I've already nuked that section once before, so it seems someone is replacing it. It's pure speculation, and Wikipedia doesn't publish speculation. Feel free to remove on-sight. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Suspected use of Spore techniques in other Maxis games" Section 

message: Is there any confirmation anywhere of the musical score being composed by Brian Eno? HorseloverFat 04:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Music