Spore: spiritual sequel to SimLife?

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jonahnynla@mindspring.com wrote in news:1117831886.421522.267510
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

> Never heard of this game, but it's Will Wright, and it sounds an AWFUL
> lot like an expanded version of SimLife.
> http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3140925&did=1
> http://spore.ea.com/

Agreed. But it also sounds like one of those games that I will be obligated
to buy just in CASE they finally created the game I want.

Gandalf Parker

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"Jeremy Reaban" <jer@connectria.com> once tried to test me with:

>
><jonahnynla@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:1117831886.421522.267510@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>> Never heard of this game, but it's Will Wright, and it sounds an
>> AWFUL lot like an expanded version of SimLife.
>
> It's been Will Wright's secret project that he's been working on since
> the Sims. The gist of it has been known for some time, but the name
> seems to have been recently released.

After ambitious titles like Black & White and such, I'll reserve judgment
for this after it's out. If it does what it's supposed to do it sounds
pretty wickedly cool.

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

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Knight37 wrote:
> "Jeremy Reaban" <jer@connectria.com> once tried to test me with:
>
> >
> ><jonahnynla@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> > news:1117831886.421522.267510@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> >> Never heard of this game, but it's Will Wright, and it sounds an
> >> AWFUL lot like an expanded version of SimLife.
> >
> > It's been Will Wright's secret project that he's been working on since
> > the Sims. The gist of it has been known for some time, but the name
> > seems to have been recently released.
>
> After ambitious titles like Black & White and such, I'll reserve judgment
> for this after it's out. If it does what it's supposed to do it sounds
> pretty wickedly cool.

There's a huge difference between Will Wright and Peter Molyneaux.

Jonah Falcon

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drocket wrote:
> On 4 Jun 2005 01:02:46 GMT, Knight37 <knight37m@email.com> wrote:
>
>
>>After ambitious titles like Black & White and such, I'll reserve judgment
>>for this after it's out. If it does what it's supposed to do it sounds
>>pretty wickedly cool.
>
>
> What Jonah Falcon said. If it was Molyneaux (or just about anyone,
> really) developing this, I'd roll my eyes and not give it another
> glance. Its just such an ambitious game that the odds of it succeeding
> in any meaningful way are slim-to-none. The fact that its Will
> Wright working on it gives me some hope because his track record on
> ambitious games is simply amazing.

You call The Sims ambitious?

Ries

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On 5 Jun 2005 19:10:37 GMT, Knight37 <knight37m@gmail.com> wrote:

>Sim City was a fun toy (not really a game) for about 5 or 10 hours. Tops.
>
>And The Sims wasn't even fun for the 2 or 3 hours I spent playing it. A
>waste of my money.

The tens of millions of people who spent thousands of hours playing
the above two games disagree with you.

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drocket <drocket@hotmail.com> once tried to test me with:

> On 5 Jun 2005 19:10:37 GMT, Knight37 <knight37m@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Sim City was a fun toy (not really a game) for about 5 or 10 hours.
>>Tops.
>>
>>And The Sims wasn't even fun for the 2 or 3 hours I spent playing it.
>>A waste of my money.
>
> The tens of millions of people who spent thousands of hours playing
> the above two games disagree with you.

I love it when someone pulls out this old chestnut. And then I counter with
the old "millions of people bought and played Deer Hunter, too, but that
don't make it good." Sim City and the Sims cater to casual gamers. That's
okay fine, but that don't make it a great game in my book. A billion people
play card games over the internet but that doesn't make them great games
either. Popularity != Quality.

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

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In article <Xns966CB540CB6B1knight37m@130.133.1.4
>, knight37m@gmail.com wrote:

>IF the attempt was to model human behavior, even semi-realistically, it
>failed miserably. Adult humans don't wet themselves if you don't tell them
>to go to the bathroom.

Depends.

Jim

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bombelly@wahs.ac (foamy) once tried to test me with:

> In article <Xns966CB540CB6B1knight37m@130.133.1.4
>>, knight37m@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>IF the attempt was to model human behavior, even semi-realistically,
>>it failed miserably. Adult humans don't wet themselves if you don't
>>tell them to go to the bathroom.
>
> Depends.

ROFLMAO



--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

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On 5 Jun 2005 22:47:21 GMT, Knight37 <knight37m@gmail.com> wrote:

>I love it when someone pulls out this old chestnut. And then I counter with
>the old "millions of people bought and played Deer Hunter, too, but that
>don't make it good."
Millions bought Deer Hunter, but I don't think anyone has ever
actually played it. Deer Hunter is/was in the same market category as
singing fish and socks with wildlife knitted into them - nobody
actually buys these things for themselves, they buy them for their
hard-to-shop-for uncle (who has 12 singing fish, 8 copies of Deer
Hunter (and no PC), 11 sweaters with a deer on the front, 38 baseball
caps with a deer on the front, 53 pairs of socks with deer knitted
into them, and 23 orange hats that they'll never wear because they
have pom-poms on them.)

Games like the Sims and Simcity are in an entirely different market
category, because people actually buy them for themselves and play it.

>Sim City and the Sims cater to casual gamers.
I'm trying to think of a polite way to respond here, but all I can
come up with is 'moron'. SimCity caters to casual gamers? Whatever.

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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 09:10:25 -0500, Carl Lund
<copeknight@yahoodotcom.com> wrote:

>I also admit to loving The Sims. Its execution wasn't perfect,
>but to me it was fun and--in my view--innovative.
If you haven't already, you may want to give Sims 2 a try. Its not
perfect either, but its pretty dang close.

>I will say that the current deification of Will Wright causes me to
>scratch my head. IMHO, he's hit two out of the park. But I didn't
>particularly enjoy, say, SimEarth, SimAnt, or SimFarm. To me, some of
>the comparisons between Wright and Molyneaux are apt...Populous was a
>great game; since then...not so much. (Again, in my humble playing
>experiences.)

Will Wright has only hit 2 out of the park (although if you count
SimCity 2000 and Sims 2, I would say that it would be 4), but I would
say that all of his other games were at least solid doubles or
triples.

Molyneaux, on the other hand... Personally, I would argue against
Populous as a great game - it was innovative for its time, but even
back then I got bored within 5 levels - but even if we give him that
one, that's 1. Everything else he's done has pretty much been poop.
Ambitious poop, but poop never-the-less.

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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 20:02:28 GMT, drocket <drocket@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Will Wright has only hit 2 out of the park (although if you count
>SimCity 2000 and Sims 2, I would say that it would be 4), but I would
>say that all of his other games were at least solid doubles or
>triples.

I'd agree with that (although I never played Sim Farm or Sim Tower).

>Molyneaux, on the other hand... Personally, I would argue against
>Populous as a great game - it was innovative for its time, but even
>back then I got bored within 5 levels - but even if we give him that
>one, that's 1. Everything else he's done has pretty much been poop.
>Ambitious poop, but poop never-the-less.

I played Populous II more than one. But didn't he do Dungeon Keeper? That
was pretty good, until later in the game. And I loved Black and White,
until later in the game. Hey...I'm seeing a trend here.

Too bad Fable's not out for PC. (Yet? Or ever?)



--
chuk

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On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 22:38:52 +0200, "Alfred Pum" <mooskugerl@DELETEgmx.at>
wrote:

>"Chuk Goodin" <cgoodin@sfu.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>news82b7i$8vn$1@morgoth.sfu.ca...
>
>> I played Populous II more than one. But didn't he do Dungeon Keeper? That
>> was pretty good, until later in the game. And I loved Black and White,
>> until later in the game. Hey...I'm seeing a trend here.
>>
>
>Magic Carpet wasn't bad either.

Can't comment.

>Nor was Syndicate.

Actually, Syndicate had one major problem - you can't see inside or behind
buildings.

While this isn't a problem in most situations, it makes the Atlantic
Accelerator mission theoritically impossible as the last opponent keeps
running in circles inside a building and miniguns any players that open the
door. (In practice, Gauss Gun or Time Bombing the door seems to work.

The expansion pack, American Conquestk, is difficult to complete. It's
worse on modern computers, as their monitors generally take 1-2 seconds to
switch video modes, and you need every single second to complete some of
those mission successfully.

>Black&White is where he dropped the ball, IMO.

Probably - even though Black and White seems to have a hardcore fan base.
I consider the game to have great potential, but the game mechanics didn't
really scale that well.

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In article <Xns966EB6AF42768knight3
7m@130.133.1.4>, knight37m@gmail.com wrote:

>Jukka A. Lang <noreply@netikka.fi> once tried to test me with:
>
>> Actually, that's the most fun I remember having with that game --
>> placing Sims
>> in unusual situations, and seeing how well their pathetic AI copes.
>> Answer: not well at all.
>>
>
>Exactly. The Sims didn't behave like real people. It's a game, not a
>simulation. And not a very fun game I might add, but that's MHO.


Well, invite your sweet-looking neighbor over for cocktails, freeze
time and build 4 walls around her and watch how she reacts as you
starve her to death. Or put your toilet on the front lawn. <g>

Most of these criticisms of bad AI have to be examined in the context
of what the person at the keyboard did.

Jim

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Knight37 wrote:
>
> After ambitious titles like Black & White and such, I'll reserve judgment
> for this after it's out. If it does what it's supposed to do it sounds
> pretty wickedly cool.

Amen. My "concern" is that it'll be a neat concept and an interesting
toy (like the Sims), but there won't be much actual game to go with it
(again, like the Sims). But, we'll see...

-V

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In article <1120324408.651407.68790@g49g2000cwa.
googlegroups.com>, richardhutnik@hotmail.com wrote:

>foamy, Depends? Was that pun-intended or not? I don't want you to
>have to Pampers the people on here.

Heh, yes it was intended but I have a feeling urine deep doo-doo
for your Pamper pun.

Jim:-)