Spore Creature Creator Details IGN has the scoop on the details of the Spore Creature Creator coming this June! There will be 2 versions. One will be a trial version which contains 25% of the creature making parts from Spore and this version will be made free to download at www.spore.com and it will also be packed into the SimCity box. The 2nd version is the better deal as it will include 100% of the parts. It will be at retail as a stand-alone product this June around the same time The SimCity Box is released. No price has been announced, but Im sure it will be about $10. IGN: So can you confirm the Spore Creature Creator will be in the SimCity Box when it ships in June? Patrick Buechner: A trial version of the Spore Creature creator will be available for free through a variety of sources including as a download from Spore.com and in The SimCity Box. There will also be a version of the Creature Creator available at retail. The free Creature Creator has about 25-percent of the creature making parts from Spore. The retail version will have 100-percent. Its up to the players to choose which version they want, but theyll all be available at approximately the same time. IGN: Whats going to be in the Creature Creator? Just the creature creation portion and the test drive? Theres no game content? Patrick Buechner: The Creature Creator functions identically to the creator youll find in Spore. Youll be able to create an unlimited number of creatures. Mold them, apply body parts, [and] paint them. Once youve made a creature, you can bring it into a test area where you can walk it around and try a variety of animations. While youre in test mode, youll also be able to take movies and screenshots on a few different backdrops. You can find a lot more details from IGNs interview with Patrick Buechner, vice president of marketing at Maxis. Read IGNs Spore Creature Creator Interview
If at any point I question Spore's marketing strategy, it is now. We're already paying for Spore ($50.00) and it comes with the full fledged Creature Editor. So what's the point in shelling out $10.00 more for a creature editor? Just so we can play it first? I don't see the point of selling the creature editor or for that matter, anyone buying it. There's no incentive to.
I think the point is that players can start creating their creatures months ahead of time so that there is a huge database of content for Sporepedia and for their worlds at launch. It is yet to be seen if there is some kind of random generation of creatures by the game engine, so pretty much all of the fauna will have to be provided by the players. I'm assuming the developers will have included at least 1000 creatures to start off in the game, or some such number. but not the 100K+ that will likely be generated on launch day if not from the 2 previous months the editor will have been available. :knockedout:
I agree with Josh ! It's just a marketing ploy to seperate us from even more of our hard earned money. I'll be happy with the teaser creature editor so maybe I can get the hang of making alien critters unless of course it's one of those million GB download's that take a day to download. :rotfl:
Well they pretty much need us to start creating now if you think about it. The entire game depends on having a database prepopulated with creatures.
You know, I'd be glad if they would include a $10 off coupon with the Creature Creator to offset the cost when it is time to purchase Spore.
So lemme get this straight ManagerJosh, you're an ardent fan of Spore so far and yer not eager to shell out a piddly $10 for the creature creator, just for the chance to play around with the tools before most other people; or for the opportunity to have a headstart in the game come launch day??? If now isn't soon enough to start making critters (stupid argument) why bother at all? I'm just blown away that anyone given the chance, would not sell their firstborn to get there hands on a piece of Spore Plus, as far as size goes, each creature will make up just 1K of data which procedurally inflates to a 5 to 10 MB fully animated creature!!! That is 5000 to 1 compression! The game engine and editors are pure code as well, so I'm guessing no more than 200MB for the creature editor.
I look at it this way. I pay $10.00 for the creature editor (full) plus I pay $50.00 for the game itself and for the other editors and the creature editor again. Why do I need two creature editors? :ducks: It's a bit deja vu . I rather use the $10.00 to buy something from the Spore Store. :ducks:
