SIMphoni » Spore

Gamespot: Maxis hiring for PC online simulation game

Rexer — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:24:45 +0000

We just caught up with this, as reported by GameSpot:

Maxis hiring for PC online simulation game

The Electronic Arts-owned Maxis studio will announce an action role-playing game set in the Spore universe at Comic-Con 2010 next week, but the developer is also seeking to employ an individual to work on a new online simulation game for the PC.

Might Maxis attempt to resurrect The Sims Online?

A job listing spotted by Superannuation asks for a development director for an unannounced “next-generation online simulation game” at the Maxis studio in Emeryville, California.

The rest of the article can be seen at http://www.gamespot.com/news/6269152.html?…mp;subj=6269152
The EA job listing can be seen at https://jobs.ea.com/search/view.do?id=a0z50000000IafoAAC

Sporedum Editorial on Spore Galactic Adventures

Jirnsum — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:28:51 +0000

Our friends over at Sporedum have posted an editorial on the Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack. Although Ball Lightning refrains from answering the question whether Spore Galactic Adventures succeeded or failed in fixing some of the flaws that came with the original Spore game, he brings up some interesting points. So head on over, and check it out!

Breaking News: Will Wright to leave Electronic Arts (sortoff)

Gil — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:34:05 +0000

News just came in that Will Wright, founder of Maxis and creator of games like Simcity and the Sims, is going to leave EA to focus more on his business called the stupid fun club.

Stupid Fun Club is an entertainment think tank developing new Intellectual Properties to be deployed across multiple fronts including video games, movies, television, the internet, and toys.

“The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change,” said Will Wright. “Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms.”

The SFC is owned by Will Wright and EA, both for 50%.

Read Will Wright’s post on the official Spore forums, or read the full press release here.

Uploader of 100-Millionth Creature will win Prize

Jirnsum — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:53:50 +0000

EA have just announced that the uploader of the 100th millionth creature will win a copy of Spore Galactic Adventures. If your creature is not the 100th million, but the 100th-millionth +1, or +2, or +n, you may still be a winner, provided the uploaders in between are not “residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (except residents of Quebec)”. So good luck to the 300 million potential winners from the 6.2 billion excluded potential Spore players.

EA Appears to Implement Spore’s DRM Lessons Learned

Jirnsum — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:59:13 +0000

It appears that EA has learned that on-line authentication and restrictive DRM causes much more hassle than it’s worth. EA received lots of bad press on Spore’s DRM measures when the game was first released. This even caused the software giant to go back, and provide ways to “de-activate” Spore installations to make it possible to transfer the game to other hardware. For The Sims 3 EA seems to revert to the old and trusted disc based copy protection. This is reported in an open letter to the TS3 community by Rod Humble:

Hello everyone I wanted to share news with you regarding our copy protection plans for The Sims 3.

We’ll have more information for you as we get closer to launch about everything we’ll have to offer on TheSims3.com and The Sims 3 Store, but we have heard your requests over the past months and here is our plan for The Sims 3.

The game will have disc-based copy protection – there is a Serial Code just like The Sims 2. To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed.

We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future.

We’re really excited to bring you the game for the PC and Mac starting June 2, 2009. The extra time we’ve taken to polish the game has resulted in an even better game experience for you to enjoy and we can’t wait for you to see for yourself!

Thanks for your passion and your loyalty.
Rod Humble

BetterSpore 1.5 released

Ball Lightning — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:26:00 +0000

Sporedum has informed us that their latest project, BetterSpore 1.5 has been released to the public! So what is this BetterSpore? It’s a huge mod that was created by various Spore fans of the community to help turn Spore into a more enjoyable game. Version 1.5.0 brings 46 new parts, over 20 new space tools, overhaul of the Creature and Space stages, changes to the Tribal and Civilization stage and a new GUI! Check out the official BetterSpore website to download the mod today!

Spore Galactic Adventures Delayed

Jirnsum — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:06:56 +0000

Our friends over at Sporedum report that Spore Galactic Adventures has been delayed until May 20th. Several members on the official forums received mail that their pre-orders have been delayed. This delay seems to fit in with delays on other games, most notably The Sims 3. We can only hope that the delays mean errors are being ironed out, resulting in a solid upgrade experience on release day.

To keep us all occupied in the meantime, some amazing work has been done by the Sporedum people on modding spore, resulting in the community made Better Spore mod. Check out their trailer for version 1.5!

Spore API

Rexer — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:18:37 +0000

At SIMphoni we just recieved word from MaxisCactus at Maxis if a new Spore API. She says,

“Here at Maxis, we’re working on some features that will help you enrich your fansites by creating your own Spore applications.

We’re collecting these features into a web-based Spore API. Using simple web services, you can access our huge database of creations and creators. We have samples and quick-reference sheets to get you started. If you have questions, feedback, or want to announce your awesome app, head over to the Spore forum.”

You can find everything you need to get started here:

http://www.sporeapi.com

“User experience testing at Maxis Studio Jan 13 & 14th‏”

Jirnsum — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:09:00 +0000

We just received a message from MaxisCactus that may include some exciting news for people living near Maxis:

Hey Everyone!

Many of our players have sent feedback on our official Space Adventures thread on the Spore Forum and you’ve got some great ideas! We have another new opportunity for some of you to share your thoughts about the upcoming expansion. Since we’d like to get a sense of how players interact with the game, we’ll be inviting between 4 and 6 San Francisco Bay Area local players to the Maxis Studio in Emeryville for some user experience testing next week, Jan 13 & 14th.

We’re looking for people who could arrange to spend about 2 hours at Maxis’ offices in Emeryville, CA on Jan 13 or 14^th and who meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Someone who has finished at least the Spore Creature stage

• Someone who has done player-created mods for PC games–not only Spore, but for games such as Starcraft, Counterstrike, Battlefield, etc.

A small compensation will be given for your time.

We’d like to open this opportunity up to the fansite communities as well. We welcome anyone who is interested to apply by sending your email address to MaxisSaguaro@Maxis.com

-MaxisCactus

Update on Availability of 3-D Spore Figurines

Jirnsum — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:52:51 +0000

As we reported yesterday you can now get your very own unique 3-D Spore figurines delivered to your mailbox. As we mentioned it was not clear whether those figurines could be ordered from and shipped to places outside of the US. Maxis Cactus was kind enough to help us get in touch with the people from ZCorp: the company that actually makes the Spore figurines. Scott from ZCorp took the time to reply us even though today’s a Saturday! His news was not all sunshine though:

Unfortunately, we’re not quite ready to offer shipping to Europe. We need to complete the contract with EA’s subsidiary in Europe and then work out the details on shipping to Europe. We’re trying to get the cost down to something reasonable, and work through issues like brokerage fees and taxes. As you probably know, shipping back and forth across the pond is never quite as easy as we’d like.

EA is pushing us to be able to serve Europe and we’ll work with them to get the word out when the service is ready.

So, stay tuned for further news on this! And if you are in the US and have ordered a Spore figurine, be sure to show it off in the forums!

3-D Spore Sculptures now Available

Jirnsum — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:23:34 +0000

Remember all those cool Spore Creatures people at Maxis had sitting around on shelves? You can now own such 3-D citters yourself. MaxisCactus dropped us a line saying:

Hi Spore Fans,

Have a favorite Spore creature? Get a Spore sculpture created!

Bring your favorite Spore creature into the real world with Spore Sculptor, and own a one-of-a-kind collectible figurine of your creation. Find out how at www.sporesculptor.com! You can see examples here.

There’s several requirements that your creature needs to meet in order to be printable, but the results look stunning! The sculptures are USD45 each (excluding tax and shipping). It takes about 2-4 weeks for your order to be made (at this time). Something that appears to be missing from the website is information about whether these sculptures can be shipped outside the US and what kind of costs would be involved with that. If we do learn something on that we will be sure to tell you here!

Spore Patch 3 Available

Jirnsum — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:21:19 +0000

Spore Patch 3 is now available through the in-game update menu, or at the official Spore site. Only three fixes this time around:

Fix for esc key not bringing up Options in Galaxy Game Entry
Fix for creator backgrounds appearing on small sporepedia cards
Update to help keep achievements on the server in sync with achievements in the game

But, as announced earlier, this small fixes come with extra goodies, for Maxis have included no less than 24 exoskeleton limbs (shown below)

Get cracking on your new insect creations and show them off in the Simphoni forums!