In addition to the first Spore PC patch a Mac version has now been released as well. According to EA the patch can be obtained as follows:

For MAC players, the patch can be obtained by simply starting your game.

The change log is mostly the same as the one for PC.

Today marks the release of a title a lot of Simphoni members have been looking forward to: Civilization IV: Colonization . The game is released first in North America, to be followed on the 26th of September in the rest of the world.

Sid himself says:

The decade-long groundswell of fan enthusiasm around Colonization was the driving force behind our decision to make a new version for today’s gamers. The terrific community support for the game, coupled with the opportunity to design a new edition using our Civilization IV engine, made it the right time to create this title for loyal fans and everyone else who loves great strategy games.

Colonization is a standalone game experience that adds an entirely new scenario to the ever-evolving world of Civilization. In Colonization, players lead one of four European nations on a quest to colonize and thrive in the New World. Players will be challenged to guide their people from the oppressive motherland, discover the New World, and negotiate, trade and fight as they acquire power and battle for their freedom and independence.

The first reviews out there are very promising with Game Informer giving the game a 9 out of 10, and PC Gamer 84%. If you have the game please let us know your opinion on it in the forums!

Our friends over at Simprograms have put up what I think is the first userbase released tool for Spore. According to its creator Eradicator:

SporeEdit is a program under development that allows for rapid changes to the properties of Spore.

If you have tested the program, please let us know your opinion in the forums!

The first patch for Spore has been released at the official website. There’s a lot of stuff that has been addressed in this patch, but it should be noted that the multi-user functionality that was promised yesterday of course didn’t make it into this patch yet  It should also be noted that this first patch is PC only. Mac users will have to wait a while longer. EA’s comments on the patch are as follows:

The focus of this patch is to fix some bugs that have been reported and to respond to feedback we’ve been seeing from the community about tuning and stability. We managed to squeak in a few fun things too; there’s a cool cheat that allows you to turn your creature into a blocky representation of themselves, a new “inspection” feature for the creature creator to browse the parts stats that you have applied to your creature, and the much-requested “evoadvantage” cheat - you’ll now be able to start a new creature game with a more evolved creature of your choice!

To get the patch, launch the EA Download Manager to download and install it. If you didn’t install the EADM when you installed Spore, you can get it from http://files.ea.com/downloads/eacore/eadm-installer.exe.

This is a PC only patch. Mac users should check back soon!

Features
New Cheat: “evoadvantage”. Enter this cheat when are starting a new Creature game to choose any creature from the Sporepedia. Start a new game with one of your more evolved creatures!
Display part statistics when you are in Build mode. Rollover any part and hold down the ‘i’ key.
New Cheat: “blocksmode”. Turns creatures into their blocky representations.
More style filters. Open the cheat window and type: “stylefilter -microscope” or “stylefilter -norainbows” or “stylefilter -nextgen” to see the new styles
Added 70 new planet scripts with a low terraform score, especially of the “hot and high atmosphere” type

Graphics/Aesthetics
Animation improvements
Improved the planets fogging, blooming and lighting
Fixed animation issues with tool handling, hand walking and some of the more oddly shaped creatures

Tuning
Creature phase: Improved the pacing towards the end of the game, and increased the challenge in Normal and Hard modes.
Tribe phase: Increased the challenge in Normal and Hard difficulty modes.
Civilization phase: Increased the challenge in Normal and Hard difficulty modes.
Space phase: Made Empires in Easy and Normal modes demand reasonable amounts of money in exchange for peace and adjust the level of punishment if the player doesn’t pay
Space phase: Made disasters less likely to occur in Easy and Normal modes and increased the time between each attack from the enemy empire when the player is at war.

Miscellaneous
Creature phase: Improved the way posse members behave during threatening situations and fights.
Space phase: Made finding your home world and colonies easier in the Galactic view.
Tribe phase: Made it so that tribe members can travel on steep hills if they need to do so now, but their speed will be reduced a lot.
Fixed an issue with attacks not working on some bigger animals and larger animals not dying correctly
Fixed collect mission not completing correctly when all parts have been collected
Fixed problems with the “Rolling Thunder” and “Déjà Vu” achievements not being awarded as they should
Fixed floating parts not being deducted from the budget when loaded into creator
Fixed an issue with the rotation rings not resizing correctly when a part was resized and improved their look
Fixed an issue where the terraforming score of planet could differ when revisiting a solar system
Fixed the keyboard controls for zoom & pitch in the Colony Planner not working properly
Fixed a crash that could occur when watching an epic creature attack a city
Fixed some issues where the game would freeze when using the Creature Tweaker tool or when capturing a planet in solar view
Fixed an issue where not all tribe members would obey the raid order when a large group was ordered to raid Fixed an issue where banning a creation from one of your other saved games would black out the main menu

Two new videos have been published on the Cities XL Website. The first one is about:

the game’s emphasis on realism, from structure, map design and transport, to the way the citizens impact the game simulation. 

The second is focussed on online gameplay:

Focusing on a Ski Resort GEM (Gameplay Extension Modules), viewers will learn how to create and run a business in the online game, while also trading resources with other players. Lastly, the trailer gives a brief overview of a few of the game’s other online multiplayer features - including the ability to visit other cities in the virtual world, and the online city journals where players can share their achievements as a virtual mayor and business leader.

Great videos, so check them out!

Simphoni member djVanDrake informed us that the official Civilization IV Colonization page has been updated. The page now amongst others contains a trailer and the system requirements. The latter appear to be the same as those for Civilization IV. This is of course not surprising as Civilization IV Colonization uses a lot of the original Civilization IV game engine.

If you live in North America and are interested in the science behind Spore, be sure to tune to National Geographic Channel next Tuesday:

Interested in exploring the genetic information we share with all animals? Tune in to How to Build a Better Being on National Geographic Channel Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT for a deeper look at the science behind SPORE.

It is unknown whether this documentary will be aired outside of the US, so be sure to check your local TV listings. Also be advised that “How to Build a Better Being” shipped on DVD with Spore Galactic Edition.

The worldwide release day of Spore will come to an end in a little under 6 hours. So: did you get the game? What are your initial reactions? Were there nice suprises in the game that you’d like to share? Want to ask for help on certain aspects? What would you still like to see added to the game? Want to know what kind of Spore Cheats there are? If you want to talk about this and much more, please register here at Simphoni, and join our Spore Discussions!

The server problems that have plagued the release of Spore in Europe appear to have been fixed. After EA requested information on the nature of the bugs yesterday it only took an additional couple of hours to get the problems solved. Simphoni members in Europe who already have the game have reported they are now able to log in successfully. American brethren: always glad to act as a guinea pig for you guys!

UPDATE: seems some people still have problems, but the following should fix that:

Hi all,

This issue should now be resolved. If you were previously seeing the error message ‘Login failed: You do not have the proper spore.com privileges’ please try again.

If you still see the error ‘Login failed: You do not have the proper spore. com privileges’, try browsing to C:\Documents and Settings\ [windows user name] \Application Data\Spore\Preferences\ then delete the file login.prop and try again.

(Note: The ‘Application Data’ folder may be hidden, if so go to the Tools menu -> Folder Options -> View and tick ‘Show hidden files and folders’)

Thanks again to everyone for helping to provide us with the information to address this issue.

Cheers,
MetroJack

At the official Cities XL site a blog has been published on 3D modelling for the game. In it Kirill Bozhok explains step by step how real world buildings are modelled inside the game. The house he works on is one of the winners of the previous contest where people could nominate real world buildings for addition into the game. The results are impressive!

EA has requested all our help in solving the issues that are currently preventing people from playing Spore online. The following was posted on the official Spore forums:

The team working on this has asked for some more information.

Specifically those of you seeing this error message:
“You do not have the proper spore.com privileges to use this product’s online features”

Can anyone who would like to help please send me please send me a private message with the following information:

-Your email and screen name you used to register
-Your Game Code
-The exact error message you are seeing

To send me a private message click on my user name “EA_MetroJack (Spore)”, then click on “Private Message user”

Thanks
MetroJack

Let’s help them out people!

UPDATE to the Update:

Hi All,

I now have a good amount of information- thanks to everyone who PM’ed me.

I apologize that I don’t have time to reply to you all individually, but I will continue to update this thread as progress is made.

Thanks,
MetroJack

The thread in question on the official Spore forums

Today’s comic is the last in the series of comics we’ve been releasing until the release of Spore. We hope you’ve been enjoying them, and maybe we’ll see a new series when the countdown to the inevitable expansion pack begins…