Isles of Scion

Henry Watson Fowler, in The King’s English, says “any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same.” - Wikipedia

It can be said that many things about SPORE incite debate, upset, creativity, and inspiration. I say inspiration separate from creativity in that it is inspiration to look at your life, the world around you, and how you feel about things. I in part have been greatly inspired by SPORE and my experiences within it (for those 150 or so hours) and of my time on the forums. I feel that SPORE has some amazing irony rapped around its structure that people continue to pick at.
We look first at the desire of SPORE. As cited from Circuit City, “•Epic Scope — No other game has come close to SPORE’s scale or ambition.” It is true, in theory there is more surface area in SPORE than in any other single game that has ever been created (to my knowledge) however it can also be said that much of this surface area is hollow. It is procedurally generated and provides only the most linear room for interaction. It is actually the latter of this statement that I find most true: Ambition.

If you watch any interview all the way up to even the national geographic video that came along with the Galactic Edition (Yes I purchased it) you will find a man with incredible ambition. I have not to this day listened to any other game designer/developer that has inspired me in the ways that Will Wright has. He showed me that in a world of ever declining physical quality and ever increasing visual surface beauty that there was at least one person who ‘got it’. He spoke eloquently in between sips of his coffee and explained things in terms that not only gave me hope but even sold a few hundred PC’s when I worked at the pre-mentioned Circuit City. His words were on a level that most people can only find if they get ‘really’ high and walk into a Sunday morning church choir.

It was his attraction to one of the most fascinating parts of our universe that really caught my attention, something that I to have had a deep interest in: Evolution. Evolution itself was the first cinder block in the construction of the home that would be this digital galaxy. As he spoke with the people at NASA he made note that “While we cannot mirror reality, we will never go counter intuitively with reality in order to enhance gameplay. We want to educate and entertain.” It was this statement that has stuck with me the longest. Because as I look at SPORE I see endless situations where it was not a mere omission of an incident but a complete reversal of reality.

Point A being the ability to fail. I think that all games require some level of failure, it is failure that teaches us the means to succeed. It is the very possibility of failure that gives all life meaning, something to conquer and to rise above. This is dutifully missing from SPORE. As you create your create there is no actual thought involved, there is no placement that can enhance or detract from your creation (aside from Cell Stage). You are essentially handed the keys to the car and a beer and told that nothing can possibly go wrong. While this opens the door to incredibly diverse creatures they all inevitably fall apart under scrutiny, what we sit upon in the end is millions and millions of meaningless recombinations of the same twelve or so essential components…not components for success…but components for quickest success.

I have, as I imagine a few others have, completed the entire SPORE campaign without every touching my CELL creature. It’s slow, entirely possible, and in no way difficult. This tells us that in a game based around evolution that in fact evolution has no meaning, it is an unnecessary component to an ever changing world. That in fact walking upright is as meaningless as the ability to think, as these evolutionary traits are by the very definition of being evolutionary meaningless.

All the the worlds most successful games have loss, even two of Will Wrights most famous creations, Sim City and Sims had great loss within them. A Sim you had been playing with for months could burn alive in a house fire as you watch hopelessly from the sidelines. Forgetting to pause your city while exiting to the restroom could have you returning to a burning husk of a town with powerlines torn and people dying. These things helped keep the player alert and active and in turn helped make success satisfying and delightful.

Adaptation is defined by the reproductive success of a creature. The creatures who reproduce the most are the most successful in the animal kingdom. This may sound harsh but it is true. Creatures with the most beneficial mutations are the ones that spread the fastest and generally the ones with the least beneficial mutations die off entirely. Much like that SIM that you made who was too stupid to make himself a sandwich would starve on the bathroom floor whimpering in a pool of his own urine (yes you can do that in Sims). Reproduction is completely unnecessary in SPORE as is any mutation option you are given. Because from the moment you start the game you are guaranteed to succeed, it’s just a matter of how long it is going to take you.

Now had this game been marketed as a feel good design program with optional game play demos for your creatures I’d of passed on it and congratulated Will Wright on entering into the 3d market of animation. However it was marketed as a game, not only that, it was marketed to the Sims players. A group of people who have been dealing with dynamic caricatures of themselves and friends for years. When you enter this game you find at first that your character has a dynamic attitude and you find incredible excitement, but with each new creation you realize you are still dealing with that first creature…except with a different mouth. After a few hundred creations you find that the brain growing in that little avatar is the same brain from the last 99, that you are entering into parallel universes across the same timeline…not a single unique galaxy (or ‘universe’ as they market it).

There is no substance to SPORE above the attractive coating and two dozen or so easter eggs (yes there are quite a few). I can think of no word that describes the entire aura of SPORE better than Irony, because it is indeed an instance where the surface meaning and the underlying meaning are entirely exclusive. I have learned much from this experience and I think the reason it hurts me most is to see one of the people I respect the most on this earth has been affiliated with something that has disappointed me nearly the most. Perhaps only trumped by the actions of the American Voters, the governments of major nations, Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers, Masters of Orion 3, and the treatment of the Education system.

So with that. I’m wiping my hands of this. I’m pulling my support for the patch and other files and moving on to other things. Hopefully I’ll get to work on a web based game this winter and invite many of you to help me beta test it. Otherwise this is it for me, hopefully some other hopeful will turn this into a voluntary part time job and take up my general discussion buddy list. I was hoping that a show of friendliness would spawn discussion between consumer and producer however that was a very dreary hope.

I do feel at this point that Maxis is no longer the company that it once was. I will however be hard pressed to ever put the blame of that on Mr. Wright. Because as I’ve said before, he’s one of those people I will likely always respect.

Mind racing
towards the end
Pulsing pounding
The sirens are sounding
Warning Warning
Can’t take much more
Captain
Please halt
stop
we’re floored
the meters red
dreams have fled
I’m dreamless
tired but self inspired
universe upon a pin
standing strongly
from within
still
I wish I want
to dream again

Capitalism

While he was by no means a saint Henry Ford once said “”There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wage possible.” I’ve personally taken this line to heart as the ideal process for not merely Industrialists but for Capitalists.

We can listen to all the different phantoms that are blamed for the high cost of books. However there is only one major factor and that factor is greed. This country startles me because of the mindset its citizens maintain. I’m consistently reminded that “It’s only x hours at minimum wage.” Whenever I bring up the fact that something is priced at a level that should be criminal people seem to just shrug, buy it, and move on with life.

There is no reason that anyone should pay 97 dollars for a book roughly twice as big as the World of Warcraft Manual (I’m looking at you Psychology of Learning). How can I get the entire collections of a comic series in a wonderfully laid out package but when I order school books I feel like I have a crack addiction. Nay that would be a far cheaper avenue to take.

There are rules that all campuses should place upon textbook publishers. Because the current system doesn’t work. The books are not of the highest quality, they are nowhere near the lowest cost, and their employees are likely making a pittance above minimum wage.

There should be minimums on content updates (not mere location changes), limits on bundling practices, and likely a myriad of other things that I’m too aggravated to think of at this moment. It’s sad when you can’t trust any business to do the right thing anymore. Truly sad.

- - -

Oppression for all your 2k parts.

There is something odd about faith that has always eluded me. I can think of at least two hundred things that I have not or would not like to do in my life because of personal feelings towards the activities. However I will likely have to do at least half of them if not all.

There are things we ‘have’ to do if we choose to be somewhere or to be something. I personally hate income tax, but I’ll be damned if the government will let me not pay it. I don’t like getting shots but had we not had the majority of Americans get vaccinated I think most of the people reading this now would instead be dead from an epidemic or crippled from Polio.

I don’t like the fact that my laptop can be confiscated when crossing the border but I’ll be arrested or kept out of the country if I told them “It’s just against what I believe in.” So why is it that suddenly we can decide to not do our jobs if we don’t feel like it?

If you become employed in the health system you have one duty, that duty is to protect and help your patients to the best of your abilities. I didn’t have the right to tell rude people to fudge off when I worked at Circuit City and people of faith don’t have the right to oppress their patients. I’ve always had a no tolerance policy against douchery, but unfortunately I had to break that rule while working retail.

Likewise people of faith must respect the bodies and beliefs of their patients/customers. If this cannot be upheld then the person is in the wrong profession. Otherwise we should just return to bloodletting and trephination if faith takes precedence over health.