I am looking for a person with the skill that will make the pathetic version of SPP lite be able to add our items and to redecorate our habs.
I am going to set up a forum, this blog is here for people to check in and see if I get someone, also to comment and such while I install the forum.
I keep saying “Google” can provide us with a program that we can use offline while they take down the game we love, but why can;t we do it? Especially if we pay a person to do it!
More later!
http://blog.fishingcactus.com/index.php/2011/08/22/the-uncensored-truth-about-creatures-4/comment-page-3/#comment-6810
Fishing Cactus has answered my question with reasons this time.
The game will require to be logged in to play, this is necessary for several things, not the least being cheat prevention which is critical in free to play games (with the whole content free, we can’t afford having people cheating their way to payable content) . I wish somewhere down the road a full content version (moddable, offline, etc.) will be possible but this is my very personal wishful thinking and no matter how much you’re vocal about it those decisions don’t rest with Fishing Cactus (though we’ll bring the subject up in due time)
Also, if you’re worried about Fishing Cactus going out of business:
1) Die you infidel!
2) The Creatures 4 service will be run by Bigben which is a pretty healthy publisher so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.
One thign caught my eye …. “with the whole content free, we can’t afford having people cheating their way to payable content”
Hmmmm I thought all the “content” was free? Hmmmmm? So there is going to be strictly “Payable content” This is what you lose when they are gone people. And those little purchases add up!
These excuses I have heard before. I want to address them and the subject of the “Free To Play” Model and how it is a scheme.
The excuse of not having an offline version of Creatures 4 is people can cheat. This is becoming so familiar to me a company portraying they are “helpless” against bad people. My answer to this is … “That is what programmers are for!” Surely they can and have the talent to protect the game? Gee back in the 90s a great PC/MAC game had an online and offline version to the game!
So there is my answer to that!
What I think is that they are an online game and plan in the income of you paying for “golden eggs” This is their only focus. (Such a shame this happened to the creatures games)
See when A person is new to “Free to Play Content” they do not pay at first, they do not know if they are going to like the game .. then as they get “addicted” they start buying little by little until they can’t seem to stop. One thing that fuels this in this model is the “haves” and the “have nots” this type of environment is not a pretty one, in fact it gets down right ugly. The joy of the game is now gone.
Just read the TOS of online games and really think about it. I bet I already know what the TOS for Creatures 4 is going to say. You will only “own” your items as long as the game stays online, if ever it leaves for any reason and they will say they can shut it down for any reason and you do have to agree with that before you can play, you will lose anything you paid real cash for (if you bought the cd nothing will work which is why they are adding the old games on it).
Also they are stating that Most if not all content will be able to be earned through coins/game play. Well I have also heard that one before, just wait till they get out “Gold Egg” items only, oh yeah that makes the environment worse. I can just imagine all the drama, the moderation and the banned players … not worth it folks!
I cannot believe they are doing this to Creatures .. is there no game sacred?
Another thing there is no such thing as an online game lasting, it is not built to last, they are not WOW, can they be? No they can’t! To play WOW you pay a monthly fee and with that you have more control and more rights then a Free to Play Game! See the longer they stay up the more money they need from you .. they say it is free so if you buy things it supports the site and the game. You think you are doing something good, but the longer they stay up they will need even more money from you.
And then finally after some time they will not be pulling in the revenue to meet their expenses and who gets axed? We do the players all that you have put in for a year, two years, three years or so is going to be yanked from you. And because of you agreeing with their TOS there is nothing you can do, you do not even have a version to play after they are gone and all that money is gone with them.
If you get the Boxed client, you do get past 2d versions of Creatures … heck you can buy them now on http://www.gog.com I have all the original cds and even the gog version so why would I go online and pay them to run a game that will eventually disappear?
Oh yes they did say that previous versions will be on the boxed “client” Well at http://www.gog.com you can get all the versions right now:
Creatures Exodus is a recompilation of Creatures 3 and Docking Station for 5.99
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/creatures_exodus
Creatures: The Albian Years is a compilation of Creatures 1 with both Life Kits, Creatures 2 with its Life Kit and 6 Official Object Packs for 5.99
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/creatures_the_albian_years
Creatures Village is a compilation of Creatures Adventures and Creatures Playground (for children) for 5.99
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/creatures_village
So technically you can pay 5.99 for Creatures 3 and Docking Station.
If you want the previous TWO version before creatures 3 it will only cost you 5.99 for Creatures 1 AND Creatures 2 AND the addons which I aid separately for when it came out. So with not counting Creatures Village (because eit is for small children) you can have the wholly history of Creatures with all the add-ons for 12.00!!!
Now I know what you are thinking, Gee if I buy the Creatures packages now for 12.00 I can just play the Creatures 4 for free and not deal with buying the “client”!
Free To Play games sound good at first glance, but one needs to think about it. And it is a Scheme .. They call it a Business Model but really what is the difference? . Not everyone pays so they will have to rely on the portion of players that pay and how do they do this? Well the special items that will only be allowed to buy with real cash .. that is how. In past games the items bought with coins/points lacked in quality in fact most were down right ugly, as the game got older the coin items were getting worse and worse while the gold items were getting better. It is a trick to get you to splurge and then once you do it just keeps going till the environment in the game is the “haves” and the “have nots” and it get ugly. I can just see it now, the moderators, the banned players and all the drama. No thank you! This is what kills the joy of the game. The player is the one who pays and then gets burnt and that is that, there is no avoiding that.
This is why they will never do user created things, because they will control everything and you will have no say. They will be nice, but in the end you have no say or any sort of control. And that is what really stinks about online games.
Gosh I am babbling ..
I have one last hope and that is Steve Grand, the original creatures creator. He is working on his own version of creatures and artificial life and this is who I trust because I know he really cares.
Gee all I want to do is play a new version of Creatures and it feels as if I am prey instead of a gamer.
Save us Steve Save us!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Grand
http://stevegrand.wordpress.com/
Well that was finally a poor answer to my question regarding Creatures 4 and it being online and unplayable offline. I wonder if they teach vagueness in the business school, Using buzz words to make everything seem to magically be ok? One thing you can count on when protecting yourself from a potential bad online game is the company’s unwillingness to answer simple questions honestly. I asked my question September 8, 2011 and did not get this poorly constructed answer till September 14, 2011. if that is not a huge bug red flag then I do not know what is.
It is not going to be playable offline and it will not be around if the company is not around, but they do not want to come out and say this because they want us to pour our hard earned money into this online game that can go poof at any time and with that your money is gone and so is creatures 4. What they do is suggest Creatures 3 as a consolation prize! LOL and what they do not realize this that all of the creatures community already have that game and all the add-ons.
Well let me tell you I am a person that was burned. A game I played for almost 3 years is going bye bye and all that I have put in it is going bye bye and I have nothing to show for it. So the company was bought out by Google and Google decided to shut it down. This very same thing can happen to this “Creatures 4″.
I advise you out there not to buy any in game “gold eggs” don’t fall for the “haves” and “have nots” in the end the players who sink in too much of their money are going to be the “down and outs” This company was warned and yet they did not listen nor do they care.
Oh I think that Fishing Cactus’s version of Creatures 4 will have a lot of function and new things and exciting possibilities and it will cost you dearly. This is how these models work, they get you hooked and soon you decided to buy one thing for the game and the farther you get in the more you don’t seem to notice that anything good costs money, they hold back the people playing for coin at a very very very slow pace and it creates a game of greed. New people to creatures will join and they will have no clue as to how this game really was. Oh plus all the lovely Face Book gaming children will flood it. This will all be about the coins and the gold eggs, it will be about buying and selling because down the line they will have some sort of “Auction House” or “Market Place”. Mark my words.
We do as “Real Creatures Fans” have hope and that is Steve Grand. Steve Grand is the creator of the original Creatures and I do believe he cares. He is creating a whole new type of “Creatures” and is focusing on higher brain function in the Artificial Intelligence. You can read his blog and we will have to wait for the Real Creatures because this Creatures 4 does not even feel like an authentic Creatures version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Grand
http://stevegrand.wordpress.com/
I can’t believe that they, Fishing Cactus have still not answered our questions about Creatures 4. I mean if they are going to have this game ready in a few short months you would think they actually know the answer and give the answer to us. So all I can assume at this point is that they do not want to answer the question because it is something we don’t want to hear. Here is my orginal question with the date.
I would like to know if the Boxed version for PC is a stand alone version and can be played on it’s own. There is a trend of online games folding and leaving players high and dry after they have put some serious money in these online games.
I also would like to know if anything we buy with these “golden eggs” will be able to be used in the the boxed version offline?
The answers to these questions will impact my decision on if I will play this online game (being as I was totally burned on an online game before that I purchased for 3 years “items” that are now being taken away with no stand alone version)
Kay
Now what is it about this question is to hard or difficult to answer?
I have a message for Fishing Cactus:
The only thing that will let the game thrive are the players of the game. The biggest mistake you can make is trying to fool them to make a buck. We by now have all been through the rip off online games.
We want to know the facts. If you put out quality and security you can have a faithful following of dedicated players. If you try to deceive you might fool some new comers but we as long time creature players will know and will speak out.
This blog will remain up.
http://fishingcactus.com
http://www.creatures4.com
http://blog.fishingcactus.com
This blog is about Virtual Life Games, mainly the search of the right game. I am excited to hear that Creatures is coming back with Creatures 4 however I think there may be drawbacks. So far My questions are not answered by Fishing Catus which is a red flag. I will go into more detail as I find out more. Since my questions were not answered whatever I can find out will be posted here.
http://blog.fishingcactus.com has not addressed my questions they are hanging out in the moderation que and other questions are being published and are newer than mine. Red flag number one.
Kay
UPDATE: They finally let my comments out of que and said they are not censoring them however they did not answer the question (I know weird huh?). They said they will answer questions (and they didn’t say which questions) next week some time. So this is really pointing to the boxed version PC or MAC might not work unless we are online and we do not know what will happen if we buy anything with real money and they disappear what becomes of our purchase?
This subject I will not let go of. All the players that got into an online game and bought their ”gold” now wish they had not. We feel robbed and taken advantage of. Well Creatures 4 is going to have to answer this question sooner or later. I won’t make the same mistake twice! Because I was not the only one to ask it and I refuse to just assume the best of every online company. Not after Slide/Google and their deception.
Plus what if Fishing Cactus (they seem to elude that they are a start-up company) gets big and sells to Google? Are we as players suposed to go through this over and over again?
I just don’t trust the Free to Play/Premium Items for sale with real cash to keep their company going, keep the lights on , or however they decide to phrase it. This is what we heard from Slide over and over and look where we are now with them. It would be a different story if those purchases/items can be enjoyed stand alone with the game as a stand alone or if the company leaves. Oh yes Fishing Cactus, Slide/Google did a number on us.
So I guess I will be the critic till I can be proved wrong. At least I won’t be throwing good money into a black hole. And of course they , Fishing Cactus, did not answer my email.
Another update!
Here is a better screen shot of the Creatures game! I am not sure about the looks of the creatures, they look ah well “plastic” I would have liked to see more realistic fur and where is their tail? Taking the tail away is cutting off an important part of the look of the Norn!
The colors? Umm the brown is ok, but the blue and pink .. not so much.
Babies? The smaller ones I am guessing are the babies? Now they are not cute at all, wow. The adults look far better than the babies, if that’s what they are.
Also I don’t want to see inside of the egg .. I liked the egg designs and waiting for the egg to hatch to see a CUTE little baby pop out.
I was not to happy with the looks of the C3 Norns, I loved the new Grendals and Ettins though. But the best Norn in my opinion was the C2 Norns they were just adorable! My favorite was the Desert Norns and the Frog Norns from the add-on in the pond down under! For me personally the 3D does not matter if the creature is ugly.
http://fishingcactus.com
http://www.creatures4.com
http://blog.fishingcactus.com
