Proposed Spore Taxonomy -- I'm bored
Ok, so Spore has a release date (early September) and a release date for the Creature Editor (early June)
I was thinking about classifying the creatures, and how the system would need to be different for an open ended system like this compared to the natural evolution that earth has seen.
Assumptions:
Players will 'own' their creations.
Creatures will be saved at discrete points along the evolutionary process (specifically when you go into the editor to change them).
Major rewrites of the creature will be possible, but expensive.
Creatures will USUALLY be bred up from scratch, or created wholesale in the editor (I.E. in the lab), but may be used as templates for later designs.
Switching from tidepool to creature will involve a massive break constituting a conceptual non-relation between the creatures on either side.
Important factors to capture in the taxonomy:
Creator
World
Base (Single Celled or Lab)...
Base Single Cell (I.E. Playthrough)
Base Creature (The first creature that was made coming out, or the base lab creature.)
Creature Genus
Creature Species
Definitions:
Creator - Self Explanatory... The most important base factor for any creature is who created it.
Playthrough - If you start a whole new game, change this.
World - Where the creature's Homeworld originally was. If the creature is adapted to another world, this doesn't change, the genus will.
Base - Whether the creature was created from a single celled organism, or just cranked out of the editor
Base Single Cell - The single cell organism the creature started with. It may be possible to evolve multiple creatures on a single world. This level may not be used for Created creatures
Base Creature - The first creature built in the creature builder. This is either the initial template for a built creature, or the first creature created upon leaving the tidepool mode.
Creature Genus - This only changes with masive revisions of the initial character. For example if you start with a monkey-like herbivore, and scratch everything and build a 6-legged Carnivore, you would change the family.
Creature Species - This is what you will be changing when you make minor changes to the creature in the incremental steps.
Creature Subspecies - Any time a minor edit is made to a creature without the intend of continuing it, (I.E. cosmetic moding or planet tweaking), Simply add a new subspecies. For the most part, 'PRIME' will be the species that continued on.
Example:
Granite26-Game1-Earth26-SC-Cell1-Mutoid-Mutusaurus-Alpha-(Prime)
Usually Mutusaurus-A will be sufficient to identify the creature. The greek progression is intended to serve as an indication that species are generally going to be an incremental powering up of the basic genus. If you think that the next greek letter is wrong, you're probably ready for a new genus.
Example:
Granite26-Game1-Mars52-Lab-Nill-Martian-Space Ape-Alpha-(Terce)
If you build a creature in the lab for throwing on another planet, it will keep the name of the planet it was created for (on), even if you make minor adjustments to account for the situation on another planet (I.E. Leg length or camoflaging.)
I'm not sure of the value in keeping track of the original cell, but I know that creator, playthrough, planet are all important grouping mechanisms, and the rest of the tree is designed to track the kind of evolution likely to take place.
Here's to hoping that the incrementals (I.E. Species and Subspecies) are stored in the sporeopedia.
I was thinking about classifying the creatures, and how the system would need to be different for an open ended system like this compared to the natural evolution that earth has seen.
Assumptions:
Players will 'own' their creations.
Creatures will be saved at discrete points along the evolutionary process (specifically when you go into the editor to change them).
Major rewrites of the creature will be possible, but expensive.
Creatures will USUALLY be bred up from scratch, or created wholesale in the editor (I.E. in the lab), but may be used as templates for later designs.
Switching from tidepool to creature will involve a massive break constituting a conceptual non-relation between the creatures on either side.
Important factors to capture in the taxonomy:
Creator
World
Base (Single Celled or Lab)...
Base Single Cell (I.E. Playthrough)
Base Creature (The first creature that was made coming out, or the base lab creature.)
Creature Genus
Creature Species
Definitions:
Creator - Self Explanatory... The most important base factor for any creature is who created it.
Playthrough - If you start a whole new game, change this.
World - Where the creature's Homeworld originally was. If the creature is adapted to another world, this doesn't change, the genus will.
Base - Whether the creature was created from a single celled organism, or just cranked out of the editor
Base Single Cell - The single cell organism the creature started with. It may be possible to evolve multiple creatures on a single world. This level may not be used for Created creatures
Base Creature - The first creature built in the creature builder. This is either the initial template for a built creature, or the first creature created upon leaving the tidepool mode.
Creature Genus - This only changes with masive revisions of the initial character. For example if you start with a monkey-like herbivore, and scratch everything and build a 6-legged Carnivore, you would change the family.
Creature Species - This is what you will be changing when you make minor changes to the creature in the incremental steps.
Creature Subspecies - Any time a minor edit is made to a creature without the intend of continuing it, (I.E. cosmetic moding or planet tweaking), Simply add a new subspecies. For the most part, 'PRIME' will be the species that continued on.
Example:
Granite26-Game1-Earth26-SC-Cell1-Mutoid-Mutusaurus-Alpha-(Prime)
Usually Mutusaurus-A will be sufficient to identify the creature. The greek progression is intended to serve as an indication that species are generally going to be an incremental powering up of the basic genus. If you think that the next greek letter is wrong, you're probably ready for a new genus.
Example:
Granite26-Game1-Mars52-Lab-Nill-Martian-Space Ape-Alpha-(Terce)
If you build a creature in the lab for throwing on another planet, it will keep the name of the planet it was created for (on), even if you make minor adjustments to account for the situation on another planet (I.E. Leg length or camoflaging.)
I'm not sure of the value in keeping track of the original cell, but I know that creator, playthrough, planet are all important grouping mechanisms, and the rest of the tree is designed to track the kind of evolution likely to take place.
Here's to hoping that the incrementals (I.E. Species and Subspecies) are stored in the sporeopedia.