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What's coming up...and what's on my mind.

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Got some gossip? Heard something on the Grape vine? Want to put something on a web site? Send it in.. I'll post it here!....

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Agents, Authors and Experience

The ability to create 3rd party add-ons to the game Creatures in all it's versions is a priviledge that Creature-holics have. Something that I think we take for granted.

Not every game on the market allows, even helps people buying their game to use 3rd party add-ons. With Creatures 1 COB files, you could almost grantee that on every page you would be able to download at least half of the COBs that you saw of the previous site. This lead to a lot of COB duplications over the internet. However, to the best of my knowledge the Cobblers involved didn't mind. If they did the matter was handled privatly.

This was about four to five years ago, and things have changed, as has the game. We now have the ability to play online with each other and recieve random Creatures while playing the game. Which is by no means a bad thing!

Unfortunalty this has come at a price. The Cobblers of today seem to be some what more possessive than they were such a few short years ago. With the time it takes to learn the language, think of the idea, create the images, program the idea, test the agent and then finally release the agent or utility, it is totally understandable.

The Creator of the downloaded item doesn't see it as another add-on to the game, they see it as effort. Sometimes hours of effort. If they are being helped by another person you would think that it would half the effort put in. However it often doubles the amount due to the sending back and forth of ideas, and improvements.

When we see the end product, it's not just another agent that we can try out in our games. It's someones work. Each download should be treated as a work of art. Through experience, I have learnt that the people that create these downloads are more protective of their works than people have been in the past.

What should not be overlooked, is the ability to accept these changes in the game and peoples attitudes with it. If, in the future you make an agent and you find it on a web site that you've not given promission for it to be avaliable on, think before you act. Calm yourself down, quite often the person making the site is just another Creature game user and a nice person like yourself!

Handle the matter privately. Nothing can be gained by posting on the forums avaliable to us by having a winge there. It will only get peoples backs up and cause an unnecessary arguement where both parties try to get the last word in and only look stupid in the process. (However legitimate or illegitimate their claim)

I think that both the writers of the downloads, and the downloaders themselves need to start to become a little more open minded about the length at which they will go to in order get attention.

This is by no means meant as a 'dig' at anyone, simply an observation of the times.

If your oppinion differs, write an email to me I'm interested in others views on this subject.

Please put "opinion" as the subject, and if it is unoffencive I will place it with this oppinion, which happens to be mine!

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Special World For Special Norns!

With Creatures moving into the world of online gaming it has opened up the game to users in ways no one expected possible before! With the creation of the Docking Station, many more users across the globe are going to become part of the "Creatures Family" that some of us have been in for quite some time.

I've owned Creatures 1 - 3 and have downloaded the Docking Station, and in the few short weeks that i've been playing it I have been amased with the amount of Creatures that are passing though the portals.

One of the things that I have noticed also is the different worlds that are being set up for a specific type of Creature be it Norn, Ettin, Grendel or combination. There are even colour specific worlds, and age specific worlds also. It truely fasinates me!

People are now able to send their unwanted norns to this world, orphaned babies to another, Ettins and Grendels to a totally different world again! The Docking Station is truely a wonder!

It has allowed the game play to become more of a global game, not just a game that one person can play! I love Docking Station, and give it a 10/10!


Be sure to let me know what you hear and I'll add it to this page!