About SporeNetwork
Someone reads the about page? Woah! Just kidding. Hi! My name is Rosana (but I go by Rosie these days). I felt like writing a bit of history about SporeNetwork. Because why not?
Cheetah and Rosie at Games Convention (Leipzig) in 2006.
I started my fansite "SporeNetwork" way back in 2005, when I had just learned about the upcoming game Spore by Will Wright. Why the name SporeNetwork? Well, I already had a fansite SimsNetwork, and it made sense to have a sister site with a similar name.
Remember when the Spore logo was different? 2005-2006 era.
As a massive Sims and SimCity fan, I was instantly excited about Spore. At the time I had no idea what to expect though. But I wanted to know all about it and I knew it was going to be awesome. I felt the game was too different from The Sims, and so I designed a proper Spore fansite which launched in May 2005.
The header was animated and everything. The planet would turn and the UFO's lights would blink. I was so proud of this design at the time.
A year later in May 2006 I flew to Los Angeles to attend E3, because of Spore! Can you believe that? I sure couldn't. It still seems like a dream. This was where I really got to know the love of my life (Cheetah of The Sims Zone/The Spore Zone) and where I learned a lot about myself. I went behind the scenes, sat next to Will Wright eating his lunch (fangirl moment right there) and I got to play Spore for the first time. I was in love.
Just outside the Spore booth at E3 2006.
Later that year I got to play it again in Germany at the Games Convention in Leipzig. I created my "Froggurrr" creature. Unfortunately I could not take that one with me or anything, so I re-created it later.
A photo of (me holding) Junior next to The Froggurrr creature I created at GC 2006.
We got to meet Will Wright again, which was fun. He was signing Spore postcards, which we still have to this day.
I swear I know how to smile lol, just, not in this photo I guess. I wasn't ready hahaha!
In 2006 I changed the website because I simply felt like it? But I have to say I liked the first design a lot better. This one is probably my least favourite design I did.
Two years later in February 2008 we flew to London (well, Chertsey) to play Spore at EA. I have very little memory or footage of this day, but Wouter took a pic of me playing it. We weren't allowed to take any pictures (from the game) at the very private hands-on event. So while we did get a sneak peek, we really had to tell a story in our preview articles and there wasn't anything to show. It was really sad that we had no footage, and the only footage we got was a few screens of the mobile game, which by the time we were allowed to share our articles, were already shared on the web by press. Nonetheless, we had fun playing, and hubby captured me on camera as I was playing it at the time.
I was having fun, but I was just really focused on the game.
And here's an obligatory Junior was here pic:
Luckily it was only a few months until June 2008, when I got the (standalone) Creature Creator from Maxis (thank you ❤). I absolutely loved creating creatures. I made some of my favourites in the very beginning.
Cute Fruit, Woodstock, Cute-n-Goofy, Funny Feet and the Golden Gate Bridge are still some of my all time favourites.
Around 2009 I once again changed the website to a more modern look, one of the best ones SporeNetwork has seen.
When Spore finally launched in September 2008 I had so much fun playing through all the stages. Especially the space stage. I had a ton of fun creating buildings and vehicles as well.
For a little while I was a SporeMaster on the official website/forums, but I felt a little bit like the odd one out as one of the few based in Europe. It was a fun experience though. And I'm glad I got to help a few people along the way.
After Spore had been out for a little while we saw the release of the the packs Creepy & Cute and Galactic Adventures, both of which I played, but not as much as the base game.
In 2010 we were happily surprised to see a new game on the horizon, Darkspore. Cheetah and I played this together and even though dungeon crawlers usually aren't my kinda game, I really enjoyed it. I even redesigned the website to reflect our love for (both Spore and) Darkspore.
We went to Gamescom and had a little behind the scenes there before the game launched. We enjoyed the game but it was so different from Spore, no DLC whatsoever. There wasn't much to report about Darkspore, or Spore for that matter.
Unfortunately the Darkspore servers are offline by now. But I've heard the community is working on bringing a community version (Resurrection Capsule) back, much like what happened with The Sims Online/FreeSO. I can't wait!
With work and family life, we both struggled to keep our websites up to date. My main focus was SimsNetwork, and the other sites (Spore, MySims, SimCity) slowly faded into the background. I merged SporeNetwork into SimsNetwork in 2013 to save ourselves some work. But nothing really happened here after that. With no new games/DLC coming out, there wasn't much to do anyway.
I always wanted to give SporeNetwork a proper site again for my creatures/creations and my wallpapers. I wanted to redesign the site once again so it has its own design, not a knock-off of the old SimsNetwork design. And I'm a very nostalgic person, so I decided to bring back the old colours and some old elements of the 2005 website. 18 years later I finally did it! I know there's barely anyone left playing Spore, let alone visiting Spore fansites, but I'm still here. And I don't plan on giving up the site anytime soon.
Our eldest son is a huge Spore fan as well and he played it way more than we ever have. Needless to say the game is really special to us, and it always will be. I'm hoping in time our youngest kids will play Spore as well someday. They're getting to that age where it's peaking their interest.
If you are curious about what I do these days, I still run SimsNetwork, I run RosieSoCosy, a blog/site with other game content, as well as my art, LEGO stuff, and I stream over on Twitch. I might play Spore on stream someday!
SporeNetwork will continue to exist for many more years as far as I'm concerned. As you can read on this page, it holds a special place in my heart, and I have no intention of selling it at this time. I feel like it needs to be mentioned because I have been contacted by people pretending to want the domain because it's so special to their family, only to find out they are into crypto. I'm not stupid my dudes. I know Spore is not just a game, but also a currency.
So what's happening in the future? Not much with Spore I guess. I still plan on sharing my creations (in-game creations, as well as wallpapers). But I will be sharing about similar games too in the future.
Will Wright founded Gallium in recent years and is now working on Proxi. I am excited to see what that will bring us. I am considering getting into Proxi as well at some point. It looks promising.
Proxi is still in development.
If you made it this far, thank you! Thanks for taking the time to read my SporeNetwork journey. If you want to stay in touch with fellow oldies like hubby and myself, I have a cosy Discord server (Cosy Corner) where we chat about old (and new) games from time to time. You're more than welcome to join us there. ❤