Prometheus here...

So glad to hear about this project, Spore was my favorite game for years while it was alive, and then when it started to get stale it was such a shame, looking back at the 2005 Demo and such, thinking about how much more successful it could have been and maybe EA and Maxis would still contribute to it. Then, I find this!

No programming skills I'm afraid, just ideas, and some basic art and sound capabilities, nothing special. But I'll still try to help wherever I can. A few ideas right off the bat I feel the need to mention, both game and project wise:

1) Ever consider starting a Kickstarter? I know it's an open source game but it would certainly help the whole thing go faster, would it not? It would also help with spreading the word and give a good indication of how many people would get the game.
2) I saw somewhere you've decided not to add Darwinian evolution to the game as it's too difficult, and I don't know anything about programming so I could be talking out of my backside here, but this is how I would go about it; program the creatures so that when they reproduce the newborn is, let's say, 5% different (in a random way, could be a good thing or a bad thing, could have no effect) to its parents. Obviously that's more than real life, but you don't want to be sitting around for millions of years waiting for the creatures to evolve (or maybe you do).

That's all I can think of for now but I definitely have more ideas. I'll post them on here when they come to me.

Hope I can be of help, again, so glad I found out about this!

Welcome!

When you say basic sound capabilities, what do you mean? It would be great to have more people to help with sound/music.

I mean, I can use audacity passably. I know how to do certain voice effects and so on, like a space marine voice or something like that. I'm in no way an expert, just slightly above average I'd say. Don't know how useful that is to you.

EDIT: I also have made a couple of techno-type songs in Fruity Loops that aren't half bad. I might just make some things and post a link or something just so you guys can see for yourselves and judge?

Welcome!

Ok, on your sugestions:

Darwinian evolution: That is not the problem. That is actually the easiest thing to code. The problem is that in order to have any kind of meaningfull evolution and for survival of the fittest to function you need thousands, or maybe even millions of creatures being simulated at the same time, all of them fighting for survival. However, modern computers can only handle about 200 max. That is each one being quite simple in behaviour. With complex creatures, the number goes even lower.

Kickstarter: How would a kickstarter make things faster at all? Noone is geting money, and we are not spending on anything, so recieving money would only mean we would have money we dont have any purpouse for.

I think the Kickstarter could speed things up if the people in charge of the project were able to, for example, get more professional software, hire people that had more honed skills, and so on. And that makes more sense, I can see how evolution would be a problem now.

But how would we decide who gets the money? Who to hire, what to buy, all of that. We are an open comunity, everyone can just show up and contribute in what they can.

True, but is there not someone at the top, someone who can make a final decision after everyone's suggested their ideas? Or at least have a poll, e.g. "We've got X amount of money, will we spend it on Y, Z or Q?" The only problem I can see with that is people (such as myself) that don't have a firm grasp on what's the best software or people that just joined and don't know what's going on voting for something that isn't economical or viable. How far are we willing to take democracy? I dunno, I see your point but I think some form of funding could take this project a long way to being completed that much quicker.

Funding also raises problems for using certain things in the game. For instance, Doggit and I are in charge of music, and we recently asked on a site called Jamendo whether we could use some of the free music they have for Thrive. They replied saying that we could, providing we make no money from anything. This would obviously become a problem if we made a kick-starter, for which money is the entire point.

Surely not if it was all spent on the project. I mean, then we'd be making money from the Kickstater, not the game, and none of us would get to keep any of it, it'd all go back into the project in some way. I don't think you could make a good argument that someone was making money from it when they spend all the money on an open source project.

Welcome PrometheusPrime

For what art needs to be done, look here
EDIT: This question has been taken up a dosen times before, and I think we agreed that we would only start a kickstarter if there was something we needed the money for, like some software, and then as fast as we've reached the amount of money needed for it, we would stop the kickstarter.

Welcome!

Anyways, as Cheese said, that quenstion is asked for a gazilion of times, and answer is no.
We are OPEN SOURCE, FREEWARE game.

Of course, I'm just making suggestions here, but really, as I see it, it would still be freeware if money went into making it only. Some better software, people working on it full time, hiring more professionals, etc., would have it done a lot quicker and potentially made better, and when it was finished finally, you could still release it for free, all the money coming from people that wanted to see it made. It seems like a winning strategy to me. But you guys seem to have discussed this all already, so I'll drop it.