Spore release date 9-7-8
 

I remember all the fuss about Spore a while back, and yesterday got an email with the release date. Sept 7, 2008

http://www.spore.com/screenshots.php?movieID=7&play=hi

I am excited about this game. I really hope they port it to the Wii quickly

It's due to come to the Wii and the DS but it will be different than PC/Mac. I finally have a real excuse to upgrade my computer come September.

It's actually coming out on the DS and portable phones on the same day as it comes out on the PC/Mac. They have stated that they have no date when they would be putting it on the Wii. I wonder if the Wii could even handle the graphics, which aren't any spectacular. And I also don't know how the online would work with Wii seeing as how it's a constant ever evolving universe with lots of player input. It would seem better for it to be on a system with a better online community.

I've been following the development of Spore for a while now. I can't wait.

yay! let's hope for a demo this summer! do they even still do demos for games?

We need a good PC game out thats not a FPS.

God I hope this one doesn't suck.

Why would the online part cause a problem on the Wii? The Wii is always online already. Also the graphics wouldn't be a problem since everything is procedurally generates they could just procedurally generate the models and such with less polygons and smaller textures.

/signed.

Such huge scope, here's hoping they kept it as free-form as originally described.

It'd work well on the Wii, as from what I've read it sounds like they'll push updates often, but connectivity isn't going to be required during gameplay. That being said, my PC is still where I spend the majority of my time gaming, and I'm looking forward to that release.

I understand it'll be released in the UK before the US tho, due to sales.

Am the the only person that is no longer interested in this game? Granted my "hype factor" wasn't very high to begin with. The ideas sound nice, but if Spore never saw the light of day I don't think I'd even bat an eyelash.

Perhaps a demo sometime later this year will change my tune.

Jebus! Finally! Didn't it show up at E3 2005? The Demo then looked great.. That must have been an EXTREMELY early alpha test they had going there... All I can say is about time.. Man the hype for this game has been long gone for me.. I'll still be there at midnight to buy it though :)

Hey, awesome! I bet my amoeba can beat up your amoeba :)

I think they stated they will release the building tools before the game so people can start populating the worlds. The game is pretty much done, but they have millions of unique worlds to create, so they're just plugging away at tweaking the UI and populating the universe.

EXCITED!

does anyone know if they are still going to allow people to upload there creatures for others to use in their games? I was pretty geeked to hear this when it was announced a year or 2 ago at one of the trade shows, but things as innovative as this often get left on the cutting room floor when deadlines start looming. I still remember all the amazing things Garriot said he wanted to put into Tabula Rasa when he first announced it, and look how that turned out.

Not only will it be allowed, I'm understanding it's a feature. Populating the worlds of all other players with funky homosapeins, or not -

anyone know the system requirements? I'm pretty sure my box can handle it but doesn't hurt to check.

Yep. Will Wright has explained it as "Massively Singleplayer" where everything you create is uploaded to a central server that then distributes characters to other players asynchronously to populate the millions of unique worlds. You even get updates about how other players interact with your creatures. IE: Whether they get blown up, traded with, yadda yadda.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080215.jpg

The Creature Creator demo for Spore will be released on the 17th. The crippled version of the demo has already been leaked on the internet to good reviews and lots of penis-like creatures, but I will download the official demo tonight.

Anyone going to buy the full version demo?

I preordered the "full demo". Been playing with the crippled one a bit tonight. It's pretty fun.

I'm setting here waiting for the demo the become available since it's 4:30am on June 17th... sigh.. I wish i had something better to do.

I tried to go to bed after being disappointed that the game wasn't ready for download at spore.com in the wee hours of Tuesday, but couldn't sleep.

After getting back up and checking online (still not ready), I got a copy that has been floating around. It's a lot of fun. There is a good feeling when you take a lump of clay and make it into a walking, singing being.

It's too bad that the spore.com website is down.

Edit: FYI Flying and abilities can be viewed by clicking on the ability button in the build mode.

Also, I can't access the creatures that I made before I registered, though I can find them in my My Creatures folder. *The EA Spore forums have solutions for hiccups in the game.

i wanna play god too!

Holy cow the limited demo character creator is awesome. My wife is gonna go crazy over this.

Sorry... but do you actually have to "pay" for the demo???

I've been waiting for this game since I first heard about it back around January. So I too wonder about the sys reqs... perhaps it's on the website. As I have a Celeron laptop with an integrated graphics card, I sure hope it's sufficient.

I want to recreate the Larry Niven Known Space worlds. That's going to be fun.

You get a limited demo for free (which is really fun, the one I played around with). The "fuller version" demo you have to pay for. You do get to move your demo characters into the real game once it releases.

ahhh... so, if you pay for this fuller version demo, is there a discount off the actual game?

Yes there is. The full demo is $10 US and provides $5 off the full game.

now that's a good business model... Known Space... here I come!

From Spore.com:

PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

* OS - Windows XP/Vista
* Processor - 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* Memory - XP: 512 MB RAM / Vista: 768 MB RAM
* Hard Drive - At least 300 MB of hard drive space for installation, plus additional space for created creatures. (190 MB for the Trial Edition)
* Video Card - A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0*


For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least:

* * Intel Integrated Chipset GMA 950
* * Dual 2.0GHz CPUs, or 1.7GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent


Supported Video Cards

ATI Radeon(TM) series

* 9500, 9600, 9800
* X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
* X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
* 2400, 2600, 2900, 3650, 3850


NVIDIA GeForce series

* FX 5900, FX 5950
* 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
* 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
* 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800


Intel(R) Extreme Graphics

* GMA 950, GMA X3000, GMA X3100

Maybe you should see how it works with the free demo before you buy the full one.

I have to get a DVD version of the full demo. I want it on my gaming desktop and on my macbook pro and all the download sites say the download is for PC only. :(

Now I've seen it all. I thought it was crazy when the started loading games with product placements, and now we have to pay for what amounts to advertising for the game. A couple more years and they will be asking us to foot the bill for developement, and buy the game too.

At least its not as bad as 60 bones for Gran Turismo 4: Prologue. It says its not the full game right in the title, yet they want full price for it.

Well seeing as how you do get half of the cost offset when you buy the game it's not a big deal. Also, so many people have been itching to play this game, just having the creature creator nearly three months before the game comes out is sweet. And Maxis wanted the creature creator to be a means of populating their universe with man made creatures by the time the game actually comes out.

Anyway, you can just download the trial version for free if you want.

Since you're a Wings fan, I won't totally trash on your thoughts, but seriously?

Like Ya said, you pay $10 for it and get $5 off the game. It's not like you HAVE to buy it... there's a free version too, albeit a bit more crippled. I'm in the group Ya was talking about... I've been waiting for this game for YEARS.

Let's just call the Creature Creator a full game, Not to be confused with Spore or the Creature Creator Demo. I didn't like the Strategy behind GT:Prologue but I think the $10 price on the Creature Creator is justified. You're getting a quality product that you can literally spend hours playing. Between my sisters and myself we've probably put 6 hours into the Trial version over just 1 day. I'd definitely love to see more 10 dollar games that rival this game's quality.

Agreed--I've had quite a bit of fun with the trial version, and might very likely pony for the full version, especially since it gives a discount on Spore itself, in the fall.

Does anyone know if the Creature Creator CD is being released today to buy in stores since I can't download a full version of the mac release?

I knew I'd take flack for this, but I stand by it. The demo only gives you a quarter of the creature parts to play with, and while fun, I would hardly spend hours on that alone. And I still refuse to pay even 5 dollars for a "full" demo, when all a demo really is is an interactive advertisement for the game.

Don't get me wrong, it's genius marketing by Maxis and EA, because they know the anticipation for this game is huge, just like the anticipation for GT4. But in my opinion, its dirty pool.

Now if they were gonna give me $10 off of the game after paying 10 for the demo, while still a little grumbly, I'd go along with it. They should have done something like if you preorder the game, you get the full version of the demo, and if not, you have to be satisfied with the trial demo. Again, just my opinion, and my opinion only matters to my wallet, not yours.

Having said all of this, I'll still be right there in September with my $50 to buy the game.

Heh. I think I'm with you Nikilidstrum. Same sort of feeling I get about the the Price Club or Costco, or whatever it's called. If it was an even trade, I could get excited but I'm not too keen on paying up for a demo.

Same as I take umbrage to Costco for asking me for money just for the pleasure of shopping there. wtf? they should be paying me to travel all that way to buy from them.

I have a bone to pick with our cable service too. $50 to install a digital STB? Fuck that, they should be giving me a discount for signing on for the service and adding more subscription numbers.

We get boned up the rear because we bend over.

Niki and Leto,

I'm not quite sure I understand you. Obviously I'm not trying to argue... to each their own. I just want to understand.

You don't think it's right to charge for a demo. I get that much. But then, nobody is forced to buy the demo. It's not as if it's a condition of buying the full game later. If people CHOOSE to buy the $10 demo, why is there any beef at all?

And Leto, wtf is your rant about Costco? Again, it's not like it's the only place to shop. If it isn't worth the cheaper prices at Costco for the cost of membership, there's probably a K-Mart or Walmart nearby that will rip you off even more in the long run. That's just business. *boggle*

You pay for services. You can't expect to GET paid for using a service. That makes no sense at all. That's like me saying, $75 for a pair of Nike's? Fuck that! They should pay me to walk around in their shoes... it's advertising! $4 for a box of Wheaties? Bullshit! They should pay ME to eat their cereal and show people it's worth having.

Seriously... it makes exactly that little sense.

-sigh- I see that the DRM on this game is ridiculous. 3 installs and that's it. Ever. Upgrade your machine three times, and you can't play the game again unless you buy it. I've lost interest. Was looking forward to this one too. . .

We've been having a pretty big DRM discussion in another thread and touched on this. I doubt it'll stay that way by the time it releases. Most games that had planned to use this DRM method have abandoned it. It's really not a good plan.

As a side note, despite my detest for DRM, it depends a lot on HOW they do the hardware fingerprint. Many hardware fingerprints won't be affected by say, video card or RAM upgrades. Often not even by CPU upgrades. A lot of times it's based on data pulled from the mobo itself.

Well spore and mass effect were supposed to have the same copy protection and mass effect's got changed from the backlash. Where are you seeing that it says 3 installs and that's it?

so, does anyone know wtf the deal is? It's available for download, RIGHT NOW at this link:

http://eastore.ea.com/DRHM/servlet/C...uctID=95024000

But I still don't have a link or key for my pre-ordered copy. Fucking EA! :(

Same here man... EA Download manager has nothing, Order info say Downloadable but no link to download it..

Also was having trouble before logging into my account it'd say invalid password so i thought i typed it wrong but when i did recover password and changed it, It still said invalid.. grr..

I see you've met my clients. :rolleyes:

And..... I agree with you! It, however, makes great sense. In fact, my father made me return a nike t shirt that I got for him because he didn't want to advertise their product for free. You see, he didn't want to bend over. So, ya, it's a rant, and a well founded one. No, I don't have to buy the stuff or frequent the places such as I mentioned, nor do I have to pay $50 admin to get that STB (they caved and gave to me gratis) so I don't. So I rant.

what's wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with ranting... I just don't see your point. People wear a Nike tee because THEY think it's cool, not to advertise. Everything is a product made by someone. By using or wearing it, you are, inadvertently advertising. Do you drive a car? What kind? Have you scrubbed it of branding badges? Why not? How is that different than "advertising" for Nike by wearing their shoes or a tee shirt? See what I mean?

It's funny you should mention that. Somebody stole the big VW badge right off of my jetta a couple of years ago. God knows why, but my son painted a peace sign in the spot. Kinda cool I thought. My running shoes? Aisecs. kind of generic. But yes I see what you mean, I really do. I'm just surprised that the response is so vociferous. I just want to tone down the automatic assumption that we, the end users, should always bear the cost.

For example, when the Ontario Dairy Board increased the price of milk a couple of years ago, 7-11 increased their prices immediately by 40 cents. When I told the guy that there was no one for me to pass the cost on to, and perhaps just once they should eat it as the cost of doing business, he just chuckled. I left the milk at the counter, went to Shopper's Drug mart, bought it at the old price (which it still is at by the way) took the receipt back to 7-11 and showed the manager how another company has managed to keep the customer in mind when it comes down to passing on costs. We don't have to accept it all the time. I may not be a Don Quixote but these are my personal windmills.

I think I will get the free Spore download, but wait for the game to come out before I put money down.

Don't take this the wrong way but you and your dad are batshit crazy. :thumbsup:

LOL... ouch!

No, Leto, I see what you're saying. I just find people with those stances to be idealists. I, myself, am a realist. If I want something and it's free... awesome! If I want something and it's not? Well, I live with it. If it costs money but I don't want it? Then I don't care. Just my way of thinking. Kudos to you on having your own way. At least you aren't a sheep. I applaud that highly!

I have no beef with anyone buying the demo, which is why I said my opinion is only important to my wallet, no one elses. To each his/her own. I do have a beef with a company expecting me to pay them to advertise to me. It would be akin to a dealership wanting me to pay them $100 to take a car for a test drive, and then give me a $50 credit towards the car if I buy it. I don't have anything against anyone who goes along with it, I'm just saying I'm not willing to be treated that way.

I would like to say that while I do have some strong beliefs regarding consumerism, I didn't intend for my initial comments to cause this much ruccus, and I'm sorry if it feels like this has turned into a threadjack. Regardless of EA's marketing practices, I am pretty excited about this game and its innovative features.

And Leto, you and your father are my heroes :thumbsup:

What if that car was an exotic, or even a mustang or corvette on a road course? Then I'd say, sign me up! That really is a better analogy. Both would be advertising, but would be fun activities in-and-of themselves :thumbsup:

I don't understand why you think you're paying for them to advertise to you. Do you ductape the logos of the Pepsi you drink in public, or if you had an awesome time riding rollercoasters in Six Flags do you keep it to yourself and tell no one because that'd be advertising? I can understand not wanting to support a brand like Nike. They make their products cheaper and sell them higher then many off name brands. It's not so much the advertising as it is a ripoff.

Just because a product makes you want to buy another product doesn't mean it's an advertisement. I buy Sequels to games I liked. That doesn't mean the first game was an advertisement. It had value in and of itself, The same goes for the Spore Character creator.

Honestly, I wonder how much money they are making considering the full Creature creator is 300MB, the Trial version is 200+mb and they're maintaining a free site to host everyone's uploaded creature. I'm SURE they're making money with it, but isn't that the whole point of developing games in the first place?

For anyone that cares I have a few creatures uploaded at http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-cmike1

nice cybermike. My creatures are at: http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-xepherys

I'll bite.
http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-Randerolf

I guess I call myself a realistic idealist. I liken it to a guerilla war on consumerism, and will take the free when I can and weigh the practicality of the situation.

You are right, I don't have to buy anything I don't want to. And yes we are batshit crazy.... and loving it. Is that why my favourite colour is grey? I argue the point daily that grey isn't a colour but you know what, it's more interesting than the usual conversation of "how are you" " I am fine" ( I want to outlaw the word "fine").

And Niki... I didn't mean to threadjack either.. just got carried away, my apologies. I'm looking forwards to both the free download and the game. Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade my laptop.

I wonder if i can get Dell to pay for it somehow.... After all, their name is on the outside, and I do carry it around. :)

Oh man I hate those conversations. At work when you pass someone every single time "oh hello how are you" "good" "oh good, good to hear, alright, see you later"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

When I pass someone in the hall this is what I do. "."

Nothing. I don't care how your day is, I don't care about you knowing how my day is, and you know what, YOU don't care either so stop asking. Useless formalities.

http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-ratbastid

My current favorite creation is "Bitey".

A demo is not a product, it is a portion of a product that the developer releases to generate interest in the actual product, or in other words, an advertisement. All of your analogies are for actual products and services that have brand names, which has nothing to do with anything I have said about this demo. That has more to do with Leto's portion of the discussion.

As for telling you how great something is = advertisement, what if I decided that I would only tell you my opinion for $10? Or even better, what if it was something I made or built, but would only show it to you for $10? That fits this situation better, and if someone really wanted to pay for someone elses opinion (ie review magazines) i have no problem with them, but I won't be a part of it.

The part you don't understand is that while yes it is a demo, (and therefore an advertisement in your opinion) it also serves another purpose. It allows people to populate the universe before the game even comes out. And most of the money you pay for it will be put towards the purchase of the game, so in essence you are paying $5 to play a part of the game, which many people have been itching to play for years, 3 months before the game comes out. But it seems like you have it in your head that this is just an advertisement for the game and there is nothing anyone can do to change your opinion, however skewed it may be.

I love you guys! :wave:

Let's just play now!

I can't and probably never will understand your reasoning and I don't care enough about it to keep replying so yeah.. Let's just play the game..

Looks like it is coming out this Sunday. I'm tempted to buy it but I have not played a PC game in 5 years... Plus I don't think my wife would like it if I got it. It needs to come out on the Wii fast!

Unfortunately, I will not be able to get this game, no matter how much I want to, because the requirements are far beyond what my MacBook has.

If anyone gets this game can you post a quick summary of your thoughts? Also how long does each stage take start to finish?

So far the game seems fantastic. I am enjoying the gameplay in single player which is very easy to slip into. No memorizing 100 pages of manual jargon. I dont know how to do spoiler tags very well so I wont go into specifics, just going to add what everyone will figure out after 30 seconds- 2 minutes of playing

this holds true to spore and any other rts/civ game.

aggressive/war ( carnivore )= easy for beginners to pick up yet still fun and challenging

peaceful/social (herbivore)= um....where's the plants? lol = )


HAVE FUN GUYS and GALS = )

hmm... i may just have to get this game after all... so far all of the reviews are quite positive...

Installing now.

This game is AWESOME! I'm having entirely too much fun with it. I'm just in the Tribal phase now. Where are you guys at? Find any cool creatures?

Wow. I've got way too much work to do right now to have a game this fun lying around.

It's designed so well... each time you master something you're given just a moment to celebrate before the next challenge shows up. And that's true inside stages, too--the other creatures you meet get incrementally harder in perfectly timed waves. I'm in the

Walking around my planet, I came across my boy Bitey, who I built with Creature Creator several weeks ago! He was MAD at me! And as much as I wanted to, I just couldn't make him my friend. I had to commit genocide against my own creation!

RIP Bitey:
http://ll-337.ea.com/spore/static/im...337742_lrg.png

nice Ratbastid! RIP lil guy!

You guys are much nicer to the game than the amazon.com ratings.. 22 Five star ratings, 13 Four star ratings.. 665 ONE star ratings!

I haven't got the game yet.. I'm broke mofo :(

Yeah, there's a backlash happening on Amazon against the DRM the game comes with. You can only install it on three computers. Not so different from any other commercial app, but I think the DRM crusaders have chosen Spore to make their point on.

This seems like a pretty big deal. I'm pretty sure I won't be buying this, since my OS tends to crash all the time.

It's pretty stupid, too, because draconian copy protection schemes like this actually encourage piracy. It'll take the crackers about 2 days to come out with a DRM-free version of Spore, at which point people who would have bought the game will pick the illegal version instead because it works better and doesn't screw up your computer.

It's like the war on drugs. These guys think they can achieve a 0% piracy rate. You can't. There will always be lawbreakers who pirate games. Always. So instead of spending gobs of cash and customer satisfaction coming up with more and more restrictive DRM schemes, concentrate on keeping the majority of game players, who DO buy the game legally, from getting pissed off enough to try piracy instead.

After reading your post, I took a quick look. Took me less then 1 minute to find a pirated version online of Spore.

That's if it works... Lots of pirated software is really just a vessel for viruses. Sometimes finding a clean piece of pirated software that actually works is like finding a needle in a haystack.

So I've read some complaints that the body parts you pick don't really have much affect on anything and are mostly just for looks (lame!). Also the fact that you can completly redesign your creature in the creature creater sucks. You should have to change it slowly over time instead of drastic changes where you go from one thing to another. Some body parts should suck early in the game and be great later in the game or vice-versa. Also I hear the game seems to be geared for 5 year olds.

Does anyone who has played the game care to comment on these issues?

Thanks

Plus, the network stuff probably won't work in a cracked version. You could play it in offline-only mode, but your fellow critters would be limited.

Certainly not true. There are a few purely decorative body parts, but for the most part the contribute directly to the stats of your creature. There are two aspects to creature design: combat, and social skills. And there are specific skills within each of those aspects. Each body part (and later, item of clothing) gives particular stats within those skills.

I haven't played it much (I've owned it for less than 48 hours, and I have other things I have to get done!) but my creature's evolution has been, well... evolutionary. If you look back over the history timeline, you can see the path he took as I wanted to buff one particular skill or another. These feet turned into those feet, these prongs became those antlers became those mantis-claws, etc. So while you COULD completely redesign a creature every time you hit the designer (which you do by calling for a mate and giving birth to a new generation, btw), gameplay doesn't really pan out that way. And even if it did, I'm not entirely clear why that sucks, but I guess we're getting into philosophical issues, there.

Yeah, it's not quite like that, although as you progress you do open up more and more useful parts.

Well, it's rated E 10+, so I wouldn't say so. There's combat, death, eating of other creatures. Probably not for five year olds. There are also quite a few stats to balance--not compared to some other RPGs or FPSs, but a good few. It's not a brain-dead game. A five year old would have a BALL in Creature Creator, though.

Made it to the Tribal stage last night before going to bed. I initially tried to create a balaced carnivore but got tired of trying to make friends with other packs so I've gone the staight preadator route. My creature is fully geared towards combat with his offensive stats maxed in all catagories except spitting which is a 4. Should be interesting to see how that decision pays off now that I've evolved.

For some reason I'm not able to get an image to show up in this post so here is a link to my latest generation Trilesse in the Sporepedia.

Sporepedia

As for the DRM, I downloaded the game off of Direct 2 Drive so I'm not sure if that version has SecureRom on it or not (there's no disc check but you do have to be logged into EA to start the game). The 3 install limit doesn't bother me though I do see where it could be a problem for some.

I guess my question is, why are those of you who claim you pirate in protest for publishers enforcing a draconion DRM that installs undisired programs onto your system be willing to take an even greater risk by downloading and installing potentialy virus and trojan infected cracked copies? I mean isn't replacing one risk with another just bad policy? If you don't want to support the publisher then don't buy the game but don't pirate it either. Doing so clearly does not stop the publishers from using DRM and it still puts you at risk and chances are you'll end up with something even more destrutive to your system than what the DRM could have done.

Anyway, I believe there is no justification for piracy. Send your message by not buying from the publisher if you do not agree with their policies all you want but keep in mind that gaming is a privilige, not a right. There is no law in the land that states you have a right to play a game on your computer. Just because you do not agree with the way a company conducts business does not give you a right to steal from them.

As for the publishers, I don't see why they don't just create their own 'crack' for the game that either doesn't work or is bugged up with key features disabled and flood the torrent sites with it themselves. Hell, even use the names of the more popular 'trusted' crackers for the files. I think that would probably discourage more casual pirates than any DRM sceme ever could. Just imagine trying to download a file but you keep running into nothing but broken ones. After several attempts I'd think most people would just give up.

Will Wright acknowledged that Spore was geared mainly towards casuals. I understand why, but it just seems the game was dumbed down a lot from what I thought it would be.

MTV Multiplayer Will Wright Reacts To Critical ‘Spore’ Reviews, Reveals Personal Playing Style

Definitely a casual user game, anyone want to buy mine only installed once. Is very much like the Sims

Well fair enough--I'm a casual gamer, and I like it very much.

Can anyone tell me what the red x above some planets during the space phase means?

Link
Situations like this may make people turn more and more to pirated games, and regular people who not normally go look at pirated games now may start downloading more pirated software.

I got to play Spore today!!! About 20 minutes into playing (it was probably more), I went and got the gift certificates I had for Amazon and bought it.

It will be here Thursday.

The red X? I know that when there's like, a ! on top, it means to pay attention to the planet. If there's a red line between the planet and where you are, that means the planet is too far away.


So, I fucking love this game. I'm addicted. I mean, it's like an amalgam of tons of other games, but the thing that really got me hooked was the different editors. I must have gone through like, a million different evolutions of the creatures, the buildings, and vehicles.

nope thats not what i'm talking about. It has a solid red line going straight up (not to another system) and on top of the line is a red x. I'm guessing that it means it is a system you took by force. but i'm not sure.