Ask The Admin (01/09/2012)

[lanzer]

Hello everyone!

Happy new year everyone! Hope all of you had a great holiday and enjoyed the Christmas event. Just got back from Paris last week and barely got past the jet lag. ^^;

On the coming year we'll continue focusing on improving many of our core features, mainly Gaia Towns is the center of our discussion lately and I'd love to hear form you what is that you love and hate about Towns. We'll also take time to work on various bugs and features around the site. We'll share more as we point out what to tackle.

Let's start 2012's first ATA!

[MrsrachaelSnape]

Hi Lanzer

1. I love the idea of Alchemy just not how hard it is to get components.
Can’t components be easy to get. Why not have them in many ways to win it? Like mini games, zomg, town/rally and so on. A lot of old features get forgotten , why have components in old mini games and such .Therefore there is more components as well more people using old features .It’s a win win.

2. Can we have a re-color of fairy wings in gold shop? Like red ?
My thread-http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/re-color-fairy-wings/t.76553199/?_gaia_t_=3934
3. Can white Russian be fix? With the coat can can't wear any tops with it.
Please have towns be a real town not a park. Can we sit on chairs? Play games? enter shops. Have more then Barton as a town?

[Krissim Klaw]

I’m sorry for posting my questions here and the backstory behind them, but I felt like I needed to reach out to a living breathing person over at Gaia headquarters rather than just dump this somewhere in the feedback forum where I wouldn’t even know if someone took the time to read it.

First off, as the person who has been working on Formula 1: Risen Quest Inizio I would love if I could get any sort of confirmation on what this is even for at this point? I’m guessing some sort of backwings, but they are clearly not the angelic ones I thought I was going after.

The heart of my first question is why did the staff feel the need to be so cryptic with the backwing formulas and lack of description on what formulas like this one were even for? Would it have been that bad to add a couple words or a sentence to the first formula’s description to let people know what type of item would be made? Considering how much effort is required to even come close to completing the formula, it only seems fair.

I spent countless hours, massive amounts of gold, and so much energy pouring my heart and soul into this quest because I thought I was going for the feathered angelic backwings that I have been waiting for since 04. For the last two months I have been working hard to track down components, haggle with sellers, and on many occasions stalk the vend constantly for components that there were literally zero listings for at the time. I was given a square peg, round hole, and left to spend hours a day gnawing that peg to somehow make it fit. There were times I did three way trades, finding one user with something I needed, discovering out what component they were after, than haggling with another user to get something I could trade to another user so I could finally bring it all the way back and trade to get one component closer to finishing this quest.

It was a long grueling grind and I spent hours each and every day since I got this formula, working this quest for months to make as much progress as I have. I have just reached formula 9 in the quest chain for those curious. While I am the first to admit I have more gold than the average Gaian is going to want to throw at this, I am nowhere near rich enough to just buy every little thing I need, if it is even listed. I had to work carefully on every purchase to make sure it would be within budget so I would have a hope at having enough funds to make it all the way through. I had to do all this in a System that is almost all demand and no supply.

Still, I hoped my effort would pay off because of course I was under the impression I was going after the white angelic feathered wings I had been waiting years upon years to show up. For the longest time there was nothing to tell me otherwise.

The quest had been requiring nearly all angelic items when it came to the giftbox rares needed, not to mention all the feather components I was sacrificing and I thought must symbolize the adding of the feathers on to the wings. The formula’s title certainly didn’t help. Risen, that sounds angelic. Rising up to heaven like all good little Gaians should. They even have the same tiny picture of white wings that the ‘Angelic’ ones, just listed in bidblast, have only the bubble is blue not gold.

I was nearly finished with formula 8 before the wings showed up in bidblast to finally give me an inkling at how wrong I was. That is 269 cache components into this quest chain and that is only counting the philosopher’s cache components, not the giftbox rares, store items, or other formulas I have had to pick up to sacrifice in this.

This is the first time an avatar forum site managed to bring me to tears over something , so bravo to you guys on that. You wanted this to involve blood, sweat, and tears and it has taken all. Too bad for me it got me nowhere. My only consolation is apparently I am not the only idiot who thought the Risen quest was going to be for angelic backwings. There were several threads floating around Gaia with discussions on it, and of course no one from Gaia Team felt the need to point out how wrong we were although someone popped in within an hour of releasing the angelic and demonic formulas in the bidblast to tell us they have been in the Alchemist’s Case the entire time…

Even worse so many of my close friends had been cheering me on and chipping in along the way which breaks my heart because I don’t want them to know how truly soul crushing this has been after all the effort. My dear, level 10 friend, Computosaurus, agreed to be my alchemy slave in this monstrous undertaking and handle the alchemy side of combining things while I brought the components to her. Another of my friend’s, MonkeyQueenForever, has been putting in nearly as much time as me to track down components and buying things I need, all so she can donate them to me. It has been kindness like this that has given me the strength to force myself to complete the Risen quest even though it appears to be for white demon wings that will lack the feathers I so desire.

Users have been trying to lift my spirits up for the last couple of days by remarking I could attempt to make profit off selling whatever pops out of my Risen quest at the end, but this was never about profit for me. It was about completing a quest I’ve been waiting for since 04 and now not only did I find out I'm on the wrong quest but I know I won’t have the funds, energy, or time to even give it a second try, if by some miracle I was able to get an angelic formula.

I’m trying to shake off my pity party but I felt like I had to get my story out there because I am a living breathing person behind this computer screen and I am also the face of one of the users who is clearly by your standards not hardcore enough for angelic backwings. I'm not even sure what I expect to get out of this post. Clearly nothing is going to fix it for me minus a pair of angelic wings dropping down from the heavens as payment for all the effort and time I have spent. Perhaps this will at least prompt someone to tack on a description to similar formulas so other users are not so misled in the future.

My final question for the night, is this really all you hoped the angelic backwing quest to be?

[Fractale]

1: We learned that the Gaia world is hollow, and inhabited by the “Core People” that formed a group called the UTSC (Universal Transcendent Spirit Collective) (believers of a non-traditional religion, and who sought true enlightenment mentioned in the Reve Rouille EI Report. Are we going to be seeing this group again, preferably outside of the EI Report, and in the manga, instead? Seeing the core of Gaia and what goes on there, would be pretty cool

2: If Meili isn't dead (or is revived, eventually, if he is dead), will he and Gino get back together, to be BFF? Sort of like a Calvin and Hobbes type relationship?

3: What ever happened to the idea of Gashamon? Mewpit was the first ever Gashamon Item, and its numbered as #003. Why aren't there any more Gashamon, and how many were there supposed to be?

4: Why haven't the following SD Plus dolls been made, yet, instead of constant new ones filling the gaps?
Mr Crux, HE, Gemini Twins, Pisces, Olivia, Rin, Lin, Kin, Faunzy, Dally, Lilja, Sprout, Drystan, Macduff, Puli, Denwen, Winsor, Fei, Dreamcatcher, Presentina...
The full list of missed SDPlus dolls is here

[.~.Lady_Aji.~.]

Evening, Lanzer.

When is HQ going to realize that the site's Alchemy featured is totally messed up and give it the re-haul that it needs? I don't mind a challenge, but this feature is damn near impossible to participate in. Also, if only a small percentage of the userbase was suppose to be able to use Alchemy, why shove it down everybody's throats during events? Alchemy should be accessible to everyone and not just those with extreme luck and GC to burn. On another note, stop putting alchemy formulas in the Treehouse. That's what the Bifrost is for.

I also noticed some goldshop item glitches that I would like to see taken care of. The items are the gray brisk day coat and bao. In the gray brisk day coat, a section of the coat is missing. With the bao, the problem is that for as long as we've had the ability to turn our avatars around, I noticed that the bao doesn't layer properly with the bao hairstyle. This same glitch is also happening with the bao recolors. I would like these items to be fixed please.

Screenshots:

[Loobee]

What happened to Panagrammic? He was one of the few people who actually communicated with us. He was so nice and had such great ideas. I miss him.

[lanzer]

MrsrachaelSnape

Hi Lanzer

1. I love the idea of Alchemy just not how hard it is to get components.
Can’t components be easy to get. Why not have them in many ways to win it? Like mini games, zomg, town/rally and so on. A lot of old features get forgotten , why have components in old mini games and such .Therefore there is more components as well more people using old features .It’s a win win.

2. Can we have a re-color of fairy wings in gold shop? Like red ?
My thread-http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/re-color-fairy-wings/t.76553199/?_gaia_t_=3934

We do have many ideas about having future alchemy be based on specifics on what people do, from mini games to zomg. Though at the beginning we want to make sure that items are not just available to people playing specific features so we didn't focus on that. We'll have more to share later.

Yeah I liked that suggestion a lot. Will pass it on. It should be a quick and easy addition to the gold shop.

[Corinth Maxwell]

Lanzer

Hello everyone! Let's start 2012's first ATA!

Hello, Lanzer! Happy New Year!

1. Concerning the Marketplace "listing view settings", can they be changed so that when a user selects to view 20, 50, or 100 items at a time on one page, it automatically -- and permanently -- becomes the new default view setting until the user decides to choose a different view option?

2. About the Housing "storage" in the Inventory Arranger -- would it be at all possible and/or feasible to change the default capacity of that particular storage to "unlimited", or give users another high numbered (250/500/1,000/etc.) housing inventory expansion that users would have to "purchase", similar to outfit save slots?

3. About the Marketplace Notifications we get every time an item sells -- instead of us getting a single message for each item, is it at all possible to get a daily, weekly, or bi-weekly "digest" of what did or didn't sell from our individual stores?

Hope you don't get flooded with three weeks' worth of questions waiting to be asked! cat_xd cat_sweatdrop

[MistressMinako]

- What happened to Pan? Was he moved to another part of the site where he could no longer speak with users or update the dev notices?

- Why were basic back wings turned into something very, very few people will ever have a shot at? What happened to making basic items like that, available to everyone?

- The "trickle-down effect" isn't working. Why are components so rare? Is this really what was intended for Alchemy?

- Is the staff actually taking any of the feedback about Alchemy to heart?

[MrsrachaelSnape]

Lanzer

MrsrachaelSnape

Hi Lanzer

1. I love the idea of Alchemy just not how hard it is to get components.
Can’t components be easy to get. Why not have them in many ways to win it? Like mini games, zomg, town/rally and so on. A lot of old features get forgotten , why have components in old mini games and such .Therefore there is more components as well more people using old features .It’s a win win.

2. Can we have a re-color of fairy wings in gold shop? Like red ?
My thread-http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/re-color-fairy-wings/t.76553199/?_gaia_t_=3934

We do have many ideas about having future alchemy be based on specifics on what people do, from mini games to zomg. Though at the beginning we want to make sure that items are not just available to people playing specific features so we didn't focus on that. We'll have more to share later.

Yeah I liked that suggestion a lot. Will pass it on. It should be a quick and easy addition to the gold shop.

That was fast. Thanks for answering. I hope there is more components

[Fractale]

Loobee

What happened to Panagrammic? He was one of the few people who actually communicated with us. He was so nice and had such great ideas. I miss him.

I thought this was just a groundless rumor . Has Pan really been fired, or relocated or whatever? I'll be pretty disappointed if we lost one of the greatest devs who actually made an effort to keep the lines of communication open.

[The Undead Suitor]

Is there any chance for someone with a knowledge of percentages and drop rates working on alchemy, or are you going to let the short sighted artists continue to have free reign to run the system into the ground?

[Shedeem]

MrsrachaelSnape

I hope we get both, and none a long wait.

[MrsrachaelSnape]

FairyOfGrace

MrsrachaelSnape

I hope we get both, and none a long wait.

Yeah next week I'll have to ask about white russian rofl and not the drink

[Ridley Starsmore]

1. Why can't anyone else host the ATA? near a month seems like a long time.

2. I hear over and over again Alchemy isn't broke. Your userbase disagrees. This isn't a question, just an informational statement. You may want to ask the ones responsible why it's failing so hard.

3. Why are the angelic and demonic wings in a broken thing like Alchemy? That is NOT available to everyone. It is a crying shame that it has to be released through bid blast so the highest farming exchanger can get the ONLY one that has appeared in 6 months.