It's been years since we adjust Gaia's site design, and today we've made a big move in centering all the fixed width pages on Gaia. It'll allow us to add more themes and designs for events and features, but it's definitely a big change in usability and expectation. I'm sorry for those who wish for Gaia to remain to be left justified.
A lot more work had been placed into the Halloween event, and soon there will be another gold sink event. Please keep an eye out and enjoy the event!
Another Monday, another ATA and I feel it is important for me to ask the two questions that are on all Gaians' minds. First off, how is our adorable praying mantis pet/companion item coming? Next, what features will this upcoming Halloween Event have to make it accessible and enjoyable to the praying mantises who currently use Gaia. Please keep in mind that mantises make up at least .000001337% of your userbase.
For funsies, this was Taboo's face when he looked up his account worth today.
gaia, why can't you give us an opt-out? i know you forced centering on us cause that stupid anime site pretty much said "no centering, no money", but think of the community for once, instead of money!
and why is the post reply page centered! that's part of forums! ><
EDIT: i was refreshing the page for ten minutes cause it was so late. i was having heart palpitations...
EDIT2: you know people are going to make greasemonkey and stylish scripts to undo your centered abomination, right?
EDIT3: my reply back to lanzer. if given an option to go back to left, people will spend more gcash cause they won't be as pissed.
EDIT4: it's obvious you guys don't care about mobile users, either. the background wastes all their space! D:<
EDIT5: why should we conform? make gaia the better site!domokun stargate
I just wanted to say that this past month has been really trying for many of your members. There have been several decsions made that have had a very negative impact on the community. (See Below for List)
These decisions have left many users wondering about the direction Gaia is headed in, and prompted some to leave.
My question at this point would be, just to what extent are you aware of, and planning to act on, the growing discontent within the community?
Also, in light of the current atmosphere that's been created, is there any hope of:
-Decreasing the frequency of Cash sales? [Many users have been left feeling alienated by your virtually non-stop cash pushes. Even those who are interested in purchasing the items are left unable to keep up with your break-neck release pace.]
-Introducing more GC items in a lower price range? [Most of the newer releases have fallen into a price range of upwards of $35. It'd be nice to see more items in the $.99 - $15 range.]
-Guaranteeing a "cool down" period before releasing anymore gold generators? [With little over a month between the last two releases of Flynn's Booty, the marketplace is in chaos, and needs time to recover.]
-Getting more involved in the forums? There are a few staff members who are really excellent about this (I wanna give a shout out to Uncle Kenny and siskataya here) however, often times it feels like voiced frustrations go unheard, and it could really help regain the trust of the userbase if we felt like the staff was willing to get involved and respond to our feedback more. September's Hot Topics: This Month Gaia...
Re-Released Flynn's Booty only a month after the last sale.
Inflation is still rampant after the last release, and as many times as I've heard staff (mainly Uncle Kenny) telling us that the inflation is temporary, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the economy has not had enough time to recover. You clearly do not care about the adverse affects this is having on your users.
Released Flynn's Chest (An Even Larger Gold Generator) at the Same Time
Apparently this one is "twice as nice" as it is guaranteed to make you a millionaire, and has the chance to contain up to 250 million gold! Apparently Flynn's booty just wasn't enough inflation.
Released Back Wings via Cash Shop
Not sure how many oldbies we have out there, but back wings were always the holy grail of this site. Always promised, much anticipated, and sold as the ultimate item. We were told when we finally received them they would not be a cash item, but an item that would be obtainable by all Gaians who were willing to work for them. Enter: Alchemy. Everyone knows how flawed the entire feature was, but some put themselves through the hell of leveling to obtain the Back Wings only to have them released via the Cash Shop as a "fix" for the Alchemy system. Thanks again Gaia HQ.
Introduced A New Game, Only for Gaia Cash
I should note here the game is playable without GC, up to about 6 times a day-that's a it. There is no reward for playing the free version, and it's still a little buggy. Everyone here has access to crappy games all over the internet for free, why Gaia expects it's users to pay for a chanceat being rewarded by something we were always guaranteed a reward from in the past is beyond me. This is a new low, and a sad step for Gaia. I've been here since '03 and have never felt so unappreciated and excluded.
Released even more Halos
To help promote their new game Gaia released 6 more halos, the most coveted item on the site. After the major outrage at selling them you think they might be a bit more considerate during a time where much of their userbase is losing faith in the site.
Gave Us No Gold Shop Update
We received some nice items from the CrossStich competition and.... well that's it actually. Only 3 recolors of the items, and nothing else. No real gold shop update, nothing that wasn't designed for you by your users, thanks for giving back to the community. /sarcasm
Released a HIGHLY Offense Survey
Gaia released a survey that was unprofessional and body-shaming. After scrolling through several uncredited images of cat woman, users were then treated to a series of images that had real life people shown in swimsuits partnered with insulting titles such as "whale" and "Fat as Fatass".
Sure they apologized, but it also should have never happened, and if they had even cared a bit it wouldn't have. There was zero over site on something that was released to thousands of users, many of whom are young, impressionable, and highly susceptible to self-esteem issues. Several users admitted to being triggered by the survey and Gaia was took several hours to issue an apology.
Re-Released Essentially the Same Survey
Yup that's right. Forget Gaia acting on it's apology and proving to users that it actually does care, and it was an honest mistake. They decided to go the opposite route and release the exact same survey, just with the offensive titles (but not even the watermark on the offensive image) cropped out. I guess they assumed their users had the memories of a goldfish and wouldn't recognize the exact same images, or perhaps they just don't care. Who knows?
Took Down HoC and Monster Galaxy
Monster Galaxy was no suprise, it had been unplayable for a while, but HoC had a kind of cult following and the removal was unexpected. I think most users (after being let down by Gaia's decision to stop updating the game or moving it out of Beta) believed Heralds of Chaos would go the way of zOmg and stay in maintenance mode, but Gaia abruptly pulled the game leading to much disappointment for the fans.
Introduced Pop Up Adds
Everyone's favorite! Oh wait, no it's not. Gaia has now resorted to outright spamming their users with pop up adds.
Introduced Flash Space Ads
To the dismay of many users Gaia introduced new ads to the flash spaces. This has caused issues for several users who have had the ads adversely affect how flash spaces run on their computer and their experience in general.
Introduced Centered Site
Despite asking the opinion of users and receiving negative feedback on the idea, Gaia decided to push the new change through anyway. Now users are stuck dealing with the bugs and new issues from a site change most did not want.
See more in my SF thread: The Month From Hell ^ Looks like I didn't get a response. After party in my thread?
I meant to ask this last week but couldnt make it. Kenny hinted of vague talks, but could this be a likly possibility?
Poker has been something that I have hoped to see on gaia ever since the release of the casino.
I know poker has been potentially over looked for many reasons such as legality of gambling and potential difficulty in moderation and cheating prevention.
But with massive need for gold sinks, as well as gaias continued expansion into gambling based games (Like the choose your item lotto, or micro payment smashblox tourneys) it seems its almost pokers time.
As a gold sink. (Example)
If you had a 9 person sit and go for which the buy-in was 1m gold + 100k, that would create a prize pool of 9m (normally split something like 4.5m > 2.7m > 1.8m > 0). As well as a rake (Money that go's to the house/gaia gold sink) of 900k.
a 10% rake on all games/buy-in levels is pretty normal in poker, and I dont see why anyone who understands poker would have a issue with this fee.
As a micro payment game
Much like in the way of facebook poker games. You could allow people to use GC buy-ins as opposed to the gold equivilent. And since all payouts would still be in gold. You buy pass the issues of using money to win money (gambling). People love the chance to put in something smaller and win something bigger. Could be very popular. Could also potentially draw in a new crowd of gaians. Or draw back some older ones.
Visually poker takes very little work. A table design and card designs. Not too much of a step up from anything we already have in the casino. The only real tricky part is getting a propper RNG to faily deal cards, and then software which can process bet ammounts/winnings. Which Im sure you guys can manage. And a in game chat prehaps.
With this is does "gaia poker" have any chance of going on the table as something to discuss as a future possibility any time in the near/distant future?
So table lamp lightbulb ran out, replaced with a long lasting eco-conscious globe-shapped fluorescent alternative from the future-present, to try it out.
Pricy thing, short term at least. Shape means I can't use the old shade but that's no trouble since I busted said shade not too long ago. Bare bulb was bare, like it's going commando, except like not, blinding...
...Oh wait this is AtA...
How's the inventory arranger coming along?
Will I see it before the end of the year? :U
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Hi there. A few weeks ago I asked if there was a way to make donor status carry over. In order to make ads go away, you have to spend $2.50 a month, so if I were to do that for one year, it'd be around $30. On September 1st, I bought something in a sale that was $50. I was really discouraged to find out that donor status doesn't carry over. With a $50 purchase one month, I'm kind of strapped, even if it were just $2.50 a month. With all the more expensive items that are being sold in the Cash Shop and Club Verge, is there any way donor status could get extended? Frankly, I can't really afford to spend $30 ($2.50/mo) nor can I really not swing what I recently bought but that's another story for another day.
I was told that it would be looked in to, and I didn't get an update last week. Hopefully today is my lucky day! Any updates on perhaps making donor status extend with larger purchases? The answer will determine how much I buy Gaia Cash in the future.
Also, wanted to comment on site centering. I hate it. I feel very closed in. I hope there will be a way to make it left aligned in the labs (or a grease money script soon. =/ ) because my tiny screen is already crammed enough. =/
Just wanted to ask do you guys still plan on releasing Flynns Booty again? Even after all the inflation it caused?
And also what are your thoughts on this current inflation? Can you guys just stop releasing Flynn's Booty so the economy can heal? What I'm basically saying is, are you guys going to stop releasing it?
I would like to know how many more times you plan to release these Flynn's Booty items? How bad does inflation have to get before you put a stop to it?
1) FLYNN'S BOOTY/CHEST/ASSORTED BODY PARTS/OTHER SIMILAR THINGS
About two weeks ago I posted in the Ask The Admin thread asking about Flynn's Booty. I was on the first page. By the time I got replies, ATA was ending and I didn't get an answer to the last thing I asked. I let it go, that happens with ATA. Now I want my question answered though.
Quote:
Dear Gaia staff,
Flynn's Booty. What the hell, man? What the hell? WHY?! Why must you keep releasing Flynn's Booty again and again? Initially, you made the claim (which I am still skeptical of) that due to its limited amounts it would not be a long term damage to the economy of Gaia. But then you've kept releasing it again and again in such a short time span. You added them to a sale, you then offered 25 of them for five dollars to accounts which had not used GC before (how long the offer lasts, I'm not sure personally, maybe it is said somewhere though), now you've extended that offer of 25 of the Flynn item for five dollars to accounts which have met some unspecified type/level of activity and support for Gaia for a time period which is not clearly specified. (In that last case it says it is a reward for the activity and support. I hope this isn't considered one of the rewards for non-GC forms of loyalty because a GC offer as reward for the non-GC stuff would be completely inappropriate as any sort of "reward." Please, explain yourselves here Gaia.
P.S. Thanks for the mouth pose in Vega and not attaching it to other stuff or charging eleventy bazillion gold/monies for it.
Zero Omega
We totally understand the concern about the Flynn's Booty. Never fear, we've been actively talking about and conceiving new ideas for gold sinks that I think will blow you guys away.
bluecherry
Been hearing that a while now. How far away are these things approximately? What sorts of things? Also, how does this fit in with the original notion of Flynn's Booty being non-threatening to the economy due to the limited amount of its release? I don't want to end up having things that cost a huge amount of gold in order to sink gold in order to try to fight off other things costing a huge amount of gold because Gaia has continued to keep releasing an item that floods the economy with gold quickly. If that is the sort of gold sink we'd be getting or if we'd be getting no gold sinks, we'd still either way be in a really tough spot if we weren't people who got Flynn's Booty with things getting much more expensive. Even if you did get Flynn's Booty, if the extra gold from that inflates things to the point that it raises how much gold is the new normal for a person to have and things to cost, then that means people were paying real money just to keep at a level of purchasing power which had previously been available without paying that money.
Zero Omega
You have to keep in mind that creating a good gold sink means creating something that is desirable and can provide consistent sinking, but is also fair to our users and does a good job. It isn't something that can just come out, it also is something that would require development time. So it may take a bit, but we definitely hear you on them, we definitely want them out, so we're going to keep working on them to provide them to you.
bluecherry
I can understand it taking a while to craft some good gold sinks. But why keep releasing Flynn's Booty now then if we won't be getting those gold sinks for a while?
I know you guys work on different teams, but would it be that hard to communicate with each other a bit to say, "Hey, guys, we're not done thing X yet, so could you hold off on releasing your thing Y?"
2) SITE CENTERING
The poll. Was your goal to find out not if most people supported centering, but instead if most people would be angry or not if you centered the site? If so, making that clear would have been nice. Also, neutral option included "or I already use the labs centered site" -- somebody could be using centered site and still not want it to be made mandatory for everybody. Those neutral may not have all been so neutral on making this mandatory after all.
3)ALCHEMY
Ivan's surplus is swell, but can you please, PLEASE get it off the backburner and fix it? Hundreds of dollars to straight out buy wings is not a fine and dandy solution to hold us over for who knows how long.
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