Ask the Staff - 24 Nov 2014

[~ Aki - Fairy ~]

Items

A lot of users have reported being unable to buy the zOMG Grab Bags and then for those that can buy them and open them up, the contents can't really be sold on the MP, they're said to not exist/not yet have been listed, even when people have put them listed.

Could you guys maybe fix this or do people need to start filing tickets before anything is done? (I keep an eye on the Bug Report forum and it'd be nice to know what to tell people to do about the problems they have with these items)

[Nenanah]

Features

This question deals with alchemy and opening caches.

Now we have those Philosopher Cache bundles in the shop.
You can buy a ton of them, and it's very convenient for leveling up in alchemy.
But we do have an issue...

There are people who buy thousands of these at a time in hopes of finding certain colors of caches and charms for GoFusion.
When you own thousands of these unopened caches, it's a pain to open them all.
Right now we have to click through them one by one.
It's very time consuming.
And another issue that it causes is that by clicking though them it hogs bandwidth.
Not everyone has an unlimited internet data plan, and not all ISP's carry unlimited data plans unless you're on an ancient connection like dial-up or DSL.

In other words going through them one by one is creating more problems than what it's worth.
It's not user friendly in the least bit.
We shouldn't have to worry about blowing through our data plans by opening tons of caches.
An we shouldn't have to sit at the computer for hours on end trying to open these things, we have lives offline too lol.

What we need here is a simple solution.

Please give us the option to open all of our unopened caches at once.
Give us a button to click that give us the option to open them all.

My question is...

Would you please start heavily considering making opening caches more user friendly to your customers?

[Csilla Silvana]

Events
I’m not sure how much work this would be...or, er.. How much enthusiasm it would be met with, but I thought some kind of forum event with the zOMG NPCs might be a nice send off for zOMG.

[audinobutt]

Feature

Since you are coming up with ways to help people with earning gaia gold, what about a new PVE game not as extensive as zOMG but maybe something with a daily gold cap that can let the "poor" people actually earn for gold each day?

[Salathielly]

Manga

Lots of long-running manga series produce character data books that contain fun tidbits like the birthdays, likes, dislikes, and abilities of the various characters along with plot and setting summaries and more in depth information. I know that producing a physical book would be out of the question, but would there ever be any possibility of doing something like that for Gaia's NPCs in an electronic format?

[Nenanah]

Features

This question deals with GoFusion Charms in unopened Caches.

You have included the Heart Charm in the Philosopher's Cache as a rare drop.
And it's pretty awesome because it makes owning GoFusion items more realistic.

But Diamond Charms and Star Charms are still only available in the Daily Chance or Cash Shop.
They are still really hard to get.

I think that by including them in Philosopher's Cache's as rare drops would help a lot of people out.
You don't have to make them super common, make the drop rate extremely difficult to get.
It would cause a lot of people to sink gold in the Bifrost too because they would want a shot at getting these Charms.
Good gold sink and it makes GoFusion more realistic.
We all win here.

My question is...

Would you please do this?

[Breadist]

Items

I have a question!

Would you guys consider giving us this?

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/create-astra-project-custom-ticket/t.94897847/

[Princess Angelishia]

Parexus

Items

Is there anyway we could get more musical related items made? I would love to have an electronic keyboard like the one pictured below made!

Cute! We can definitely pass your suggestion along.

[ElegantlyLuminous]

Items

Yes, I'm back to wreak havoc with a totally insane, long-winded question. (The third time was apparently not the charm. Let's try for fourth- with new links to further prove my point. I will also be hitting below the emotional belt towards the end. Fair warning.) Sorry! It's only because I care about the community and love the site.

In response to my question at the ATS on 10/27 (Why can’t you remove gold generators?), you said that the major reason for not removing them was that gold generators are popular (read: people like them!) and that they help to fund your site. I have no quarrel with the second portion of this argument. I like this site and I would like for it to be here for many years to come.

I do, however, have to heartily disagree with the idea that people like gold generators. As I mentioned previously, the current statistic is that 90-92% of those polled (by Gaians) hate gold generators. (Many of these polls are linked here but I'm sure there are more recent ones that can be found quite easily.) That means that only 8-10% of your population likes them. There are multiple petitions begging for the removal of gold generators, here (2,560+ votes) and here (1,450+ votes) to list two of the larger ones. There are even two that I've seen asking for Gaia itself to be deleted or reset entirely. (I believe these threads were deleted.) More recently there was a poll here with people predicting Gaia’s imminent downfall (81.7% believe the outcome is either grim or destined for failure). Likewise, many users have vowed not to purchase GC until things change (though the OP isn’t editing her first post to reflect the numbers, there are ~167 pages of signatures).

If you get a moment, please also check out the results of this related survey. Many of the comments reflect that we want gold generators to stop. (Other common points include hope for a greater focus on the community, less emphasis on the cash shop, and honest, more transparent communication with the user-base.)

So I don’t buy the premise that “people like them.” It could well be that people are buying them because they feel they have no other choice. Not everyone understands vending and not everyone has the patience for fishing. And, let’s face it: the output from the other games is worthless nowadays. (With the sole exception being Booty Grab- and thank you very much for that update!) Gold generators are pretty much the only way that some people have to get the items that they want on this site (if they want to pay with gold) and that’s not right, considering that they’re what wrecked the economy in the first place.

The actual question is this: Have you considered having a neutral third party conduct a survey requesting feedback on gold generators or hosting a poll of your own (without any cop-out neutral answers) and then sharing the results of that survey with us?

Your sales might reflect that these items are popular- but that might be for the reason I mentioned above. Or, worse, it could be because the item descriptions in the cash shop are vague and some people don’t know what they’re buying until after they open the item. There are tons of conspiracy theories out there- I won't list them all. (I've wasted enough of your time.) Hosting a poll and having solid proof that you’re willing to share with the community could not only help to weaken one side’s argument (I don’t even care if it’s my side), it could also show the community that you care about our opinions and are genuinely willing to listen to us… something that some of us feel isn’t present at this particular moment. (If you frequent Site Feedback, that is, or if you take a look at that off-site poll.)

I understand that you're going to continue to sell these things regardless of whether or not we like them -- what I'm begging for here is for you to give us some sort of table-scrap, some little tidbit, to show us that you've heard and considered our feedback regarding them. I do sincerely apologize if this comes across poorly but, as I said, I care about us, about this community, and this is one of those issues that a good many of us are deeply concerned about. We want to be heard, listened to. We want to know that you care about us. Your lack of response, of acknowledgement regarding this glaring issue, hurts everyone who wants to know that we still matter to you as more than a dollar sign.

Thanks in advance for any answer!

[~ Aki - Fairy ~]

Features - Towns/Housing

The robot in housing commission is still set to let you "place"/"move" your house in Towns. But, with the whole that not being an option anymore it's been causing users some problems.
Could you guys possibly update that, remove the option, maybe provide a little info-guide on how to place houses in Towns 2?

[400 Lux]

You drape your wrists over the steering wheel;

Item or Misc

Is there anywhere I can go to find unit amounts of LQI's released, And/or a list of all of the LQI's released?
I run a guide and I'm missing a few. If any member of the staff can PM it to me, that'd be awesome. (or direct me to whom I should PM).

Pulses can drive from here..

[Raybeamblazer]

I would like to know if you guys are planning to make a new version of zOMG. Most people joined the site to play that and are starting to leave now because it is gone.

[harpsdesire]

Category: Items

Why is "Sainte Philia" called that, and not "Sainte Ceil: Philia"? Does this have something to do with the Ciel/Rosamund storyline, or is it just random?

I'm just curious. smile

[Nenanah]

Features

This question deals with rare bugs from towns in alchemy and Skin Tyte.

Rare bugs are needed in some alchemy formulas.
They are also needed for inks to make tattoos and body dyes.

But they almost never appear in towns.
The pink/brown/blue giftboxes, pink links, and golden/wooden trunks appear more often on the site than these bugs.

These rare bugs are heavily inflated due to the shortage of them.
To prove my point look at these Marketplace listings.
Great Monarch
Demonfly
Purple Fly
Rhino Beetle
Golden Legs

I think it would be nice to have a Rare Bug Cache as a very rare drop from an unopened Philosopher's Cache.
This way they can still be rare but be make alchemy and making inks and body dyes more realistic in doing.
It would benefit a lot of people.
It would also make buying unopened caches out of the shop a good gold sink, people would be buying them in hopes of being able to sell some rare bugs in the Marketplace.

My question is...

Would you consider doing this for us?