- Suggestions and Complaints - (FOSUC)
- Advertisements and Sponsorships - (FASPO)
New! - Thank you Gaia! You've done an awesome job with the sponsorships lately and I appreciate it. While I personally don't like the looks of the new Sonic game (not that I can play it anyways xD) I love that you guys are getting us sponsorships that your users actually like. Halo and Sonic were great sponsorships to go with. :3 Absolutely no complaints here. (Gasp, shock, horror and such.)
Thank you to Fleep for letting us know about this!
- (Moved and rewritten from the post above.) I've gotten several virus threats from Gaia lately. Loads of people are experiencing redirects, too, to dating sites, Victoria's Secret, and god knows what else. It seems to be calming down a bit, though, which I'm glad to be able to say.
- Work harder to get rid of the "illegal" ads. These are the ones over PG-13, the ones that get in the way of posting (the Circuit City ads), the ones with music, and the pop ups Let's not forgot the porn ads, too. I've seen the process for reporting these ads, and it's something that your average user won't be able to do, or want to do. It's a long, complicated process. Let mods work on them while browsing.
- Now that I understand how sponsorships work, I know that this isn't easy. But let's say you get four different sponsors and can only pick one. Please, please try to pick the one that would be best for your users. HSM 3 was a huge mistake. That's all I can say.
- Aquariums - (FAQUA)
New! - The new Kiki and Coco fish are cute. Nice idea, guys. The mermaid, though...far too expensive. I don't care how long it lives or how it doubles booty grab gold. $8 is outrageous and more than some of your EIs. If it had been $4, I know a lot of people would have been more willing to buy it.
- Give us a way to put in our Fishing game fish. That's why we wanted aquariums in the first place. You took that idea and twisted it around into something cruel and ugly; a mockery of your users. You took the idea and used it only to make more money for yourselves, and it's nothing less than an insult. At least give us
another aquarium - a
free aquarium, that we can put our fishing fish in.
- Lower the prices of some of the items. $4 for
bubbles is insane. $5 for a fish that will die is insane. $5 for background items is insane.
- Cash Shop, Evolving Items, and Monthly Collectibles - (FECM)
And also kind of the RL Gaia store 8D
New! A thread about RL Merchandise got my creative juices flowing earlier, and I realized that the RL Merchandise shop hasn't been updated in awhile. So here's a few of my personal suggestions (that I would not mind if they were used, and would most certainly try my best to buy one if they looked to be of good quality.)
A Panda Hoodie! Or a white Kiki Hoodie. I would love love love a Kiki or Coco hoodie, as long as it came with the kitty ears and the embroidered eyes in the right colors like the OMG Hat. You could take it even further and add a tail to the back of the hoodie, but that may put some people off so it should be optional or something.
And as far as that goes...an OMGhoodie (Oh my goodie), which would be a hoodie with an OMG hood, complete with the ear flaps and tail.
Big coffee mugs. I loooooooooove cappucinos, coffee, hot chocolate, and plain ol' coffee mugs. IIRC, you guys offer a service where we can have our avatars on coffee mugs, but how about some more Gaia oriented designs, like a black mug with Cocos, or a white mug with Kikis? And the bigger the coffee mug, the better. :3
I've got a ton more of ideas like this but don't feel like wasting space on it. x3
And since I'm on the subject, a word of advice: If you don't have to, don't pull things from the shops. I'm guessing that it doesn't cost too much to leave things up for an extended period of time (could be wrong though), so what does it hurt to leave them up?
New! - All of my updates today were happy and free of complaint, but if it seems too good to be true, that's because it is. Currently there are three $10 EIs, 4 $7.49 EIs, 2 $4.99 EIs, and 2 $2.99 EIs. Doesn't that strike even you guys as a bit much? Can't you let up
just a little? How about instead of releasing so many expensive EIs (or simply so many EIs in general) without rhyme or reason, you try following some kind of schedule or something? This is just too much at once, and I think you'd see a higher profit if you spaced them out a bit more. Your users that are willing to pay likely have some kind of budget, a set amount that they can't go over. In order to increase customer spending and satisfaction, instead of having 3 $10 EIs out at once, space them out so that someone with a monthly limit will still be able to buy all three at first gen. This helps both paying and non paying users. Paying users will be able to buy more, and non paying users will be a little less likely to think that all you want is money. I'm still disappointed in how cash oriented Gaia is becoming, though. And it seems to be escalating lately, with more and more users thinking your main concern lies in making a profit. Please make us think otherwise.
- How about a hair EI that doesn't suck? The Gro-gain looks half assed at best. How about you make another one with some nice hair styles (NOT hair style ideas stolen from your users, eh?) that come in a multitude of colors. You'll have to stretch your imaginations to do so, because it would be pretty much cruel to use standard kinds of hair (really long as has been requested) etc. that would belong in the cash shop. But things like you did with the elemental hair, more unrealistic and fastasy based...that would be good.
- We need a new EI system. Whatwith the recent Gem2niki fiasco, we need a solution. As I've said before, when users buy EIs as soon as they're released, they are putting complete trust in your ability to make the item satisfactory. The fact that you make new evolutions as you go along (as in not doing all of the evolutions at once, but rather, over time), is fine, but you at least need to set some guidelines. For example, you make a new EI and sell it for $5. Since, apparently, there's a pose limit,
tell us ahead of time. Set a minimum number of poses for every item and tell us when it comes out. "This new EI will have at least 25 poses!" If you want to do more than that, awesome. If not, at least we knew what to expect.
-Also about EI poses: Stop gipping us. Just because the Gimpi had 8 evolutions and so many different poses doesn't mean that we got our money's worth. Case in point: Four poses of the same ! bubble, simply in different positions. I'm not saying that that's bad, but it doesn't really count, does it? It's just the same item moved around. Recolors can be good, but not when they command most of the poses in an EI, because it seems lazy, to say the very least.
- Allow me to rewrite this now that I've considerably cooled off and can write my feelings on the subject more politely. I'm disappointed with the random chance items. On one hand, I believe that the chance offered is too slim. While I most certainly don't want 1/5 users running around with chicky slippers, I do feel that after being given 12 eggs as a gift and gaining two oni sets and no other items worth mentioning, it was a bit of a rip. The same can be said for the other chance items. An item like this just drags users in, which is a
great marketing strategy, yes, but also a bit on the unfair side as well.
I also feel that it truly is gambling, and I just don't see how that's allowed on here after the big problem with Gaia having simply
virtual gambling. To many, many users, 5,000,000 gold is the jackpot, and they will pay, and pay, and pay to get that. But there's a chance that they won't, which effectively makes it gambling.
And while I'm rewriting this, allow me to state that while I understand that Gaia is likely in debt to its investors (and I appreciate you guys doing that for us, I truly do, though I still have some trouble believing that the debt is horrific or enough to make $10 for several items necessary), I do think that by lowering prices, you would open up many new venues. A lower price would mean more items could be released for cash with less frustration. It would also mean more sales.
Updated! And one more addition; many users can't just 'buy items from the marketplace'. It's honestly not that easy, and I wish that was more widely understood, not just by staff, but by users that have sufficient gold either from selling art, selling rare items, vending, etc. Not everyone is talented in those ways. I've had a lot of people argue with me on this subject. And now, I come bearing proof that the devs are full of it when they say "Just buy it from the marketplace, anyone can get these items, you just have to work for them!"
My very good friend
found a quote of a dev saying that the MP prices are too steep. I find the irony in this to be simply gorgeous. I'm not trying to cause any problems for this dev, as they've done nothing wrong in this case. But other devs and some users have ranted and raved at me that if I think the cash shop prices are too steep, I can simply buy it on the Marketplace. But I don't agree with that. While I don't do dailies much, I post quite a bit every day. Probably more than the average user, I'm not sure. Since the day this thread was originally started in early October (if I recall), and after selling some gold shop items, and spending no more than 1,000 gold maximum, I have a whopping total of 18,000 gold. That's
five months (which, now that I've thought about it, surprises me even more). 18,000 gold earned by posting continuously within a five month span is ridiculous. But I digress - this isn't about the gold, but rather, the fact that, generally speaking, average use of the site will NOT give you enough gold to acquire an expensive EI. It just doesn't work that way. I have what I have because I run art shops. But what about the average user? They're screwed, that's what.
So, no. We can't just
buy it off the MP. And I think even the devs that told me that I could do such realize this.
- I've tried to keep this letter polite and constructive. I've tried to keep a positive outlook on this, even going so far as to rewrite the thread to make it nicer. But this is just too much. Before, this letter focused a lot on my - and a lot of other users' - problem with the cash shop. But I tried to change gears, hoping that we were just at a dark phase of Gaia's history. But now I see that we have
three ten dollar evolving items. That's a huge step over the line. Again, I'll mention that we were promised, by Lanzer himself, (
here's a link to an announcement that touches on this) that the cash shop would not impose on us and that it would be cheap and affordable for everyone, with few things costing more than $5. Sorry to say it, but that's just not true.
- $10 for one item is absolutely laughable. I understand that you need money but this is just too much. There are two solutions to this problem, both of which will get you more sales. The first solution is to let us wear as many of the poses as we want, or at least, say, 5-6 at once, aside from layering issues, obviously. The second solution is to lower the price. We may be getting, say, 40 poses off of one item, but you can still only wear
one of those poses at once, so, regardless of how many poses you give us, we still are paying $10, or even $5 for a single item. Either one you choose, or even if you choose both, will very likely see an increase in sales. If you only lowered the prices, that would boost the sales even more.
- Space out all things that require cash. Everyone is suffering from the dying economy - not just you. The fairer you are about this, the more sales you'll make in the long run. But if you keep releasing so many items, regardless of the price, for cash only, people will eventually get frustrated. They already are.
- It would be nice if there were no more monthly collectibles like the Mythril Armor that required five or more letters to complete the set. That's just a cheap way of you milking more money from us.
- No more Mythril Coins or anything like it. You're going against yourself with that, and all for a quick buck. Those coins may have gotten you a lot of money, but it also
destroyed the Gaian economy, making us suffer in the long run. I know that Lanzer didn't want to put the 2% tax on the market place. And I'm sure you all argued about it. But you just wasted all of your time and effort doing that by releasing "get rich quick" methods. In the end, it only ensures more money for you, because things inflated so much, so quickly, but the amount of gold that the average user (as in, users unable to buy cash) didn't increase in the slightest. You tell us to just buy the items off the Market Place, but we can't when we don't have any gold, can we? That means that if we want the item, we
have to pay with cash. It's as simple as that.
Now Fail Coins and the re-release of Mythril Coins. More economy destroying.
Now another rerelease of Mythril Coins, this time ones that went against the item's original description.
Now Gold Gold Revolution. You're basically selling gold for cash. Not to mention the fact that it is KILLING the economy.
- The issues with cash cards still stands. Users that don't live in the US (and even some that do) still do not have access to the cards. That's just even more unfair, and you're losing a lot of customers and sales over it. I know that personally, even here in the US, I can't get cards. I've checked KMart,
Wal-Mart, and Rite Aid, and none of them in my area have the cash cards. What happened with that? I thought all of the Rite Aids and KMarts got cards.
- Not only that, but T-Mobile still isn't supported when trying to buy monthly collectibles via mobile.
- A lot of people are having issues where their evolving items of a later generation aren't evolving on time or at all. They're still stuck in early phases. This is something that needs to be fixed immediately, or be of very high priority, because these people (usually) paid real money for these items that aren't working. I, personally, have some "backwards" EIs. They're hard to explain, so screenshots soon.
- Add in a feature that when a user buys cash or enters in a cash card code they get all ads removed from the site, just like when we buy MCs. Some people get cash and then buy the MCs now, but they should still get the same features.
- Events - (FEVENT)
New! - Thanks a lot Gaia. You just brought about more hate, more anger, more elitism. So many people are upset and disappointed right now, and with such good reason.
I love gold items, but I no longer have my 03 account. Even if I did, I couldn't use that sash anyways. And I love pink items, too. But I can't buy an 08 scarf.
Why are status items so important to you guys? Do you enjoy us being at eachother's throats because people think they're special for having old/rare/expensive items?
Today is supposed to be a day about unity. We're a giant comm
unity, and we should act like it. But you're dividing us further, causing more problems. You ruined the even just because you felt that it was necessary to give us more status items. What does it really hurt?
I think you guys like seeing SF explode and all of us at eachother's throats. In fact I'm willing to bet that you guys bet on us. "Okay, I've got $10 on ______ getting pissed about this and immediately making a post about it!" I'm half joking with this, I mean it's not really a bad thing, as far as you guys betting on us but...there's just no need to cause more elitism. Start unifying us instead, Gaia. Please, the community is falling apart more and more every day.
- For a small event, this event was pretty good, generally speaking. The idea was new and we didn't have to spread a bunch of mono. I
am disappointed in the items, however, and even more disappointed that there were only two, as opposed to four new items in the cash shop. Couldn't you have at least evened it out or something? I knew this was going to happen. The cash items were pretty good; Mono is cute, the Sexy Present was a huge hit (despite the fact that you stole the argyle socks, but I digress), and the items are well done. But we that can't pay can't enjoy the site as much as someone that can. Proof of this lies in the shitty items, and the fact that we can't get Flynn to accept our Valentine unless we've bought cash before (I think.) How lame! Why should cash play into the event? Isn't it enough of a reward to get awesome items for cash? Does it really have to affect a generally "core feature" of the site? It just seems like more money grubbing to me. And if you want to say that you AREN'T money grubbing, do me a favor: PROVE IT.
Speaking of requirements, what's with making some of the requirements so hard? Couldn't you have thought of things that were actually achievable, instead of having to be at least 21 to get a reply from Moira?
There's little point in pointing this out considering the fact that the event is nearly over, but I lost all of my valentines from the first day, and now I'm not even getting alerted of new ones. I just happened to see them when I went to see if the event was fixed. I wanted to screencap some. D:
New!- Misc - (FMISC)
New! - [Edited]. You sneaky, sneaky devs. I see that hotdog now. But in this case, it's not that bad. I didn't even notice it at first (though admittedly I don't read EI reports more than a quick scan over the preview banners) until someone pointed it out to me.
Sneaky.
New! -
The damn hotdog. We get it. It's an inside joke. You guys like hotdogs. Har har, it's hilarious. But it's also annoying and pretty improfessional. An inside joke is called such for a reason - keep it to yourselves already before you wear the 'joke' out even more.
Updated! Disregard that, I love hotdogs! Thank you for the hotdogs, admins! :3
New! - Okay. Fanservice. I know that most people enjoy it, so I won't let my personal feelings bias this too much. I will say, however, that there's no need to take it so far. The only NPC that I really like is Rufus, but if I did like any male NPCs, or even female NPCs, I can assure you, I don't need to see their chests to enjoy new art of them. Not everything needs to have a sexual tone because you're slowly pushing it too far. You can give us fanservice without making gay guys and slutty women drawn half naked.
- Premium - (FPREM)
- Premium features, such as the Aquarium, are also unfair. It doesn't matter that we can buy the fish from the Marketplace or get things through the daily chance. It's still a pay-to-play feature, and we were promised that that would not happen to Gaia. The items wouldn't be on the Marketplace (overly expensive) if it weren't for people buying the items with cash in the first place. Daily Chance usually gives out crap as opposed to enough fish to sustain the tank.
- Anything premium on Gaia, namely features, is breaking your promise. It was promised to us that Gaia would be free to play forever. However, now we're hearing about "core" Gaia, being the forums and avatars and guilds, mainly, being free, but other things being pay to play in the future. That is wrong, and it's just a way to not break your promise by being technical. You will lose a good amount of users if you do this, and we can guarantee that.
- Glitches and Features - (FGAF)
New!- Apparently, yesterday (2/19), Gaia died not once but three times. I would have liked to have had an announcement about this, but I'll keep my out on dev journals for information, I guess.
New!-I'm totally surprised but thank you guys for taking down Towns to work on it. I've yet to find information on what exactly took place (or even if it's back up yet or anything), but thank you guys for putting up the banner letting us know, and for showing conscious effort in fixing it. If you patched it, I hope it's holding up. :3
- Slow down hotshot! You're browsing the site at your average speed, and our servers just don't like that! This isn't a ban, but keep it up and we'll accuse you of botting!
Can something be done about this? I wasn't even doing anything
quickly. I hopped into a thread, read a bit, and tried to hit "back", and got that message 3 refreshes in a row. What about those of us that vend? We shouldn't be worried about being banned because we browse the site quickly, in a totally legal manner. I'm afraid to vend now.
- Cards needs an overhaul as well. It seems like all of the free parts of Gaia are breaking down left and right, huh?
Tokens aren't registering
thread here, and Cards and Slots both are apparently glitchy enough to remove avatar faces. While the latter isn't a very big deal, it's still annoying to see. It's just hard seeing that none of the games work like they should, and yet, they're not really being worked on or updated in any way.
- Now Cinemas and VJ are facing the exact same problems as towns. Not to mention the fact that we are getting redirected everywhere. I've been redirected while posting a message as well as have had several redirect attempts at once. Another user was redirected when they clicked on the My Gaia tab, and one of my friends keeps getting redirected as well. I hope that this is of very high priority right now, because Gaia isn't worth getting redirects that could potentially harm my computer.
This is a
huge concern that members all over the site should be aware of.
This thread gives a lot of information on the current crisis within towns, Rally, and all other flash environments. There are security holes within Towns that allows scriptors to redirect you to other sites without your permission, which could give you trojans, viruses, and cookie grabbers. Ultimately, your very identity is at stake. Bank account, Paypal, and any other personal information could be up for grabs. This is a huge issue, and personally, one that I can't believe Gaia would let take place. It needs to be of highest priority, and fixed immediately.
PLEASE KEEP THE LINKED THREAD ALIVE. THIS IS SOMETHING EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.
- Lately, Jigsaws has become glitched to where it doesn't grant out as much gold as it used to, or something along those lines (according to users in this thread). Also, a Jigsaw update, giving us more puzzles, would be great...if, you know, it actually gave out gold.
- Instead of working so hard on releasing new features, please, first, fix the many glitches that are greatly lowering the quality of Gaia. Fixing previous errors before moving onto a new project is always the best idea. No matter how many developers personally tell me that they
do fix glitches, I won't believe it until I see something from below fixed. These are the most annoying, oldest glitches on the site.
- Listen to the users in Site Feedback and the Q&A who are finding major glitches, and then work fast to fix them. Word Bump took entirely too long for to fix and we are still disappointed about that. Just because the features are free does not mean they aren't as important. I have personally offered to go through and rewrite the entire Feature Suggestion stickies as well as add a ton of other things. Whether it's acceptable or not isn't the point, but the point is that it needs to be fixed, updated regularly, and maintained.
- Before spending so much time, energy, resources, and money on a new feature, try doing some research to see how well received it will be. This will save everyone a lot of hassle, and you will potentially save millions. Not to sound rude, or stuck up, but you don't know your users well enough, or else you would have known that we wouldn't like the Labeler, for example. After getting a ton of feedback about said Labeler, such as, "let us use
nice labels, at the very least!", you haven't even done that. You put it out, ignored our displeasure, and then promptly forgot about it, moving on to the next project.
- In addition to that, the housing section of the arranger has lost many people a lot of items. No one is helping them reclaim them. No one is getting them their items back, or fixing the problem at all. I heard of one user losing an entire set of monthly collectible letters they were displaying in their house, and I don't think it's been resolved yet.
Things like this should
not be happening.
- Aquariums brought about a glitch with signatures to where the aquarium somehow ends up on top of someone's post to where you can't read it. The only way to get around it is to use FlashBlock. Example:
Link.
- Updates - (FUPD)
- Journals could also use an update. They don't match the forums (even though most people don't like how the forums look now, everything should still be consistent), and they could use some new features, like, perhaps, a mood setting, more customizing options for backgrounds, and such, and perhaps images like you can put on your profile, that would look like stickers or something. An option to feature your latest journal on your profile (not just links but the actual latest entry) would be good as well.
- We want the guilds updated. They're glitchy, they need a "subscribe to thread" feature, and there's many, many more suggestions all over Site Feedback and Petitions.
Updated! While browsing Ask the Admin, I found something interesting. Back on July 24th, 200
7:
Lanzer
Guild is about to go through a re-write. Hopefully after the marketplace re-write but we'll still need to plan more.
I just find it funny that it was mentioned in 2007 and still isn't completed more than a year later.
- Towns is overdue for an update, and there's so many things you could do. Changing seasons that actually change with the seasons. More bugs, trash, and flowers, and from there, more craftable items. Interactions, such as waving, dancing, bowing, etc., would generate more interest as well. It's always astoundingly popular in MMOs.
This will be an update for both Towns and Guilds: Guild Halls. This is a large house that would come with every guild or something. Big enough to hold plenty of members; the Captain, Vice Captain, and Crew members would be able to arrange furniture when given permission, and it'd be a great place for live guild meetings in avatar form (so, aside from GIM or meeting in a random Towns square.)
Please see FGAF for an even more important reason to update this.
- Homes is also overdue for an update. There are glitches to be fixed as well. Let us interact with our furniture. We could turn on/off TVs and lights. Live-arrange our homes (Habbo Hotel style, doing it while people are in the home), sit on furniture, lay on furniture (don't even bother saying that it will promote cybering. Users that would cyber do not need encouragement - they'll do it regardless). Multiple rooms and floors would be interesting too. It would be an amazing gold sink that many people would be interested in, especially if we could interact with the furniture. It would also generate more interest in furniture, and from there, open opportunities for cash exclusive housing items, but again, keep 'cheap' in mind. $5 for a chair will just upset users more.
- Fishing could use some glitch fixes and updates as well. More fish would be a good start. More bait and rods would be good too.
A fishing update is supposedly to be expected soon, after the release of a new casual game, which is in the final stages of development.
- We want the forums tweaked so that advertisements will not get in the way of posting. We want to see new features on the forums, such as bullets, numbered lists (you can do this, but there's no button for it, and you're only going to know about it if you frequent other BBS forums and know BBS codes), the ability to press CTRL+B, I, or U for Bold, Italic, or Underscore, etc. Also, when you highlight text to add a font option to it (such as bold), once you click the corresponding button, it scrolls you all the way to the top of your post again. It's made continuously editing this post a huge pain in the butt.
Also, we could really use a "Go to page ____" feature. It's so hard getting to the exact page you need in a large thread!
- An announcement update would be great. This could allow us to choose which announcements we get. And it doesn't hurt you in the long run if someone turns off announcements about the cash shop, because if they don't want them, they won't buy them no matter what. This could work on a 'tag' system. Announcements about KiKi's roadtrip would be tagged with KiKi. Then we simply filter it out. If email sites can do it, so can you guys.
Here is one user's suggestion on how to do this.
- Increase the signature limit. Coding shouldn't take up the character limit - it's really limiting our signatures. Worrying that this could be abused to get overly large signatures is silly, because it happens already.
Update! - Because you're so insistant upon letting us put flash based things in our signatures that are provided by Gaia, which has no regard whatsoever for dial up users, can you
please increase the maximum bite size of our signatures? Most gifs won't work in signatures unless they're small and crappy (and thus, not worth having.) The NPC pictures with the VDay event go far over the byte size, and Gaia has not broken out into chaos (except for those of us that are annoyed that you didn't even think to check it). So please, just increase our limit to 300,000 bytes or something instead of the 100,000 bytes that we have now.
