[NPC] Cindy Donovinh
This is Cindy Donovinh with another Gaia 9 Action News Summer Festival update! The water war in the forums has come to an end, and the winner has been declared! We'll turn it over to the admins for all the latest news from Summer Festival and beyond.
dramallama And The Winner Is… dramallama
Attention all water fight participants: you can claim your event prizes now! Whether your team came in first or fourth, you've got a trophy waiting for you:
Under the ultra-hip leadership of Moira, team Durem won the water war with a commanding lead. Durem wasn't the only team who fought fiercely, though: second-place winner Aekea gave Durem a real run for its money, nearly overpowering them with their great strategy. Though Barton may seem like a quaint little town, their fightin' spirit put them ahead of the much more populous Isle de Gambino.
Each team put in a fantastic effort, and we'd like to thank everyone for their loyalty, team spirit, and great sportsmanship! Though some people got a little unruly in their trash-talk, most Gaians put their best foot forward and made this one of the most awesome events ever. We'd like to extend our thanks to everyone who took part!
whee New Hairstyles! whee
We know you're all bummed that the Summer Festival will be ending soon, so here's something to cheer you up: with the end of summer comes the dawning of NEW HAIR!
Brand new styles in Salon Durem! Eight of 'em, each one in tons of colors! An extra-big, extra cool Salon update to clothe your scalp for the approaching autumn! Something for everyone, unless you hate hair!
Visit the lovely Vanessa at Salon Durem to get your new style now!
heart 100k: WE DID IT! heart
please note that the above emoticon is weeping with joy.
Holy mackerel, I halfway didn't even believe it was possible! We made it! We did it! It happened! On Monday, thanks to the valiant effort of Gaians everywhere, we shattered our previous record of 97,000 users online.
Five figures? HA! That's a thing of the past! We're in the big leagues now, baby! OVER 100 THOUSAND people were on the site at once. That's a whole town's worth of people browsing Gaia. If you stood all those people on top of each other, they'd be tall enough to reach… well, I don't really know, but the guy at the bottom would be really uncomfortable.
If you logged in between August 29th (when we announced the record attempt) and September 3rd (when the record was broken), you'll be receiving a special commemorative item at the end of the week!
And by the way: muchas, muchas gracias for being part of Gaian history. Big, huge hugs from the whole Gaia team!
ninja New Storyline Stuff! ninja
Hey, everyone: did you get a chance to check out the new storyline manga? You'd better! Big things are afoot! Comedy, tragedy, vampire kidnappings! You'd better not miss this one.
And don't forget: on Friday, we will release the first episode of Gaia Online's new short animations: MMVII, Part One! If the anticipation isn't killing you already, you can get all hyped up about it by watching the trailer.
Meanwhile, the enterprising Gaians at Sushi Database Studios have created a comic of their own! You can check out their take on the Summer Festival in this thread. Please note that this comic was not made by the Gaia staff, so the opinions contained therein are those of the comic's creators and don't reflect the opinions of Gaia Online, yadda yadda yadda wink
eek Coming Soon: Gaia's Item Creation Contest! eek
You guys have been asking for this foooorrreeevvvveerrrr (all the extra letters mean I'm saying it really slow, as if to underscore the longness of your waitage), so here it finally is:
YOU GET TO DESIGN AN ITEM!
Starting sometime next week, Gaia will be running a brand new kind of contest: you submit your ideas and sketches for a Gaia shop item, our artists will pick out the best entries, and then the community will vote on which one shall be the ultimate winner. When a winner is chosen, our artists will turn it into a Gaia item. For real. Also: the winning entrant will get 500,000 Gaia Gold.
Please take a minute to think about how cool that is. When you've stopped leaping and whooping (it may take a few minutes), please proceed to the next sentence.
Though the official rules and stuff will be announced next week, here are the basics:
- This is not really an art contest, although it requires you to submit a picture. This contest is about coming up with a great idea and presenting it well. You can submit an intricately detailed concept sketch, or you can draw your idea on a soiled napkin with a half-melted crayon. Can't draw? Don't worry. If your idea is great and you can present your concept effectively, you DO have a shot at winning.
The entries will be judged by our team on three criteria: originality, clarity of presentation and ease of conversion to a Gaia store item. By "ease of conversion" we just mean that you can't say "I want an animated walrus that makes your avatar do the Charleston when you wear it in Towns." We know that you have big, crazy ideas, but we need ideas that are possible to create.
Originality is the key to this contest. Sure, we're probably going to get tons of suggestions for items pulled from movies or video games or anime series, but that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for your ideas.
Your item design must be your own; you can't submit someone else's idea, or contract someone to design an item for you. We will do our best to weed out copycat entries, but it's inevitable that more than one person will have a similar idea. In that case, we will choose our finalists based on which entry conveys and illustrates the concept most clearly.
A big, official announcement with the full rules and relevant dates and everything will go up soon. For the full legal mumbo-jumbo, please visit this thread.
And don't forget the Official Gaia Contests forum, where you can discuss this contest with your fellow Gaians!