Gaia 9 Action News: September, 2010

[[NPC] Cindy Donovinh]

Visit The Treehouse!

Gaia's got a brand new shop! Well, not a shop, exactly... instead of offering items for sale, The Treehouse lets loyal and adventurous Gaians claim cool rewards.

The Treehouse is owned and operated by three of the adorable orphans from 2008's Xmas event: Monia, Jay and Scuppers. Now that they've been saved from poverty by the noble efforts of Gaians, they're having a wonderful time exploring nature and taming the wilderness in the Wing Scouts program.

In addition to tying knots and helping old ladies cross the street, Wing Scouts are also responsible for handing out special Wing Stickers to all the intrepid explorers who participate in Gaia events. You may have grabbed some Wing Stickers from the upper-right corner of the site header during the Frontier Skies event-- now you can take the stickers to The Treehouse and trade them in for some cute little items.

The Treehouse has a rather limited selection for now, but we'll be adding more items over time. You can save a few stickers for the next update, but don't worry too much about spending what you already have-- since we'll be giving out more stickers on holidays and random special occasions-- basically, if something unusual is going on, you'll probably be able to find a Wing Sticker somewhere.

Go check it out! Jay, Monia and Scuppers will be happy to see you. Well, maybe not Jay... she gets a little suspicious around strangers.

Visit the Treehouse

[[NPC] Cindy Donovinh]

AutoCash: A Pretty Good Deal, We Reckon!

If you find yourself buying Gaia Cash pretty regularly, we've got an awesome deal for you: we've just launched AutoCash, which gives our loyal customers some valuable bonuses for buying Gaia Cash every month. For $10 a month, you'll get all this stuff:


• 1000 Gaia Cash per month. This part is pretty straightforward: ten bucks equals a gleaming grand in Gaia Cash.
  
  
• 200 extra BONUS Gaia Cash every month. Yep, that's 20% more Cash every single month just for staying signed up. Keep the change, pal! Buy yerself something pretty!
  
  
• A 10% discount on all Cash Shop purchases until October 31st: as if all that extra Cash weren't enough, you can stretch your buying power even further with an extra bump of discountage.
  
  
• An exclusive item every 3 months you stay signed up. Hey, free stuff!

Aw, jeez: when we look at that stuff all listed in a row, it kind of seems like too good a deal, doesn't it? Whoops! I guess it's too late to pull the plug on this AutoCash thing now, so we'll just have to live with it.

For now, this offer is only open to people who buy online with debit and credit cards. We're looking into additional payment options, so keep an eye out.

Don't be shy about trying it out for just a month-- once you sign up, you can cancel whenever you want. And unlike most internet companies, we can 100% guarantee that we won't send any thugs over to your house to rough you up!

Try AutoCash

[[NPC] Cindy Donovinh]

Coming Soon: Like & Dislike

The "like" button is a familiar feature on a lot of sites, but every Gaian knows that the internet isn't all about love. That's why we've also created a "dislike" button that lets you express your distaste for threads without resorting to obscene hand gestures.

Soon, you'll see two buttons on every thread: the <3 button that lets you show some love to great threads, and the </3 lets you pour an ice-cold shot of haterade.

Every thread will now have its own score, which is the total likes minus the total dislikes. If a thread really sucks, it'll even move into a negative score. Threads with tons of <3 clicks will be made a little easier to spot with the new "Popular" tag. Maybe you're stepping into a new forum for the first time-- glancing around for popular threads is an easy way to catch up with the all the best stuff.

But if you're the kind of Gaian who loves getting sucked into huge, pointless arguments-- and we estimate that about 99% of Internet users do-- you can keep an eye out for threads marked "Heated." These threads have been both liked and disliked by a bunch of people, so you know they're gonna be hotbeds of contention.

Here's a little preview of how Popular and Heated threads will show up on the forums:







These features will probably be launching within a few weeks, so start exercising that clickin' finger!

[[NPC] Cindy Donovinh]

Cosplay Contest: Wow!

We really can't overstate how blown away we were by all the amazing entries in this summer's Gaia Cosplay Contest. We've always known that Gaians are a talented and creative bunch, but the sheer brilliance of the fashion ingenuity on display made it really tough to pick the winners-- even though we chose nineteen of them.

Seriously, this was some pro-level stuff. We weren't sure anyone could pull off the ruthless air-captain look quite right, but Sanara Le makes an awesome Cresento:





A lot of fantastic locks were on display, but the "Best Hair" honor probably goes to [Kirimasu__], who perfectly capture Gino's classic rich-boy Fauntleroy curls.





Mad props to poison hakushaku for really getting to the heart of Louie's character. The costume is rad, but what put this entry one notch above all the other Louie costumes was the attention to body language: despite being an elegant vampire gentleman, Louie can usually be found lounging around on comfortable furniture and drinking blood.





Another favorite of ours was saiaphi's entry-- it took us back to a dark time when two former deities, Sentinel and Overseer, were reduced to the status of common street bums. It's one thing to pull off the hobo look with aplomb, but these fallen gods took it one step further by swiping a shopping cart and rummaging through the trash. Bravo!





Once again, our deepest respect goes out to all the winners, plus all the amazing runners-up. In fact, let's all give a big round of silent Internet applause to everyone who entered. Here, go have a look at the full list of winners and runners-up. They deserve your most reverent eyeballing!

Check Out the Winners!