[NPC] Cindy Donovinh
Good afternoon, Gaians. This is Cindy Donovinh of Gaia 9 Action News, bringing you the latest developments from the Gaia world. As usual, things have been busy behind the scenes! We now turn to Gaia's admins for this week's news and announcements:
---------------------------
Thanks, Cindy! Let's get this show on the road!
- Hark! New forums!
Hey, did you notice that we now have a Food & Drink forum? Well, we do. It's a subforum of General Discussion, so you'll have to click GD to get to it. It's a paradise for gluttons and casual eaters alike. Whether you're watching your weight or trying to become the world's fattest man so you can get on TV, Food & Drink is your new internet home. Talk about toast! Learn to cook pheasant under glass! Find new and attractive ways to cram things into your face!*
*Remember, Food & Drink is a forum about cramming edible things into your face. If you're cramming non-edible things into your face, like golf balls or tree bark, please discuss it in another forum, or wait until we create a special "Ways To Avoid Choking While Cramming Things Into Your Face" forum. It might be a long wait.
We’ve also opened a Fashion & Style subforum in GD, so you'll be able to discuss the most stylish trusses to wear after you get a hernia from eating too fast in an attempt to become the first superstar of the Food & Drink forum. Beyond that, you can discuss all kinds of neat stuff: your favorite designers, your favorite fashion shows on TV, hair and makeup tips, your favorite XXL Steve Urkel t-shirt, and your most loved or hated fashion trends.
Oh, and by the way: More new forums are coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled!
Ugh, but don't literally peel your eyes, that's horrible and disgusting. Save it for the "Horrible & Disgusting" forum (unfortunately, we'll probably never have one of those).
Gift giving is back!
Just in time for Christmas (...in eleven months). In case you have no idea what the Sam Hill I'm talking about, allow me to gently remind you how to use this function:
- To give a gift, go to your inventory, select an item and click on the "Give as Gift" button. Remember that you need a trading pass before you can give gifts!
Select how you want your gift to be given. You can choose your wrapping paper, write a note to the recipient, and choose whether you want to show your name or give your gift anonymously.
When your gift is sent, the recipient will get a PM, and the wrapped box containing their gift will appear in their inventory.
Remember: to avoid getting scammed, never use the gift system to make trades with other members, and never accept trades involving gift-wrapped items.
Keep in mind that the moderators can track all gift-giving activities, so anyone who tries anything shady will be cast into the sea!
There's been an update to Towns!
Our rugged Flash developers have bumped Towns up to version 1.8.7, which just happens to be the police code for FUN! New upgrades and fixes include:
- The ability to walk on rugs! What good is a rug if you can't walk on it? The developer told me to insert a "cutting a rug" (i.e. dancing) joke here, but unfortunately I couldn't think of a good one, and I take full responsibility for this failure.
Easier movement! You won't get snagged on the corners of furniture as much anymore. No more stubbed toes!
Wall and floor tiles are fixed! Now your house won't look like it's made of ugly grey cement.
Meanwhile, the development team is working on some great fixes/improvements, which should be coming up next week, as long as the office doesn’t get sacked by barbarians or anything. Announcements will be made soon; we recommend staring at the "announcement bullhorn" button on your navigation bar ceaselessly, day and night, until either it lights up or you pass out from dehydration and lack of sleep.
The GStore has been updated with a new shirt! Check it out:
Ah, the famed and fateful image that caused the FLEEPGATE scandal! The brains of many Gaians were overwhelmed with the tangy tingle of CONTROVERSY when first this image appeared: who is this handsome devil? Isn't he a little... mature to be modeling shirts for Gaia? Shouldn't he be at home with a knit blanket over his legs, eating oatmeal and reading his AARP newsletter? Did he wander into the Gaia offices because he mistook "L0cke" for "Matlock"?
No, you silly-billy ninnyhammers. That's just Fleep, and he's not even old! He's only eight years old, for crying out loud! He just has that disease like Robin Williams had in the movie "Jack," which makes him age at an advanced rate. It's heartwarming, I guess.
So just buy the shirt, already! It's limited-edition. Do you know what that means? That means that if we don't sell them all, we are going to burn down our offices!
Recently, the admins have had some concerns about people buying Gaia Gold and items with real currency. Unscrupulous gold sellers have been trying to get around our "no selling our buying items" rule by offering their time spent on Gaia for sale instead of selling actual items, or by offering auctions which say things like "buy this toy bunny... oh, and by the way, I'll throw in an expensive Gaia Online item, too!" The effect, however, is all the same: a Gaian gives them money, they give the Gaian gold in return, and then both people get banned.
Please remember that buying people's time on Gaia is just as much against the Terms of Service as buying actual items. It is against the rules because it's unfair: people with lots of money can pay people to surf the site and rack up gold, meaning that people with more real-life money can get more Gaia Gold from botters, which leads to inflation, which means that honest questers have to work much harder to get the items they want. It's morally wrong, and it's against the rules.
Don't be fooled by people who say they're just selling you their Gaia "time" so they can get items for you, or by people who are selling random things and throwing in "real" Gaia items as part of the deal. They are botters, scammers, and cheaters, and dealing with them will just result in a ban.