What is even going on with gold?

[Kujiii]

I havn't been all too active in several years now, and I just realized, I've got all these goldfish and other small items that are now worth millions of gold. In fact my current avatar is worth an obscene (over trillions) amount of gold, and when I built it I'd made it on a 400,000 gold budget. I'm wondering what happened to make basicly everything I own suddenly go the way of the Runescape Party Hat?

[Kimorchii]

The thread below can explain.

[Kujiii]

This was incredibly helpful. Thanks for linking that! Now I know what happened... but it still leaves me wondering why some, obscenely easy to get items, are worth tens of thousands of gold. Do certain bugs also just no longer exist in the towns or something? :z

[Kelso The Great]

Kujiii

This was incredibly helpful. Thanks for linking that! Now I know what happened... but it still leaves me wondering why some, obscenely easy to get items, are worth tens of thousands of gold. Do certain bugs also just no longer exist in the towns or something? :z

Here are the basics...
A little over a year ago now Gaia came under new management who's main focus is to maximize profits.
With the introduction of Gold Gens, this made the incentive to pay money greater than investing time to actually farm for gold and items. It is easier for users to pay a small amount of cash rather than spend hours every day on the site for items and profits, coupled with the rampant inflation, they have paying users and non paying users stuffed in different corners alike.
Many users were expecting, and are still probably expecting Gaia to shut down and run with the money once they are satisfied, but I honestly believe they will never be satiated.
My advice, get out while you still have your sanity and cash.
Those in charge have shown they have absolutely no good reason for them to reverse the changes they have made, even though they like to fake it from time to time.

EDIT: What you can expect from Gaia now are some of the worst and cheapest business methods.
There is a growing list of grievances... Gold Gens usually ranking high up, but they have also employed many shady sales tactics to make the money spending incentives greater. There have been controversies with splitting monthly RIGS into two different kinds, and secretly making one a MINI RIG without informing everyone and only saying it was something new and special.
The introduction of "goldsink" kickstarters to fund the new event and the amount donated usually has teirs that include new items, that should be made regardless of whether they are met or not. And the worst was when they are throwing one of these gold sinks meant to lessen inflation, yet they still release gold gens that make all the efforts of thousands of Gaians for naught.
Essentially they want you to pay money to get items and gold, then they want you to just dump that gold you paid for into to toilet to pay for them to do what you already pay for them to do?
OK the logic is pretty ********, but a lot of users don't donate to them anymore because they have become ceaseless. And non paying users have little hope because the top teirs of them are inventory clearing amounts for me, pretty much every time.
Not to mention 133T GATE! That is LEET or One Hundred and Thirty Three Trillion, Scandalous affairs and conspiracies afoot! There was a 300 Trillion spike in the marketplace revenue overnight, and it was easily noticed and first thought to be a glitch in gold gens that maxed payouts. It was quickly discovered that was not the case, as some Gaia employees were using mules to overpay for items 10x or more than their market average... Big ticket items they were intending to put into Flynns Booty, but also hyper inflating the market even more.


Like I said, escape while you are still sane!

[Kujiii]

Awww, you mean Lance and his team are no longer in charge? So did they also stop doing the updates to Gaia's comic/story thing? Zomg? Etc?

I mostly hang around and RP. I don't think the site is going anywhere soon if they just mess with the monetization of avatars, but it is indeed a bad change.

[Shiarka Jonless]

They go for tens of thousands because gold is increasingly worthless.

[Shiarka Jonless]

Kujiii

Awww, you mean Lance and his team are no longer in charge? So did they also stop doing the updates to Gaia's comic/story thing? Zomg? Etc?

I mostly hang around and RP. I don't think the site is going anywhere soon if they just mess with the monetization of avatars, but it is indeed a bad change.

Lanzer's practically retired. You can check his latest journal entry for what he's vaguely doing with the company. Many of the other originals don't seem to be present and haven't been for quite a while.

The manga is still ongoing, just not connected to events since they've slowed down on updates.

zOMG! is currently down to fix what I assume is some sort of security issue. It's apparently a big enough problem for them to not know how long they need to keep it down.

[Kelso The Great]

Kujiii

Awww, you mean Lance and his team are no longer in charge? So did they also stop doing the updates to Gaia's comic/story thing? Zomg? Etc?

I mostly hang around and RP. I don't think the site is going anywhere soon if they just mess with the monetization of avatars, but it is indeed a bad change.

It is still the same Gaia for the most part, although a money grubby shell of it's former self.
Forums are still lively, and most features are still up. Some new games have been introduced, and worth playing once or twice if you have a little gold to spare. But updates to anything besides the cash shop are few and far between. Expect tons of high ticket items to be introduced daily. 90% will be unaffordable in the marketplace.
Sometimes, occasionally they will have an event, although they have been rather weak lately.
They attempted a battle system last Halloween, but that was far too monetized to really enjoy.
Christmas had a snowball fight that was rather enjoyable for all, hopefully they do something fun like that. It may be worth sticking around because the holiday event season tends to be the most fun. Not to mention the exclusive free event items!
There was a summer matsuri festival in the late summer and a Sentai hero VS Magical Girl which had two different teams that had users quoting one another to gain members.
I can say, the community aspect is as lively as ever, so make some friends if you plan on sticking it out, you will need them!

[Kujiii]

Shiarka Jonless

zOMG! is currently down to fix what I assume is some sort of security issue. It's apparently a big enough problem for them to not know how long they need to keep it down.

Hmmm, last time I heard something like that, the game in question never came back. I hope Zomg does return, it's something I was looking forward to poking at again.