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Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
[Continuation of transcript begun last post.

...oh **** *** it, page split. I was afraid of that.
]

February 22nd, some more

Narumi Misuhara
chris4u 25
hello guys!,

I'm a long time fan of gaiaonline, first time poster of ATA, I want to know if you guys have any plans to make more recent mini comics or manga story lines. When they were coming out in the past i always got a thrill to see what you guys came up with (and also a few chuckles along the way xd ) but it seems like the comics has become lackluster and it's main characters seems to be forgotten in time... i mean what IS out is still good, but they are now few and far between... so is there anything in the works?

We do have plans in the works, but they are not solidified yet and until they are don't want to get peoples hopes up >.<

Hopefully needless to say, many of us on staff want to see more plot developments. smile


Lanzer
Fractale
TO LANZER
1: Is it possible to fit 2 gold shops in per months, to accompanied more user requested items?

2: Do the staff have plans to start exploring other areas of the Gaia world, in the near future? We have 4 main towns on the outdated world map, with a 5th (Halloweentown) having no shops or anything in it, a few things like Durem Caves, the wall of Gambino, and the reclamation facility scattered in between, and we've seen the city of Dref Dur in the manga, but that hasn't yet been added to the map. Why isn't the map getting updated and expanded into new territory as it should?

3: Have you guys ever considered actually making a serious, legit Gaia commercial? I think you guys could get floods of users if you manage to make a commercial for tv, showcasing some of the best Gaia features and communities, and have it in one of the time slots during the Superbowl 2013. Would Gaia have enough funds to pull something like this together; to draw in more users?

4: I'm happy there's going to be a new shop for user-created items. Can you provide any info about this new shop, like who's going to be running it? More importantly, will this Crosstitch store be appearing in a new part of town on Gaia in the world map that hasn't been used (like Halloweentown), or added, yet (like Dref Dur)? I'll be pretty sore if it's a shop that takes up space in Durem, Aekea, Gambino, or Barton, when there's already so many shops there. (don't forget, Gaia is an entire world. You can branch out to new areas ad towns to avoid town overcrowding, you know...) HintHint

TO NARUMI MISUHARA
Fractale
has the staff been planning anything for events to involve the world map, and making it mre interesting than just clicking around to find Holiday NPC's on the map pages? Is the world map going to get more love in the form of updates, soon?
Narumi Misuhara
Soon ...probably not, I do want to try to get some of the World maps updated through events but until we can better tie events with a cohesive story there really isn't a whole lot we can do with it for events.
Mortok
Ooooooooooooor they could just draw a new map that includes all the current areas from the existing story. There's no good reason they couldn't do that, and it would, in fact, be far more practical than any of the ideas listed here, all of which would involve building flash games/environments and other stuff almost completely from scratch.

Mortok brings up a good point. Why does the staff want to create extra work for themselves by tying the world map update and expansion into a cohesive story in an event? Why can't you guys just...oh, I don't know....draw some maps, including all the areas we have, and add them to the world map? Or make a user contest where users can draw and submit different maps for all of these areas, and spare your artists the workload of doing it themselves? (with the exception of adding the winning maps to the Gaia world map)

Having two updates is not likely right now, as we don't think we're producing fast enough for that.

We do plan to make more of the Gaia world accessible through the Towns upgrade, and as we actually have plans to create new areas after events. I'm looking forward to having new towns and areas in the Gaia world myself.

Gaia has very specific audiences and it actually don't overlap well with the everyday TV viewers, so we spent money on on-line advertising instead. Though it would be really fun to see Gaia on TV.

Not sure about the details to that. We plan to support user designed items but details are still sketchy for now.


Lanzer
Hi-Potion
Ello! Three things!
So, yeah, I just was wondering what happened with the Homestuck fiasco? I was taking with Rachel today (she's Andrew Hussie's girlfriend, she also handles his copyrights) and she informed me that she was approached by a Gaia artist, who said that they could not talk about legal matters and was never heard from again, nor was she forwarded to anyone who could talk about legal matters. And, honestly Gaia higher-ups, this seems kinda dodgey. Why hasnt anyone talked to her? I mean, the items are clearly Homestuck inspiried, and even though clip-art cannot be copyrighted, they were still clearly borrowed from Andrew Hussie's work andif the artists wishes to adress you about the matter, they still have a right to be contacted and not brushed aside. I mean, you guys even contacted that Bento Bunny lady, who obviously stole those designs from other places since they were not her original idea, but you still avoid talking with Hussie? I mean, it's been months and no progress has been made as of yet. So, could someone, not some dinky artist, but someone who can talk legal issues or whatever talk with Rachel, please? Anyways, her email is: rachel@whatpumpkin.com
I would appreciate if someone would just talk things over with her, she's been really patient with this, even if her co-worker hasnt been. I've been a Gaia fan and benefactor much longer then I have been a Homestuck fan and really hope that the right thing will be done.

Also, when will we see Crosstitch open up? All of the designs looked so cool! Plus its such an amazing idea! Who will the NPC running it be?

And, lastly, will we ever see a RIG with an international clothing theme? Ive seen alot of Gaians requesting this, in the GCD atleast, plus itd be a cool way to release stuff that wouldnt go into Josie's shop.

OH! One more thing! Im involved with alot of local, small cons in the bay area, and I was wondering how we could get some fliers and price cards to hand out to those events?

I was pretty certain that we had contacted with the author, and it would be terrible if we didn't. I'll definitely check with the team and see what had been done for the author. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.


carbonphyber
Knight Yoshi
Have some questions/concerns/plain curiosity.
Quote:
  1. Do you plan on updating the Current template profile to remove the option to add the panel for the no longer existent VJ feature?

  2. I've noticed some issues with the CSS that can't be used with at least the Current profile template because of the filter you use.
    • Some things that can't use the first level select ">", the double quote "
        --The current filter is a serious hindrance to creating an effective less code is more layout, will this be changed and when can we expect to see that change?


  3. Why is there no report option for profiles? I have seen many profiles with flashing images, remove navigation parts (if not the whole nav bar), offers of cybering, users stating they're under age, sexually explicit images. I see these all the time, and its not very effective to PM a moderator with the profile in violation as PMs can easily get overlooked. I even started a thread in the SC forum, which I don't see why it wouldn't, from a logical standpoint, be there to begin with.

  4. Once in a while in a rare glitch, on the Current profile tamplate, the page will grab the beginning content from a custom or media panel and try to use it as a background for the root HTML element in the default "/* User-chosen Profile Theme */" part of the embedded CSS.

  5. Do you actually plan on updating the social networking side of Gaia?
    • Have the ability to add friends to self-created user groups.

    • That we have the ability to hide/lock content from the general public, from the public, specific users, user groups, or everybody.
        --e.g. the about section from the public, friends of friends, etc. While displaying interests to them, friends lists, etc. Sure you can use CSS to "hide" it. But, its still in the HTML, and disabling the CSS on Classic profiles would reveal the content. But this method also hides it from everybody.

    • Have the ability to allow your status visible on your profile, like if you set a status that you'll be away from Gaia for a while as a status, it can be set on your profile based on account settings of who can see what type of content based on who they are and what group their in (same as stated above)

    • The ignore system is broken. There's a whole SC thread about this check it out

      -- The whole social side feels like it needs a serious overhaul on privacy and organization. I hate to reference it but, Facebook has better settings and so does Google+. I do understand the time and resources going into this would be a downside, but without progress how could you expect the site to keep going in the long run?

    • Do you plan on re-organizing the account settings pages? I see notification settings for stories, gold, Aquarium, etc on the front page of the account settings, but there's a notices page already. As well why not use AJAX to load data to a single page when a link is clicked?

  6. And speaking of "friends list", on the friends page it use to be that we would only see 15 of our friends, that number was increased to fifty. However, now if you have less than 50 friends the page stretches. The table row elements are static in the page, why? This means that you have to scroll down to the bottom to use the remove button or move to top buttons, and I have seen in the Q&A forum where new users and even some older users who weren't aware of this. So why are the elements static to the page instead of generated on the fly, on a per-friend basis?

  7. Why is Backyard Monsters out of date? If you go to FaceBook or G+ you can see they have a couple of additional things. Such as having a backyard in hell, and having a champion chamber, other monsters get additional abilities. Here's my biggest concern about it, we spend all that time leveling up the champion and if we want to switch it we have to juice it and start all over, which can be a serious issue if you're a high level because then your near defenseless to other high levels. So its a lot of time wasted if you want to change champions. As well what about users that happen to buy their champion levels, that's money wasted.

  8. Can we expect to see an "outfits" arranger? I know I'm not the only one who has done this, create a more favored avatar outfit later, and want to move it towards the front. But to do so you must delete outfits before it.

  9. This would be a rather small update, but can we get a link to send a new message on the mail tab? Either before the "inbox" link or after the "saved" link.

  10. Something that should definitely be pointed out is that the staff, (you guys), keep asking for feedback for events. For instance, the Halloween event. You said you took past events and combined them to make the best event by far. But anybody that was around for Halloween of '09 knows that, that the Halloween event for that year was the best event by far, and the most interactive while being fun. Yes, Gaia is a forum based site, and I'm not saying to not have forum based events with it, but the events need more interactivity like with the Overseer and S.I.N battle, where it was a constant power struggle. That event, for anybody that was around when it happened, pretty much set the bar for how events should be. And it just feels the events since then have been a bit of a let down with user interactivity on things you can do.

  11. In the forums, some threads get scrollbars if for instance the ending text has a smaller than average font size, example. There are also other parts of a post that will get a scrollbar for instance floating something to the right and having a small font-size. Will this be fixed?

Sorry for the long post sweatdrop

Long post =P

We'll add these to our list of bugs to fix. Please realize that we must prioritize bug fixes so we fix the most severe bugs first (so display bugs are probably lowest priority).

Some of the bugs are actually side-effects of a security policy we need to make sure that old (read "broken" ) browsers aren't exploited. The "child" selector-operator (">" ) is not available because we need to make sure that character is not used to exploit the page.
Uncle Kenny
Knight Yoshi
[bold added by next post. -Platonix] Can you speak for some of the other questions? Such as Backyard Monsters, report button for profiles, account settings organization, outfits arranger and some of the other questions?

As well, for the filter I realize why you have it so that somebody can't end the embedded stylesheet prematurely, and add scripts. But surely you can set the filter to be better detecting to allow it?

It's on the list, sit tight smile


Panagrammic
WideEyed
For roughly the last fifteen months, we have been repeatedly told that zOMG! does not generate sufficient revenues to warrant its further development.
Just recently we were told that, despite our best efforts to boost those revenues through increasing our user base and purchasing zOMG! Specific Items, not only will zOMG! receive no further development, but that we should also not expect any further glitch repairs or Seasonal Events such as the annual Easter Egg Hunt, Halloween or Christmas Events.
We were informed that the last Developer assigned to zOMG! has been reassigned to a new project and that, as it stands at this moment, it is unlikely that zOMG!’s current “limbo” status will ever change.
Seeing as this has all been explained as a purely business decision based on revenue generation and potential, we would like to know more about zOMG!’s financial performance.
Specifically:
Roughly how much did zOMG! specific sales generate in 2010? (sales of zOMG! Powerups)
Was there a noticeable increase in zOMG! specific revenues in 2011?
What were the percentages?
Does Gaia have any estimates regarding zOMG!’s ancillary revenue generation? (sales of Items that, while not specifically to be used in zOMG!, were purchased by people who’s principle activity on Gaia is playing zOMG!)
What would be the cost of maintaining a Development Staff for zOMG! that would be sufficiently large enough to allow for incremental upgrading of the game over a gradual period, say a new area similar to DMS once every six months or once a year?
What would be the cost of maintaining a Development Staff for zOMG! that was sufficiently large enough to allow for glitch repair and Events only?
How much would zOMG! need to generate in order to justify that allocation of these resources?
What percentage of Gaia’s overall, user generated revenues can be attributed to zOMG!
On a per capita basis, how does this compare with users who’s principle activities on Gaia do not include zOMG!
We have been told that the issue is not strictly related to zOMG!’s current and potential revenue generation, but also the potential revenue generation of the new projects for which zOMG!’s developers have been re-assigned.
What does Gaia anticipate the difference in potential to be? Twice zOMG!’s? Three times?

We have always been told how important we zOMGaians are to Gaia, and that our passion and loyalty to zOMG! and through it, Gaia itself, is appreciated by Gaia’s decision makers, yet we often feel disconnected from the decisions being made that effect our game. We would appreciate the opportunity to speak directly with one or two of the people who make the decisions regarding zOMG!’s future, so that all of the vague rumour and speculation could finally be cleared up, and we could finally be allowed to understand the rationale behind what so many of us deem to be an irrational decision.
Thank you.
WideEyed

A lot of these are really hard questions to answer (and some we wouldn't answer, regardless).

Understand that who-is-on-what project is pretty flexible around here, and we change as necessary to meet the demands of the business. So, [JK] is helping out on a new fantasy game, but that doesn't mean that he will never ever ever touch zOMG.

Also understand, per DARKNRGY's response, that bug fixes are definitely something that the team is looking at -- it's not good if the bugs are impinging substantially on the user experience.

In general, first-order revenue for zOMG (i.e., power ups and whatnot) is not more than a few percentage points of overall revenue, although that can vary from month to month (i.e., spike when Bloodstone went on sale). Second-order (i.e., people that buy stuff OTHER than zOMG stuff but stay primarily because of zOMG) is very hard to estimate; not sure there's a rigorous way of answering that question.

When we were evaluating new content (other than DMS -- DMS was partially completed already from previous efforts), the estimates ran about one to two man years, all told. Kind of depends on what you put in it, of course.


DARKNRGY
Mademoiselle Kit
ZOMG does have the potential to do this. It is an original MMO with an interesting storyline and plot--moreover, it allows us to use our avatars to save the Gaia world. This works in Zomg's favor. Since HQ is all up in facebook's junk these days, if you could find a way to port zomg, or even advertise zomg on facebook, usership would no doubt increase.

I am just astounded that Gaia would even consider throwing away what used to be their baby, what has so much potential without even trying. Want more money? Release more powerups and buddies--us hardcore players WILL buy them. Want more users? Work on fiixing the glitches, add hope of an expansion, and advertise a bit. These things could be done with little effort and little money, but it would increase revenue, players, and above all else, satisfy a very pissed-off userbase.

You might very well be right. Second Life looked like it was done and then they reinvested and brought it back. The question is a little bit larger than having a successful plot, good game mechanics, a solid community. The market is constantly changing, the demographic shifting, truly brutal. I have a dream for a game (totally unrelated to Gaia) which I think would be the best game ever, but it will never happen because there is no market for a spaceship FPS right now.


siskataya
Hi-Potion
Ello! Three things!
So, yeah, I just was wondering what happened with the Homestuck fiasco? I was taking with Rachel today (she's Andrew Hussie's girlfriend, she also handles his copyrights) and she informed me that she was approached by a Gaia artist, who said that they could not talk about legal matters and was never heard from again, nor was she forwarded to anyone who could talk about legal matters. And, honestly Gaia higher-ups, this seems kinda dodgey. Why hasnt anyone talked to her? I mean, the items are clearly Homestuck inspiried, and even though clip-art cannot be copyrighted, they were still clearly borrowed from Andrew Hussie's work andif the artists wishes to adress you about the matter, they still have a right to be contacted and not brushed aside. I mean, you guys even contacted that Bento Bunny lady, who obviously stole those designs from other places since they were not her original idea, but you still avoid talking with Hussie? I mean, it's been months and no progress has been made as of yet. So, could someone, not some dinky artist, but someone who can talk legal issues or whatever talk with Rachel, please? Anyways, her email is: rachel@whatpumpkin.com
I would appreciate if someone would just talk things over with her, she's been really patient with this, even if her co-worker hasnt been. I've been a Gaia fan and benefactor much longer then I have been a Homestuck fan and really hope that the right thing will be done.

Also, when will we see Crosstitch open up? All of the designs looked so cool! Plus its such an amazing idea! Who will the NPC running it be?

And, lastly, will we ever see a RIG with an international clothing theme? Ive seen alot of Gaians requesting this, in the GCD atleast, plus itd be a cool way to release stuff that wouldnt go into Josie's shop.

OH! One more thing! Im involved with alot of local, small cons in the bay area, and I was wondering how we could get some fliers and price cards to hand out to those events?

Heya Hi-Potion!

Thanks for the awesome questions. I'll try my best to answer these for you!

a) Regarding the issue of the Homestuck items, I am not sure about this, or what happened regarding contacting the artist about these items. I will be happy to look into this matter, and see what might have happened in this specific case. I do know that we take issues of copyright seriously, so I'll escalate this issue up to people that will be in a position to help get things resolved for all parties.

b) Shhhh, it's all hush-hush! I mean, erm, what's Crossstitch? erm.. ninja

c) And I love the idea of a CI (RIG) with international clothing and items - what a cool idea! I'll definitely forward this along to the art team. Imagine all the possibilities of such an item. I think it would be super cool. Thanks for sharing the idea!

d) As for the con info, you'll want to speak to DJ Helsing about that - he'd have the info you need!

Anyway, take care!
Sisky


Narumi Misuhara
twister of shadows
Dear lanzer, please answer any question you want:
1. Is there any plans of the servers being taken down for zOMG!
2. Is there any plan to transfer [ JK ] and swarf back to zOMG! ? If so when? (its ok for non-specific)
3. Why did you transfer the developers of zOMG! to something else?
4. Why are you making a new game? wasn't your previous games profitable?
5. How much money did zOMG! make recently? wasn't it enough to keep our developers.
6. Do you like to give the same answer to all the zOMG! users?
7. Could you tell the artists that are running alchemy to remove gnome figure recipe requirement?
8. Is there any plan to hire new developers for zOMG! ?
9. Will zOMG! ever have any developers other than what it has?
10. besides lack of resources and interest for zOMG! , was there any feeling of neglect towards it?
11. Are the developers controlling gaia or the managers? if either, why?

1. No
2. Not to my knowledge
3. That decision was above anyone currently managing Gaia's head.
4. The Social team is always making new games, I don't know or have specifics on how they operate and why.
5. Don't know and don't know. (more a question for social team, not ours)
6. We give the answers we have, they won't magically change?
7. I can pass that along.
8. We would like to at least get someone to fix the bugs, but that hinges on a lot of unsure things.
9. Possible but don't know.
10. Not sure what your asking here. I know I wished we could have done more with it. I had plenty of ideas to tie it with site events that we could not manage to make happen.
11. Both, I manage and develop for Gaia, why? Because I love Gaia!


carbonphyber
ToushinYusuke
Hey Lanzer and Dev team.

Got a few questions...

When the yahoo aps was updated to fix the footer in FF9, alot of others have now had issues with coding on other versions of FF.

Pop up windows align left, cant change, save, etc in invo. There is no more drop down menus on the my gaia page and the text formatting box is now at the bottom for some users instead of above comments or the posting box in forums.

The drop down menus in the forums / when searching for a user to goto their profile / send pm etc do not work either.

This has been a month.

I have talked to one dev about it, but seriously... this isnt funny. -.-;;; I can live with everything else but I REALLY want to change my avatar.

Can someone take some more time to look into this and fix it?

Also, will zOMG now that it has been put on the back burner still get events? Such as easter event? Halloween? All of us really look forward to these events. ( dont know if this has been answered yet. )

Please PM me links to any topics you have in Bug Reports and I will look into it.
Please make sure you fill out the Bug Report in the manner specified in the Bug Reports Announcement (including screenshots if possible).
I know it's frustrating and I'd like to help you get it fixed.


Lanzer
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, Lanzer.

When will you stop this vicious cycle of releasing and abandoning new features? All this is doing is giving your site a bad reputation of not being able to maintain your features. The only reason Homes and Towns are getting updates now is because the userbase had to keep pestering you about it until something was done. Now, I hear that zOMG! is getting shelved so that you can focus on more facebook games.

Why so much emphasis on facebook? Have you forgotten about Gaiaonline and its users? Have you even thought to promote this site and its features through your facebook games? I find this to be upsetting and a bad business move. I know you're better than this. Time to shape up or ship out.

Since zOMG! isn't going to be getting updates anytime soon, can you allow swarf some time to fix the game's glitches? Like the orb count visual glitch, the lag, the broken quest chains and silent NPCs. How can you expect to get more people playing zOMG! if it's broken? And another thing. Can you at least release DMS to the public permanently and add games to Buccaneer Boardwalk?

Edit: Here's something else that I would like to know. If you have a separate team working on facebook games, why pull staff from Gaia's features to work on them?

We'd love to do more for Gaians but one challenge we have is that we had been building features and event for 9 years now. With 3 dozen games and features it is an impossible task to update everything at once, and unfortunately most updates are done when it's overdue for an update.

At Gaia we continue to have a team that's focused on serving Gaia members, while there are other teams building other things. It's a simple equation where Gaiaonline can support X number of devs and artists, while other titles can support Y number of devs. If we don't make other games, we would not have X+Y number of staff in the company, and we would only have X number of staff on board. Hope that makes sense...


Panagrammic
Corinth Maxwell
Considering how this thread is more than likely probably on either Page 4 or Page 5 by now, I can only PRAY that my question gets an answer, since it's not a re-hash of the same thing being said over & over right now. cat_whee

Anyway.......Can someone on the staff provide us with a fully-detailed "official list" of exactly which Avatar, Housing, Game, zOMG, "Special" (i.e., giftboxes), and/or Aquarium items not directly associated with Alchemy, are currently being tagged, listed, and/or used as "alchemical components"? It doesn't seem to make much sense for users to be in the dark about what does or doesn't go into a formula, especially if & when we likely have potential formula components sitting in our inventories and/or being drawn from the Daily Chance that, for all we know, is just a bunch of useless crap that we'd rather sell or otherwise trash instead of hoard for months on end.

Yeah, I think part of the issue here is that we don't necessarily want to reveal formulas that haven't been found yet. Why do you want the comprehensive list? Just to know what you shouldn't sell Starter Polos(*) because they'll be used in the backwings formula?

(*) Just an example. Starter Polos are not, AFAIK, used in a backwings formula.


Panagrammic
Android Amber
WideEyed
DARKNRGY
We all want something new and shiny.

Actually, with certain qulifications of course, we don't.
Personally, I have no interest in playing another game.
Especially one that has no place with the established Gaia Canon.

I play zOMG! because I love Gaia, and I love being able to take my avatar into zOMG!, wearing all of the items that I pay for in the Cash Shops and MP, and even earning a bit of Gold to supplement those purchases.

If I'm going to play a game that has essentially nothing to do with Gaia other than perhaps being able to be launched from the site, I might as well go and try one of the other games I constantly see advertised here and elsewhere on the web.

While all of us who play zOMG! regularly would love to know that there were going to be new areas for us in the future, I think a lot of us would settle for merely having the glitches that constantly frustrate existing players and deter new players from getting thoroughly hooked on the game, fixed, and having our Events.
Even recycled Events.

Gaia could easily advertise zOMG!, and do so to a targeted audience by placing ads alongside their current Facebook properties.
They could increase internal usership by adding to the number of Alchemy components that can be only found in zOMG!
We have already proven our willinglness to pay for new content through the sale of BB Head Start Tickets and Bloodstone Items.They could institute a "pay as you play" model on new areas, while leaving the existing content free to play, thus keeping the game free to start and attractive to new users, while generating revenue for new content.
And those are only my ideas (or ideas I've appropriated from discussions with other concerned zOMGaians.
There have been more feasible suggestions in this ATA, and there could easily be more were we to ever be honestly brought into the discussion.

I think recycling event is a great idea. If you can't/won't give us new ones...then why not pacify us with giving the old ones again? Is there some reason Gaia can't do that?

Recycling is much easier. Last time we recycled a zOMG event, though, there were many complaints IIRC.


Uncle Kenny
Shinju_hashimfo

This for sure.
People with good senses of humor would find this funny and want to try out the site.. imo

If you liked those, be sure to keep an eye out cause we have another video soon that you'll probably like. It's no commercial but hopefully you'll enjoy it, just stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled!
Zero Omega
I will personally vouch and fight the fires of 1,000 seas to have Lanky continue to do those! Only because I like watching him be completely silly and ridiculous! ninja You never saw this post~ Bwahahaha!


Lanzer
SS2-SITH LORD
Good Evening Admin. Please! Answer any or All questions!

I have three questions, and an ongoing issue to make you aware of if you're not already.

1. Was there ever a winner in the Fortune Cookie contest? I don't remember seeing a winner announced.

2. Is Soul Crash going to be brought to Gaia? I would really like to play some of the games you have on facebook but refuse to join. I know of others who feel the same way.

3. Do you have a date set on Monster Galaxy being released on the site? DJ Helsing mentioned it in the monthly video.

And the issue is with Aquariums!
( Big surprise right? )
Seriously though. There are still Ghost fish in peoples tanks. Gaia is loosing out on profit because of this and this problem is spiraling out of control! There are gaians with fully ghosted tanks right now and earning profit from them! I will find proof if need be!


Also! Thank you for the Cash shop release yesterday! BIG SKYRIM FAN!!!!

Yes there is a winner chosen, DJ should have announced it, and if not, we'll be announcing it soon!

Soul Crash might not make it to Gaia as it's a published title and we only have rights to release it on Facebook. Sorry.


Panagrammic
Toxic Necessities
Hello there.
My gaia has been locked out of the market place for some odd reason. It's stayed that way since I first made this account and I'm not really too sure what I can do to fix that. Can someone please help me with this problem of mine?

Contact a moderator to see if your trading pass was revoked for some reason.


Lanzer
Thank you for joining us on this week's ATA everyone! The response is overwhelming and I'm sorry we can't get to all your questions. Please join us again on next week's ATA if we couldn't get to your question day. See you next week!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
February 27th

Today, not only was there a Dev Notice advertising AtA, they left the event running an hour longer than usual. Clearly Gaia Staff are attempting to indirectly murder me. wink This'll probably need two posts again.

Lanzer
Hello everyone,

Thank you for attending this week's ATA. Last week there had been a lot of passionate commentary about zOMG. Me along with other staff members will try our best to answer your concerns and criticisms today, and I hope that we can share with you answers or directions moving forward.


biglanky14
Hi everyone,

Thanks for joining us at today’s ATA! It’s been an interesting week to say the least (that’s what I get for going on vacation).

I know there are going to be a lot of questions about zOMG today, so I wanted to address a few of them right up front, for better or for worse.

What’s up with zOMG?
zOMG is a fun game, and we want to keep it available for Gaians to play. However, we can’t commit to doing major new development on it for now. We’ll do bug fixes and maintenance as we can, and we may still be able to do things like reopening old events, providing new rings/quests, etc. when we have time. Unfortunately, it’s just not financially viable for us to dedicate resources to it at the moment. But I do want to stress that it is not going away at all.

What’s going on with Buccaneer Boardwalk?
We are working on a few ways we can come to a solution for Buccaneer Boardwalk that is good for everyone, and will let you know more when we have a better idea of what that means. Basically, we want to make sure no one feels like they wasted their money.

Should I keep playing zOMG?
Like anything, you should play and/or support zOMG to the extent that it’s fun for you to do so. Even if we never do anything with it again, it’s still a fun game, and if you’re enjoying it, then we’re happy. And if you’re not and never play it again, we totally understand.

You really botched your communication on this one.
Gaia has never been accused of being a great communicator, and this is a prime example. We completely acknowledge there are a bunch of things we could’ve done better, both in this case and in others over the years. This is something we’re trying to address this year – by being more open and communicative than we have in the past. We won’t always get it right, but hopefully you can see some positive results (such as more presence in the forums, more Dev notices, etc.).

Why are you taking staff off of Gaia to build Facebook stuff? Does this mean you don’t care about Gaia anymore?
Actually, this couldn’t be further from the truth. At the end of last year we made a structural change at the company to address this. Before, everyone pretty much worked on both Gaia and our social games, which made it hard to get anything done. It’s tough to prioritize projects for two totally separate platforms, and people constantly had to switch back and forth, which isn’t efficient. In December we split the company into two groups: the Gaia Online team, and the social games team. This was expressly designed to make sure that everyone knew exactly what they were working on and would be dedicated to that team (i.e. no “stealing” resources from one side or the other). Plus there are other benefits to Gaia, such as giving us the ability to migrate games back into Gaia (such as MoGa) and sharing a common infrastructure, so that any improvements made by one side will be enjoyed by the other too. You can read a little more in my journal post from a month or so ago.

<Now we’re out of FAQ format and back to me talking>

To avoid this type of communication problem, I want to be clear about a few other features that we get asked about a lot.

Alchemy– If you’ve followed the Alchemy threads, you’ve seen that we’re making tweaks to it to do a better job of balancing it out. I know this isn’t going fast enough for some of you, but Alchemy is very complex, and making big changes can have a ton of unintended consequences. We think the feature has far too much potential to risk that, so we’ll keep making tweaks and measuring the effect.

Housing /Towns – This is something else we’ve long promised would be updated, and we’re finally doing it. Most of you have seen the improvements to Houses already, and we’re working actively on Towns as well. Because we plan to leverage our Flash spaces for future efforts (sponsorships, events, etc), we need the framework we have in place to also be as flexible and maintainable as possible. We need to therefore do some refactoring and we get a new Towns as a benefit.

Guilds – Guilds is definitely on our list of features we could look at (largely thanks to the passionate community around them), but right now we don’t have any plans to make any major changes. We’ll let you guys know if that changes.

Flash Games – Same here. We’ve spent a good amount of time fixing bugs and exploits in several of our games, but while we are talking about their future, we don’t have any changes planned for them in the immediate future.

Spring Cleaning - We love all the suggestions, although we of course can't do all of them. We've done a handful, and are going to wrap that up soon. We'll post a message in there explaining all of this soon as well.

Ok, I’m sure I’ve forgotten some stuff here, but this is a good start for the ATA. Now, please ask away.

Biglanky14


Panagrammic
Pirate Captain Sushi
1. Does the Gaia staff hold any "Job Shadow" opportunities for would-be sprite-artists, graphic designers, and web developers in training? If so, how would one go about entering that program?

That would be our internships -- you can send your resume to resumes@gaiaonline.com. Usually the interns we hire are local (or are willing to move to California for the duration).
Panagrammic
MrsrachaelSnape
you don't hire people who can work at home? Or you going to hire dev interns who can work on zomg?

Since the interns are working with the developers and artists and whatnot, it works out the best when they can be on site.


Panagrammic
SS2-SITH LORD
To Any Admin Lurking!

I was recently on a website and saw that if i purchased the ZOMG soundtrack that i would get a headphone item for my avatar. Does this offer still stand? I haven't seen any listed in MarketPlace.
CLICK FOR PROOF!


What happened to the plan to bring back Memphis Mermaids?


Pan and Lanzer still haven't looked at my PMs concerning Ghost Fish. Should i resend them?

Nah, it's on our list to look at this week -- don't need to resend it.


siskataya
SS2-SITH LORD
To Any Admin Lurking!

I was recently on a website and saw that if i purchased the ZOMG soundtrack that i would get a headphone item for my avatar. Does this offer still stand? I haven't seen any listed in MarketPlace.
CLICK FOR PROOF!

Heya SS2-SITH LORD!

Thanks for the great questions! I can answer your question about zOMG! headphones item that comes with the purchase of the zOMG! soundtrack.

If you do purchase the soundtrack, you can file a billing ticket and let us know, and we'll be happy to grant the zOMG! headphones to you. So yes, you can still get this item!

Hope this helps! biggrin
Sisky


Uncle Kenny
Diamond Cache
Hello Gaia staff!~ I just have a few questions.~
1. The Lite Fish drops are currently glitched. They don’t grant anything and disappear when used. Any insight on this?

We're looking into the Lite Fish drops currently and as soon as we have them finished up/fixed we'll let you know!


biglanky14
Pirate Captain Sushi
1. Does the Gaia staff hold any "Job Shadow" opportunities for would-be sprite-artists, graphic designers, and web developers in training? If so, how would one go about entering that program?

2. Easter is coming up on April 8th and I was wondering... will we be getting to see the Easter Bunny and his deliciously giant mecha-self again this year? Also... do you have any Easter event hints you'd be willing to give us? My fellow E-Corp'ers are getting ancy.

3. The Easter 2K10 Gambino Zombie skin is still incapable of having glasses or any other sort of facial accessory equip with it, I was wondering if this was an issue that would be fixed anytime soon since it kind of doesn't make sense for a skin to unequip glasses/masks/contacts/makeup.

Hi PCS,

1) We don't have a formal program for this, but we've kicked around ideas for it in the past. If you're interested, PM me what you'd mainly like to do, and at least I can give it to our HR department in case something does come up.

2) Perhaps <stays coy> smile

3) I'll have to ask our artists about that, so I'll pass it along.


Lanzer
Brooklyn Rage Mage
Evening, Gaia Staff. Tonight I wish to address more zOMG issues.

1. Could we see a fix to some more glitches that exist in game? Examples are the Silent NPC glitch that plague many areas, and the Disappearing Charge Orb and Shadow Orb glitch.

2. More minor content updates, like new rings every week and powerups. Is there a possibility for adding more of this?

3. To address an Alchemy issue, could we possibly add a way to buy/make formulas in bulk? It’d save a lot of time for people who like to buy Orb Aggregates and craft them.

We're doing the best we can to get the resource for having bugs fixed.

Things like new rings are easier to make than new areas, and we're actively talking about that also. We'd like to get to being able to get bug fixed first, then we can look into features such as new rings.

That's a great suggestion. It's unlikely that we can change the marketplace interface for buying things in bulk, but we'll see if there are other means.


Panagrammic
Corinth Maxwell
2. Why does it seem like there's now more of an emphasis on bringing Facebook-like games to Gaia Online, instead of getting and/or developing games -- and then subsequently advertising them and/or marketing them on other websites -- that have no official attachment to a site that most of your users don't even like?

3. Speaking of "off-site content"......Why does Gaia use a footer/toolbar from a site that universally "logs you in" whenever you're on other sites where the toolbar is used, and then adamantly refuses to allow you to remain "logged out" until you decide you want to use it again? Furthermore, was it ever taken into consideration to develop an original Gaia-exclusive footer/toolbar?

Thanks for your replies, as always. cat_3nodding

2. Not sure if I'm parsing your question correctly, but we're hoping that some of our FB properties -- even if they do not really overlap with the Gaia storyline -- would nonetheless be enjoyable for our users to play for gold and such. The key example here is Moga, which is not Gaia canon, but nonetheless enough users have asked for that we're going to host it on Gaia so that people don't have to have a FB account to play.

3. You can turn off the Meebo toolbar in account settings. We did have a Gaia-exclusive footer/toolbar for chat but it was pretty unpopular with the users.


siskataya
Rattie Virginia
siskataya
Rattie Virginia
Hi there. No questions from me. With everything that's gone on this past week concerning zOMG, I'm sure this will be another insanely busy AtA. I just dropped by to deliver a couple things:

1. First, I know that the staff has been dealing with a LOT of frustration and anger from the userbase on a few different topics the past few months. As someone who in the past publicly complained about staff silence and important issues being ignored, and who allowed my frustration about it to feed other users' frustrations at the time, I now just want to express my appreciation for the new attempt at better staff communication. To me lately, I have been seeing the promised effort to improve real communication and I hope it continues. I applaud the 2012 goal of proving to users that the staff actually cares about this community.

2. Second, my annual art tribute to Gaia: This past weekend, a city near me hosted the world's largest street painting festival. Since the festival falls around the time of Gaia's anniversary, for the past few years I've always drawn something Gaia-related. This year, for the first time, I asked for suggestions and drew Gambino based on Narumi's suggestion. My plan was to draw his entire upper body & both hands in his classic "crazy with power" pose and his quintessential Bwahaha laugh. Underneath I was going to draw a cherry blossom branch framing the words "Happy 9th Anniversary Gaia!" Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. But, here Gaia staff, at least you can have a disembodied floating Gambino head and a rain-splattered grunny! xd

Click these for full sized photos:
User Image

User Image

Heya Rattie Virgina!

Nice to see you about as always! Thanks so much for the kind words and the super awesome chalk art drawings - that is amazing, and totally made my day. I'm glad you are also noticing our attempts at much better communication. We're not perfect, we know that, but we are definitely trying to improve our communication with the community, so thanks for the vote of confidence. It is much appreciated 3nodding

Be well and have a fantastic week! ^^
Sisky

Yeay! I'm glad the tribute made someone's day even though I never got to finish it! User Image
How was your own weekend? Did you do anything especially fun?


Heya!

Thanks for asking! My weekend was typical - did some cleaning, went grocery shopping, and helped some Gaians biggrin Oh yes, I also had my weightlifting training - super fun! Except my arms hurt from learning the overhead lifts. One day I'll get better at those! ^^

- Sisky


Lanzer
SS2-SITH LORD
To Any Admin Lurking!

I was recently on a website and saw that if i purchased the ZOMG soundtrack that i would get a headphone item for my avatar. Does this offer still stand? I haven't seen any listed in MarketPlace.
CLICK FOR PROOF!


What happened to the plan to bring back Memphis Mermaids?


Pan and Lanzer still haven't looked at my PMs concerning Ghost Fish. Should i resend them?

I'll check and see if the offer still stands. It was really old so I don't remember the details.

We've received many reports about the ghost fish including your report, and we'll have it fixed soon. Thank you for letting me know.


Uncle Kenny
Soah-Nim
Uncle Kenny
Soah-Nim
I would like to address an issue that’s begun to hit close to home in a lot of Gaian’s inboxes.

I’m talking about anon hate mail. Like me, many Gaian’s open up anon letters and gifts on events, and sometimes as a leap of faith; only to be reminded why we turned them off in the first place, someone or a group of people are going about sending these hateful messages and get away with it.

I have been receiving for the past year the worst anon gifts, some of them saying the most mean and spiteful things that are purely meant to hurt or to make me look like a fool. I am not the only one either, and yet when I report this offence I hear nothing back. Why? Is it ok for others to go about harassing others through a system meant to bring joy and happiness? I have brought this up in past reports as well but still my issue goes unheard. I heard back from a moderator about a scamming attempt on my account before I heard back from them about a report of someone calling me a whore and a b***h. How can this continue to be ok?

My question, my only question is: Will you continue to let this happen to those of us being preyed upon, during times which we thought would be fun but are clouded with worry and fear or recurrence? If so, how will you do this, I do understand there is no staff available to overlook each anon letter; however if there were some sort of filtering maybe that could be possible to reduce the occurrence of this hideous act.

We definitely do not encourage or support anyone who utilizes the anonymous feature of events to be abusive, hateful, explicit, or anything else we find inappropriate. There can be a backup sometimes when certain areas get a lot of report traffic, such as during events, so it may take a bit longer to hear back. I assure you though that if someone is being abusive/hateful/etc toward you through the anonymous Valentine's, we do have ways of finding them and they will be held liable for what they said. We take abuse very seriously and do not tolerate it under any circumstance.

I appreciate your truth, I know it can be hard, with all the users out there and regulating them probably isn't an easy task.

It's not just Valentines day event anons, it's primarilly the gifting system that I've been harassed with. Is there any plans of re-vamping the system to make it so people can't do this, or would that just be a programming nightmare?

If you get abusive messages with gifts you can also report the PM you receive for those gifts and we can find the user then as well. An update for the gifting system isn't currently planned but a potential way to avoid the abusive message is to set your gift settings to not allow Anonymous gifts in your Account Settings.


Narumi Misuhara
Yeata Zi
Happy AtA Monday, everybody! Here's to this one being just as busy as last week's AtA. And I appreciate the message from Mr. Biglanky.

Here's a question for everybody: What's your favorite cartoon series? Mine is currently a toss up between Adventure Time and Regular Show.

I represent E-Corp. My other questions focus on the upcoming easter event--so I suppose that means they are mostly for Narumi--but I'd love answers from any of the devs.

Will E-Corp have to get millitant again this year, or will the great and powerful Easter Bunny get some easter spotlight?

With the beginning of Lent last week, we only have a little more than a month until the big day. How does EB prepare himself?

Easter is April 8th this year. Will it be related to the April Fool's Day event since they are so close?

Has he moved out of that crummy apartment?

What does he have his hench hares do when they aren't making explosives errrr... painting easter eggs?

We're curious if we will be searching the map for our Mechanical Rabbit during the event--like we had to for Santa and Jack.

Will Ian be pulling out his Easter Threads for us this year? I must say the man looks quite fabulous in bunny ears.

Will the tree house hold an easter alchemy item for the event--or a non alchemy item? Or both?

Also...taking bets on when diedrich will have his inevitable heart attack. Can I expect to see Diedrich involved in the easter event? Or is he suffering from last year's loss. (here's hoping he won't participate).

And as non e-Corp message--thanks for admitting to botching your communication. Now, will you be fixing it any time soon? And how?

Thanks!


Quote:
Here's a question for everybody: What's your favorite cartoon series? Mine is currently a toss up between Adventure Time and Regular Show.
Shamefully... I've seen neither sweatdrop

All I'm willing to say about Easter is that Deidrich and EB still have things to work out...

Quote:
Will the tree house hold an easter alchemy item for the event--or a non alchemy item? Or both?
No, alchemy will not be in the Easter event, please see my journal here for more on why. As for a regular item, I would like there to be one in the tree house but will depend on if there's time. As things stand I did not require one be created for this event.

Quote:
We're curious if we will be searching the map for our Mechanical Rabbit during the event--like we had to for Santa and Jack.
No


biglanky14
II HazelSkye II
Personal Questions:

Will Gaia be refunding zOMG Buccaneer Boardwalk ticket holders? How will they compensate those who purchased one through the marketplace and not through the cash shop? (I personally spent 200k on my ticket, only to be disappointed at my loss.)

Would Gaia consider hiring interns to help upkeep zOMG? It would be free or very cheap labor, and would provide an opportunity to at least have bugs fixed on a regular basis.

zOMG user-collected questions:

[tons. Removed from quote.]

Hi Hazel Skye,

I'm going to take a stab at your personal questions, mainly because I don't know the answers to the zOMG-related ones right now. In general, we're going to fix bugs when we can, and may end up doing some work on the game (new rings/quests, etc.) when we have a chance.

For Buccaneer Boardwalk, we're looking into a couple of possibilities of what we could do. I'm not sure exactly where we'll end up, but we definitely don't want you guys feeling like you wasted your money.

As for interns, nothing is completely out of the question, although getting them can be complicated (such as from a legal perspective, which can be aggravating).


codemonkey37179
Haruna Shirou
codemonkey37179
ROMVLVS

2) Last week we were told about some changes to towns and homes, is it likely that we'll get a little farmville-esque game on our homes? Truth be told I dislike Farmville, but I think it might be fun incorporated into towns somehow.

There was a typo in my post which mentioned farmville which I clarified later, I meant to say 'not like farmville' and forgot the not redface

What we are thinking is instead of a neighborhood of closely clustered cabins, of people you don't know, that we would dedicate an entire square of towns just for your house. We have been kicking around the idea of a garden for your house, with possibly waterfalls, statues and flowers. Also we may have it where you can decorate the outside of your house as well. Right now all of this is just in the idea stage.

Only of people we don't know? Or would we be able to choose who to live next to by the way we plot our houses down in the way that we do now?

I mean right now, at least for me I'm in a neighborhood of people I don't know. We want to make it easier to have a neighborhood of friends. We just haven't decided how to do it yet.


Narumi Misuhara
ROMVLVS
Hey Lanzer! Happy Monday!
3) Is the summer event going to be towns V towns olympics again? Please?

I'll consider it razz


biglanky14
Mademoiselle Kit
biglanky14
SS2-SITH LORD
To Any Admin Lurking!

I was recently on a website and saw that if i purchased the ZOMG soundtrack that i would get a headphone item for my avatar. Does this offer still stand? I haven't seen any listed in MarketPlace.
CLICK FOR PROOF!


What happened to the plan to bring back Memphis Mermaids?


Pan and Lanzer still haven't looked at my PMs concerning Ghost Fish. Should i resend them?

Hi SS2-Sith Lord,

For the soundtrack, if you have your receipt, just send it in to our Customer Support team and they'll get you taken care of.

For Memphis, we probably won't be bringing back the original version. If (and I stress if) she does come back, it'll likely be a different version that's cheaper, but doesn't give out as much gold.

For the PMs, yes please do. They get a ton, so it's easy to miss them. Thanks!

I came here to rant about zomg, but here is something I have to ask:

If they might not be coming back, THEN WHY WERE THE USERS TOLD IT WOULD BE BACK "IN A FEW WEEKS".

No matter how you look at it, now it looks like you guys lied. stare This is the "communication/mistrust" issue I was mentioning.

You're right - this is the type of thing we want to fix. Can you please point me to where we said that? Not because I don't believe you, but because I want to see what happened. Likely we said something we shouldn't have.


Panagrammic
Winged Demon X

  1. Is the mobile app API gonna be updated to use JSON in the future? I am currently using it in my google chrome extension and I really don't like having to parse html and look through it.

  2. Does the mobile app API generate any gold when you go to it?

  3. If I have permission can I make an android GaiaOnline app? I know everything about the iphone app API and I think I can make a nice decent app. If I do get permission I will give all source code for it to GaiaOnline but with my name on developer.

  4. Can I have permission to use the mobile app API to develop a dashboard which refresh with important information like, Subscribed threads, Notifications, Private Messages, Announcements, Friend's Stuff, User Topics.

  5. If I do get all permission to use the mobile API is it possible I have have a contact which can answer questions for the API?


I think that is all the questions I have right now. I can't think of any more right now. Please answer my questions. smile

- it has been updated to use JSON
- AFAICR gold is not generated when you perform actions through the mobile API
- you're free to make a helper app for Android, and can use the existing mobile API -- there are some trademark concerns, and whatnot. If you send me a PM we can talk about it in more detail.


carbonphyber
Krissim Klaw
carbonphyber
Corinth Maxwell
3. Speaking of "off-site content"......Why does Gaia use a footer/toolbar from a site that universally "logs you in" whenever you're on other sites where the toolbar is used, and then adamantly refuses to allow you to remain "logged out" until you decide you want to use it again? Furthermore, was it ever taken into consideration to develop an original Gaia-exclusive footer/toolbar?

The company that makes and hosts that footer is called Meebo. It is a bug and I have it on my list of things to fix.
I agree it is quite annoying. My only workaround so far is to make sure that I reload all browser windows that have the Meebo bar on it whenever you log in or log out of GaiaOnline.

Is there also a chance you will look into the fact that people who are on your friendlist can stalk you through Meebo and knows such things as what you are currently looking at in the vend. It would be nice if it was like the other notices where you can decide what info/feeds your friends will get on your movements around Gaia.

Interesting. This used to be an account setting but I guess it's gone.
carbonphyber
Krissim Klaw
I know there are account settings for what gets posted on your friend's My Gaia Page but apparently the Meebo bar bypasses these settings even if you have certain settings turned off.
There used to be a setting that allowed you to hide your current location from friends. I think it was used in the "join me" links on either the Friends List or the old footer's Friends panel.


Lanzer
ROMVLVS
Hey Lanzer! Happy Monday!

Anyway, I've got some questions for you:

1) I'm glad to see that we got the Ruby's Rack logo shirt, if you'll remember I had asked for items like this. Will we see shirts like this for more shops, like Gambino Outfitters tank tops or H&R Wesley polo's?

2) Last week we were told about some changes to towns and homes, is it likely that we'll get a little farmville-esque game on our homes? Truth be told I dislike Farmville, but I think it might be fun incorporated into towns somehow.

3) Is the summer event going to be towns V towns olympics again? Please?

4) Will there be any more alchemy stuff in Bidblast in the future?

5) Also, could we have a profile like system for our shops, where we can change backgrounds and stuff? I have a gif in my shop to imitate the Gaia stores, and I think it would be cool to have more control over it.

Yeah that's an idea that we'll probably see more of if they're popular. It all depends on how many Gaians like them.

We're more focused on navigation, being able to find people, events, and social features for playing group activities. There won't be farm-like features at the upcoming release.

We haven't start work on summer event yet, but if we're bringing back the Olympics, then it'll most likely be that.

The response for that isn't so popular, but we just want to make sure that we get as many formulas to as many people as possible.

That feature might be tough to build, as we took a long, long time in building the profile feature, but maybe we can have a storefront inside people's profile... will need to look into that to see how feasible it will be.


Zero Omega
MrsrachaelSnape
Zero Omega
MrsrachaelSnape
Zero Omega
/lurks ninja

I know you , you helped my sister over the phone ^_^.

How are you?

Who's your sister? eek

I'm doing fine! Lurking, working, and listening to music. And you?

She was fairyofgrace now Shedeem. She said you were very helpful and friendly. Super tired I have a sinus infection that cause me to pass put a few days ago. So I've been tired for days.What music?

The Mars Volta and Bad Religion.

And yes! I remember now! Hope your sinus infection blows over!
Zero Omega
MrsrachaelSnape
Zero Omega
MrsrachaelSnape
Thank you! Now I wonder if you ever dance at work hehe.

I do not. xd I just try to fire Nerf guns and fail.

Oh I love the Nerf guns war. Do you guys still have Nerf guns wars?

We attempted to have one today... But then my Nerf gun would never fire. gonk
Harbinger of Pandamonium
MrsrachaelSnape
Harbinger of Pandamonium
MrsrachaelSnape
Harbinger of Pandamonium
His dancing is the stuff of nightmares. gonk

oh I guess his dance moves aren't good?
They are very "special". 3nodding
Record them wink .
We will take it under consideration for a future video. mrgreen


Panagrammic
Simply Angle
Evening ATA'ers

1. With the success of Monster Galaxy on Facebook does Gaia plan on exploring other gaming opportunities for like the consoles or will Gaia stay focus with Facebook,iPod,iPad....etc?

2. This one is directly at Lanzer or any of the staff that play video games.
What games are you looking forward to being released this year? SSX maybe? emotion_awesome

3. Gaia Merchandise related: Would Gaia ever think of a partnership deal with like skinit.com or cafepress.com to expand merchandise opportunities?

Speaking of Gaia Merchandise you guys should at least update the front page of the store so it isn't false advertising, like with the WTF & Omnomnom hat since they are no longer up for sell.

1. FB and mobile for now.
2. Mass Effect 3!
3. We have looked at this in the past, and it is something that we evaluate on an ongoing basis.


biglanky14
Ridley Starsmore
To Gaia's Staff:

I don't really expect a reply from this, to be honest. At the most, I expect the usual spin your team seems to have developed a knack for.

Something has been screwed up. It's been in the pipeline for a couple years now, but we've really seen it go full swing in the past 6 months.

You've become too distanced from the people that helped you keep this site running through the lean times, and help make this place great for 9 years now. No longer do folks feel as if they can trust the words coming out in the forums, and dissatisfied folks have become with the service you are providing for Gaia Online.

We appreciate that the past couple days, many of your staff have taken upon themselves to answer some questions about issues concerning Gaia, and specifically zOMG's fate, which I am sure is addressed in the opening statement of the thread today. (And if it isn't, it darn well should be.)

But many of us feel it's become too little, and too late.

I am a big fan of Gaia, on the whole. I love the people I come across, I love the little job I managed to make for myself, I love cheering on others in things here, and them doing the same in return.

Gaia's staff used to give off that sense of comraderie. There could be a time, when one of you folks would be on at 2 am, chatting it up in a thread, knowing full well you had work in the morning, because the site was fun! You enjoyed the people that made Gaia so special! This was to become the 'second home' for so many of us!

Why did you forget that?

I get that Gaia is a business, one that you are trying to help grow and expand, and hopefully survive the 'social media bubble burst" That's likely to come in the next couple years.

But you can't do it, running things how you are doing it now. You've lost touch with so many of your members, you forgot what it is to be GAIANS.

This site started out as a group of friends, sharing anime links, and grew out of that into an amazing place for many of us, but in the process, something changed for you folks. I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but I'm trying to drive home that point.

Gaia is broken.

Your PR is, without a doubt, one of the most questionable, and disorganized, services you attempt to provide. From just a casual glance, there seems to be very little interdepartment communication. I have watch people leave this site, because they think those in charge or clueless. I'm pretty sure you aren't, but you folks certainly aren't checked in with your people in the forums.

I know you want to make money and be profitable. Who doesn't? But it's begining to feel like you are letting your ethics slip in the name of that pursuit. And the worst is, people have begin to EXPECT you to.

I have seen primarily two types of attitudes during this latest issue. Those who are genuinly mad, and frankly, they have a pretty good reason to be.

And people who've essentially given up. And for some reason, THAT'S the largest group! Folks that don't believe you guys will do anything to really make it right! A few posts here, some special words there, and POP, everyone will forget!

Why should people expect that?! Should we? Should YOU?! Do you guys want to be known as a company that takes advantage of it's userbase, so long as the money comes in?

That is how you are seen now! People are no longer willing to believe the staff, because they have been caught in so much miscommunication and percieved lies.

People have been offering solutions for multiple problems your site has issues with, not just for the most recent fiasco, but for multiple things in the past few years, and it's fallen on deaf ears to most of us.

So many features have been released, either broken, incomplete, mismanaged, or forgotten after a couple years. zOMG, Alchemy, Aquariums, EIs, lack of story, developing for FB, all issues your users have asked over an over again for you to fix! Only to be ignored!

And no one there is giving any real indication that they want to fix it at all.

Good luck with riding Facebook's coattails. I'll likely be here, watching the place go down when that doesn't pay the bills either. And I'll be asking the same one question that I am asking you now:

Are you willing to do what it will take to be seen as a decent company once more, like you used to be? And when you think you are, you need to tell folks what you plan to do.

Then actually DO IT. I'll be waiting, willing to spend GC again when that day comes.

PS- I did read the above posts by lanky. it's still just words at this point. LET'S SEE SOME ACTION!

Hi Ridley,

Thanks for the post. You're right - it is just words. And I don't think anyone here will disagree with you that we've had our fair share of slipups. That's what we're trying to fix. Personally, I think we've made some progress in the past few months, and aren't planning to stop there. But I don't want to convince you by talking - I want us to earn that trust back. Hopefully we do.


Zero Omega
Simply Angle
Zero Omega
/lurks ninja

-tackles the lurking Omega- ninja

EXPLOSION!


Lanzer
Diamond Cache
Hello Gaia staff!~ I just have a few questions.~
1. The Lite Fish drops are currently glitched. They don’t grant anything and disappear when used. Any insight on this?

2. Enki’s have been living past their advertised rate of 4 months. Many with analyzers say they’ll live 8 months. Is it a glitch for them to live 8 months, or an accident that they were marked with a lifespan of 4?

Sorry the fish drop had a bug that was just fixed this afternoon. Though I would suggest waiting for another 2 days because we should put better items in the Fish Drop item. The Fish Drop item is a random chance item that will drop various items.

Yes, some fishes have had bugs where they end up living longer than they're supposed to. I don't have the stats to confirm Enki, but I remember seeing a number of them being like that.


DARKNRGY
Mademoiselle Kit
Dear Admins:

I apologize for the ensuing, as it is going to sound very much like a rant. This is not a rant at anyone in general, but to Gaia's policies towards the zomg community.

You saw last week our anger at our game getting shelved. As we soon learned, there was much, much more to that. An online riot ensued. This riot was because of many factors, one important factor is the issue of communication between admin and users.

Some things were are irritated about on this issue are:

1. There was no annoucement when zomg was going into maitenence mode. This gave off the appearance that the admins were trying to hide this fact (even if this wasn't true) in order to keep milking us for cash to save the game, when (as we learned from DARKNRGY's post) that was never the intenton

2. Why we were told that only our Gaia cash could save the game, and would go DIRECTLY to saving zomg when (as we learned from DARKNRGY's post) that was never the intention from the start.

3. Why DARKNRGY himself told us in the last ATA that zomg had an "extensive ad campaign" until it was backpedaled that it was not an extensive campaign and more like a "test campaign". Any way you look at it, that is at the very least, a misleading statement. The fact that the misleading statement was mentioned in Ask the Admin, where we should expect true statements (Or, at least, acknowledge when one doesn't know the answer) makes me feel we should have an apology for this, and other statements at last ATA that were misleading.

4. Why the rest of Gaia never had any clue about the state of zomg; people are just now learning about our greivences. The game we tried so hard to save COULDN'T be saved if Gaia didn't care enough to let its own users know of the situation.

5. Why we were told by Lanzer himself that our BB tickets would be refunded if development stopped on BB, if this was never the intention to begin with.

It is clear to me, from these things, that the issue of communication needs a MASSIVE overhaul, and admins should try harder from now own to make sure that correct statements get through.

Also, another few points, but they need stating: We of the zomg community love our game. We have opened our hearts and wallets and shown this time and time and again. We gave you several ideas on how to revive interest in the game. But you did not listen. The "failure" of zomg was not our fault, though we were led to believe it, but YOURS.

I hear there is an inquiry now into the possibilities for zomg. I am glad of it. But I do wonder why a site-wide SHITSTORM had to break out before you were willing to look into this. That alone, tells me all that I need to know about how Gaia treats zomg.

We were told last week that "we all want something new and tiny", but I think Gaia needs to realize something. We DONT want something new and shiny (facebook games). I know you can't please everyone, but when the MAJORITY of your site doesn't want something, I think you should start rethinking it.

1. There was a lack of coordination in the way that information got out and that's definitely Gaia's fault. Staff is invited to post and don't have strict guidelines. In this case we wanted to work on the communication ahead of time but instead had to approach it in reactionary mode.

2. The promise was not explicit. It wouldn't be possible to guarantee continued production to any particular person who contributed. While we were inspired by efforts from individuals, we were looking for an aggregate result and there simply wasn't enough people. And yes, while there is no systematic way funds are directed from one payment vector to any particular project, the amount spent on zOMG following the challenge easily absorbed any additional revenue. So for all practical purposes, that (amount of) money went directly to zOMG. It's a difference in semantics and wasn't meant to mislead.

3. I'm definitely sorry you felt misled by the statement. I certainly knew more about the campaign in my later post. It's a subjective statement though - the amount of money and time spent on marketing zOMG was impressive to me and it's accurate to say that it was as extensive as any other effort. It was more than just test marketing - print ads, game networks (addicting games and congreate iirc). It's also worth noting that all new marketing is "test marketing"; we might be getting hung up on the "test" part of that which might suggest to some people that it was limited in scope (it wasn't). Just the initial marketing alone went on for several months and costed us an appreciable amount of money. The initial campaign ended because we were losing money on it.

4. answered in 1

5. addressed in biglanky14's post


Zero Omega
petiele
I have another question. I'll keep posting these as they pop up in my head.

How do you pick and choose which questions to answer at AtAs?

I generally select the random questions or questions that I would have the experience and knowledge to answer. Questions like this! Not sure how the other pick though, the wonders of the world...


Narumi Misuhara
Chibi Halo
I have a few questions regarding some upcoming holidays here.

[x] For St. Patrick’s Day will we get at the very least a forum and some Irish items again to commemorate the day?
[x] Will Ian be putting on his bunny costume for Easter this year even if it’s in the spirit of the holiday?
[x] Will the Easter Bunny be on the map to turn in stuff to him just like Jack and Santa were last year?


Quote:
For St. Patrick’s Day will we get at the very least a forum and some Irish items again to commemorate the day?
No comment.

Quote:
Will Ian be putting on his bunny costume for Easter this year even if it’s in the spirit of the holiday?
Doubt it.

Quote:
Will the Easter Bunny be on the map to turn in stuff to him just like Jack and Santa were last year?
No


[Yyyeah, that's what I thought. This transcript continued next post.]

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
[SO called it, you have no idea how thoroughly I called it, well, okay you do if you read the top of the previous post.]

February 27th, some more

Panagrammic
SS2-SITH LORD
Panagrammic
Mademoiselle Kit
biglanky14

For Memphis, we probably won't be bringing back the original version. If (and I stress if) she does come back, it'll likely be a different version that's cheaper, but doesn't give out as much gold.

For the PMs, yes please do. They get a ton, so it's easy to miss them. Thanks!
I came here to rant about zomg, but here is something I have to ask:

If they might not be coming back, THEN WHY WERE THE USERS TOLD IT WOULD BE BACK "IN A FEW WEEKS".

No matter how you look at it, now it looks like you guys lied. stare This is the "communication/mistrust" issue I was mentioning.

Yeah, this one is my bad.

We took a bunch of the lower level fish out because we were trying to stem the creation of new tanks (basically, there were too many tanks for the numbers of players available). Unfortunately, the situation did not resolve itself; as a particular example, Memphis tanks are still overrepresented in the population at large (easily over 50%).

To take care of the need for easy starter fish, we've been releasing the "Lite" fish, which hopefully takes care of your concerns about Memphis. We were delayed on the starter fish, unfortunately, and they were not available as soon as we thought after removing the other cheap fish.

Lite fish are considered starter fish now?
How does one benefit from these lite fish? What does said person get a start on?

It depends if you're after a decorative or gold-generating tank. The lite fish are dirt cheap and look good, but they don't glow. If you're after a gold-generating tank then there is lots of good advice in the Gaia Aquarium Discussion forums.
Panagrammic
Mademoiselle Kit
Personally, I am biased on this issue (I like Memphis, and my tank is a near-pure Memphis tank as you can see) but my concerns were mostly on that it created a good mid-level tank.

You had low tier, then Memphis tier, then high tear. Without memphis, people will have to spend a good amount of gold that will get them a tank that will be played. That is my concern. Some people want a tank that will be played without spending a ton of gold.

Pan, I like you, you seem like an honest guy, but I suggest you tell the aquarium community your explicit reasons for removing the memphis and not wanting to put them back. They are...unhappy, to say the least about this issue.

Strong feedback from the community was that fish should not be touched after sale. An unfortunate side effect of this is that availability in the store is necessarily more volatile. If we don't tweak fish, then control of the supply is one of the few options available to us. We control the availability of many other items, as well (i.e., MCs).

We can certainly offer new fish that try to address the need for mid-level tanks.


siskataya
petiele
I have another question. I'll keep posting these as they pop up in my head.

How do you pick and choose which questions to answer at AtAs?

Heya petiele,

Interesting question! I personally try to answer topics that pertain to my areas of work, and for which I have definitive answers or for which I can get definitive answers. This is how I select topics to answer in AtA. Of course, this depends on if I see the question at all! Sometimes things fly by so fast here, I miss a question! Not to worry though, I do go back to the thread after it is closed, however, and respond to users' question.

Hope this makes sense! biggrin

- Sisky


carbonphyber
Ren Orenji Doragon
I know it's REALLY MINOR, but is there any chance the tooltips for zOMG! badges on profiles can be fixed? I would really like to see when someone obtained a particular badge. :C
I'll add that to my list of bug fixes to look into.


biglanky14
Starshine
Could you please change the client announcement message when you log into zOMG to display that it is on maintanence mode, and more information is available in the forums.

Have a site wide announcement saying the same thing. There are some players who do not go on the zOMG forum much and are still in the dark. Especially international players.

It would be extremely unfair to them if they buy an expensive ring from the MP in preparation for the next area.

On a non zOMG related note, when is the case of Pietro going to finish evolving? How many more years?
Hi Starshine,

Thanks for the suggestions - I can't promise anything, but it's something we can consider.

For your Case of Pietro question, we're well aware of the frustration around that, and ask that you stay tuned on it.


codemonkey37179
Treacherous Hat
A rather specific question on Towns 2.0

It's already been established that towns other than Barton will be part of the new build, that probably includes urban areas like Aekea and Durem. Is it a possibility that these areas might be built "up" as well as "out".

Right now anything is possible with towns 2.0. There is a thread in site feedback to post new ideas for towns.

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/towns-2-0/t.78071015/

What did you have in mind, in regards to being built up?


Panagrammic
Miss-dark8607
Zero Omega
petiele
I have another question. I'll keep posting these as they pop up in my head.

How do you pick and choose which questions to answer at AtAs?

I generally select the random questions or questions that I would have the experience and knowledge to answer. Questions like this! Not sure how the other pick though, the wonders of the world...

So no info on the Exchanges? That's all I stayed up for really. (Well the NPC exchanges and the flash games but that was addressed)

IIRC we added new exchanges for fish when we released Fishing 2.0.

For the most part we're using Alchemy instead of Exchanges to allow for conversion of items into other items.
Narumi Misuhara
petiele
I have another question. I'll keep posting these as they pop up in my head.

How do you pick and choose which questions to answer at AtAs?

Easy, I'll answer if it's something I have an answer to, or can quickly get an answer to while ATA is still happening.


Uncle Kenny
The Bunit
I've asked this several times, but have not yet received a straight answer. Is there any way that guilds will receive an update any time soon?

Currently, Guilds is not on the near-term list of projects we'll be tackling. There are improvements we'd like to make to Guilds but they aren't as high on the priority list as some other projects on there.


Panagrammic
I Nyotalia China I
I had another question .

Is there any plans in the work to add new achievements for Gaia? Its been a while since we got new ones

We just released a new one last week!


biglanky14
Wolfmier
Yay, I made it! This is the first AtA I've attended due to the timezone difference.

Hi everyone ^^

So, here's my question…

Since this year you guys are trying to focus more on communicating with the user base, I was wondering whether you are going put out a site-wide user survey again, like you did a few times back in 2008/09? I thought that was a really great way to get in touch with the wider community beyond just the people active on the forums, and give everyone a chance to express themselves on a number issues which often get brought up. It's been a long while since the last one, so I'm hoping you'll reach out to the community in that way again sometime soon. 3nodding

Also, is there any chance zOMG will still be integrated into events such as Easter with egg hunting and other things we've seen before? I really hope so because that was something that really made events more enjoyable for me.

Thanks for reading heart

Hi Wolfmier,

Thanks for joining us! Funny you should mention that, as I was just talking about that with a colleague. We do have another survey planned, although I don't know exactly when it'll go out.

As for integrating zOMG into events, right now I don't think that's likely. But we are hoping you'll enjoy this year's Easter event anyway!


DARKNRGY
Treacherous Hat
DARKNRGY
Treacherous Hat
A rather specific question on Towns 2.0

It's already been established that towns other than Barton will be part of the new build, that probably includes urban areas like Aekea and Durem. Is it a possibility that these areas might be built "up" as well as "out".

Not sure exactly what you're asking 4laugh . Right now we're actually in the stage where we're trying to determine how much real estate to give individual towns, which ones (or all) that we'll be implementing, all that sort of stuff. It depends on what is practical from the artists working on it. The idea will be for there to be lots of places to explore and chillax out with friends.

If you mean "up" as in a tall building or something then yeah we actually talked about that. Some fun possibilities there. I thought it would be amusing if a tall building was imposing itself in a completely different room because of the isometric geometry of the thing /nerd.

Yeah essentially stairs/flats/bridges and so on. I always found the architecture of Towns 1 a little odd, it looks like a tiny hamlet but it goes on forever.

We're definitely getting rid of the "grid" layout and experimenting with "portals" instead. So going forward we'll be able to (for example) have a door in a town go to a tavern without the tavern needing to actually exist somewhere in a stupid grid.


Lanzer
Cirnol64
Hi there! I have a few questions...

1) Any plans for any new iOS apps?
2) Has any info on the new game been released yet?
3) Will there be an app for said game?
4) (Not a question) Please consider the alchemy drops to zOMG!(Adding a drop rate in the game would boost playability wink )
5) (Also not a question) Thank for for reflecting on the zOMG! commentary from last week, I, like all other players out there, really do not want to see the end of its time and really feel like things have been going downhill. Truly I wish you guys good luck and to make good decisions on the fate of the game and its developers
Thank you!

There will be a new iOS game later on in the year. We'll share details as get get further along.

Not yet, the new games are games that we help publish. They're going through testing right now.

Nope, since they're made by another studio, they have no plans for making mobile versions for now.

Noted. We'll keep zOMG in mind as we grant more alchemy items.

We have had too many attempts where we build fun stuff and didn't update properly, but everyday we keep going back to the list of features we have and find chances for rewrites and updates.


Lanzer
SS2-SITH LORD
So you are publishing AND developing games? Meaning you will publish other developers games?
And develop games to be published by other companies too?

We only have 2 games that we're helping publish, there might be more lined up in the future but there are only 2 for now. If we ever have games published by someone it would be for publishing to non-english speaking gamers.


biglanky14
ice_alchemist_inu
Captain Croissanto
Completely unrelated to zOMG, Alchemy, and anything else I otherwise would have brought up, since most of it is already being addressed as it is.

Will we be getting more storyline updates? I'm curious about where the manga is headed.

Ditto, I was gunna ask the same thing. I love reading the manga :3

<Stays very coy on this>

Stay tuned smile


Panagrammic
Berryfarmer
Could any of these zOMG related bugs get looked into considering you said something about looking into fixing bugs?
Berryfarmer
Let's see some of the glitches to put on a list:
  • Charge Orb and Shadow Orb counters glitching on numbers- Makes upgrading a pain in the arse and a waiting game. Discourages new players if they can't upgrade or have an accurate orb count.
  • Alastor quest in DMS glitched- This is in payed for content, where a specific quest will not activate.
  • General Mayhem on normal-This boss battle is glitched on normal difficulty preventing successful completion of the battle without selecting easy or hard.
  • Broken quests- Seems to plague the twins in Otami and the Vox Stellarium. PLEASE ADD MORE IF KNOW OF THEM
  • Silent NPCs- Plagues Leon and Elizabeth in the beginning area the most, also discourages new players.
  • EB reward recipes- They don't grant for some people no matter how many times they beat EB.
  • Glitched train station- Did they ever fix the new "tutorial"/starting area? I remember there being a glitch where Leon would glitch after you kill the OMGs, or did that get fixed? It discourages new players again, if they cannot even get started properly.
  • Loot not showing up in inventory ingame.
  • Broken mini-events- Primarily ones with spawns such as Fly By in Zen and P3s in Gold Beach.
  • Broken badge grant- The Lawnshark badge in Village Greens for 1200 points in a single event.
  • Quest flags not clearing from map once completed.
  • DMS maps resetting- the infamous instance reset
  • Cure Powerup- Release it again? More possible revenue.
  • Clan chat doesn't work either.
  • Unable to unsuppress in null - Sometimes when you die with suppressed CL you are unable to unsuppress to your maximum CL in null chamber. This is only fixed when you do a hard refresh and completely log out of the game. (You can further suppress your CL in null, and unsuppress to the CL you died at, but no further.)

All I can think of for now, add more as thought of okay?

UPDATE 2/27 3:30PM
  • Null Chamber reset- For some players their null chamber resets meaning they have to reattune every crystal. While this isn't game breaking it can be a bit of a nuisance.
  • Jabber not authorized/whispers- Whispers don't work for some players where they aren't delivered at all or delivered when the recipient logs in next, sometimes hours or days late.
  • Ring stats in ring information not showing.
  • Animated vanish only to return with whatever health they had before the killing blow- So I was killing OMGs in DMP last night and I killed an OMG that had 9 health except instead of the death animation it just disappeared. About 5 seconds later it reappeared with 9 health and was attacking again. Wish I'd videoed it.
  • Level Cap- Visual glitch where when someone level caps their new capped level doesn't update in the crew pane.
  • Possible to get volume adjust for panting/low health heartbeat?
  • Some enemy's knockback knocks players out of the map. Maybe set up boundary walls to prevent this?

This is a great list! The team is looking at getting a contractor to fix some of these bugs. Is there a reference thread in the zOMG forum for these?


Panagrammic
DARKNRGY
Krissim Klaw
Okay playful question though something I'm curious about, do you guys let any pets in the office. A lot of companies are noticing the beneficial effects of letting workers bring their well behaved critters to the office with them so I am curious to know Gaia's policies on the matter.

It's against the property owner's policy for us to bring pets. Other than that, no comment ha ha ha. We've done a large number of very strange things in the office.

Yeah, ask DARKNRGY about his magnets sometime.
Narumi Misuhara
We've snuck some in on occasion but contractually we aren't supposed.
siskataya
Krissim Klaw
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Krissim Klaw
Zero Omega
For example, Uncle Kenny and I engaged in an epic sword fight today.

... Yes, it was epic.

You know the GCD rules, pics or it didn't happen. talk2hand

There may or may not be a video of this fight. ninja

For the good of Gaia, this video that may or may not exist, should be uploaded. Also I may or may not be taking bets on who won the sword fight. ninja

Actually, I won. With a giant stick. All hail the giant stick! ninja
Zero Omega
Harbinger took a video, just depends on whether or not he uploads it.
codemonkey37179
Krissim Klaw
Also, I feel compelled to ask, DARKNRGY what is this I hear about your magnets? emotion_awesome

DARKNRGY has a large collection of very powerful magnets. Every time I walk by his desk, it erases the contacts from my phone.

DARKNRGY
Between lanzer and I we have levitation devices, 90 pound neodymiums, magnetic powder, magnetic fluid, magnetic experiments, and several cases of blood loss.

User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.

ferrofluid excited by a ring magnet and drill bit


siskataya
ice_alchemist_inu
Captain Croissanto
ice_alchemist_inu
Captain Croissanto
Completely unrelated to zOMG, Alchemy, and anything else I otherwise would have brought up, since most of it is already being addressed as it is.

Will we be getting more storyline updates? I'm curious about where the manga is headed.

Ditto, I was gunna ask the same thing. I love reading the manga :3

*Sneaky brofist.* Finally more love for that damn thing.

Lol *brofist back* I love the story updates/manga
I also loved it when they did the picture post, where they'd post pix sent in by users.. Tho I don't think they do that any more...*shrugs*

Heya ice_alchemist_inu!

I saw your comment about the picture post. Are you referring to the "Going Postal" section that used to feature artwork, crafts, and pictures of all sorts of stuff sent in by users? If so, then you might be interested in knowing that this is something that we are looking into resurrecting. Not sure if can or will be brought back, so no promises, but I'd personally love to have it back too. 3nodding

Take care! biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
Kenocka
biglanky14
Kenocka
biglanky14
Guilds – Guilds is definitely on our list of features we could look at (largely thanks to the passionate community around them), but right now we don’t have any plans to make any major changes. We’ll let you guys know if that changes.

While I truly appreciate the updates to Housing/Towns I really would like to know why Guilds aren't being updated? I understand that it's been a long time since someone actually touched the coding (from what I understand and have been told at any rate) but I would also like to think that there is a real reason for why the Guilds won't be getting any updates any time soon. I think that if the guilds were updated to the same standards that the forums now have it would draw more people in.

I asked this question on Facebook and this is the response I've gotten. It doesn't reassure me. Why are you not going to make major changes? Is it just too much work or are you going to make enough small changes that they all amount to a big change?

Hi Kenocka,

To truly overhaul Guilds would require a tremendous amount of work, and right now we don't have the development resources to do so. That's not to say we won't ever, but right now we're unfortunately not in a spot where we can dedicate the resources to it.

While I understand this I also understand that Gaia's been putting off truly overhauling the guilds for many years now. They seem to be in the same shape they were in (maybe not QUITE the same shape mind you) as when they were first introduced.

There is nothing wrong with Gaia putting more effort into things that will gain them actual money but I find it unfair that newer options on this site are getting attention that the guilds have been asking for for YEARS. Couldn't this massive overhaul we so apparently seem to need have been avoided by updating the guilds along with everything else? Why weren't guilds set to run like specialized forums to begin with? I don't expect YOU to know these answers but I feel the questions must be asked.

Couldn't Gcash be used to help the guilds in some way? A private guild house and not the near useless guild chats that costs about $20 to start and an additional amount for every "room" added on to the thing wouldn't do anything but help correct?

Yeah, sorry Kenocka - I don't know much about the history of development for Guilds, and why they were built the way they were. I wish I could give you a better answer there.
biglanky14
Kenocka
What of the rest? I'm sorry if it seems like I'm whining but I feel as if I'm voicing legitimate complaints on the behalf of a lot of people. I just wish that guilds were being given the same treatment as the rest of the site. It makes us feel ignored and undervalued that we're not worth the time and resources it would take to spiffy us up again. I truly feel that if the guilds WERE updated to comply with the rest of the site's coding that we would see an upsurge in member usage.

Hi Kenocka,

Trust me, it's not a personal thing. I wish we could give every feature on the site a bunch of attention, but we simply don't have enough people to do so. We're certainly not working on Guilds at the moment because we don't care about them (which I'm sure you know) - it's simply a matter of resources. Hopefully that will change in the future.


DARKNRGY
Corinth Maxwell
cat_whee Aaaaaaaaand here I am again...... cat_xp

1. (not yet answered) The "Suggested Content" panel has disappeared & re-appeared more than once throughout the past week from the "My Gaia" page. Will we eventually have the option to make this particular panel disappear entirely?

It just disappears and nothing is there?

That module is not very good, I agree. Especially since the Friends section now prompts you to do a search for other people with the same interests. We don't currently have any plans to change it. What would you prefer be there?


biglanky14
Beast Henshin
How long is Spring Cleaning going to last? Has anything from it so far been implemented or planned to be soon?

I almost missed it because I was so engrossed in OoT 3d lol.

Hi Beast,

Yup, we've done several of the projects on the list, and a couple more are being looked at really closely. But we're going to close it up soon, and will post something explaining that in there in the near future.

Thanks!


Panagrammic
MiniBoBini
Dear Gaia Staff,

I have an Aquarium related question. Several months ago, there was a Dev alert about how you guys were going to remove Memphis the Mermaid and some other fish from Phin Phang for "a few weeks" to cool down the making of so many new tanks... or at least I think that's the reason that was given. There wasn't really any warning or anything to give anyone time to purchase any additional fish that they wanted/needed, and the several weeks have long since past.

So, my question is... Are Memphis and the other fish EVER going to come back to Phin Phang?? I miss them, as I'm sure LOTS of other Gains do too!!

Thanks!
Mini

There have been several re-releases of these -- see the new "Lite" fish.


Lanzer
Corinth Maxwell
Lanzer
Hello everyone,

Thank you for attending this week's ATA.

cat_stare Well, let's just hope it's not as frantic as it was last week, then. cat_stressed

1. The "Suggested Content" panel has disappeared & re-appeared more than once throughout the past week from the "My Gaia" page. Will we eventually have the option to make this particular panel disappear entirely?

2. Why does it seem like there's now more of an emphasis on bringing Facebook-like games to Gaia Online, instead of getting and/or developing games -- and then subsequently advertising them and/or marketing them on other websites -- that have no official attachment to a site that most of your users don't even like?

3. Speaking of "off-site content"......Why does Gaia use a footer/toolbar from a site that universally "logs you in" whenever you're on other sites where the toolbar is used, and then adamantly refuses to allow you to remain "logged out" until you decide you want to use it again? Furthermore, was it ever taken into consideration to develop an original Gaia-exclusive footer/toolbar?

Thanks for your replies, as always. cat_3nodding

It'd be helpful to have that section be turned off as an option but we haven't got around updating the MyGaia system just yet.

We happen to take Facebook and mobile games as other platforms to work on, so we made mention of them on Gaia and other places. Opinion on Facebook is different between many Gaians, same thing with whether they like iPhone or Android, I'm sorry that some ads won't be relevant or liked by you or some other Gaians.

A chat system takes quite a bit of effort to build and we currently have many features that we wish to fix and update, so we seek another company to help us with a toolbar.


biglanky14
MrsrachaelSnape
biglanky14
Oh - btw, this will just be locked for a few minutes until ATA starts. I wanted to give everyone a few minutes to digest my tl;dr post before we get going.

TLDR razz

does Zomg make more money then running it? A lot of user were upset feeling they were lied too.

will you ever change your avatar?

In the end, zOMG just hasn't done as well financially as we needed it to. I understand the feeling about being lied to, and while I don't necessarily agree with it fully, I definitely think we could've handled it better.

I kinda like my "frozen in time" avatar. Besides, you can't beat having a hot dog speech bubble!


Panagrammic
Soul of Kyr
Oks,asking again.

1. Why is the malicious ad I have been reporting since November,not taken care of?? I should not have to use my Gaia Cash to buy something,to get rid of ads,so it doesn't hurt me.

2. Why?? Oh Why?? is it that everyday around half my Daily Chances are taken up by Aquarium Fish?? Shouldn't it be more fair and show up as often as other items....most of which I have not seen for weeks now....since you put in the Fish (Lite).

Soul,

Where did you report the ad? Did you put it in the "report bad ads" thread?


Lanzer
xcrimsonlegendx
Hey admin folks and devs

I wanted to ask first if there is any chance of seeing the Dark Reflection theme come back into use? I think it could make a great event theme, it's rich with possible crazy content (like a Prunny Invasion with Prombie skins) and people really seemed to like the Dark Reflection CI.

Speaking of the CI, is there a chance we could get a repeat of that CI theme?

Sorry there's no plans for now, but we are listening to suggestions.


carbonphyber
Winged Demon X
1. I was wondering when will guilds be updated, I have heard so many things about it being updated and I am looking forward for this so I can work on my extension for it.
We don't have a lot of resources to update guilds as it is a _very_ old feature and tends to take a lot more time to work with than other newer features. Taht said, I have a patch around here somewhere that would allow a Guild staff to "delete" a forum (really just hide it). I'll have to see how much work it is to test and release it. It _might_ be something I can release soonish.
Winged Demon X
2. Is it possible that the quick reply javascript post page accept post style. I want to use GaiaOnline native quick reply for post formatting but right now I don't think it's possible. If not I would have to over right the native quick reply.
I don't think we will be able to spend resources on just this.
Winged Demon X
3. Is the mobile app API gonna be updated to use JSON in the future? I am currently using it in my google chrome extension and I really don't like having to parse html and look through it.
I think changing the API might break all apps that have already been downloaded. We would have to version/fork the API and that might add a lot of complexity (which means a lot more work/time/money). We'd like to spend those resources on things we _need_ fixed before features we'd like to have.
Winged Demon X
4. Does the mobile app API generate any gold when you go to it?
I believe there's a chance that you would trigger the "browsing gold" and "posting gold", "and "poll vote gold" events.
Winged Demon X
5. If I have permission can I make an android GaiaOnline app? I know everything about the iphone app API and I think I can make a nice decent app. If I do get permission I will give all source code for it to GaiaOnline but with my name on developer.
Please contact Panagrammic via PM if you haven't already. There might be some legal things we need to work out before we'd give the OKay.
Winged Demon X
6. Can I have permission to use the mobile app API to develop a dashboard which refresh with important information like, Subscribed threads, Notifications, Private Messages, Announcements, Friend's Stuff, User Topics.
This was something I wanted to work on. I'm worried it might divert users from the main site (where we sell items and advertising) but it's worth talking out to find out if there is value in us developing an API where this data could be available for you to use. It gets complicated whenever a 3rd party developer uses data -- this issue is obvious if you keep up with FaceBook, Twitter, iOS, and Android developer privacy/security news.
Winged Demon X
7. If I do get all permission to use the mobile API is it possible I have have a contact which can answer questions for the API?
Again - we would have to talk about this before you should start. There could be limitations about how much we could help.


biglanky14
Antiq
biglanky14

Gaia has never been accused of being a great communicator, and this is a prime example. We completely acknowledge there are a bunch of things we could’ve done better, both in this case and in others over the years. This is something we’re trying to address this year – by being more open and communicative than we have in the past. We won’t always get it right, but hopefully you can see some positive results (such as more presence in the forums, more Dev notices, etc.).
Biglanky14

We've been hearing this for years - "this is something we're going to address"....then you make some initial effort and it fades away again. Gaia News and Updates is a whole forum for communication, and it's more or less dead. AtA seldom addresses anything serious until there's some major hoohaa like this zOMG issue. When you do communicate on some controversy, there tends to be a lot of spin-doctoring and vague reassurances.
Ok, I don't expect you to lay open your every ledger, the minutes of every board meeting or you every business move - but an honest "we can't tell you that because it's sensitive internal material and frankly none of your business". I'd rather you stopped p***y-footing about and got real. You give the impression you don't have much of an opinion of of your users, and frequently underestimate us.
I don't really have an issue with the zOMG decision, you are a business and you need to go where the profits are, and that makes sense, but you've got an asshattery way of doing that. If you have a conviction, say so and stick to it, don't treat us like 6-year-olds to be placated with with a lollipop. If you can't answer a question because you don't have all the information, just say that, don't give us some garbled stuff and hope we'll just go away.
The people who are up in arms about zOMG, or any other issue, are people who are here, still here, still supporting you, still extraordinarily loyal, still opening their wallets, and they deserve to be treated with some dignity.
Gaia has lost a lot of users, or at least there aren't nearly as many joining as there used to be, because for the last couple of years, you've had nothing much to offer that couldn't be found elsewhere, and better. You lagged behind with your unique features like Towns and Homes, your mini-games are just sad - there are vast numbers of mini-game sites so you need to come up with original stuff. Alchemy was a fantastic concept, something much loved by people, and you made a hash of it from day one instead of making it something special that could have drawn people to the site as well as vastly entertained it's current userbase. Now you will spend forever tweaking and fixing it like Booty Grab - why did you make it so complex in the first place?

My advice, think simple, talk straight, and consider actually investing in some serious advertising for the site in general, it might be worth the cost.

Reason I'm still here after 6 years? Apart from mild insanity, that is. Curiosity, wondering what's going to happen next. The amazing users. The avatars. Your quirkiness. That's it. Nothing else has held my attention. Not zOMG, not Alchemy, not your mini-games, Booty Grab, or dozens of those features that were born and died over the years.

No spin, no garbledness - just thanks for the honest feedback.


Lanzer
Lady__Miko
My question is as follows. Will we be seeing more reprentation of Afro textured hair and presence of African cultures in shops (preferably) or in more premium items? While I understand this site is geared towards pop culture, anime and Japanese fashion, I think the disheartening thing is that when these things DO appear in pop culture, when celebs do wear them or when J fashion does deal with it, I don't see much to add them.

Here are some examples of modern hairstyles:

Albaso styles :

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6izHM7-NzcQ/TF_AioPseSI/AAAAAAAAA74/79j8UMyxZxk/s1600/Eritrean+hair+style+4.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6zT50HUDQfg/TvnfWnfsgKI/AAAAAAAAB6M/QRDU6BzUpUA/s320/Beautiful+Eritrean+Girl+with+Albaso+hair.jpg

Fegiret style:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6izHM7-NzcQ/TB67ZERgzEI/AAAAAAAAA4w/lkJQEBwp2RE/s320/eritrean+tigre+hairstyle.jpg

Hamer people often wear this style:

http://img2.photographersdirect.com/img/12366/wm/pd348114.jpg

more western hairstyles: Afros + BANGS/ Bangs with fringes.
Half fros: Also sported in lolita fashion coture fashion and celebrities like Nicki Minaj

Examples of fros in lolita fashion

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvaxjwh1Ep1qcrtuto1_400.jpg

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg15/scaled.php?server=15&filename=ad1bmc.jpg&res=medium

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg15/scaled.php?server=15&filename=ad1bmc.jpg&res=medium

Nicki Minaj
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ib3Bl7Z9aA/TqiEtX1bgnI/AAAAAAAADIg/SJP-_nUP_s8/s1600/alg_nicki_minaj.jpg

http://thirstyroots.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Nicki-Minaj-Curly-Blonde-Wig.jpg (yes natural hair does look like that too)

And then there are Afros cropped to the side

Corrinne Bailey Rae:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.bvhairtalk.com/media/2009/11/corinne-bailey-rae-q-awards-450kc110909-1257951874.jpg
http://www.prohaircut.com/gallery/Corinne_Bailey_Rae_m_89037.jpg

Fro hawk
http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/qhKAESEuzjI/hqdefault.jpg

Bantu/Zulu knots:

http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee497/Afstyle/Hair/Knots/gpgv30134t-1.jpg

http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee497/Afstyle/Hair/Knots/?action=view&current=Mohawk-Hairstyle-With-Bantu-Knots-203x300.jpg

Also theres cute big bantu knots on each side with bangs. I could provide that example some other time..

Clothing

Dinka beaded corsets sported by Dior
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee497/Afstyle/Hair/womenbeadedcoroset.jpg

Lion king sporting dinka beaded corsets

http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee497/Afstyle/Hair/?action=view&current=lionkingdinkacorset.jpg

Bakuba skirts

http://s1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee497/Afstyle/Clothes/Skirts/Bakuba Shoowa Wraps/?action=view&current=rafiaskirts.jpg

Xibelani skirts

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110721220202/afropedia/images/e/ee/Xibelani_3.jpg

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110721220061/afropedia/images/c/cb/Shangaan_skirt.jpg

And before anyone asks, with the exception of the xibelani the corset is worn primarily by men and same with the bakuba skirt. Other things to consider are Masai/Egyptian neck collars in colors that are not traditional and are fun. If anyone needs any further assistance or research I'd be more than willing to help direct more information, but I really am wondering if gaia even cares? An honest answer is most appreciated.

Thanks for the suggestion, we definitely aren't as diversified as we should be, whether it be Afro hair or other forms of fashion, I'll let the team know what you mentioned.
Narumi Misuhara
I asked those 'in the know' and the response pretty much was "maybe." While a wide range of styles is the desired end goal, what specifically gets worked on when varies greatly.


Panagrammic
All Honey
biglanky14


Why are you taking staff off of Gaia to build Facebook stuff? Does this mean you don’t care about Gaia anymore?
Actually, this couldn’t be further from the truth. At the end of last year we made a structural change at the company to address this. Before, everyone pretty much worked on both Gaia and our social games, which made it hard to get anything done. It’s tough to prioritize projects for two totally separate platforms, and people constantly had to switch back and forth, which isn’t efficient. In December we split the company into two groups: the Gaia Online team, and the social games team. This was expressly designed to make sure that everyone knew exactly what they were working on and would be dedicated to that team (i.e. no “stealing” resources from one side or the other). Plus there are other benefits to Gaia, such as giving us the ability to migrate games back into Gaia (such as MoGa) and sharing a common infrastructure, so that any improvements made by one side will be enjoyed by the other too
...(snip)
Biglanky14

All right, which is it? Either JK and Swarf can no longer work on zOMG because they have been pulled off of that to work on Fb games (which is the impression I got from what both of them have said) or you have a separate team for Fb games in which case, it makes no sense to pull the last 2 devs you have from zOMG.

Currently, both JK and Swarf are helping us out on the FB games. While the Gaia and FB groups are separate teams, this doesn't mean that there is an iron curtain with absolutely no communication -- JK has still been doing the Dev Meats, Swarf is available for consulation, so on and so forth. We are looking at bringing in an outside contractor to help with the current DMS bugs, and QA is a shared group between both teams.


Panagrammic
MrsrachaelSnape
baby_kitty_258
II HazelSkye II
I'd like to hear from some other devs/admins about the idea of getting interns working on zOMG. I know big said that there's a matter of legal issues, but many companies hire interns. Would it really be so difficult to get a couple people in to just help fix bugs in zOMG? I know California has an abundance of college students.

bumping this: IMO, This is a great suggestion. Gaia should hire PT interns to help with zOMG's major holiday events, and to work out some of those long lists of glitches, and bugs. emotion_kirakira

Very true. I don't know why they can't do that.

Trust me, we'll hire as many interns we can find. They are difficult to find outside of the summer months, though.
Panagrammic
MrsrachaelSnape
Then can you at lest hire for the summer?Give me some hope.

Yeah, we hire interns every summer.


[...wait wait, this...this thing needs a THIRD post!? Sweet Merciful Veseti...this transcript continued next post, I guess!]

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
[This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a paradigm shift.]

February 27th, even more!

Panagrammic
Wanted- Sirius Black
I dunno if it has been asked, but is there any chance that the quikkitch avatar banners could be made into an item?
you know, the Durepuff, Barterin, Aekeaclaw, and Gambinador things that appreaed on our avi's during the event? Maybe one item with four different poses?

Well, really, we just need one banner -- all the others are decidedly inferior.

ducks and runs
Narumi Misuhara
Hmmm... maybe... should there ever be a round two...


carbonphyber
Miss-dark8607
Ridley Starsmore
People have been offering solutions for multiple problems your site has issues with, not just for the most recent fiasco, but for multiple things in the past few years, and it's fallen on deaf ears to most of us. f

So many features have been released, either broken, incomplete, mismanaged, or forgotten after a couple years. zOMG, Alchemy, Aquariums, EIs, lack of story, developing for FB, all issues your users have asked over an over againor you to fix! Only to be ignored!

And no one there is giving any real indication that they want to fix it at all.
PS- I did read the above posts by lanky. it's still just words at this point. LET'S SEE SOME ACTION!

THIS. I have actually lost a lot of friends on Gaia because of things like this. Like that time the captha was broken in Fishing for nearly a year and recently with the closing of Frontier Skies and ZOMG being pretty much iced. Stuff like this leaves a bad taste in many of our mouths. I have been fighting for the Flash games and the exchanges for a LONG time on this site much longer than I probably should have but like Ridley here I also really enjoy this site as a whole but it does seem like at times you guys forget what this site means to some of us and that for some users we are pretty happy with the simple features.

PS
I don't think posts like these should NOT be ignored and while maybe not all out in public a nice PM would be rad. Overall I think Ridley Starsmore hit the nail on its head.

Please see BigLanky's recent journal entries. This is exactly what we are aiming to do. We don't have a lot of resources but we are hoping to do nothing but clean up issues/glitches/bugs with the GaiaOnline site for most of 2012. The one exception is that we will still have events (which are basically new features).

Please keep posting in Bug Reports & TS. We read that forum often and we use it as a gauge to find out what bugs are most troublesome -- and that helps us prioritize bug fixes.


Lanzer
Rattie Virginia
Hi there. No questions from me. With everything that's gone on this past week concerning zOMG, I'm sure this will be another insanely busy AtA. I just dropped by to deliver a couple things:

1. First, I know that the staff has been dealing with a LOT of frustration and anger from the userbase on a few different topics the past few months. As someone who in the past publicly complained about staff silence and important issues being ignored, and who allowed my frustration about it to feed other users' frustrations at the time, I now just want to express my appreciation for the new attempt at better staff communication. To me lately, I have been seeing the promised effort to improve real communication and I hope it continues. I applaud the 2012 goal of proving to users that the staff actually cares about this community.

2. Second, my annual art tribute to Gaia: This past weekend, a city near me hosted the world's largest street painting festival. Since the festival falls around the time of Gaia's anniversary, for the past few years I've always drawn something Gaia-related. This year, for the first time, I asked for suggestions and drew Gambino based on Narumi's suggestion. My plan was to draw his entire upper body & both hands in his classic "crazy with power" pose and his quintessential Bwahaha laugh. Underneath I was going to draw a cherry blossom branch framing the words "Happy 9th Anniversary Gaia!" Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. But, here Gaia staff, at least you can have a disembodied floating Gambino head and a rain-splattered grunny! xd

Click these for full sized photos:
User Image

User Image

Thank you for the kind words Rattie, it's much appreciated during times of high stress. Your drawing looks awesome, wish I can see it in person.


biglanky14
beckygrendel
beckygrendel
Hello Lanzer and Biglanky!

Would you please consider making the Integrity Ring in zOMG available to everyone? Now that it actually has some use (DMS), it would be nice if everyone could have a chance to get one. Thanks!

crying crying No love for Becky's question this week. confused I even made it to the top of page 2. emotion_kirakira

Ok, here's some love smile

Thanks for the suggestion - we will consider it.


DARKNRGY
petiele
DARKNRGY
petiele
"Unfortunately, it’s just not financially viable for us to dedicate resources to it at the moment"

So we've heard.

At what point would it be financially viable? How much would you expect to make off of powerup sales per month? If you give us a number, I'll bet the farm that zOMG users can come up with it.

petiele
Are you guys not allowed to give us numbers?
Are you guys not allowed to tell us you're not allowed to give us numbers?
sad

Help us help you!

This was discussed in one of the z!F threads. We don't want to give out numbers and I think that's reasonable. Companies don't normally do that except public companies that are traded. The whole thing wouldn't make sense anyway unless you knew about ALL of the numbers and you had the qualifications necessary to critique.

I must have missed that. Thank you for replying.
Although I did mean numbers as in what would need to happen, not what has happened, but you probably figured that out. emotion_hug

Indeed. I'm pretty sure I understand what's being asked for and I'm pretty sure we can't share it. What I said in the other thread is that I had written up a first draft where I was putting a bunch of numbers, just to explore the approach. It was a good post that will never see the light of day. I actually *want* to share the numbers but it's just not wise from a business standpoint. I greatly appreciate everyone's effort to understand where we're coming from with that and sorry we can't share.
biglanky14
Aseres
DARKNRGY
Aseres
DARKNRGY
[...] The whole thing wouldn't make sense anyway unless you knew about ALL of the numbers and you had the qualifications necessary to critique.
Some of us actually do have the education necessary to critique said numbers, just saying' :p While I can understand that you don't want to give out numbers the current flow of information from HQ makes you guys seem either incredibly unorganized, or downright insincere. I suggest hiring (or at least interning) a PR person to prevent situations from this from happening again. Think about all the time you've wasted worrying about and responding to (and contradicting each other) this mess and ask yourselves if it wouldn't be cheaper/easier to just hire someone to professionally deal with it. Most MMOs have "community managers" - why not Gaiaonline?

That's one of biglanky14's responsibilities but he was at Disneyland.

?????????

He's been at disneyland for the last 2 years? oO Can I haz his job plox?

(aka: this has been an ongoing issue... There was so much epic miscommunication last week that it was quite evident that you guys pretty much had no unified opinion on what's going on. Plus, really? A community manager that doesn't seem to interact with the customers? I have to admit I've heard that name before, but I can't even remember when and where. Either way, you need someone who shows his face and deals with the community's concerns by getting involved, talking to people, listening to people and giving them the feeling that they're heard and cared for. And that's CLEARLY not happening right now. )

Hi Aseres,

I picked the wrong week to go. smile

I'm actually responsible for what happens on the site, so you can blame me on several levels.
Panagrammic
Ridley Starsmore
DARKNRGY
That's one of biglanky14's responsibilities but he was at Disneyland.

?????????

Well, that settles it, Lanky's not allowed to leave again.

EVER. emotion_donotwant

Honestly, though, Some adjustments to the PR side couldn't hurt.

And to tack on, even if some of us know the numbers, we can find users who do.

Some of us are better at talking, anyway. MATHS IS HARD!

The reason we don't give them out isn't because there aren't members of the community that would understand them -- I am constantly impressed by the depth of experience that is available out there.
DARKNRGY
Ridley Starsmore
DARKNRGY
I can say with a great deal of certainty that few people know the numbers and can present them in a way that is fair and comprehensive*. Keep your mind objective and exercise skepticism to anyone who claims otherwise.

* I'm not one of them

At least you were willing to admit you have no idea who it works. Takes cajones.

I personally might be able to follow along, but explaining it would be tricksy. I'm not sure I could do it either.

Fortunately, it's not my job to. Or yours, really, being a programmer.

As for it being few...I'm sure there is a gripton of business majors here to might beg to differ, or at least would like to try.-lol-

Damnit Jim, I'm a computer nerd not a doctor!

There are no doubt a very large number of people who could potentially understand the numbers, but that's not my point.
DARKNRGY
WideEyed
DARKNRGY
[...] The whole thing wouldn't make sense anyway unless you knew about ALL of the numbers and you had the qualifications necessary to critique.

You're assuming none of us do. wink
Gaia attracts a rather "diverse" goup of users.

I made some more replies but this thread is on fire. In order to understand the numbers you need: a) all of the numbers and b) the expertise. Few people have that combination. I never meant to insinuate that there aren't qualified users on Gaia. I've seen some real rock stars.


biglanky14
Aseres
Hi!

Sorry if I come across as confrontational, but I'm a business management major and have worked in PR/CS before, so I'm thoroughly confused as to how you guys run things sweatdrop (so it's more confusion and frustration than anger speaking, if that helps at all). Personally, my problem with the situation is not so much the fact that zOMG got put on maintenance mode (don't shoot me z!community cry ), but the fact how the company reacted after. JK's post was graceful and a good balance between explaining the company's situation while "giving credit" to the user base for their continued efforts to keep the game alive. ATA was a disaster though. You've known that zOMG got shelved for a while (I'd hope?) and you've known that the z!community is very passionate and protective of their game, so wouldn't it have been prudent to make sure that all employees that frequently interact with the community have an idea of how to deal with any upcoming questions? I firmly believe that a lot, if not all, of the drama could've been avoided if the user's concerns and position would've been communicated to the company, especially beforehand.
I can understand why users are angry: they were under the impression that they were saving their game, something they spent the last year and a half working for. It is ultimately inconsequential whether they were actually literally told "hey, spend money on the game or we'll shut it down/hold production" - it's been quite obvious that the z!community perceived it that way, and a substantial part of your zOMG-revenue stems from that assumption. Hence, if this assumption was wrong the only right thing to do would've been to correct their misconceptions. It puzzles me why this was never attempted.
Lastly, I hope you enjoyed Captain EEEEEEEEOOOOOO~ emotion_dealwithit

No worries at all. You're right - we weren't buttoned up on our communication in this case, which has been something we're trying to change in general on Gaia. We have a really open culture in terms of how employees talk to the users, and in this case we didn't have our ducks in a row. Basically, I completely agree with your critique.

And no way on Captain Eo. Although Tower of Terror is awesome.


Panagrammic
The Bunit
Dear Gaia Admins

Take a second to look at your forum. This is a small amount of people with new ideas, complaints and such for the site. It's obvious we love the site, the community it brings. I know you stated a few pages ago that you don't have the resources to do an overhaul for the guilds, nor do you have the resources to take care of all the issues in zOMG that would save it... did you guys ever thing you're spreading yourselves too thin on new projects?

Don't abandon what you already have for something new and shiny, because that doesn't fix the problem. And the longer you wait to go back and re-hash, the more work it's going to be. Consider this. Minor changes in both areas mentioned above would be appreciated by users.

Give us some sort of hope that you do listen to us... that you still care about the community this site has. If you want facebook games, make facebook games, but not before working on what you have already built first.

Thank you.

Bun

Agreed. This is why you're seeing much more of a focus this year on fixing existing stuff (i.e., housing, towns, adjust / balance alchemy, cleanup in the forums, so on and so forth) than big new features (i.e., Bidblast).


Narumi Misuhara
lilloulou
@Narumi: I forgot to ask that earlier but... is it possible to get at least one bunny item which looks like a real bunny without any relation to grunnies, prunnies or E-corp this Easter? I, if it's not for other bunny lovers out there, would be really grateful smile

I most certainly can't promise this but, I can pass along the request to the right people.


DARKNRGY
The Bunit
DARKNRGY
The Bunit
Dear Gaia Admins

Take a second to look at your forum. This is a small amount of people with new ideas, complaints and such for the site. It's obvious we love the site, the community it brings. I know you stated a few pages ago that you don't have the resources to do an overhaul for the guilds, nor do you have the resources to take care of all the issues in zOMG that would save it... did you guys ever thing you're spreading yourselves too thin on new projects?

Don't abandon what you already have for something new and shiny, because that doesn't fix the problem. And the longer you wait to go back and re-hash, the more work it's going to be. Consider this. Minor changes in both areas mentioned above would be appreciated by users.

Give us some sort of hope that you do listen to us... that you still care about the community this site has. If you want facebook games, make facebook games, but not before working on what you have already built first.

Thank you.

Bun

It's actually sort of encouraging that you're asking for this because this is what we're (the Gaia team) focused on right now. We are spread to thin as a consequence of the legacy of being around for so long. We're only going to add new features if we are very confident that it's the right thing to do. In short, I think you are exactly right and we are all invested in the idea that this is the right approach.

And yet, neither of the things I log onto gaia for have any room in the developers' plans. >.< I really do want to see that you guys ARE planning to do something about the guilds, even if it's not right away. A goal where just the bbc coding could be taken care of by say, next January would be a start. The guilds are stuck in the dark ages, which makes it hard for guild owners such as myself to entice new people to try out that part of the site. That you acknowledge there's a severe need for the guilds would be a start as well.

It has the potential to be awesome, if only given a little love.

I am happy you admitted you guys have too many different fingers in different pies... and even happier that I got two of you to finally respond. lol. That in and of itself makes me feel like at least a voice can be heard, in a sea full of others. I couldn't tell you how many times I've contacted a developer about this exact problem.. and if you go into the spring cleaning area, you can see I'm by far not the only one who feels neglected.

<3

To give some background, Gaia's most valuable assets are the forums, avatars, items, trading/marketplace, events, flash spaces, that sort of thing, so those always take priority. When it comes to Guilds, holy hell can I relate. I designed and built the entire thing up until another team came along and spiffed up the landing/search, added mass PM, so I feel a great deal of ownership over it (sort of my baby). Yet still I can't ignore that there are challenges with the practicality of working on it. What it really needs is a full rewrite and migration of the forum data structure - that would let us share the feature set between forums and guilds. Forums got the big heavy upgrade and guilds didn't. That upgrade, even though it was nearly transparent to the users, made it physically possible for us to continue supporting the growth of the forums whereas Guilds we knew would be able to keep working because it has only a fraction of the activity. At the time we planned to do it for every post-based feature, but we underestimated the challenge and got stuck with some legacy problems which we haven't solved.


carbonphyber
Catalyste
Simply Angle
Evening ATA'ers

1. With the success of Monster Galaxy on Facebook does Gaia plan on exploring other gaming opportunities for like the consoles or will Gaia stay focus with Facebook,iPod,iPad....etc?

Not gonna lie, but the thought of Gaia making a simple/small game that can be purchased through PS3 or XBox 360 has piqued my interest! lol

Last I checked, the Dev Kit for PS3 was $30k. We don't have any developers at Gaia HQ that specialize in PS3 / XBox development so it's unlikely for now.


Panagrammic
luckycharms444
WideEyed
TtheHero
Another question I have is about the <3/</3 feature in threads. I've seen many a person get salty over being endlessly disliked, considering it a new form of trolling. I personally am indifferent at best if any of my threads get disliked for some reason. But I wonder still, will there ever be a possibility to make it an option to toggle on/off when one is making a thread?

The <3 / </3 buttons are one of my personal pet peeves.
Not that I expect everyone to agree with me at all times (people would have to be nuts! wink ), but I admit to being ticked by the "Drive-by </3" where there is no rebuttal or explanation attached to it and the Topic itself seems to have no objectionable content.
I think it has to do with the fact that it is anonymous, and would like to see all Like's and Dislike's auto-generate a reply box with the name of the user who posted it.

Just a thought.

And some people (Not naming names or threads) make scripts that make anyone that visits the thread automatically give it a <3
(Not 100% sure if that's exactly how it happens, but it's really frustrating!)

Are you sure about this? That really shouldn't be possible.


carbonphyber
The Bunit
I've asked this several times, but have not yet received a straight answer. Is there any way that guilds will receive an update any time soon?

It's unlikely. Guilds is very old code and takes 2-3 times longer to update than newer code.
We are spending most of this year upgrading old code and fixing major bugs. If there are major bugs in Guilds, please don't hesitate to post in the Bug Reports forum and we will try to prioritize the bug fix as best we can.


siskataya
Inochi no Kaze
i want to speak up
hey admin, stop ban people!!
what you know, they bans you take a long time to get all the items they have gaia
if you do it so that they create a new account and buy your gcash you're wrong!
or you can make a fortune without envy them buy your gcash?
Do not be selfish people who only money!
gaia to make it fun and free!
you always make people look for gold to your gcash sold!
It would be extremely arrogant and greedy! lol
or give them a chance to correct mistakes, return to their accounts and order them to correct their mistakes
Be a good person
so later on when you die, you'll go to heaven!

Sincerely
persecuted people

Hello Inochi no Kaze,

Thanks for taking the time to post this, and expressing your opinions about banning.

Banning is never something we want to do to any account - it is actually the last thing we want to do. We want all Gaians to have a fun time enjoying Gaia, but doing that means following the rules. If an account continues to violate the rules of Gaia or the ToS, and if the offense is severe enough or threatens the community, an account will unfortunately need to be banned.

That said, please know there are very few offenses where an immediate ban is placed. In most cases, a user is typically given warnings or non-permanent bans so that he/she has time to reflect on the behavior he/she was engaging in, and find ways to avoid it.

Also be aware that account bans have nothing to do with money or whether or not a person has purchased items from the Cash Shop or not. Bans are based on the behavior of the individual, and whether or not he/she is abiding by the Terms of Service of Gaia.

Thanks again for the feedback,
Sisky


Panagrammic
baby_kitty_258
Krissim Klaw
Lanzer
Krissim Klaw
Okay playful question though something I'm curious about, do you guys let any pets in the office. A lot of companies are noticing the beneficial effects of letting workers bring their well behaved critters to the office with them so I am curious to know Gaia's policies on the matter.

Unfortunately, our office building is shared with other companies and there is a no-pets policy in the building, but every once in a while I would still bring my cat for a visit. ninja

http://waffles-the-cat.tumblr.com/

Lanzer, I am pretty sure you have that backwards and that on occasion it is Waffles the Cat that brings you into work with him. We all know Waffle's is the real head of the company and you are just a figure head used to get around that pesky no pets policy.

LOL.. funnee! blaugh blaugh

EXCELLENT signature.

[note: baby_kitty_258's signature displays this image from Panagrammic's Photobucket account. It's an edit of this webcomic panel. -Platonix]


biglanky14
Loki_Dragon
Corinth Maxwell
cat_whee Aaaaaaaaand here I am again...... cat_xp

1. (not yet answered) The "Suggested Content" panel has disappeared & re-appeared more than once throughout the past week from the "My Gaia" page. Will we eventually have the option to make this particular panel disappear entirely?

2. Everyone comes to Gaia Online for different things, be it Fishing, Towns/Houses, Rally, zOMG, or just to chat with friends/other users and create great-looking avatars. With that in mind, considering that not everyone has an interest in using every feature on Gaia, would it ever be considered possible for users to have the option to select what kinds of items appear in the Daily Chance, so that they're not overburdened with things they don't need?

I like number 2. It would be awesome.

Very interesting suggestion! I'm not a dev so I have no idea how hard it would be, but I imagine it wouldn't be trivial. You'd have to let us know in your settings what you're interested in, we'd have to detect that setting, and then we'd have to create different drops for each setting and act on them. That's a long way of me saying I'm guessing it won't happen, but it still is an interesting suggestion.


Narumi Misuhara
Cirnol64
electropoisonwaves
Cirnol64
((I know it's kinda too late to get a response but))

Aside from my other questions on page 2, I was wondering if any of the past Event achievements will be available again? (Valentine's Day, Cat VS Dogs, Easter, Halloween...)

Now that you mention it, what's become of the whole cats versus dogs thing? The election was rigged and then...?

That's the event I'm most concerned about. I had no clue there was an achievement to get by voting... crying

((Off topic: I'm watching you now on DA. ;D))

No, those kind of achievements are a type of participation achievement and we currently have no plans to bring them back.


biglanky14
Cecilia Wolfram Davidson
Quick one for lanky- how was the china run??

One of the best things I've ever done. Just doesn't feel like 6 years have gone by already (and if you're interested, seeing the Great Wall should be on your bucket list. It's incredible).


biglanky14
Fluorescent Nova
Fluorescent Nova
I was just curious if you are going to implement MORE of the Spring Cleaning Proposals?

I know it says you are wrapping up soon in the OP, but I was curious because I have one of the more popular proposals (Expanding the Salon Palette), yet I have never received any sort of feed back. Originally it said we would need 5,000 Cookies for consideration, but only TWO have reached that level.

Any feedback on when/what proposals will be implemented would be nice! As well as some feedback on my Proposal, which would be nice, but I am not expecting it if you are not familiar with it.

Juuuuuust... posting this again. From Page 3.

Hi Fluorescent Nova,

Sorry about that - we're trying our best to get to as many questions as we can, but there are a ton today smile

We'll probably do a bit of a wrap-up (saying which we're planning on working on, etc.) when we start winding down Spring Cleaning. I agree that it's been too long without a whole lot of communication about it.


biglanky14
Rabid-Turtle
Is the Gaia Merch Shop or the Auto Cash sign up going to have their offers updated?

http://www.gaiaonline.com/autocash <- the offer expired Dec 2011

http://www.gaiastore.com/servlet/StoreFront <- offer expired Jan 2011

Hi Rabid-Turtle,

Yes, we're actually looking at the autocash offer right now. We wanted to keep it extended for awhile as a thank you to our current users, and once we finalize our plans we'll send out a note to everyone using it letting them know what's going on.

For the store, that's actually run by a third party now, and they're obviously a bit behind.


biglanky14
Scobre
Another week of questions being ignored and still new to the ata. Only 3rd week of attending these. I like how I can questions involving the whole site.
Scobre
1) Will a full-time dev for zOMG! be hired?
2) Can there be an option for fishing to make it easier to play with touchpad laptops?
3) Will any new gaia related games be released to gaiaonline in the future?

Hi Scobre,

Sorry for the delay - we're trying to get to as many as we can.

1) Probably not, at least as of now.
2) This I don't know - I'll have to ask around on that one.
3) Yes - we have Monster Galaxy coming soon, and hopefully another big one later on this year (although it's not for sure at the moment).


Panagrammic
luckycharms444
VKiera
Quick question

Since Memphis the Mermaid isn't coming back apparently, could we perhaps have some other type of mermaid? I kinda just like having mermaids to fill my tank, I'm not really a big BG player. >.>

There are Memphis [Lite] but they're rather expensive right now, unfortunately.

Prices should trend downward, since that are in DC. Some users upthread were even complaining that aquarium drops are too common.
Lanzer
Memphis Lite is more of a rare item in Daily Chance, but I'll see about raising the chance later. Don't forget about Dumpster Dive!


biglanky14
petiele
OOH OOH PICK ME PICK ME I HAVE A QUESTION

Why is this AtA so long?
I LOVE IT!

But seriously, why haven't you gotten bored of us as quickly as normal? razz

B/c we're masochists? smile

Honestly, it's because you guys have a ton of questions and deserve some answers.


Panagrammic
Iron Faith
Panagrammic
Iron Faith
Little late here... But i have only one question. And i'm sure others have thought the same.
I do not mind the ads on gaia. I understand their purpose. But sometimes the ads are downright innapropiate. Not offensive--not to me anyway-- but for a site that claims to be pg-14 or whatever, i have seen ads in the past that are not appropriate.
I lied. I have two questions. Sometimes, when i seach something on the internet, gaia will throw the most relvant ads at me according to my last search for like two days. Example. I searched for mucisiansfriend and browsed all the stuff i can't afford. Then--immediately after--gaia was feeding me nothing but musicians friend ads. Does gaia read my internet history? I do not remeber reading that in the terms of agreement.

We do not, but our advertisers may use third-party cookies to offer targeted ads.

I thought it was something like that.
Also i never actually asked the first question. l0lz0rz
Do you guys filter ads to make sure innapropriate ads are not shown? I mean, if i had a kid, i wouold not want hiim/her to see some of them.

Also can you teach me how to spell?

We do -- we have a forum thread where people can report bad advertisements, and sales goes through the thread and works with our advertisers to make sure that they are removed.

Spelling is easy:

1. use a browser that highlights misspelled words

done!


biglanky14
its_up234
DKKs Gamer
its_up234
HEY YOU ADMINS

Are you guys going to look into what some people do/say in Towns anytime soon? Because for the last few times I've been there a lot of them have been saying such "Any sex slaves available?" Or "Anyone want to make me all horny" and such..Some of it is quit..Not right :l I mean some of them literally rped(IF YOU CAN CALL IT THAT)having sex. I know this site is mainly for rp, mangas, animas, and the likes. But under the rule of Prohibited Conduct for the ToS doesn't it say "send, post, or make available pornographic, threatening, embarrassing, hateful, racially or ethnically insulting, deceptive, tortious, defamatory, libelous, or otherwise inappropriate or offensive content to other Gaia Members;"

I'd love to have an answer as soon as any of you guys can see this!! please D:

This! I was going through Towns a couple of days ago and there was a couple cybering in a suggestive position as naked as you can get on Gaia and they started talking about inviting me in. It was creepy and awkward and I promptly gtfo'd.

Your the second person so far that has agreed with me, and I know there are MORE people who agree with this since I have talked to them about it in Towns. Yet no response from an admin..PLEASE answer this question, I'm dying to know.

Hi there,

Thanks for bringing this up - please definitely report them so our moderators can investigate.


biglanky14
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Darth Daddicus
I check my Facebook account once a week, tops. If it's Facebook that the developers want, then just put zOMG! on Facebook. I'd get on Facebook a lot more frequently. You know, check my family's progress and call them all noobs. I would love that opportunity.

You're a horrible person. xd

Hi Darth (awesome ID, btw),

I'll have to look into that - not sure when/if it poofed. Thanks for mentioning it.


Panagrammic
Mademoiselle Kit
I hope a dev saw my deceleration that zomg users will do ANYTHING to get more development on our game.

I mean it. Anything. Put a bar at the top of the forum with a target monetary amount you guys want us to hit. We WILL hit it.

I am just so pissed that zomg was shelved without even asking us to try and save it if Gaia itself wasn't gonna do the work of saving it. mad

boisterously_silent
My fellow z!Fers have raised questions and concerns that I'm interested in seeing the responses to, and I have one of my own.

As you've seen, zOMG has an extremely passionate and active community. In the past, we've been set hoops to jump through, and we jumped through them. Is there anything, anything we can do that would inspire Gaia HQ to put devs back on the game in the near future? Would anyone be able to tell us what we would need to do, realistically, to convince HQ to put more resources into the game? Accepting that it's hopeless is not something we're terribly keen on.

zOMG does have an awesome and passionate community -- I mean, sure, I'm usually on the wrong end of that passion, but nonetheless you can't beat it.

I think it's important to step away from any kind of implied blame, i.e., "the reason zOMG is only getting bug fixes is YOUR (the community's) fault." I've seen that interpretation by some users, and that's not the intended message.

Off the cuff: For any feature we look at both monetization and user growth, and either one can improve, but in point of fact I think that the zOMG community is supporting zOMG about as much as possible, give or take, and it would unconscionable in these economic times to try and demand that users give more and more and more. If zOMG has a Cinderella scenario, it would be in sustained growth -- i.e., substantially more users playing zOMG over time. Almost certainly these users would have to come from the outside the site proper. How we would achieve that is another question, especially when we're prioritizing against the larger audiences that are potentially available in other venues.


Panagrammic
momo the peachy
Also, if Memphis aren't going to be brought back to Phin Phang, then what about a replacement fish? (And don't say the 'lite' fish because those fish don't replace anything, they are a useless waste of my tank space) And not a fish with a price around five to seven dollars, either. I liked the price of Memphis, so something around that price. All depends on the glow times and gold output. The point is, we would like an announcement made about Memphis, and want either her back, or a replacement fish with these:

1: Same price range

2: Same sort of life span

3: Same gold output


That's not too much to ask. Goodness, you can put so much energy into boring facebook games, you can certainly pull that off.

You can get #1 and #2, but you probably shouldn't plan on #3 -- Lanzer is looking at this more, but offhand (and IMHO) I think the Memphis were not balanced right, and any reissues at the same price / lifespan range would probably have to give out less gold.


Panagrammic
its_up234
Lil Riot
its_up234
I'd love having some mods in Towns, or something like that. It would show that they do care about it, not just by fixing some bugs in it as well. I know an admin/mod/dev already answered my question..They said that we should just report them. I already did once before and I'm totally nut sure if ANYTHING did happen.

I will not go into the high populated areas of town because of this. How am I suppose to report it? Am I just suppose to go through and go on a reporting fest? :/

Hehe, well I brought it up again to the same dev/mod/admin, so I'm not sure. I'm there with you though, I don't want to have to go and report EVERYONE over there. It's just going to be too time consuming.

Part of the reason we're redoing Towns is to make sure that it's easier to moderate and less prone to exploits.


Lanzer
Thank you for joining us on this week's extended ATA thread. I hope that we've help answer some of your concerns, and be sure that we'll continue to keep you informed on the plans moving forward. We'll see you all next week, have a great night!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
March 5th

biglanky14
Hi everyone,

I hope you'll join us for this week's Ask the Admin session in about 90 minutes (5pm PT).

If you want to check out last week’s ATA, here you go. We talked about a wide range of topics, from the status of zOMG, to our upcoming Easter event (top secret!), to what we’re doing with Homes (ongoing), to whether we will Saran Wrap one of the artists’ desks (we’re considering it).

A few notes:

1) I'm setting this up because Lanzer has a conflict, but hopefully he'll be joining us partway through at some point.

2) I have an update for our zOMG players who are wondering about their Buccaneer Boardwalk tickets. We have to get it all set up so it'll take a little bit, but we're going to offer a generous Gaia Gold refund, most likely through a Sellback option to the shop. If you bought yours with Gaia Cash and don't want that, you'll be able to work with our Customer Support folks to get your Cash or money refunded.

See you soon!


Zero Omega
Crystal Sparda
Zero Omega
Crystal Sparda
Hey Gaia staff!
I'd like to say a quick thank-you to all of you who I have seen
all over the site and directly communicating with users in threads!
Often, there are questions in the Q&A we can't answer and I
appreciated seeing a couple of you posting in a few threads
and walking users through some tough glitchy issues.
Well, time for my questions!

1.) Are you ever going to turn off the granting of old common items
through Daily Chance, Overseer, and Admin's gifts through Dumpster Dive?

As much as I love getting gifts, I'm sure many users are set in the
department of amigo pants, ocean tops, octopuses on their heads,
goldfish, and arrow fish. Hell, I got two ocean tops in the Daily Chance yesterday!
I really don't need 100 of the same shirt and non-glowing fish.

2.) What are your thoughts of having an avatar spotlight rotate
nominated avatars every few hours or so?
Many users have been
posting a whole bunch of times in the nomination thread, but
there are many that have often been ignored and haven't been featured.
Would it be possible to have a system that automatically rotates avatars
every 3-6 hours so that more avatars could be featured?

3.) Any word on how soon mod training will begin? >.<;;
*gets pounded for bringing up mod app stuff again*


4.) Any chance at there being a prom this year?
I yearn for the days when we played DDR games and won cute items~ =ω= {❤)
Just a pondering, but why don't we make events last longer?
It does get boring having to wait weeks to almost months just to do something new.

2. This is something we could take under consideration, currently we try to get a new avatar up every other day. For the next couple months we will also be featuring our moderator staff so users can really get to know them, who they are, and interact with them.

3. Soonish. We're currently reviewing applications and we should hopefully have responses back to users sometime next week.

Cool! Sounds awesome.
I'm always happy to see when mod appreciation is
shown in various areas of the site and mini-events. heart
They deserve the love!

Yay! I love more specific answers than just "soon",
so having an approximate date is always nice.
Whenever I only hear "soon", I'm like "1 week soon?
or maybe 1 month soon? Or even 10 months soon?"
Thank you for that answer and I promise I won't
go all apeshit crazy next week if I don't get an answer to my app. wink

Current plan is no less than a month. pirate Can't say more than that at the moment.


Zero Omega
Existential Existence
Zero Omega
Existential Existence
Thanks for fixing the bug with picking up trash in Towns biggrin

Also really awesome item design contest!

ALSO EXCELLENT CHOICE FOR USING FAIRY TALES AS A HOT TOPIC!!! BEST HOT TOPIC EVERRRRRRR

Glad to hear you like it! It was inspired by Once Upon a Time but then I decided to open it up to general fairy tales because that would be much more fun than one subject. xd

Almost everyone's talking about Once Upon a Time anyway lol

Those were simply threads that were moved in. When we created a Hot Topic we generally populate the forum with existing threads so that users can start discussions immediately.
siskataya
That is a good show for sure, but I prefer Grimm! Maybe I'll go post in the Grimm threads...

- Sisky


siskataya
beckygrendel
biglanky14
2) I have an update for our zOMG players who are wondering about their Buccaneer Boardwalk tickets. We have to get it all set up so it'll take a little bit, but we're going to offer a generous Gaia Gold refund, most likely through a Sellback option to the shop. If you bought yours with Gaia Cash and don't want that, you'll be able to work with our Customer Support folks to get your Cash or money refunded.


Hi Biglanky!

That's really interesting news. Certainly, I'd rather see Buccaneer Boardwalk developed. sad

How about those who received them as gifts? I bought five of them from the cash shop. One for myself and one for each of my four friends I persuaded to join. When they reached CL10 in zOMG, I rewarded each of them with the BB Ticket. Will they be able to cash theirs in, too?
pirate

Heya beckygrendel!

Awesome question! Since your friends didn't pay cash at the cash shop, they wouldn't be able to get the Gaia cash or money refund for the ticket. They will, however, be able to get the gold refund option. Hope this answers your question!

Take care biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
Constipated Trillionaire
biglanky14
Constipated Trillionaire
Is there ever going to be some fix to the alchemy component supply issue?

First I want to say that I'm incredibly wealthy when compared to 99% of the people on this site, and if alchemy is this frustrating for me I can only imagine what others feel like.

Has anyone actually sat down and totaled all the components it actually takes to finish the backwings quest? My team and I are working on dodici, of the demonic quest, right now and by the time were finished with this level we will have used 80 sea waters. Not to mention the other countless hundreds of components it takes to get to this point(779 non crafted components). And I'm sure the last level is going to be insanely difficult.

We're making 30 caches a day, and we're doing good to pull a couple sea waters out of them in a weeks time. We're looking at months to just get one component through caches and purchasing them, and that's not taking into account all the other people that need them.

I know the wings aren't suppose to be easy, but at this point they're just about impossible... haven't seen the last level so they very well might be.

You guys were doing good for a couple weeks there, lots of caches in the marketplace and components, while still some what expensive, weren't impossible to find. But then you removed the caches from the daily chance, made them easier to craft and made components generally more expensive and harder to get. I don't think anyone will be upset if you go back to giving out more caches in the daily chance.

And the lite fish, what is going on with them? I see they're giving out alchemy components like egg shells, yeah there has been a massive shortage of those... rolleyes The lite fish need to give out cache components, hell make it so they give out 100g store price components like smooth whetstones and glass marbles and make it so the caches give out 500g and 1000g components like hemlock and moonbeams.

Hi Constipated Trillionaire,

Fantastic ID, btw.

Thanks for the feedback. We look at the data for Alchemy regularly, and make adjustments to try to balance out the difficulty. I know we're moving more slowly than some people would like, but the system is really complex and we don't want to create unintended consequences.

Same thing with the lite fish. We're keeping an eye on how the drops affect the marketplace and alchemy, and will adjust them as needed as time goes on.

Thank you biggrin

How long are you planning on collecting data? Been about a month now since you changed how the caches were gotten and a lot of components have became more expensive and harder to find during that time. The untended consequences you're trying to avoid wouldn't happen to be easier to find and cheaper components?

And as far as the lite fish go, if what they give out currently is what you plan on having them give out, I'll save you some time and tell you right now they aren't going to do anything but piss off a ton of people.

We look at the data regularly, pretty much for exactly that reason. We make a change in one place, and it can affect other parts of Alchemy. We then adjust again to see how it affects the overall market. Our overall goal is to find the right balance between challenge and fun, and we're going to keep looking for it.


biglanky14
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, Staff.

- Has somebody been hired to work on zOMG!'s glitches yet? If so, when will the fixes begin?

- It was stated that the lite fish drops would contain mostly alchemy components. However, some lite fish owners have been saying that they get mostly non-alchemy components like goldfish, aquarium backgrounds, ect. It just feels like the alchemy team is jerking out chains. Can the ratio be fixed so that the number of alchemy components we get from lite fish drops is greater than non-alchemy components?

Hi Lady Aji,

We're making progress on it, but we can't really say when it'll happen based on how many factors go into hiring someone and getting code punched out. But we are actively working on it.

For the lite drops, there is a mix of alchemy and non-alchemy components in there. We're keeping an eye on it, and will adjust it if we think it's necessary.

Thanks!


biglanky14
LiXKuja
Any idea yet on how much gold the sellback price will be for the BB tickets?
When the next plot update?
Is a new regular EI coming soon?

Hi LiXKuja,

1) Not yet, but I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with it.

2) <stays coy>

3) Can't comment on that either.


Lanzer
MrsrachaelSnape
Hi lanzer and others

my questions are:

1. Re- color fairy wings like in red, will it happen soon?

2 . For Zomg why can we have old event for Easter?

3. Will you order from my shop ?

Sorry I'm late.

1) Might not be, we don't have plans on the re-color for the next little while

2) We usually don't repeat the exact event from previous years, we're still planning through on the Easter events.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Jayce Reinhardt
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Jayce Reinhardt
*takes a drink each time someone says "we are working on it/looking into it"*
Then it is safe to say "we are working on it", it being your BAC. pirate
Just don't make me too drunk tonight, guys.
Ok?
We'll be uh... "looking into it". ninja
MrsrachaelSnape
your sig -Last Change: 800+ days what does it mean?

The last time I changed my avi.
Harbinger of Pandamonium
MrsrachaelSnape
Harbinger of Pandamonium
MrsrachaelSnape
What's with you guys and not changing your avatar? Are you frozen in time as well?
If I change my avatar, I lose the BOO skin, so I've been saving it. sweatdrop

Oh. It's hard to tell you had the skin. We should have a way to win it back ^_^.
Yeah with the ^_^ face it does make it a bit hard to tell. sweatdrop

siskataya
Jayce Reinhardt
biglanky14
Jayce Reinhardt
*takes a drink each time someone says "we are working on it/looking into it"*

(Wow, thank you for all the tips eek )

You have a designated driver....or poster.....at the ready, right?

No but I have been known to stream drunk cooking, specially with Nutella.


Drunk cooking with Nutella? I can only imagine. Still, better than drunk cooking with a vat of hot oil!

- Sisky
siskataya
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Zero Omega
biglanky14
No thanks - for whatever reason I've never grown to appreciate Nutella smile

You are a sick, sick, sick person. gonk
said the man threatening a bape cow with a rusty machete.
Maybe that is not rust, maybe it is Nutella. Though why Zero would be spreading Nutella on a bape cow I have no idea. Perhaps it's best I don't know..
biglanky14
Jayce Reinhardt
biglanky14

No thanks - for whatever reason I've never grown to appreciate Nutella smile

Not a chocolate lover?

No taste buds?

Blame it on the aliens?

User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.

I LOVE chocolate. I'll eat pretty much anything dipped in it (especially if it's milk). But Nutella has never done it for me. I'm weird.


Narumi Misuhara
Crystal Sparda
Narumi Misuhara
Crystal Sparda
Hey Gaia staff!
I'd like to say a quick thank-you to all of you who I have seen
all over the site and directly communicating with users in threads!
Often, there are questions in the Q&A we can't answer and I
appreciated seeing a couple of you posting in a few threads
and walking users through some tough glitchy issues.
Well, time for my questions!

1.) Are you ever going to turn off the granting of old common items
through Daily Chance, Overseer, and Admin's gifts through Dumpster Dive?

As much as I love getting gifts, I'm sure many users are set in the
department of amigo pants, ocean tops, octopuses on their heads,
goldfish, and arrow fish. Hell, I got two ocean tops in the Daily Chance yesterday!
I really don't need 100 of the same shirt and non-glowing fish.

2.) What are your thoughts of having an avatar spotlight rotate
nominated avatars every few hours or so?
Many users have been
posting a whole bunch of times in the nomination thread, but
there are many that have often been ignored and haven't been featured.
Would it be possible to have a system that automatically rotates avatars
every 3-6 hours so that more avatars could be featured?

3.) Any word on how soon mod training will begin? >.<;;
*gets pounded for bringing up mod app stuff again*


4.) Any chance at there being a prom this year?
I yearn for the days when we played DDR games and won cute items~ =ω= {❤)
Just a pondering, but why don't we make events last longer?
It does get boring having to wait weeks to almost months just to do something new.

1. I can't speak to the other features but for Dumpster Dive it will always have some common items in it, they do make a bit of sense there.

2. N/A

3. N/A

4. I doubt it. I scheduled out the events for the year based on the resources currently available, Prom and April fools are not likely. Things could change depending on if peoples time changes but as it stands, no.

Ah, okay. >w<; I guess I'll keep selling them back to the store.
Though, the fish are a tad annoying... sweatdrop
Aww, bummer. If it happens, I'll be stupidly excited though!
I don't think there was a clear answer about extending events in there.
Why aren't they stretched a bit longer? Make it win/win.
People busy with holidays often miss most days of events and
they do like to have the opportunity to participate.
What would be the difference between having users play a game
for one week and users playing the same game for 3-4 weeks?

The length of events are based both on the type of gameplay and if it's one we consider a major event. Most of our major events are at least a week to two weeks. If it's more of a 'grinding' event then it will also be longer, if it's something that is in all forums then it will be very short because people quickly get annoyed/bothered by it.

Longer events have a consequence in that support has to remain available as a resource for them. For example the last Valentines event allowed people to PM anonymously, admins had to remain available to handle reports for inappropriate PMs sent during the event in addition to their normal loads, these are all the types of things I have to consider when thinking about how long to run an event.


Narumi Misuhara
Venus D-Lite
hello ata, its been a long time since i was in here

1. i have looked in all different places in Los angeles and i can not find any gaia cash cards anymore. why is that?

2. will gaia cash cards be coming to a walgreens pharmacy any time soon?

3. any easter event plans?

1. *shrug*

2. *shrug*

3. Yes... and no to the next question that most likely follows.


biglanky14
Pilfer von Durem
1) Has there been a decrease in revenue since you threw zOMG! in that warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant?

2) Why have your events always been on the terrible side? Is it because all of your time is spent on FB or Nerf battles? Idek

3) Aekea has needed a robot battle forever. Please robot war now. Grammar bad. Snoo snoo good.

To answer your question, yes I have "partaken".

Hi Pilfer,

Thanks for clarifying your, uh, "situation." smile

1) We can't really talk about that, unfortunately.

2) LOL - our entire event budget does go to Nerf.

3) Need grammar battle moar.


Panagrammic
mystikaal
When are you going to alert the ENTIRE community (not just the handful of people who go to the z!F) about the abandonment of zOMG?

I'd disagree with the term "abandonment" -- but I believe we are planning to make a wider announcement to bring people up-to-date on a bunch of features, zOMG included.


Panagrammic
jonjon21428
2) Have one of those super secret dev friend chats again where pan makes you figure out a password?

Actually, it was always fun coming up with the clues for those!


biglanky14
WideEyed
I asked this last week, but I think it got lost in the flood, so I'll ask again.

Is there any way that casting a down vote on a Topic could automatically post a reply to that Topic with the name of the person who cast it?

I ask this because I am constantly irritated by anonymous down-voting.
I don't expect to never get them, and I actually enjoy when people disagree with me because it's far more entertaining and thought provoking when there's an actual discussion about a Topic, but the drive-bys have always struck me as disrespectful and immature, and I would imagine that having one's name Posted as having cast a ,</3, would dramatically cut down on the hit and runs.

Hi WideEyed,

Interesting idea. Thanks for posting it.

Panagrammic
WideEyed
Narumi Misuhara
WideEyed
I asked this last week, but I think it got lost in the flood, so I'll ask again.

Is there any way that casting a down vote on a Topic could automatically post a reply to that Topic with the name of the person who cast it?

I ask this because I am constantly irritated by anonymous down-voting.
I don't expect to never get them, and I actually enjoy when people disagree with me because it's far more entertaining and thought provoking when there's an actual discussion about a Topic, but the drive-bys have always struck me as disrespectful and immature, and I would imagine that having one's name Posted as having cast a ,</3, would dramatically cut down on the hit and runs.

*shrug* it's possible sure, but don't know if singling people out because they disagree is necessary.

Like I said, I have no issues with people disagreeing with anything I post.
It would be pretty dull if the only replies I ever got were from people who thought the same way I do (and more than a little scary wink ).
It's just that I see tons of Topics that are seemingly inocuous or entirely positive, yet they have down votes with nary a single post explaning why the OP was being repudiated.

Also like I said, it irks me and strikes me as extremely childish, and I'd like to see the incidence of the anonymous down vote eliminated.

Anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with whatever someone posts, but it's only basic courtesy that an explanation, even a brief one, accompany the DV.

There are legitimate reasons to downvote that don't seem like they should require a post, though (i.e., downvoting a clearly non-topical thread).

Oddly enough, when we first came out with the feature, very strong feedback from the community was that they wanted a down vote button, one key reason being that it would "make it less like Facebook."
Narumi Misuhara
Pilfer von Durem
Narumi Misuhara
*shrug* it's possible sure, but don't know if singling people out because they disagree is necessary.
It has more to do with people who have an issue with OPs personally and downvote all of their threads.

*nods* ...then that enters into things like how do you discern between the personal vendettas and someone just disagreeing etc.

I'm not sure what the best solution for this is, maybe we should just remove it, but I can say I wouldn't expect any changes to it at this time.
Panagrammic
NanaBananaFana
Panagrammic
There are legitimate reasons to downvote that don't seem like they should require a post, though (i.e., downvoting a clearly non-topical thread).

Oddly enough, when we first came out with the feature, very strong feedback from the community was that they wanted a down vote button, one key reason being that it would "make it less like Facebook."

I don't understand the need for it in the Aquariums forum. confused My glow thread has downvotes. rolleyes What's there not to like about free gold for the players?!?
emotion_facepalm

Per user suggestion we removed the "Popular" tags from the GA forum to see if it would spread out the plays a little. It didn't seem to make much of a difference.



Lanzer
Fractale
1: Can the GCD get a parody item around how much we love leaks? ALL YOUR LEAK ARE BELONG TO US!

2: Can a bunch of Gaia staff perform the dance to the Party Rock theme, in the next Monthly video?

3: Is there anything; anything at all that you guys planned to release on the Halloweentown Map, when you first brought it out in 2007? What sort of stores do you think would be appropriate for that area, today? Is it ever going to get something in it? D:

4: Are bug/ flower/ trash exchange ever going to get updated?

3) The Halloween map is pretty awesome, if we ever get the chance to expand on our world map after the Towns update is finished I would have the maps brought back in. Someone like Stein would be great to show up there.

4) We will probably spend more effort on Alchemy for the time being, sorry for the wait.


biglanky14
Castiel Lover
Hi Lanzer and staff.

I would like to know when Case of Pietro is scheduled to be completed. Even an estimate is very much appreciated. A month? Three months? Another year? Two weeks??

If you can't get back to us on it now, can you find out for next week?

Secondly, the lite fishes have a one month life span. Considering how quickly we can fill our tanks with the ones just from DC and DD, would it not make sense to lower the life span? Perhaps after the first round die and the items/components/whatever in the new box are finalized?

Hi Castiel,

I can't give you an exact timeframe, but safe to say that we're aware of the frustration around it and hope to do something about it.


biglanky14
Zero Omega
biglanky14
Existential Existence
MrsrachaelSnape
The April fool event should be alchemy item for "backwings" wink

Heads would roll. you are evil...very very evil....i like it. twisted

<Looks for how to post image of us as trolls>

User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.

Phenomenal!


Lanzer
Whimsimaru
Recolor of pale marionette in cream/purple? Please exclaim

also what about sdplus contests? Like you hold a drawing and select a lucky few to become sdplus real dolls. Got no reply when I asked this last time :p

Noted.

The idea of SDPlus doll is that they're based off of staff members, though the idea itself is interesting, and we'll put it in consideration.


biglanky14
Ridley Starsmore
I HAVE ARRIVED.

Not that anyone cares.-_-

Suffice to say, I was dismayed that a certain desk has not yet been 'giftwrapped'.

User Image

At any rate, I know you folks are working on all the other stuff, and getting to it.

-clanks a beer next to jayce's bottle-

But I do have one request.

The Case of Pietro. Six months, yo.

Six months since the last evo.
Six months since any word on it from Reaper.
And nothing added to it for any gen past the first.

I know you guys said last week you were 'working on it'.

-Another drink-

But this is 2 and a half years, of customers who paid for a product/service, on an item that usually has a life span of six months.

All I am wanting is a straight forward answer. What are we waiting for? And WHEN? And please, not 'soon' or we'll look into it' or 'we're working on it'.

-is gonna end up being hammered on my own post-

Is this was a real world transaction, and it took 5 times the duration of the usual exchange, you have to admit, most people would be mad as all get out.

Yup - I hear you, and don't blame you for being frustrated. Does "we're aware of it" count? I don't want to give a timeframe b/c I don't know and we've gotten ourselves in trouble with that before, but we are definitely aware of it and looking to get it taken care of soon.

Glad I'm not playing the drinking game myself! smile


Panagrammic
Djlanfull
Hello, 'tis be my first AtA post in years.
Just to say: All you give those people who bought BB tickets with gaia CASH is GOLD?
I bought it with gold, but, dammit. Those who bought it with cash, should get a CASH refund.
You know what? ******** it. I'm done with Gaia in about two weeks. If I don't see something that pleases me, I'm gone.
EDIT: Also, Gaia, you need to work at knowing how to deal with customers.

If a user purchased with Gaia Cash and they want a refund back, they need merely fill out a support ticket -- BL mentioned this in OP.
biglanky14
If you bought yours with Gaia Cash and don't want that, you'll be able to work with our Customer Support folks to get your Cash or money refunded.
swarf
The gold is a simple first-pass solution. If anyone who bought it with cash wants their cash instead, we'll grant the gcash back instead! As for the gold, it'll be more than the cost of the item in the MP originally, so you'll make a profit =)
siskataya
Hello Djlanfull,

Thanks for the feedback! We're sorry if our messaging about the Buccaneer Boardwalk refunds was unclear or confusing. For users who paid for the item through the cash shop, we'll be offering a gold refund if they would like to take advantage of it, but if these users want a Gaia cash or money refund instead, we'll be happy to do that for them as well. Hope this clears up any confusion for you!

Take care,
Sisky
siskataya
snufflypoo
Will it be granted as g-cash to our accounts or will it go back to our paypal or credit card, etc.?
I want to roll mine over into a new EI or something...

Heya snufflypoo,

Great question! If you would rather have the Gaia cash instead of a money refund, no worries, we can do that for you. You'd just have to let us know when you fill out your billing ticket. biggrin

- Sisky
siskataya
Pilfer von Durem
Eh?
I want it mailed to me in $1 coins.
How much was it again?

It was $2.49 cents. I'm not sure mailing your refund in coins, however, is a preferable way to refund your money, in case the mail got lost in delivery, stolen en route, etc. Then you wouldn't receive your refund, and there would be nothing we could do about it. Best to refund it to you another way biggrin

Sisky


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Ridley Starsmore
I guess I got my question in too late.

User Image
If we knew, we'd tell you, but we don't know, so we can't tell you. sweatdrop


siskataya
Blitz Jax
This isn't my first time being here by any means, but it's my first time actually posting.

Joining in on the drinking game. emotion_awesome

Oh my! Well, welcome, and happy posting. But doavoid the drinking gonk

Now for a public service announcement!:
* PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND AtA!

* FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS DRINK AND POST!

Nooooooooooooo....
Sisky


Narumi Misuhara
CioccoLatte
sorry is this has already been mentioned/discussed...

are there any plans to hold another Gaian-Olympics event this year?

*captcha: "history repeats itself" xd

Of course!


biglanky14
Scobre
bumping and edited wording
Scobre
1) Will refund of gold or gaia cash or cash for bb hurt the company?
2) Can the ratio of male items be more equal to the amount of female items available in marketplace? (There are way more female items than male items, it's sad).
3) Can SD zOMG! Themed be sold in the zOMG! Cash shop in the future? (scullylam's idea)

Hi Scobre,

Good to see you again!

1) I can't really say, unfortunately.

2) We don't really have a target ratio, but it is something we keep in mind.

3) Hmmm - no idea. I'll have to ask around.


swarf
Starshine
I just want to say I'm really glad to see Swarf at the ATA.

I found an ATA thread dated more than a year back asking about the progress of Case of Pietro. Since then there has been no movement on the item, should I stop expecting the item to evolve ever? I'd like to know so I can sell later gens and buy the fully evolved ones.

Thanks pirate
I almost forgot about it! I wasn't watching the time. Glad I heard someone mention it.

As for Case of Pietro, word is that the team knows about it is and looking for a way to get it back on track. But yeah, everyone here agrees!


swarf
Platonix
This might be a silly question...but if we do opt to return our BB Tickets, whether for Gold, Gaia Cash or real-world currency, would we lose the ability to enter Buccaneer Boardwalk?

Or, since this is apparently signaling the death of any plans to finish the area later, will you open Buccaneer Boardwalk in its current state to all players when you start making the Tickets refundable?

Boardwalk is currently open to everyone! =)
We opened it up after DMS came out since we'd said before that we'd only have one "premium" area at a time. So if you hand in your ticket you wont lose anything but the token in your inventory.


Lanzer
Castiel Lover
Hi Lanzer and staff.

I would like to know when Case of Pietro is scheduled to be completed. Even an estimate is very much appreciated. A month? Three months? Another year? Two weeks??

If you can't get back to us on it now, can you find out for next week?

Secondly, the lite fishes have a one month life span. Considering how quickly we can fill our tanks with the ones just from DC and DD, would it not make sense to lower the life span? Perhaps after the first round die and the items/components/whatever in the new box are finalized?

Regarding the fishes, originally they were intended for giving Gaians abilities to have free fishes for decorating the aquarium, not as a means of getting items, so the life span was made for that in mind.


swarf
Hai Cleo!

CleoSombra
Hello, Lanzer and friends.
1. March is Women's History Month. Just thought you'd like to know if you don't already.

Indeed! In fact, International Women's Day itself is this week - March 8. So, in case I don't run into you again before Thursday, Happy Women's Day!

Quote:
2. Given your abandonment of zOMG, which is similar to the abandonment and neglect pattern of many of the features on Gaia, why should I trust Gaia with future games? I built up a strong connection and bond with other people through zOMG. What we have in common is our love for the game and the experiences we've shared on that. As zOMG is abandoned, it will eventually die. There isn't any question about that. The other mini-games on here see far less activity than they once did, and because zOMG is a user-dependent game, it will fall in its activity even more rapidly. Why should I trust Gaia again? Why should I play whatever new game Gaia comes out with, immerse myself in that community, make friends there, only to know that it will eventually be abandoned? How can you guarantee that history won't repeat itself again?


Couple things:
First, zOMG may not have new content coming out anytime soon but it isn't abandoned. Everyone here is committed to keeping it running and playable. Will we ever see new things in the game? We don't know. Trust me, I hope it happens too. No one here is happy to see zOMG go without updates for so long.

Second, nothing can take away all the awesome bonds you've made and wonderful things you've found to do in zOMG. It's been a huge inspiration to me to see the work you've done to make zOMG a fun place and give people a place to meet, chat, and organize. One of the biggest reasons zOMG has been such a great experience is the community activities that people partake in. I know it's not as fun to hang out on the servers once you've beaten everything. But there's still a great community there, and there's nothing that can stop the community from having fun.

As for future games Gaia makes, we'll never be able to make a game that is perfect for everyone. We make new games, get them off the ground, and see where it leads to. We're probably not going to make another MMORPG. We have one, and it's enough of a handful =) Other games may or may not appeal to you depending on what kind of game you like. But if you enjoy them, play them! If not, stick with the ones you do enjoy. And I hope that zOMG is always one of the ones you enjoy. pirate


Narumi Misuhara
twister of shadows
When I asked one of the developers for a change of gnome (alchemy) problem in zOMG! , one of the developers said that they passed the message. Though I see no difference. Was it rejected? If so why? Again, Are you aware that besides a single quest and a one in a hundred chance to get the gnome figure from daily chance, it is the only way to obtain it? At least make the recipe drop in zOMG! for the sanity of the zOM-Al-Gaians. gonk

Send me a PM with what the concern was so I can look into this further. Sorry I don't remember offhand what the problem was.


Lanzer
Thank you for joining us on this week's ATA. We'll see you all next week!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
March 12th

Lanzer
Hello everyone,

Welcome to this week's ATA, it's a quiet week here as we continue to plan on the upcoming Easter event and working on the Towns update. But we'll be here to answer your questions as usual, so ask away!


codemonkey37179
MrsrachaelSnape
Hello lanzer and others

my questions are :

1. If the NPC's entered a drinking contest who would win? What's the drinking age in gaia?

2. Hufflepuff re-color of the Wizard School will it happen in the next rig? emotion_kirakira

3. Will Towns 2.0 be just one town or will you guys have all four towns? I know some people don't want to live in Barton sad .

As far as the towns 2.0, we are planning for you to be able to go from town to town. It might be by train, boat or hot air balloon, that part we haven't decided yet.


Zero Omega
Maggot
Zero Omega
Maggot
User Image

Will we ever be able to obtain the True Believers shirt from zOMG? As you can see from the images above the item already exists with front and back poses, so it wouldn't be hard to just make it into a zOMG recipe.

Facial hair shop, any update? I asked Lanzer about this over a year ago and he said it was in the works, but there were some hiccups.

Any wrestling fans in the office? I would love to see more werstling items, characters, etc.

User ImageUser ImageUser Image

Couldn't say anything about the first two, but I happen to be a big wrestling fan. Can't wait for WrestleMania coming up.

I have to ask this question then, The Rock or John Cena? emotion_awesome

Thinking about it logically and from a storyline perspective, Cena.

WrestleMania X8, Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock. I saw this match as a passing of the torch from one generation to the next. Hulk Hogan passed his legacy onto The Rock because he was the next big thing. Ten years later we're at WrestleMania 28. I see the same thing happening, passing the torch from The Rock to John Cena.

From a personal perspective? Rock.


biglanky14
Maggot
User Image

Will we ever be able to obtain the True Believers shirt from zOMG? As you can see from the images above the item already exists with front and back poses, so it wouldn't be hard to just make it into a zOMG recipe.

Facial hair shop, any update? I asked Lanzer about this over a year ago and he said it was in the works, but there were some hiccups.

Any wrestling fans in the office? I would love to see more werstling items, characters, etc.

User ImageUser ImageUser Image

Hi Maggot,

I'll answer in order here:

1) I don't know - we can make the suggestion, though.
2) I don't think we have plans for it at the moment, but our list of possibilities is really long smile
3) Ultimate Warrior FTW? Even if he is pretty much officially nuts.


codemonkey37179
Zero Omega
Darkaznstargoddess
Good evening. A few questions.

1. When will the inventory organizing be upgraded? Any way it can sort by color, a-z, or sort by item type? The current system takes too long to organize. @.@;

2. Why are the walking dawn items still in cash shop? Uh.. Halloween was how long ago?

3. When will there be another cash shop clean up?

4. How does the ATA work, do you guys all gather in a conference room with a huge screen that displays our questions and then talk over how to address it or are you guys all in different rooms?

5. Why did the r/c [Request and commission] forum become art shops forum?

3. Main screen turn on. We get signal. Question from user Darkaznstargoddess. Answer? Y/N?

LOL. Zero is just kidding of course. In all honesty, we are all sitting at our desks, grabbing the questions that are relative to us. Our work area is well set up for communication, but we don't have time to get a consensus on any questions, because they are coming in too fast for that. We want to answer as many as possible.


biglanky14
Abbi Normal
Lanzer/Devs/Whoever is fielding this weeks ATA:

Will you ever update the Gaia Store again? This one?
It hasn't been updated since zOMG WAS RELEASED, and several Gaians are interested in new content.
Heck, most new Gaians probably don't even know it exsists, let alone where to find it! T-shirts, plushies and other trinkets could bring in quite a bit of money for the site!

Please consider this.

Hi Abbi Normal,

The store is actually completely run by a third-party company, so all the decisions are up to them. That's why you're not seeing new inventory, so definitely let them know if you have something specific in mind.


siskataya
Cecilia Wolfram Davidson
just a note-

Thank you, Siskataya, for pushing for the Health and Fitness forum!!
However, i have to ask where cycling and martial arts would belong ...

Heya!

You are most welcome - so glad you are enjoying it!

We don't currently have cycling or martial arts sub-forums, but we can consider creating these for sure! For now these topics can go in the main forum. We will be tweaking the sub-forums as this project progresses, so we can add new sub-forums or remove lesser used ones and move the threads into the main forum as is needed.

Keep on being healthy! biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
Razumi Yazura
biglanky14
Razumi Yazura
Hey, guys. Hope you're all doing well.

I have been wondering about this for awhile. How come the AutoCash discount is not applied to Phin Phang? Would it cause harm to the economy because of Booty Grab? I know that Pan said that he would talk to people about it, but was there ever a follow up to this?

Hi Razumi,

Honestly, I'm not sure why it wasn't applied. The discount was supposed to end at the end of 2011 (and I'm guessing it might've just fell off the radar based on that date, although that's a pure guess), but we've let it go longer, partly as a thank you to people using it.

Outside of this issue, what's your opinion of AutoCash?

I'm currently suffering an error with AutoCash that just happened today, actually. It says that I'm unsubscribed when I did no such thing recently. When I click the button to reactivate, it says "You are already subscribed to AutoCash!" I sent an email to Jambool's support, but I'm not entirely sure if the problem concerns them or the AutoCash page itself.

Beyond the error, I do think AutoCash is nifty when it's working properly.

Thanks for the info! I don't know either, but is it possible that your credit card expired? That can cause someone to be unsubscribed. Hopefully Jambool gives you an answer soon though.
biglanky14
Denham
If it helps bring attention to this issue, I'm also having this error and have been since the beginning of the month. There hasn't really been much help in regards to the issue which is unfortunate because I really like AutoCash and won't likely be buying GC without it.

Have you heard back from Jambool about this at all? If not, mind PMing me any error message you're getting?

Thanks (although sorry for the hassle).


Narumi Misuhara
Eruravenne

My suggestion is for Narumi Misuhara concerning the summer event.

While reading a thread about summer event theories, I had a pretty awesome idea, if I do say so myself. Since this year is an Olympic year, I thought it would be really cool to have an Intergalactic Olympics event! The different teams could consist of the various alien species we've encountered (such as the Zurg, the Nartians, and the Star People) as well as Gaians (of course) and people could choose what team they want to be on (because not everyone on Gaia is native to this planet, after all). The games could be like old arcade games such as Asteroids and Space Invaders and stuff like a spaceship race or other such things (sorry, that sentence is messed up, lol). Flynn could come back as Gaia's champion or some such thing, event items could be related to the different aliens, giving us more things to match with what we've already got, and over all, it just seems like it would be awesome. :3

Thanks for your suggestion! This definitely sounds like one crazy event. xd


Lanzer
armadillodreamer
Hi Lanzer! When lite fish were first released, we were told that the lite drops would contain mostly alchemy components. Now we're being told that lite fish are primarily designed so that people can have a variety of fish in their aquarium even if they don't keep a tank for Booty Grab. What gives? The lite drops are mostly garbage, not mostly items for alchemy! Why were we told the wrong information initially? If the team changed their minds and decided not to use lite drops for alchemy, then what is the reasoning behind that?

It seems like alchemy needs to move forward. I was expecting baby steps, but these aren't baby steps. This just standing still.

I'm sorry for the mis-information. Initially the lite fishes were made specifically for Gaians to have free fishes for their aquariums. Anything above that was added on later when a Gaian requested the fish drop items to be alchemy items.

Lots of lite fishes were granted because they were initially meant to just be fishes for aquarium. With the large amount of fishes that have been granted for the past month, we then need to be careful about the payout so that the alchemy items won't flood the market.

We will continue to adjust the alchemy system and make improvements to it, and I'm sorry that the drop item didn't meet my promise.


Zero Omega
Karo Kiba
There are about 3 things that I want to address in my post:
1.Are there plans to release any military related items? Frankly, I’m not that happy with the military items that we have on gaia. Either they’re unrealistic or too expensive, and as a sibling of a member of the United States Army I would like to be able to show my support whenever he deploys or leaves for training. Having said that, however, there are some realistic items (particularly the dog tags) that I would like to commend you guys for! There are a lot of military personnel that enjoy being members of gaia and I’m sure that a few of them might appreciate more items as well.

2.I know you guys may not be able to answer all of this because part of it relates to the TOS, but one group that often feels targeted by flamers/trolls are the disabled members of our gaian community. What will you do to make this specific community feel more safe/accepted? Is there any way that you can reiterate that inappropriate content in regards to people with disabilities will not be tolerated? I also want to know what can be done to make gaia more accessible for people with certain disabilities, such as blind people? I’m not blind, but from what I’ve heard; gaia isn’t very compatible with a lot of text-to-speech software that blind people use. A lot of blind people would like to use sites like gaia, but sites like these simply just aren’t compatible with the software they use to go on the internet. I have several blind friends, including one that would probably like to try gaia, but I can’t really introduce him to the site because I’m not sure if it will work with the software that he uses. I’m hoping that changes someday! I am a guild captain of a guild called Different, Disabled, and Dazzling. Eventually my goal is to create a guild where everyone can gather together to discuss to advocate for disabled people whether it’s on gaia, or in the real world, which is why I decided to bring up these issues.

3.I have just started playing Zomg, and it has given me some bugs regarding the charge orbs. It’ll say that I have an insane number of charge orbs, when in reality I only have 5 or 10. It’s really annoying that I can’t accurately see the number of charge orbs that I have. When is this going to be fixed?

2. We definitely do not tolerate abuse or harassment of anyone, regardless of special needs or otherwise. We could probably do a general reminder that abuse is not allowed, period. If you find anyone abusing, harassing, or otherwise making fun of someone with special needs have that person contact our moderating staff so that it can be resolved.

I know that a lot of software can be used to help individuals access websites despite having disabilities, I'm not sure if there's much we on Gaia can do (someone can please correct me if I'm wrong on this, I have no idea at all what is and isn't possible), but I would definitely encourage your friend to try his software on our site and see if he can use it.


Lanzer
MrsrachaelSnape
Hello lanzer and others

my questions are :

1. If the NPC's entered a drinking contest who would win? What's the drinking age in gaia?

2. Hufflepuff re-color of the Wizard School will it happen in the next rig? emotion_kirakira

3. Will Towns 2.0 be just one town or will you guys have all four towns? I know some people don't want to live in Barton sad .

We'll need a contest between Edmund and Logan to see who will claim to be king.

I'm afraid not, sorry.

We did plan for multiple towns, but we probably wouldn't be able to release many at the first launch, but will have more added later. Everything's still being planned though, so nothing is concrete yet.


biglanky14
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, staff.

- Any update on hiring a dev to fix the glitches in zOMG!? Lately, a lot of players have been complaining about not being able to get any items from the games daily chance. Seems like more glitches are starting to pop after you moved the remaining devs to other projects. This can't go on like this. Fixes need to be made. Also, when will a sellback option be added to the Buccaneer Boardwalk headstart tickets?

- What is up with alchemy? Again, why make cash-only items into formula ingredients? Especially since you don't pay close attention to the mp to see which items are becoming nearly extinct so you can replenish them in the cash shop. I'm becoming more disappointed with Gaia's ADD/half-a** business practices everyday.

Hi Lady Aji,

I don't want to get too far into specifics, but we're talking to someone right now about it. It just takes time to work out details for stuff like that. Buccaneer Boardwalk is definitely in the works too - again, it just takes some time because we're trying to wrap those things together.

For Alchemy, we actually regularly look at exactly that data to see what's out of whack, which drives the adjustments we make. A lot of ideas about it have been flying around the office lately. I know that doesn't make you feel any better about your current frustration, but we're definitely working on it.


Zero Omega
Scobre
*Hands out smores to all the admins and gaians.* Hope you all are doing well this evening.

So yeah my 3 questions are:

1) Will daily chances in zOMG! be fixed?
2) Have the bots in village greens in zOMG! been stopped?
3) Will the little shop in rallies be open again?

2. We have an awesome team of staff and Omni Moderators who do their very best to take care of bots when they're reported, so they're always on the lookout to stop bots. Glad to see that you're seeing some progress on that! If you continue to see 'em, report 'em and we'll take care of it.


biglanky14
Soul of Kyr
Why is it that you can not seem to get rid of the malicious ad that shows up frequently on every page with an ad and freezes people's browsers,so that they have to restart their browser or sometimes even their comp.
I have repeatedly reported this ad and even gave the link that add gives out at the bottom of the page.
It has shown up since around the very end of October 2001 and I have reported it over and over again since November of 2011.
Yes,I KNOW that each section of the country has their own ads,but you should be able to ask the people that supply your ads to make sure it doesn't show up anymore.
I should NOT have to buy around 250 Gaia Cash Worth of stuff that I don't really want,to get rid of the ads,on ALL My Accounts(since I HAVE 7). If I Have to do so it would be both annoying and a waste of my money.
I have talked with others and they are affected to,so it is not just me.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS AD.
Because I am really starting to get annoyed with this....It makes it hard for me and others to participate in the Forums,Events,etc.

Hi Soul,

Sorry to do this to you, but since I haven't seen your post, can you link me to it? I'll then send it around to the right folks. Thanks!
Zero Omega
Soul of Kyr
Zero Omega
Would you be able to give us some information on the ad? That would be helpful in identifying the problem ad that is harming your experience.

Page it showed up on: Whenever it feels like it and the page can have ads.
When: Whenever it feels like it night or day.
Geographic Information: Midwest

Links for Posts I made on Malicious Ad:
Link 1
Link 2

*bookmarks this info* Thank ye~ heart


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Cecilia Wolfram Davidson
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Cecilia Wolfram Davidson
ON TO A REAL QUESTION - what are the admins' opinions of the new Health and Fitness forum set?

We have to like it for our own health.

PLEASE DON'T HURT ME SISKY

you has a hammer >:V

She has a big stick!


siskataya
Safireangel
Good afternoon!
This is my first time attending an ATA, due to my idiocy as to where it is at and such.
sweatdrop
I would first like to ask if I can ask any question.
For example questions that apply to me alone, and such.

Heya Safireangel!

Thanks so much for attending and welcome to the Ask The Admin - so glad you could join us! You are free to ask any questions you like - we'll try our best to answer them for you.

Take care! biggrin
Sisky
Zero Omega
Safireangel
Zero Omega
Safireangel
Panagrammic
Better would probably be to send a PM to a mod or put in a CS request if it just applies to you.

If it pertains to a ban, who could I specifically bother about it?
Thank you for replying and for your time.
4laugh

Best thing to do would be to file a ticket with out Help Center at http://www.gaiaonline.com/help. We can review the case from there.

I have, but I did that in december.
I may be wrong (which is usually the case) but I believe that it said that in 2 weeks it would be assigned to someone to check it over.
I've been waiting since.
I'm not trying to be rude to all of the staff or anything, I was just wondering how long the wait period was.
As always thank you for your help and your time.

Send me a PM with your ticket ID and I'll look into it for you.
Zero Omega
Safireangel
Thank you very much for your help and assistance.
heart 4laugh heart
Is it alright with you if I PM it to you later since you're currently occupied with the on goings of the ATA.
That and you have to go home and get some rest at some point, I hope.
4laugh

You can PM me now and I can get to it later. xd


Lanzer
Fractale
1: Does the Goddess Gaia have a devil equivalent?

2: will Mephiste, the villain who's been mentioned in Saint Ciel: Erose, Agape, Rosamund's revenge, and Ravenwood manor get his own REI (or even better: an EI done like the Nightmare; with several artists contributing to it)?

3: Since we know that Mephiste (at least in Ravenwood Manor's story) controls crows, would this mean that Raven, the crow spirit, from Guardian Totem CI, and possibly the demon Malphas (depicted as a crow, in the Nightmare, EI) could be working as Mephiste's agents?

4: Will we get to see this Cat Noir as a character in a CI, or with her own story in a REI? She seems like she could be pretty badass; and we don't have many female characters who fit that role.

5: where's our Dark Reflection sequel? D:<

That would be Lanzer smile

There isn't plans for Mephiste REI, not that doesn't mean there wouldn't be one in the future...

They're not exactly related, so the answer would be no.

I'd love to see a Dark Reflection sequel too!


codemonkey37179
KitsunEva
Towns/Flash spaces question

why is the movement in the houses different from the rest of towns? (i am guessing it has to do with the housing update and how that works, but my piint is that it's so...erratic that it's impossible to move around and very annoying to comunicate)

It's not too much of a problem being that it's only inside houses...so avoiding house gatherings is an easy way to avoid the hard to work with environment, HOWEVER, that Valentine's space that was out had the same type of movement and chat/emotes that were hard to use as compared to the way it would have been (such as outdoors in towns or rally...etc)

You aren't planning on switching to this type of space, are you?

I would be hard pressed to visit any flash space if that were so (unless there are plans to refine it and make it easy to work with again)

The houses were rebuilt from scratch, and the valentines area was using the same framework. So, yes, we are switching to the newer area, but will try to smooth out all the inconsistencies first. The houses did recently get an update where the movement was much improved. The newer framework will address a lot of issues, such as security issues in towns, and make updates easier and more frequent.


DJ Helsing
biglanky14
Le Avant Garde
With the Zodiacal fully evolved now, do you have any plans for a slower evolving evolving item?

If so, can you give us some spoilers? emotion_kirakira

And as far as Gaia meetups, do you guys just choose random places, or is there a method to where you choose to go?
I'd love it if you came to Fresno, California emo

He's not here right now, but shoot a PM to DJ Helsing and he'll give you the right answer smile

There is definately a method to how we decide which conventions we will be attending. With regards to Socal we will be at WonderCon this coming weekend as well as at Anime Expo in July and Comic-Con in July.


siskataya
Megidramon
Why isn't all the way beyond pg-13 sex talk in the CB being moderated?

Hello Megidramon!

Thanks for the great question! Content all over Gaia is moderated all the time, including content from the Chatterbox that is considered to be sexually explicit. If you run across any content you feel is too explicit for Gaia, please report it as well so the moderators can handle it.

Take care biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
WideEyed
Hi Guys! smile
I have some questions about zOMG! again.
Sorry to be a broken record, but these are pretty important for me.
Thanks

1. ) Has any decision been made regarding Dev time for zOMG! ? If so, how much? If not, when do you expect the decision to be made?
2. ) Has any progress been made towards glitch repair in zOMG!, or has a plan been put in place to do so?
3. ) If zOMG! glitches are being worked on, which glitches will be fixed?
4. ) Will there be a recycled Easter Event for zOMG!?
5. ) Is it possible to automate the zOMG! Server Cycling process?

I realise it's a long list, but depending on the answer to question #1, it could be a pretty short answer. sweatdrop

Hi WideEyed,

No problem! I'll do my best here

1) Mostly - we're getting close to being able to get some help. But it's not final yet because there are always a lot of details, so I don't have a timeframe (and am hoping nothing falls through).
2) See #1
3) We have a big list, mostly provided by you guys in the zOMG forum. We'll do a prioritization once we have people in place to work on them.
4) I don't know, unfortunately.
5) I don't know that either. But the question has come up before so I know they're at least considering it (if it's possible).


Narumi Misuhara
Cyndelle Maxwell
cat_ninja I don't visit these as frequently as my brother does, but seeing as how a recent "event" has provoked my ire, I felt it was only appropriate to ask for myself the question I had for this week's session. cat_stressed

cat_stare Considering the backlash and/or outrage over the "hidden grant" that was released on the 7th, and the fact that the users who didn't know about it & would have been interested in getting such an item -- yet weren't made aware of its existence until well after it was too late to get one for themselves -- were essentially told "tough ****, go buy it in the Marketplace", I was just wondering.....When, exactly, do the staff members plan on remembering that this site was created for -- and meant to appeal to -- EVERYONE who visits here & finds something that's worth staying around for, and not just a small, selective group of the so-called "hardcore users" that a certain former staff member once claimed that the events & all the "special items" created on this site were meant to exclusively cater to? cat_evil

Gaia is made of many groups of people with varied interests, it simply is not realistic to believe that we could create something that appeals to everyone. We do try to create things we think many will enjoy and every once in a while we create something that caters to specific interests.

Regarding the 'previous' staff member that claimed events were only for the 'hardcore user,' they no longer run events, I do, and I don't create events simply for the "hardcore" or "elite." Many of our larger events may certainly have a more hardcore element, but most of the time that will simply be harder achievements for those who wish to go the extra mile to try to get them.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Hell_Tutor
On another note:
Thank you all at the HQ for your hard work.
I do KNOW, you try your best.
I love the comics, the games and even the RIgs though I don't always buy them and some times the items and theme mean nothing to me, I can see there's effort put into them to make something creative.

P.P.S.: Some of the features in gaia only work for residents in America.
It saddens me only because you seem to have an entire online cinema aspect which I cannot enjoy, specially the "watch anime on gaia", which from a point on as never allowed me to watch anything.

I do support the site, thank to Zong (I love you guys for that by the way, many other sites should make a similar deal so pepopel can pay stuff with their cellphones, being perhaps teh safest payment method online ever), so if any time in the future you can work out the legal kinks i would be grateful.

With love, HT.

Unfortunately, the anime viewer and similar features have to do with licensing and only being able to acquire them for the US. sad We would love to be able to share them with an international audience, but it is all licensing issues.


biglanky14
MrsrachaelSnape
biglanky14
I've got my Ghostbusters shirt on, so I'm ready to roll!

"If someone asks you if you're an Admin.....you....say....YES"

are you an admin? razz

Technically....I think smile

Actually, I'm officially "Weird." Not a Dev, not an Artist, not an Admin (in the traditional sense). I mainly just hang around and mess things up.


Lanzer
mcm
Do we still communicate with Gonline? How are they doing over there?

Gonline ended up doing things that are very different than Gaia here. They now have a really big fan base of dojinshi artist and also cosplayers. Gonline host their own conventions for artists and cosplayers. A trip to the Gonline office is really fun because you get to see a lot of cosplayers taking pictures!


siskataya
Death Before Dish0nor
Megidramon
Why isn't all the way beyond pg-13 sex talk in the CB being moderated?

Same with General Discussion. I feel like they get away with too much. So many trolls in that forum. Is there any way to reclaim control of the GD?

Heya Death Before Dish0nor,

Thanks for the comment! We do have plans for reshaping the GD this year, but we are still working on the best plan to accomplish this task. I'm sorry I don't have more details for you right now, but since it is still a work in progress, I'd rather not promise we will be doing something specific in case it turns out we have to change that plan.

As for the trolling, trolling is not allowed anywhere on Gaia, in the GD or not. If you see anyone trolling or being abusive, please report the content so it can be moderated.

Take care biggrin
Sisky


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Whimsimaru
no questions to ask, so i'll just be lurking ninja

also won a kitten star from a club limbo cool

Jealous. scream


biglanky14
Darkaznstargoddess
Good evening. A few questions.

1. When will the inventory organizing be upgraded? Any way it can sort by color, a-z, or sort by item type? The current system takes too long to organize. @.@;

2. Why are the walking dawn items still in cash shop? Uh.. Halloween was how long ago?

3. When will there be another cash shop clean up?

4. How does the ATA work, do you guys all gather in a conference room with a huge screen that displays our questions and then talk over how to address it or are you guys all in different rooms?

5. Why did the r/c [Request and commission] forum become art shops forum?

Hi Darkaznstargoddess,

1) This is on our list of projects to tackle at some point, but to do it really right is going to take a lot of work. So I can't give you a good timeframe right now.

2) Do you mean the Walking Dead items? It's because the show is still on (finale is next week).

3) Not sure, honestly.

4) We put NASA to shame! Huge screens, some TVs, about 24 guys in a room. Or us at our desks close to each other smile

5) B/c there were a lot of different types of art shops (some requests, some auctions, etc.). By naming it "requests/commissions" it was too narrow, and people were either confused or reporting stuff that should be ok to be in there.


DJ Helsing
Awe Electrohop
So I have few questions sweatdrop :

1.Do you guy think about go tour to Canada? (Ottawa, ON <~~~)

2.There are no Bid Blast or Guild in Gaia app. Also Forum and MP are hard to use to. Do u guy think about fix it sometime?

3.Electric Love Faktori had released for a long time, but now it seems so boring.....with most of Gaian. So do u think about change or add more prizes in there, or have a Tournament for it? I love that game so much!

4.There are some wings in MP (like Raphael's Wings, etc), are those drop from Alchemy?

5.I agree with the idea about Lite Fish, but why u guy also give the decoration free? Those decorations from last few years are something worst, but now....useless! Do u think it is a bad idea?

Unfortunatley there won't be any convention tour stops in canada this year.

Sorry but maybe in the future.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
MrsrachaelSnape
Hell_Tutor
Lanzer
Darkaznstargoddess
Good evening. A few questions.

4. How does the ATA work, do you guys all gather in a conference room with a huge screen that displays our questions and then talk over how to address it or are you guys all in different rooms?

User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.

I KNEW IT|!
The HQ is actually in the NASA super secret airbase!!!!
SHOW ME YOUR DEATH STAR!
Does it have yoru face in it, Lanzer?
MMMMH?
Like that creepy moon from Majora's mask but not really?

Nah you know they are really playing WOW as they answer our questions wink .

TOR actually. I mean uh. working hard. yes.

cat_ninja


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Princess-Orphelia
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Princess-Orphelia
Why is it that every time I visit the AtA I get hungry? gonk

Does this mean I gotta bake some biscuits or something? rofl

It is part of our ongoing subtle campaign to get users to bake cookies and mail them to us. cat_ninja

Ok. It's a done deal, I can do that. But would you want them to travel all the way from Australia? gonk Won't they get stale? 3nodding

I would be more afraid of spiders sneaking in. EVERYTHING IN AUSTRALIA IS POISONOUS
Harbinger of Pandamonium
siskataya
Wombats aren't poisonous! stare

I forgot about wombats

or more accurately, forgot that they are also in australia
Harbinger of Pandamonium
GuinAoiichi
You might enjoy this....User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.
cat_gonk
Panagrammic
I want to order that! I've signed up for notifications from ThinkGeek whenever they get more, but so far I've been waiting.
siskataya
Perhaps because it moves so fast it is like running and you work up an appetite? Or maybe it bores you so you want to eat out of boredom? Either way...mmmmm....biscuits!! yum_bacon yum_pumpkinpie

-Sisky


Panagrammic
Shiki-niisan
Panagrammic
Shiki-niisan
Hello my dear admins :3

I would like to know if you guys are going to make a simplified gaiaonline.com, you know m.gaiaonline.com or something cause it's kind of a pain to surf gaia on a 3DS and take forever to load the page that sometimes won't even load because "the page is too cluttered" in simplified words. Or as I would normally say, it has too much s**t and my 3DS can't load it emotion_donotwant xD...

Also, which came first, the egg or the chicken? 8D

Edit: Also, are you guys ever going to come to Montreal for cons?.

We do have a lightweight forum feature, which at least would make that less painful on the 3DS -- check out Gaia Labs.


But I meant something much more general, not just the forums emotion_8c
But oh well, then, if you guys aren't able to do it emotion_sweatdrop

Yeah, we don't have a mobile mode for the entire site yet.


codemonkey37179
KitsunEva
would clicking the chat and/or emotes be modified so you can still move with arrows and chat without having to select anything?
(i know it's not an immediate thing, just wondering the direction it's headed if this is to be adopted for the other flash spaces since i frequent them quite often)

I'm not sure what you mean about the arrows and chat.

I'm refining the flash spaces every day. If anyone misses posting in this ATA, you can post in the new towns forum here

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/towns-2-0/t.78071015/

you can also post in the bug forums or shoot me a Pm for any problems you are having with the flash spaces.


Zero Omega
SS2-SITH LORD
Hello Admin!
I was wondering...


1.How many votes does it take to get a popular thread?


2.When is Monster Galaxy going to be released on Gaia?


3.And thank you for getting rid of the Ghost Fish!

1. I don't know if there is actually a specific number to get to popular, I'm fairly certain it a ratio of <3 to </3 votes. What that ratio is though? I'm not sure, someone else might though.


biglanky14
SS2-SITH LORD
Hello Admin!
I was wondering...

How many votes does it take to get a popular thread?

When is Monster Galaxy going to be released on Gaia?

And thank you for getting rid of the Ghost Fish!

My wife also had some suggestions regarding the voting system.
ralphy71889
Regarding thread votes:

1. Remove </3 voting. (If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.)

2. Make the last 10 users that voted names visible to the thread owner only. It's affects the owner mostly, so it doesn't need to be made public. I would say have a comment box attached, but spamming would only point to trolls and nothing would get solved anyway.

3. I think lots of </3 votes aren't just from trolls, but people that are on ignored lists trying to make their presense known. Make it so that those people can't vote at all or make it an auto <3 vote (though I'd personally rather the first option).

Any combination of these would probably solve the problems with the voting system.

Hi Sith,

1) I have no idea - that sounds like top secret Gaia stuff that we keep in a vault.
2) It should be soon. We're trying to fix a gnarly bug with Friends at the moment, but once that's done we should be good to go.
3) You're welcome (I'll take credit even though I had absolutely zero to do with it smile

And thanks for the suggestions on the downvoting. We'll keep those in mind when we take a look at the system (although not sure exactly when that'll be).


[Oh, look, too long for a single post again. This transcript continued next post.]

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
[Continued from previous post donchyaknow.]

March 12th, some more

Uncle Kenny
Naiyala
This is my first AtA, and I can only really think of one question for the time being.

Is there a reason that Frontier Skies doesn't stay up year round? It reminds me a little of Oregon Trail and I like playing it a lot, but it's gone more than half the time that I can get on Gaia.

Unfortunately, Frontier Skies was taken down due to a severe exploit and an overall lack of use on the site. We currently don't plan to put it back up as it would require extensive rewriting which we do not currently have resources for.


Lanzer
mackncheez
Hi

I wanted to know why I can't see my aquarium or play zomg. I downloaded the latest version of Flash Player about 20 minutes ago. Both the aquarium and zomg say it's "loading" but all i see after that is the background. What am I doing wrong?

That sounds like a problem with your flash player. My first suggestion would be to try the Google Chrome browser since they have their own version of flash player. Do other flash mini games on Gaia work? Try turning off ad-block programs or virus check programs for a moment just to check and see if that's what is causing the problem.


Zero Omega
Musical Panda
Zero Omega
Musical Panda
Alright, weird question time. Users have known for a while that certain words or references to Gaia staff are not allowed in usernames as a way to combat scammers. However, when going to change my username to something not taken and not offensive, I received this message:

Invalid username: Your username is in conflict with administration names. We kindly ask you to choose another username that will not confuse other users.

How exactly is it determined that the username is in conflict with admin names?

What is the name that you're trying to change it to? It's possible that the name you're using has one of the words you blacklisted in it, we might be able to do something for you though.
I didn't even realize you could blacklist words on here, I just thought the filter had set things to blacklist. Huh, I learn something new here every time!

The name I'm trying to change to is Stegashota, I figured there was nothing offensive/crude/infringing about that.

Is this the account you want the name changed on?
Panagrammic
We have a list of forbidden strings -- any new names and/or name changes are checked against those.
Zero Omega
Musical Panda
Yeppers! Only account I have, at the moment.

Something I'll keep in mind, as Panagrammic explained further, we have some checks in the system. Off-hand I don't see anything in your name that might be causing it, but it's something I'll take a further look into.


Zero Omega
Random Acts of Awesome
Zero Omega
Random Acts of Awesome
any chance on me getting good boy points for not getting banned in a while? emotion_awesome

on a serious note,

any chance on pietro being finished?

also, name changes,

can there be a gold sink to reset them?

Do you mean a gold sink to reset the cost of the name changes? Currently the cost increments when you change your name after you use your two free ones.

well, currently im at 100k on this account for a name change, which is a little much when you think about it

sweatdrop

You change your name a lot! eek *has had the same name since he joined in 2003*

Not sure about a sink to reset them, I'd leave that up to a dev to answer to see how feasible that would be.


siskataya
II HazelSkye II
Any idea when the BB tickets will be refunded? 1 week? 1 month? 1 year?


Heya II HazelSkye II!

Thanks for the awesome question! We are working on the gold sell-back option now, and expect it to be finished soon, though I don't have a specific date for you. If you want the gold sell-back option, then hang on to your ticket and we'll let the community know once it is ready to sell back.

If you are the original purchaser (from the cash shop) and want the Gaia cash back for the ticket, then you can already send us a billing ticket through the Help Center and request a Gaia cash refund.

Hope this answers your question biggrin
Sisky


Lanzer
Shiki-niisan
Hello my dear admins :3

I would like to know if you guys are going to make a simplified gaiaonline.com, you know m.gaiaonline.com or something cause it's kind of a pain to surf gaia on a 3DS and take forever to load the page that sometimes won't even load because "the page is too cluttered" in simplified words. Or as I would normally say, it has too much s**t and my 3DS can't load it emotion_donotwant xD...

Also, which came first, the egg or the chicken? 8D

Edit: Also, are you guys ever going to come to Montreal for cons?.

Sorry but we used to have a mobile version but with little people using it we eventually dropped the project. The truly mobile version remains to be the iPhone/iTouch version.

The chicken, who came from the dinosaurs.

First we'll need to teach DJ Helsing how to speak French! Kidding aside, DJ had been planning on cities to reach this year and he should be keeping everyone posted.


biglanky14
Karo Kiba
There are about 3 things that I want to address in my post:
1.Are there plans to release any military related items? Frankly, I’m not that happy with the military items that we have on gaia. Either they’re unrealistic or too expensive, and as a sibling of a member of the United States Army I would like to be able to show my support whenever he deploys or leaves for training. Having said that, however, there are some realistic items (particularly the dog tags) that I would like to commend you guys for! There are a lot of military personnel that enjoy being members of gaia and I’m sure that a few of them might appreciate more items as well.

2.I know you guys may not be able to answer all of this because part of it relates to the TOS, but one group that often feels targeted by flamers/trolls are the disabled members of our gaian community. What will you do to make this specific community feel more safe/accepted? Is there any way that you can reiterate that inappropriate content in regards to people with disabilities will not be tolerated? I also want to know what can be done to make gaia more accessible for people with certain disabilities, such as blind people? I’m not blind, but from what I’ve heard; gaia isn’t very compatible with a lot of text-to-speech software that blind people use. A lot of blind people would like to use sites like gaia, but sites like these simply just aren’t compatible with the software they use to go on the internet. I have several blind friends, including one that would probably like to try gaia, but I can’t really introduce him to the site because I’m not sure if it will work with the software that he uses. I’m hoping that changes someday! I am a guild captain of a guild called Different, Disabled, and Dazzling. Eventually my goal is to create a guild where everyone can gather together to discuss to advocate for disabled people whether it’s on gaia, or in the real world, which is why I decided to bring up these issues.

3.I have just started playing Zomg, and it has given me some bugs regarding the charge orbs. It’ll say that I have an insane number of charge orbs, when in reality I only have 5 or 10. It’s really annoying that I can’t accurately see the number of charge orbs that I have. When is this going to be fixed?

Hi Karo Kiba,

I'll do my best to answer these in order.

1) We try to vary our items as much as possible, and our plans can change at any time based on popularity, user request, what we think is missing, etc. That's basically a long way of saying that it's definitely possible, but it's rare that we can promise that a particular set of items is coming soon.

2) Your Guild sounds fantastic! Honestly, I don't really know about our site's compatibility with various text-to-speech systems. But if there is one that does work well, let us know and we can put that in our FAQs as a recommendation.

3) There are several bugs in zOMG that are on our list of things we need to fix. I'm not sure if this one in particular is, but hopefully it is.


biglanky14
Senel64
Well i was going to ask this in the suggestion thread but maybe this will be a better place to ask the leaders of this site.

I was wondering a new game you guys could put in your gaia games list? I was thinking about "Pachinko" game. I always wanted to try it but i don't live in japan xp but maybe i was wondering if you guys would think about it. I know i would play it ever day. Lol

Think about it. A gaia themed pachinko game. Mmmmmm

I LOVE pachinko! I played it in Japan, and it completely confused me at first. Then I got the hang of it, and was still totally confused smile


Uncle Kenny
)(Over.Dose.On.Cyanide)(
Hello Admins.

This question is about guilds.
Are the threads there so different in set up that you can't copy the coding/script/or what have you from the main threads to guilds?
Or at least the thing that makes the BBC coding easier?

I kinda asked the same thing a few weeks ago, though it was in a more negative light.
>>;

Guilds is run on some realllllly old code so unfortunately it's not as easy as just copy/pasting forum code to guild code and would probably require some decent development time to bring it up to speed with the forums.

We do have some fixes we'd like to make to Guilds but they currently are not at the top of our priority list so they likely won't be happening in the short-term.


milkbun
GuinAoiichi
I got a question about " create an item contest for crosstich".

If we print it out and then rescan it. And the scan turns out to be a much bigger file size than the template will you guys accept it??

Yes that's fine. As long as it's on the template we'll accept it.


biglanky14
Scobre
*Hands out smores to all the admins and gaians.* Hope you all are doing well this evening.

So yeah my 3 questions are:

1) Will daily chances in zOMG! be fixed?
2) Have the bots in village greens in zOMG! been stopped?
3) Will the little shop in rallies be open again?

Hi Scobre,

Good to see you again!

Unfortunately I don't have any specifics to share. We're going to review the list of bugs that we have already and prioritize the top ones. Since I don't know how that'll shake out, I definitely don't want to promise anything in particular.

<For those of you playing the biglanky14 drinking game, there's your first shot>


Zero Omega
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Zero Omega
Shinju_hashimfo
How is everyone?!

There are too many pages to read now, so I'll just do it later.. >>;

Sleepy and excited for my improv class tonight!

Some would argue that you have no class.

*rimshot*

OUT OF THE WINDOW WITH YOU! scream
Zero Omega
Shinju_hashimfo
What are you improving? o:

I take improv classes at my local ComedySportz, our final level one class is tonight. We're going to be practicing long form improv.


Panagrammic
GuinAoiichi
Do you know if Towns is going to fixed? Particularly the saving of flowers (and other items) to our main inventory?

I mean , the only reason i ask is because alchemy requires them as ingridients.And right now i can not save anything or almost nothing to my main invo.

I'm 90% certain that edy pushed out a fix for this last week -- have you tried recently?
codemonkey37179
GuinAoiichi
edy
What problem are you having? I just checked the logs and you have been getting your flowers, bugs, and trash granted to your account.

In towns when you click on the red backpack it asks if you want to save. I hit yes but the items remain, then i go to my invo and the item count hasnt changed. Is there some kind of lag now?

The inventory updates when you exit towns.
edy
It happens automatically for you. See my dev notice about it:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/dev-notices/site-changes/t.63632027_509/#509


codemonkey37179
GuinAoiichi
codemonkey37179
jirr
Thank you Mods/Devs and Admin who work day and night to keep this glorious site running.
Keep up the good work.

I love the idea that players/members of Gaia can ask questions and are answered. I'll be sticking around to watch.

Also-

Will there ever be a day, when we can add separate rooms to our homes in the Towns?

Will Video Lounges ever return ?

I want to add more rooms to the house, but we will have to revisit the possibility of that after we are done updating towns.

Oh got a question:

Is there a way to make your house smaller? I maxed out my house to its maximum size. But turns that for me the previous size was more fun. Is there going to be a way to make the houses smaller?

At this time, we have no plans to make the houses smaller. It is much easier to add empty floor space than it is to take away floor space that may be filled.


edy
Darkly_Doomed
edy
Darkly_Doomed
Will the numerous glitches in Towns be ironed out anytime soon?

What glitches in particular are you talking about?

The ability to walk on the fountains, the bugs/flowers/trash that cannot be picked up (wait, did that get fixed? I don't think it did, but...), and the fact that the "Find a Town" button brings you to the same town every time and then sometimes makes it impossible to leave that town. Those were the ones that I had in mind when asking the question.
Oh, though it would be nice if there was a way to keep people from intentionally flooding Towns with text, which causes massive amounts of lag and crashes Towns.
Thank you for replying!

The walking on the fountains is a very low priority. It's mainly a nuisance.
You should be able to pick up all flowers, and trash in Towns. That has been fixed.

As far as flooding, I have a fix which should hopefully go out tomorrow. Have to test it first!
codemonkey37179
The bugs and trash did get fixed.

We are working on flood control for both the new and current towns.

Why is it impossible to leave the town? I'll look into the find a town button, if you get the problem later in the week, send me a pm.


Lanzer
meep12345
Some minor speculative questions, but still:

1) Is CrosStitch located in Halloweentown or Durem (or someplace else)?

2) What does the colour change in La Victoire's gold shop icon signify?

3) In Barton Jewelers, there is a set of pendants titled Morninstar, Hearthfire, and Jadebriar... Are they a reference to the Elder Scroll series or...?

4) What are the chances of us getting the three remaining fictional EIs of Old Pete (aka Dark Chef, Philosopher's Portrait, and the Martyrdom of Saint Eustace)?

Thank you to everyone responds, because I do hope to have my questions answered cat_whee

CrosStitch is located in Durem. I'd love to see Stein in Halloween town but there's no Halloween town and that's not where CrosStitch is.

Probably to make it more distinctive from other gold shops.

Not sure about that one, haven't played Elder Scroll yet.

We have no plans for those EI at the moment, sorry.


milkbun
Sarahbear Says Hi
Good evening~

I have a question regarding the CrosStitch contest.

When a winner's design is created into an item, their username is credited in the item description.

If they were to change their username, is there a possibility of contacting Gaia Staff to update the credited username?

Your entry is also tracked with your user ID which never changes so we can look this up.


biglanky14
Opera Phantomess
I hope everything is well across the country. 3nodding

*ahem*

1. Is there anyone available to fix the Daily Chances/Freebies in zOMG!? They are not granting anyone anything, and with a good handful of crafted items' recipes being one time quest rewards involved with Alchemy in larger numbers (Lawn Gnome Figure, Lumberjack Axe, Kokeshi Doll, etc.), these items will become more expensive and harder to get a hold of; they also can be found at times in these Daily Chances, so it aides in keeping the supply alive after multiples are destroyed on a daily basis. The fact that two of those items are needed in a decent sum to craft level one, and ultimately level two formulas, this poses another huge obstacle for users trying to at least dabble in Alchemy.

2. Is there any possibility that the Lite Drops can help with the supply of components needed in large amounts in Alchemy, such as Sugar Crystals and the two more focused on ones for the Quest formulas: Sea Water and Smooth Whetstone. Sea Water especially is hard to pull from Caches, and the fact that it takes close to one hundred of that one component to aide in finishing the chain for just one Quest is making even those working on those Quests become severely frustrated. There are other components, of course, that could be added in to the Lite Drops, but the fact it is just a glorified Daily Chance has pissed the majority, if not all, of the users off that were looking toward the Lite fish to have something extra. Maybe have those Drops turn into Caches immediately so that we have more component supply coming in?

3. Cash Shop items, whether they were available for direct purchase or are from RIGs/CIs, are being hoarded and destroyed a lot faster than they can be replenished into the system from the few users using Alchemy. It is even worse when items that have not been available in any way, shape, or form besides the supply already on site for years are being used up to the point where the prices skyrocket ten fold and even finding enough for whatever formulas they are in is becoming harder and more frustrating to even deal with. Wirewood Bracers, the Blushing Bride set, the Amethyst Gentleman set, Two Turtle Doves, The Watchmaker, Giant Syringe, Hermes' and Mercury's Moon, Night Jewel set, The Kitten Star set, and so much more are either in danger of becoming extinct or declining in supply to the point where their prices are kissing that of older MCs despite being in RIGs/CIs each month when the numbers and prices were a lot more tolerable before Alchemy was introduced.

Thank you for listening to the ramblings of me. I am just so concerned from a user standpoint to where things are potentially headed, especially with the way more and more users are wishing to withhold their money or just leaving the site altogether because they do not find Gaia to have the same atmosphere it did just a couple of years ago.

Hi Opera,

That's on our list of potential bugs to fix in zOMG. We're going to prioritize the whole list, so I don't know for sure where it'll land, but it's on there.

As with Alchemy as a whole, we're looking at what we need to adjust - supply of components, formulas themselves, or whatever we think will be a positive change. Thanks for the feedback both on the Lite Fish and Cash Shop items. We definitely want the same things you do - for Alchemy to be both challenging and fun, and we're working towards that as best we can.


Panagrammic
Death Before Dish0nor
Hey edy~

Do you happen to know if there will be more guild features such as a separate feeds on "My Gaia" strictly for Guilds in that..we'll be informed of which forums have been recently posted in?[kind of like an active facebook feed of forums that have been posted in]. It'd give a chance for guilds to be more active and not have them die out because members are not aware that the there was any activity and posts made.

We do have some notifications from guilds -- specifically, reply and quote notifications.


biglanky14
Victorian Innocence
Hello admins, I have a few questions:

1. What is currently happening with zOMG? Will there be the Easter event in zOMG that so many look forward to each year?

2. The Gaia Cash offers aren't working. It's not working a few other people that I talked to. No matter what browser. The pages aren't loading, we're not getting our cash when we do an offer. When we can see them, and click on them, they aren't loading. What's being done for this?

Hi Victorian,

Can you point me to some of the offers that aren't working? You can send me a PM with them so we can check them out. Thanks!


biglanky14
Meeki
Will there possibly be more outfit slots available for our avatars or are we pretty much set at 20?
The addict in me feels like there's never enough.

Hi Meeki!

We're pretty much set, unfortunately. At least for the time being.


Lanzer
Death Before Dish0nor
Good evening everyone!

Alright so I've only got 2 questions for any mod as well as a suggestion:

Are you actively looking for someone who specializes in fixing bugs [specifically aimed towards zOMG and its current glitches]?
who are near/on location?
What methods have you done, so far, in finding said bug fixer? [newspaper ads/online job postings/job agencies/job fairs/old fashioned paper thumbtack/staple and a wooden pole/board]

For guilds- I think it'd be nice to have some sort of notifications for
when someone posts on a forum [and not solely by just being quoted].
It'd give a chance for all members of the guild to check it out [like facebook feeds]
and see what what was said. And it'd give a chance for guilds, in general, to be active and thriving.
I know many great guilds that have been forgotten/abandoned because not a single member
was aware that someone had posted in any forum.Perhaps you could have a separate news feed
for guilds entirely on "My Gaia". Feeds will show which forums have new posts that way it'll
give all members a chance to check it out and not have the forum/thread die.

We have a contact who worked on zOMG as a contractor and we're working out the details. Hopefully things will pan out and he can help us out ASAP. zOMG is a huge project and anyone without experience will take a lot longer to fix anything, so we much prefer working with someone who know the system.

You're right, notification for guilds would be really helpful. Hopefully we'll be able to add that as a feature in the future. Though we have quite a few other projects to tackle before that.


milkbun
Eruravenne
Hi, guys! I have a question and a suggestion!

My question (more like series of questions) is about the wonderful artist, DrinkyTengu.

What's she been up to? Will she be making more items anytime soon? Will we be seeing some stuff from her in future CIs? It might be just my imagination, but it seems like the last couple of CIs were rather lacking in the funky, unique Tengu area... Lastly, will she be making another EI (or even REI) at some point? I just love her style, and I really want to see some more items by her. :3

There are a few of Drinky's items that just came out in today's CI. As to the rest I do not know with certainty what the future holds. cat_3nodding


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Princess-Orphelia
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Princess-Orphelia
Can I ask a random question?

Do users ever get the opportunity to visit the Gaia HQ office? Is that allowed, or does an appointment need to be made?

Wondering if users from overseas ever visit.. whee

We have had users in the office before, but I don't know what needed to be set up for that to happen. cat_sweatdrop

It's probably best to work by appointment maybe? That way the right people to show your guests would be available at the time. 4laugh Unless it's something that happened are the spur of the moment. 3nodding

Appointment would probably be best yeah.
Panagrammic
Princess-Orphelia
If ever you want a long distance appointment booking person. Then I'm the person for the job. rofl

But yes, that would be best, that way you prepare in advance with what you intend to show the guest. 3nodding

If you come by, cookies would be appreciated.

You'll also need a shrubbery.
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Princess-Orphelia
MrsrachaelSnape
[the shrubbery comment spawns a long and silly conversation between Rachael and Orphelia that leads to Gaia Staff adopting Australian spiders]

True as well ^_^. Then they can bring home a new pet!

Yessy, we've got a ton of them here. gonk

I think you can keep your devilspiders.

cat_3nodding
Panagrammic
GuinAoiichi
Panagrammic
MrsrachaelSnape
I would love that. I wish they made a contest to win a trip there. Then I can see them play WOW. biggrin

WoW is no longer hot. This week it is Temple Run and Mass Effect 3.

Whuu? no Leisure Suit Larry?

Sorry, no joke can lighten my countenance, no smile can sunny my life. After experiencing the complete travesty that was the Mass Effect 3 ending, everything is a dark and featureless gray.

(Okay, maybe it wasn't as bad as that, but lord, it wasn't good).
biglanky14
Ugh. I hate Temple Run. Stupid fire barriers.

Now, Monkey Island....THERE'S an awesome game. Go Guybrush.


milkbun
GuinAoiichi
About Crosstich. I was trying to buy something in one of the other shops but the preview would not come up. Then i noticed it was one of the items that got moved to crosstich.
That should be looked at.

Feel free to PM with with the item name and the shop it was in and we can look into it.


Lanzer
Sifen Yamishi
Lanzer and company:

I just wanted to put in my two cents into something that has been kinda plaguing me lately. Do you guys plan to roll out any GLBTI pride items or a pride item we can have on our avatar? As a transgender guy in a relationship with my transgender girlfriend[and hopeful wife], I'd love to be able to at least wave a rainbow flag at the most to show my pride.

Thank you for your time.

While at it, anybody on the GAIA staff watch "Drag Race"? Who are you cheering for this season?
sweatdrop

To be honest, we don't have items planned right now, not because we don't support GLBTI, but because we didn't have much request for such items. I'll keep it in mind and will let the artists know that you asked.


biglanky14
Hell_Tutor
Hello there!
I noticed there's plenty of people complaining about a communication problem.
Specially about the ATA and how some of the people who reply give completely false information.
Not naming names.
I would however like to ask if any of you as noticed the ... lost in translation, situation.
If you did, how do you feel about it and is there been any talks about who should answer what?
I mean I checked some of this last AtA and there is a background to some of this accusations.
Not making a fit over Zomg, I mean basic stuff like "are we doing this event this year?" or "is this going to happen soon/ as it been considered", only to recieve replies which are later on disputed and then declared by enraged users as straight up lies.

My questions, to anyone who cares to reply:
- What's going on? Really, just, what's happening? What causes this serious miscommunication issue?
- Will you try working this problem?
- Can the users help some how?

Also in a unrelated note, is there any chance that some site features might be relegated since there seems to be signs of a time, closing by, during which the team will be investing more on the development of games and new features rather than the already existing ones?
Thank you for your time and sorry for the long post.

Hi Hell_Tutor,

We're definitely trying to work on it. We don't want incorrect communication going out, b/c it doesn't help you or us. We have a very open culture here in terms of how employees talk with users, which is mostly great (and sometimes gets us into trouble when someone makes a mistake, usually when they're just trying to be helpful). We're trying hard to minimize when it happens - although we'll never be perfect at it.

We might remove some features that are seeing really low usage, and become more trouble to maintain than they're worth.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Castiel Lover
biglanky14
Castiel Lover
I know "you are aware" and "hope to resolve this soon," but WHEN will Case of Pietro be completed? PLEASE give us an ESTIMATE of its completion.

Two weeks? Three months? A year? Never? Give us anything other than "soon."

---

The lite fish aren't dying fast enough for the high amount that are being given in DD and DC. Also, the drops are very very unsatisfying. Don't sit around looking at numbers for months. Make a change now. Trust me - you won't change it enough for it to throw the system out of whack. Your changes are too small, so far.

Hi Castiel Lover,

Gotta give you the soon smile Ok, I'll do one better. Hopefully less than a year.

... All of Gaia's staff must be comprised of trolls. crying We don't want secrets and hush hush. We want communication and openness.
User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.
biglanky14
I totally understand. But we've said things about it before and weren't able to get it done, so we don't want to repeat that mistake. We're trying to be very honest about what we're working on and what we're not, and this is something we are. But I can't give you an exact time because I can't guarantee it'll happen.
Harbinger of Pandamonium
MrsrachaelSnape
cuter one-User Image
cute is a word I hope to never have to apply to biglanky14.


Lanzer
Kangit
Hi. I have a question related to those animated Chance Item-related GIFs. People seem able to extract the link to these GIFs, but the GIFs look like they were supposed to be hidden. Plus, a lot of the GIFs don't seem to work anymore.

So my main question is: Are we even allowed to "possess" these GIFs? If so, can we also get the missing GIFs back to where we can use them?

Please PM me the exact items and I can look into it for you. Are you referring to gifs shown in the pages where you open the item?


codemonkey37179
Princess-Orphelia
Shinju_hashimfo
Princess-Orphelia
MrsrachaelSnape
[After a discussion about a Facebook contest involving a large number of friends winning a meet-in-person vacation trip]

That is amazing emotion_kirakira . Then a trip to Disneyland all in one day!

Not only Disneyland, but me being a huge Elvis fan. If I ever visit there. I'd like to also visit Graceland, Vegas and Hawaii. heart

There is a place called Graceland? O_o

No no, it's actually Elvis' house. It's called Graceland. But it's located in Memphis Tennessee. 3nodding

Yep, That's right and Tennessee is my home state. You should be aware that all the places you mentioned are quite a ways from each other. Might not be able to get to them all in one trip.
codemonkey37179
Princess-Orphelia
codemonkey37179
Princess-Orphelia
Here's my plan, but not sure how it's going to work. First I fly to Vegas, stay for a bit. Then to Memphis, then to Cali, then to Hawaii, and back home. So each time I go to diff states I gotta catch diff planes, and Pre plan and book this. Unless there's an easier way. gonk

Hmm, I think the fatal flaw in the plan is that you might lose all your money in Vegas, and have to cut the trip short. Vegas is closer to California, so it may be better to go from East (Tennessee), to West California. When I go to another country, I try to work there so I can stay longer.

Thank you for info. It's hard going to another country without really knowing where to start. At the moment it's only planing and not yet put down on paper or anything. But once it's decided and going to book. I shall use your advice. I'm thinking of taking about 6 weeks off work, would that be enough to cover these places? I'm not much of a gambler, but a shopper. And I hear Vegas has amazing shops. whee

Well, losing your money to shopping will end the trip just as fast as gambling. Travel within the country can be expensive as well. I find that if I travel internationally, I save a lot, by spending time in fewer cities. If you are determined to see all of that, I think the east to west would be the best thing to do. Pm me when you get closer to your trip. I'll advise where I can.


Narumi Misuhara
Camass
Can we getmore items in the tree house? Ive been saving my stickers hoping that a realllly awesome item would come out that not many people had the stickers to buy.

I love that we can make things in monthly contests now. Please dont let that fall through the cracks. We have very skilled gaians out there and i would love to wear several of the ideas ive seen submited so far. Can we have several items if they look fab enough?

Aslo..alchemy. pls fix eeeettttt!

We plan to have new items added for the Easter event.


Lanzer
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
I just wanted to bring a glitch to your attention. When I try to layer any of the gem stones from Barton Jewelers on top of the serafuku bows from Edmund's shop, the gem layers under the bow instead of on top of it. Can this be fixed?

Screenie: User Image

Maybe, if changing the layers doesn't cause problem with other items, since there are items the necklace is supposed to go under while there are items that need to go over the bow.

Thank you for joining us for this week's ATA. Have a great week and we'll see you next Monday!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
March 19th

Lanzer
Hello everyone!

Hope you all enjoyed last week's St Patrick's Day mini event and have gotten your pie on March 14. A big hand to Narumi and the art team for making these events possible.

This week is Gaia Madness here in Gaia, go check out the sub-forum under hot topics and check out the competitions! The Case of Pietro had finally evolved. Thank you for your patience on the wait.


Narumi Misuhara
gum disease
Yeah I think this is the first AtA I've actually been able to watch live~ /midnight in the UK. o/

Has Diedrich lost the chub he gained from the Pie nomming yet?

Nope.


biglanky14
Castiel Lover
1. Thank you for finally getting the Case of Pietro finished! I am very pleased with the finale. I'd like to repeat what I said last week, though, that we don't like secrets and hush-hush about hot topic things that need to be fixed. Troll-Lanky told me last week COP would be out "within a year" and we all know now that it came out four days later. I know Gaia likes surprises, but I don't think the userbase enjoys it as much as you think we do. You could have just answered me last week "extremely soon."

2. The lite fish aren't dying. I have a lot of really old fish. And you are pumping too many out in Dumpster Dive. We have more than we can put in our tanks (and even alt account tanks). They aren't dying fast enough, and the items in them aren't what is needed to progress alchemy, like you originally told us they are for. If you aren't doing if for alchemy, the drops are rather useless. Decorations or not, they need to be put to use to fix alchemy.

Lower the amount of lite fish released OR
Lower their life span (maybe two weeks?)
Take out the trash in their drops.
Put only alchemy ingredients and recipies (75% easy to get things and 20% harder, and 5% rare, perhaps?)
???
Profit (Make alchemy a little more do-able).

3. To Reapersun: Thank you for the finale of COP. It went beyond expectations. I only have two regrets. One, that there was no kiss between Detective and Rookie. And Two, that we have yet to learn what is in Pietro's case, that he now is in possession of. Will we be seeing a new ei/rei to go into that mystery, perhaps? Maybe when you aren't so over worked...

Hi again Castiel,

Sorry - "within a year" was intended to be over-the-top, but that didn't come across. Although you're hardly the first to call me a troll smile

I did know it was likely to come soon, and I thought I said that (although I haven't gone back and checked). But regardless, we didn't want to take any chances with that in case something happened that delayed it again, especially with something that people have been waiting for for so long. That's not to say that it was the best way to go about it, of course.

For the lite fish, thanks for the heads-up - we'll check into the dying issue. And we'll pass along your thanks to reaper.
biglanky14
Platonix
biglanky14
I did know it was likely to come soon, and I thought I said that (although I haven't gone back and checked).
Here's the thing about that: the oldbies on this site have come to learn that when a Gaia Staff member says "soon", they could easily mean "within the next eight months". The word "soon" no longer has any concrete meaning on Gaia.

Hi Platonix,

Yup - I totally understand. That's actually one of the main things we're trying to communicate better. "Soon" doesn't mean anything b/c we haven't always delivered on the things we said would be coming soon. We're trying not to break any promises, but there is the side effect that it means our vagueness has gone up (as you can see by the drinking game). We're still trying to find the happy medium here.


codemonkey37179
xcrimsonlegendx
When is the gluttonous mass of green pudge and pointless facts known as Diedrich going to explode?

very soon...


codemonkey37179
Sasune
DARKNRGY
marshmallowcreampie
I have a few questions, the first two regarding Alchemy:

1. Do you intend to make more ways to release components into the system? There are some items I really want but can’t make because some of the components have been released in such small quantities.
2. I know you guys are afraid of flooding the system with components, to avoid the situation with zOMG items where the stuff became worthless after a while. Have you thought of releasing new recipes on a regular basis to combat something like that?
3. Are the imps or centaurs gonna come back? I really liked them.
4. Any word on whether we’ll get another regular EI any time soon? I really liked Prince of the Sea.
5. Finally… Any hints on what the next RIG/Chance Item is gonna be? ninja

I've been doing a bunch of number crunching over the last week or so. I'm building some reporting tools that will give us a great deal more visibility into balancing. I hope to have a meeting early this week to present all my findings and propose a process for balancing what we have and guidelines for new content. There are a large number of factors in Alchemy so I can't say for sure what we'll do. It will depend on how it all ties together after talking with the artists. I'm going off of straight data, but they're much more familiar with the different behaviors of the items, so we'll meet somewhere in the middle. I'm hoping to use some tricks that will reduce the marketplace aspect and decrease the overall difficulty without changing the drop rates.

tl;dr - working on it!

I'd be more confident in alchemy if you didn't go to the artists, they're the ones that started this mess.

I have no idea about alchemy at all, but I wouldn't blame the artists. They are a great bunch. Besides we have to go to them now and then. If the devs started doing the art, we'd be out of business.


biglanky14
beckygrendel
Hi everyone at Gaia HQ! emotion_yatta

A few things today:

1. Thank you for making Bogie! I love him. heart He reminds me of our cat, Bunny, who passed away last summer. Big Bunny Bucket of Love was one of our favorite nicknames for her!

2. How much gold did Odanodan make in tips during the St. Patrick's Day event? rofl

3. zOMG Integrity Ring - I brought this up a couple of weeks ago, and BigLanky (I think it was) said you would consider making it available to all of the players. Has there been any discussion about this? What are the chances this can become a reality? The players who don't have it should be able to earn it somehow, seeing as how the majority of people who do have it, received it for not even playing. xp It's a useful ring! Please let everyone have a chance to get one. Instead of a refund for my Buccaneer Boardwalk ticket, how about a trade for the ring?
3nodding

Hi Becky,

1) Glad you like him (although I'm sorry to hear about your cat) sad

2) One billion gold! Well, he wishes - but he won't share the total with us.

3) It's still something we'd consider, but probably not for a bit. We're focusing on trying to get some bugs fixed and to get the Buccaneer Boardwalk refund in place first.


siskataya
Scobre
Hi again admins and here are some more smores.

1) When will refund of bb tickets be released?

Heya Scobre!

We're working on the gold refund for the tickets, and expect to have it finished really soon. As for Gaia cash or money refunds, we can already do those now if you file a billing ticket through the Help Center.

Hope this helps! biggrin
Sisky


Lanzer
Fractale
1: When are we going to get plot continuation of the demi-god story arc, with Meili, Gino, Sen and Seer?

2: Why is Zhivago such a lapdog? Is he a masochist? Is that why he's always willing to be used by other people, like Vladmir Von Helson and Don Kuro?

3: Is NPC Odanodan friends with any other NPC, like how Jack Is friends with Santa? Who does he hang out with?

4: Do all the holiday NPC's (Jack, Santa, Cupid, Odanodan) have their own town or city; like Jack has Halloweentown? Is there a Cover City/ Cloverville/ St. Patrick's Town for Odanodan; a Hearttropolis. Vatican Valentine City for Cupid, or a Christmas Town for Santa? Where is Shitty Acres apartments located; for the Easter Bunny?

I believe that's being planned.

Well there should be a reason to that, so stay tuned.

I think he's friends with the Easter Bunny, otherwise I guess he ain't got many friends

There are many parts of Gaia that are unexplored...


biglanky14
Gage Puhp
Just a quick question.

What is going on with Gaia and zOMG! I've read alot of things about it but not really sure whats true and whats not. It's rather confusing.

Hi Gage,

Sorry you're confused! In a nutshell, we're not going to be doing major work on zOMG. We're going to do our best to fix bugs, and to potentially add some smaller content when we can (maybe new quests, or a ring, or something like that). We're not shutting down the game or anything like that, and it'll still be available for people to play - we're just not doing bigger work on it.

I hope that helps!


Narumi Misuhara
Eruravenne
Was it just my imagination or was there a green clover as well as a gold clover in the event? I could have sworn there was a green one, but I can't find it on the AH and I haven't seen anyone wearing it since the first day of the event. neutral

Unless someone else snuck one out without my knowledge, there was no green clover given out for the event.


Lanzer
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, Lanzer and other staff members.

In the announcement about the lite fish, you clearly stated that the drops would contain mostly alchemy items. Then, at the last ATA, you turned around and said that the lite fish were meant for people who didn't want to spend gaia cash on aquarium fish and the alchemy components were added after people asked for them. Explain yourself.

Proof: User Image

Also, in the future, could you make dev notices alerting people when Deadman's Shadow is open to the public?

Sorry but work on the free fishes started way before the announcement, please refer to my feedback thread in site feedback or the aquarium forum and you'll see that there weren't mentioning of alchemy when I first talked about the idea. Later on some users suggested having alchemy items and so I added the feature as a bonus to free fishes. Unfortunately after more planning it seems that we can't give out alchemy items as much as we want to, but the feature is still being tuned and we'll continue to improve upon the alchemy system.


carbonphyber
Lady__Miko
I heard an announcement regarding avatars, but it still hasn't helped my primary issue. I cannot use turn controls, get nekkid part of the avi, reset, save smile choices etc. People have already waited months to see what the deal is. I'd heard that one person said that it could be an account issue since certain accounts on his computer had the same issue while others didn't. Is there any means to rectify this problem? For people who have this issue it's kind of hard to enjoy gaia to the fullest when you have so much trouble with customizing the avatar. I have more questions but this is the only one I can think of off the bat that is more "tech-ish" so I'll state it separately.

Can you file a topic in the Bug Reports forum and give me all the details I need to be able to get this bug to show up on my account?

Typically I will need the
  1. URL to the page that glitches
  2. What you try to do when the glitch occurs
  3. What you expect to see and what you actually see
  4. Approx when the glitch started (if you know)


Thanks!

P.S. I know there are 3 more smaller/less frequent issues regarding item and item variation previews that I am still working on. It should only be a few more days for those glitches to get ironed out.


biglanky14
Owlie
biglanky14
Owlie
Hi admins,

Please give us an update on the state of Deadman's Shadow. The infamous "instance reset" glitch is seriously discouraging gameplay. Wasting 3+ hours clearing the yellow maze only to have it completely reset is unbelievably frustrating, especially since the crew almost always disbands when this happens.

Fewer people are attempting attunement or attempting to kill Kamila because of these glitches. Also, the quest chain is broken, and suddenly crews will start losing Ghi during Bloodlust, ruining chances of victory. Can we get a few more developers assigned to fix this paid for content that is seriously broken? There are at least workarounds for the 42 million orb glitch, as frustrating as it is, but once your instance resets or you start losing ghi, you're screwed.

Also- could someone post a dev notice when Deadman's Shadow opens to the public? How are Gaians who don't frequent the z!F supposed to know that a pay to play area is free for the weekend?

A full bar isn't enough. People still question it. Examples- this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this..... there are more, but I'm done looking.

Posting a quick "DMS is open to the public for 3 days!" dev notice would raise awareness and increase use for very little effort. Can this be implemented?

And finally, will there be a repeat zOMG Easter Egg hunt? Repeats are better than nothing.

Thanks in advance for your response.

I'm going to take a shot every time someone says "we're looking into it".


Owlie

Edit: Guess I'm getting ignored.

Hi Owlie,

You're not being ignored - we're doing our best to get to as many questions as possible.

We have a list of bugs that we're prioritizing to get fixed in zOMG, although off hand I'm not sure if this is on there. I can definitely check on that.

And your suggestion for a notice is fair - I'll pass that along as well.

Finally, you're going to have to drink, b/c I can't commit that we'll be doing an Easter Egg hunt in zOMG this year, although the idea has been floated internally.

Thanks for your patience!

Thanks for responding. If you could add some helium to the Easter Event idea floating internally? zOMG needs the influx of players that come in during holiday events, and loyal players need some hope.

Here's the Master Glitch List for zOMG in case it's escaped attention. Many of them are game breaking. These are the most frustrating.
Berryfarmer
  • Alastor quest in DMS Won't Start- This is in payed for content, where a specific quest to meet Alastor in Kamila's crypt will not activate.
    Cause: Unknown

  • DMS maps resetting- the infamous instance reset. Trial and error and testing by Starshine yielded this information, "Yellow maze resetting: The crew clears yellow to reach green, and wipes in the first greenmaze room. One person anchors while the rest null and enter yellow maze again. When the anchor nulls and tries to enter DMP, a message saying that the crew leader needs to be on the map appears. Yellow maze is reset and those already in it are trapped and can not leave their screen. The only way for them to exit is to leave crew or d/c.
    Greenmaze reset: Happens when reforming crew after clearing hpr. When the person holding hpr enters greenmaze, greenmaze resets. The rest of te crew was in yellow maze."
    Cause: Something to do with how the game recognizes crew locations?

  • Ghi Glitch- During Kamila Bloodlust form- "glitches when people disconnect in there. It drops even when there are 6 people in crew on the same screen."
    Cause: Something about programming not recognizing there are other players on screen?

  • Bloodlust Kamila Movement- "Where Kamila will move right on top of whoever has aggro and will move to follow whenever that person moves."
    Cause: Unknown

  • 100% Room Glitch- "Basically; when you cleared the Green rooms and and finally find the 100% room, the whole room is empty. No Blood Bats, no Count and no Kamila. You also can not enter the Crypt, because no gears will show when you click on the entrance.
    And no, it’s not a case when the Green room resetted on you, when someone DC's." Another variant found by Starshine, "HPR glitching: Basically the option to enter crypt does not appear and the crew is unable to enter."
    Cause: Unknown

Thanks for the link to the list! I'm 94.62% sure that's what they'll use to prioritize bugs when we work on them.


codemonkey37179
Soul of Kyr
codemonkey37179
Soul of Kyr
Soul of Kyr
About that malicious ad I keep bringing up to everywhere that I can....it is still around....is anything ever going to be done about it??

Also....What is up lately with you guys and Gaia's coding?? Have you been hit with a virus that makes you make mistakes in coding??

The Malicious Ad anyone??

I'm not ignoring you, I just don't know what you are referring to.

Ok....I hope this is the last time I have to bring this up....since I brought it up in the last Ask the Admins too.

Since October of 2011,there has been a Malicious Ad that never fully downloads,but it freezes your browser and then you have to restart the browser and sometimes your Computer. I have been complaining about it since November of 2011 in the Bad Ad Thread and lately in the Ask the Admins Threads.
I have talked to many people who are also affected by it,but I guess I am just more dogged about it.
This Ad can show up on ANY page that can have Ads....but most frequently on such pages as Inventory,Dress-Up,Forums....etc.
I did what was asked and yet....6 months later that Ad is still around.
I just want it gone,because all it is doing is making sure that I can not have fun on Gaia,because I have to be on the look out for the Ad,just in case it shows up and freezes me....it makes it very hard to have fun or participate in anything.
I should not have to buy a 250 GC item from the Cash Shop,to get rid of Ads,just so the thing will not show up. I usually don't mind Ads,but this is just really pissing me off
I am based in the Midwest.

PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!

What is the ad? The company or website?


biglanky14
scullylam
hi lanzer!

1. are you going to be a part of the gaia madness competitions?

2. anyone following the ncaa tournament? *coughgokentuckywildcatscough*

3. if we have a summer event, can it be rejected olympics awesomeness? this gaia madness stuff automatically reminds me of it. (can i haz more wash liam please? )

4. can we have zomg related sdplus dolls? and throw in more staff dolls too!!! we lack pirates, so can swarf be a doll?

Just taking #2 since I am not Lanzer.

Can't cheer for Calipari in good conscience smile I had Missouri in the final (WHOOPS!), so now I'm reduced to basically cheering for upsets. Although I have a soft spot for Marquette b/c part of my family lives in Milwaukee.


biglanky14
Opera Phantomess
biglanky14
Rizuzua
Gaia Staffers,
I'm not sure whom is talking or dealing with or "keeping an eye" on things,but I've got a legitimate and earnest concern they need to address.

Could you please put the Alchemist Cache and the Alchemist Case back into the Daily Chance?

As I understand it the "[lite] fish drop" were supposed to drop mostly alchemy items...but they have not. They drop: garbage, random items not associated with Alchemy, odd items that are still being dropped in the pink,blue/brown boxes! The ratio is quite bad.

So could you please reinstate Alchemist Cache and Alchemist Case back into the Daily Chance? It was the one, true, logical way users were able to get items out, and keep alchemy moving..

I believe you have seen what happened soon after they were removed(if not I will write what happened here). The items vanished! They literally vanished, as once they are used these items are gone for good.

So honestly, can you please just place the Alchemy Cache and Case back in teh Daily Chance...and alleviate the stress on Alchemy?

Thank you,

Rizuzua

Hi Rizuzua,

They're actually still in Daily Chance!

Are you sure? Users were reporting not receiving either the Case or the Cache anymore after the Aquarium items went into there, though Golden Magical Giftboxes are apparently being granted from time to time. I have only been receiving the much cheaper DC-only components and have not seen a Cache or Case since the above occurred.

Hi Opera,

Yup, we checked the system, so they should be going out.


biglanky14
Rizuzua
Thank you guys for answering the questions.

I guess my next question is: if users can only get the Cache/case on the "home" page(or on a much lesser degree due to aquarium fish)...does that mean DC/Alchemy isn't working correctly or are unbalanced? Should there be an adjustment to keep Alchemy's use open?

Not sure it's doing what it is supposed to is all.

(edited)

This I'm not sure about - we'd have to look into it. I honestly don't know if it's actually restricted to the homepage or not.


siskataya
oTazi
I did have a question for you admins and other staff members, but I forgot it.
Anyways~ Since I forgot, I'll just thank you admins, devs, and other staff members for fixing the bugs on gaia, really appreciated it. c:

Heya!

Glad you could stop by, and you are most welcome! Hope you are having a fantastic day/evening!

Be well biggrin
Sisky


carbonphyber
Yuriko Koizumi
Hello admins and any employee that happens to lurk this thread! ninja

Last week I got here a little too late for anyone to answer my questions, but hopefully today I came early enough.

Even though it slips my mind to bump up my thread in SF, it doesn't mean I have forgotten about it.

The Search feature on the Avatar page could use a little attention because...

1. Poses that move our avatars arms makes the avatar disappear completely. This is the most annoying.
2. Some recent items are unable to be found. I don't know who is in charge of tags, but it would be splendid if we could find recent RIG items, and those from the past. I don't have a list of items that aren't found via Search, however.

I would really love an answer as to if this could be fixed at all. c: Thank you for your time.

It's on my list of things to do. Avatar (and search), inventory (and search), marketplace, and cash/gold shops all have a few bugs each that I will address this week.


codemonkey37179
-Mizu teh Artsi-
codemonkey37179
-Mizu teh Artsi-
./pops on to say hi and offers popcorn and goodies to mods

Just wanna say hi and hang out with you guys on then blistering hot evening in Southern Ontario, Canada ouo

Hi Right Back!

Anywhere near Temagami?

Oh wow, that's way up north of me O:

I'm just a couple minutes out of Barrie, and an hour northwest from Toronto! (Georgian Bay/Lake Simcoe) =D

I hung out in North Bay and Lake Temagami when I was a kid. Visited Toronto a lot too.


biglanky14
Random Acts of Awesome
/prods thread

hello everyone, i finally made it on time for one of these thingamajiggs

just one question,

when can we expect the BB ticket refund?

ninja

EDIT:

go for a cup of tea and see there are 5 pages...

so, i guess if this question hasn;t been answered before, ill just stick witha friendly "hello" and lurk the thread

Hi there,

Love the username!

Got a short answer for you: should be very soon smile


Narumi Misuhara
electropoisonwaves
Also, I'm still a little butt hurt over the Sailor Moon secret grant thing.

I know, I know, I need to get over it, move on with life, that sort of thing. But the irony of all ironies is that I did the tasks needed during the same day, same time zone and didn't get that secret item to help me fight crime.
I twas very saddened and confused.

How often will we have such hidden item grants? Could you perhaps drop hints so as to not have to depend on hearsay, neh?

Quote:
How often will we have such hidden item grants?
Not too often
Quote:
Could you perhaps drop hints so as to not have to depend on hearsay, neh?
My team has already been doing this. Not all such grants will be hinted at however as some are meant to be secretive.


Lanzer
Opera Phantomess
Good evening! I hope all is well over where you are and no earthquakes to speak of. wink Nothing too insane from me today, but do expect other users repeating what I am asking here.

1. Is there any way to implement what Panagrammic said about putting destroyed Cash Shop items via Alchemy into Dumpster Dive to keep the supply constant on site? It is getting to the point where certain items, even RIG items, are very hard to come by and are much more expensive on the Marketplace than what they were at before Alchemy.

2. Would it be possible to place Philosopher’s Caches and Alchemist’s Cases back into the Daily Chance since the alterations to their respective formulas is not helping the supply of many components any and only drove the prices for both back up, or even consider placing all or the certain components that are needed in vast quantities, like Sugar Crystals, Sea Water, and Smooth Wheststone, amongst others, into The Bifrost for amounts like 25k, 50k, or even more to aide in a continuous supply of those components while creating a mass gold sink? It is such a concern when the Quest formula chains (Demonic, Angelic, Risen, Fallen, Celestial) eats up hundreds of certain components and causes major frustration to even those who are considered part of the class Alchemy was targeting in the first place.

I believe that's what BidBlast was meant to do, though it wasn't giving out as much items as we wanted to. Giving out cash shop items continue to be a tricky proposition but we'll continue to look into it.

The items are still in Daily Chance, we never took them away.


DARKNRGY
WideEyed
DARKNRGY
WideEyed
Hi Guys!
I have some questions about zOMG! again.
Sorry to be a broken record, but these are pretty important for me.
Thanks (Yes, this is indeed the list I asked last week, but seeing as the situation remains "fluid", I'm hoping you might be able to provide some updates. wink )

1. ) Has any decision been made regarding Dev time for zOMG! ? If so, how much? If not, when do you expect the decision to be made?
2. ) Has any progress been made towards glitch repair in zOMG!, or has a plan been put in place to do so?
3. ) If zOMG! glitches are being worked on, which glitches will be fixed?
4. ) Will there be a recycled Easter Event for zOMG!?
5. ) Is it possible to automate the zOMG! Server Cycling process?

I hadn't said anything about this yet because there is no new information. We have someone being set up on contract work - it takes a little while because we have to get approval and, well, he also has a full time job.

We'd be working on the bugs that interfere with game play first. I'm not familiar enough with the bugs to prioritize - that's going to be up to zomg devs.

No plans for a recycled event - again our position is that we do not have any planned development for new content.

I'm not sure about automatic cycling. If it's a rando crash and not a memory leak or something, automatically cycling wouldn't actually help. There's probably a good answer for this. I just IM'd swarf to see what he says.

Thanks very much Dark. smile
I'm hoping that fixing the early broken Quest Chains will take top priority when bug fixing finally begins.
So many potential players are getting locked up in the tutorial with Leon, or finding their very first Quest Chains with Elizabeth and Remo are broken, that I can't help but think it's causing them to lose interest early, and we all know how dependent zOMG!, and all of Gaia for that matter, is on new players constantly coming on board.
I know there's a lot of requests that the DMS bugs be given priority, and I must admit that I find them aggravating, but I'd be more than happy to wait if it meant the early Quest Chain bugs could be fixed and we get keep as many of our zOMG! Newbies as possible.

About automating the Servers...
Everybody who plays zOMG! is familiar with the lag issues that arise as Servers age.
It seems that a Server only has about two days before lag starts becoming a pretty critical issue, and my understanding has always been that the process of cycling Servers is a manual one, that actually requires "hands-on" time.
The issue always seems to be worst on Sunday nights or Holiday Mondays when the staff gets their well deserved time off.
Not being a Server Professional, but having some familiarity with automation and script writing, I would have thought that the Server Cycling process could be fully automated, and set to happen at roughly the same time every day, thereby eliminating what I have always felt to be one of zOMG!'s biggest problems when considering new usership and retention of existing users.

Also...I'm going to pretend I didn't read the answer to my question about a recycled Easter Event for zOMG!, and hope that Gaia can pull a rabbit out of their hat for us.
After all, ...rabbit...Easter?..
It seems like a match made in heaven to me. smile

Thanks for answering my questions (see you next week xp ) and thanks for keeping zOMG! at least simmering. smile

I suspect that quests will actually be first to fix based on the feedback we've been getting so far.

swarf responded - he said he's been working on setting up the scripts to do it, just needs some more dedicated time

I hate bringing news you aren't going to be happy with. Thanks for being cool about all this smile .
DARKNRGY
WideEyed
And trust me when I say I feel for you guys having to face us every week knowing that the news hasn't changed much since the last time you answered.
Of course, the fact that I feel for you, doesn't meaan for a second that I won't be here every week asking the same tired (and tiresome wink ) questions.

Don't get me wrong...if there's no Easter Event in zOMG!, I will be hugely disappointed, as I imagine most zOMGaians will be.
There's a strong possibility that there may even be a bit of strong language bandied about, but I think if we were to see some tangible evidence that sacrificing the Event meant some of zOMG!'s most nagging problems would get fixed, I imagine most of us could deal.

Thanks again. smile

Same time next week? wink

hehe, well...... ^5. I think everyone get a lot more out of these discussions when we're being nice to each other and I greatly appreciate the effort I know you have to put in to keep it civil. It is absolutely no problem at all if you want to be persistent. Course we have to try and balance out the attention with everything else in the thread.

We were talking about the recycling just now. I'm not saying anything yet, just that we were talking about it razz . First priority is of course any bugs that interfere with gameplay. We'll go from there.
biglanky14
Owlie
WideEyed
Don't get me wrong...if there's no Easter Event in zOMG!, I will be hugely disappointed, as I imagine most zOMGaians will be.
There's a strong possibility that there may even be a bit of strong language bandied about, but I think if we were to see some tangible evidence that sacrificing the Event meant some of zOMG!'s most nagging problems would get fixed, I imagine most of us could deal.

I agree. While I'm going to be completely disappointed if there's no egg hunt, it's more important to fix the broken game.

On the other hand... seasonal events draw new players and bring back old players. Can we have both?

I know it takes a bit of work to recycle an event, but I think it's worth it.


so far:
very soon... xx
working on it xxx
We'll look into it xxxx
we'll check into x
can't promise anything x

We're trying, but can't promise anything. Thanks for your understanding.


[Guess what guess what? This transcript continued next post. That's what.]

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
[This transcript continued from last post for so long it's not true!]

March 19th, some more

carbonphyber
Daranigan
I only have one question. Will there be an upgrade to the backyard monsters game coming anytime soon?

We don't have any control over the Backyard Monsters game. It's developed by another company. Sorry.


biglanky14
Crystal Sparda
biglanky14
Crystal Sparda
What do you think of the opinion that Gaia
has begun (or has been in the state of) decline?
I remember the days when there would be over 80k users on at a single time.
Now, we're only peaking at around 30k-ish.
I honestly think that it mostly has to do with Gaia catering to the gold and cash wealthy.
I have found many users who've tried to get their friends into Gaia
in its current form, but they greatly dislike it due to the elite circles
and how complicated it is just to get a decent avatar.
I have always felt "behind" because I don't have the talents
all the other gaians have, such as drawing avatar art,
creating extravagant designs to sell, gold farming in zOMG,
or even vending in the marketplace and exchange.
It would be nice if we could get back to the older days when
the site was more about having fun and being a community
and not about who has $800 to spend on RIGS and get 50 victories
and owning any of the old monthly collectibles.

TL;DR: When can we become a community again and not have to worry
about throwing money in your faces just to have a decent avatar?

******** it, my post is buried due to me not having it premade,
but I sure as hell would like some input on this.

Hi Crystal,

Thanks for the post. I think that's pretty subjective. It's not a secret that we have fewer users than we've had before, and people have different theories on why that is. But we all think we still have a pretty awesome community that has a lot of fun on the site, and we're going to continue to try to make it as fun as possible, whether you spend money or not.

Thank you biglanky for replying. >w<;
I really don't want to sound harsh, but being a simple gaian
can be hard at times, especially when you want a 15m item
for a simple eye or wig pose, but you have no "source of income".
I have been a member since November of '04,
but was off and on and became active on this account about 4 years ago.
It took me a while to "get" and "understand" Gaia,
as I hadn't been on a large community site, other than myspace before.
It was simpler back in 06-07 and people weren't nuts over who had elite status.
I try my hardest to do what I can, but profile coding isn't popular
unless you're an avatar artist and digital designer as well.

No, thank you for the comments - I appreciate the feedback. All I can really say is that we're doing our best to provide a fun experience for all types of users, whether they have 80 bajillion gold or just 80. That is, we're certainly not just trying to think of ways that we can make the users who do have a lot of gold happy, and not paying attention to anyone else.
biglanky14
Crystal Sparda
Yay for appreciation!
Thank you for the reassurance!
I'm always scared of posting in the feedback forum
because I dislike having people say I'm bitching and moaning about being "poor".
Hell, I'm glad I have reached 1m gold, but it seems that's pocket change nowadays.
It is a bit hard to see the cash shop get a holiday bundle,
then only have 1 or 2 items for the holiday event. emo
Free items are always nice to get as well!
The last two holidays both had a bundle and had over a dozen poses to choose from,
but then the event item for the holiday only was one item with one pose.
I do find that sorta off-putting. >.<;;
I do appreciate the art of the items, but hard to appreciate something
you don't have and can't use!

I hear you smile Hopefully you'll be happy with the Easter event, though!


codemonkey37179
Lady Pen
Lady Pen
3/19/2011?
and *poof!* it is fixed! You guys and gals are good!

Time flies!


biglanky14
Meeki
Just wanted to stop by and say thank you for the Gaia Madness event. Events like that are so appreciated and fun to watch!

P.S. biglanky14, were you as clueless as you came off in round one or was that a brilliant battle tactic?

Absolutely clueless. But SOMEONE has to win the lottery, right??


Lanzer
Starshine
Omg you finally finished Pietro!

YEAHHHHHHH! cool

Is it possible to get a story summation for it like we do with REIs? Right now it's all very confusing, we don't even know why everyone is after the case. It's like a mystery novel with half the story and clues missing. Like, who killed the Barista?!

Can we get the 2nd gen to finish evolving too? Owners have been waiting almost as long. And the following gens should really evolve on a timely basis. Like once every fortnight or so.

zOMG buddies, can we get them with equiptable poses like pets? An I AM pose would be wonderful, right now the only zOMG animated that can be I AM are the pumpkin fluff and blood bat. We need more ^^

Since there are already flash animation for all the buddies, it would be awesome if they can be astra poses too.

Also any updates to BB ticket sellbacks?

From what I know, that's supposed to be part of the mystery, there won't be a novel for the EI unfortunately.

We're actively working on it, hope we'll be able to announce it soon

There's no plans for that, sorry. We'll look into it though.

Thanks for the suggestion!


carbonphyber
Winter Hue
DARKNRGY
meep12345
1) What has become of Lex (of Gold Mountain)? Will he go to work at P&J?

Just taking this one question because I don't know about the others or already answered.

Yes, Gold Mountain is going away. Lex will be in P&J and he'll sell his tokens there. We're trying to move as much as we can into the Gold Shops format to reduce the number of shop features and give a bit more consistent user experience. Cash Shop, Gold Mountain, that sort of thing.

Concerning the Cash Shop and its gold shop form.
I use Modzilla Firefox (the latest version) and I still get the cash shop popup when I try to access the shop via the gold shop route.

We specifically disabled the goldshop-style CashShop immediately after it was released because there was a glitch with AutoCash. Once that's worked out, we will restore it for everyone to use.


[NPC] Horse
Fractale
Esdella Vie
Heey. : D
Don't know if it's already been figured out yet, but is [NPC] Horse here for a reason?
dethroning Diedrich?

(...)


biglanky14
Daniel has Amnesia
Lanzer
Fansub
You promised us that we would all have a chance to get backwings and then you put them on a feature that was intentionally made just for the top 3% of the userbase. I'd like to know if I'm an idiot for spending 9 years defending you for not just putting the wings in an MC like everyone was telling you to because I believed that you would do the right thing. Am I an idiot? Or are you actually going to fix this?

Please don't tell me that you didn't see this coming. Don't insult my intelligence. Thanks.

The backwings were always meant as an item that takes time and effort to obtain, as opposed to an item that we sell for cash. Unfortunately we still have much to do in order to improve upon the alchemy system. I thank you for sticking with us for so long and we're definitely not giving up on alchemy yet.

Thanks for answering Lanzer. while this post does seem a bit dodgy, I guess its good to know you guys are still working on the alchemy system and it's not a lost cause.

I just hope it's sooner rather than later. I'll feel sorry for all those people who are cutting their wrists over the backwing quests right now only to find out much later that suddenly they are much easier to obtain. Giving them a push right now would be a good idea before its too late and they already set the standard for the unrealistic effort it takes to make the wings.

Its pretty much the same logic as re-releasing old MC's. It will be completely unfair to those people who spend a mountain of gold to get them at their expensive price and work so hard only to have future users having it handed to them.

It's buried somewhere in here, but Darknrgy posted about some of the work we're doing right now on Alchemy as well. It's DEFINITELY not being ignored.


biglanky14
Diamond Cache
Hey guys.~ Just wondering -- any news of a recycled Easter event? All we want are eggs to kill and chocolate bunnies to make.~ emotion_c8

Hi Diamond Cache,

I can't promise anything (cue anyone playing the drinking game), but we're at least looking into this.


Lanzer
Countess Delsaber
Good evening everyone,

How are you all doing tonight? This is this is the first AtA I've ever attended...not that it matters, but I do have one question:

Are there, will there or could there ever be plans for a makeup addition to the salon? A lot of the current options can get pricey, and some of them don't work on avatars with darker skin (i.e. Little Lucie).

It would be nice to have gold shop versions of lipstick, eyeshadow and possibly even expressions. It could even be a mid-level goldsink, with items at around 50K and up and, much like eye and hairstyles, must be purchased again and again to change them.

We already have a few gold shop versions of EI or cash shop eye styles in the salon, so I think this could be a reasonable alternative.

We've always wanted to have make up items for the salon but there are technical problems that prevented us from making them work well with other items or facial features I believe. We should be able to find ways to make it work eventually though.


codemonkey37179
x Karurie x
What can we expect with the Easter Event?
When will it begin?
WHAT IS NPC HORSE?

1. Awesomeness.
2. Shortly before Easter.
3. A Horse (one of our site characters)

Sorry for the vague answers, but we don't want to spoil the surprise.


carbonphyber
Sayud
Why, hello there.

So, I've been preparing this question for a few weeks, even though it may not seem like it.

NOTE: If this question contains too much sensitive information and you need to delete it, please do so. But PLEASE, PM me a response.

My question: What's wrong with your security?!

Seriously. Do you guys not have someone working on the security of Gaia? I've heard you guys have been hiring a security company to do penetration testing scans but they don't seem to be helping much. Also, why don't you guys warn the users about all of the hackers and scammers out there more? It's not a lost cause, you know. Every day, I find more and more vulnerabilities in Gaia. I've emailed them all to the membertalk@gaiaonline.com email (Or usertalk@gaiaonline.com, whichever one is the current one) but it takes WEEKS to get a response. Before, it was being able to upload a PHP Backdoor through the report system. Now, it's having a huge list of every single internal servers, including internal VMWare collaboration servers, mail servers, and even the moderator handbook! I would be happy to help Gaia with their security, even for free, but no one seems to care about it. (Also, I'm too young to apply to be a moderator >.> Don't judge me) I mean, protecting accounts from FLPs (Fake Login Pages, a.k.a phishing sites) could be as simple as having your account accessible from only one IP address. If that IP address doesn't match the one you normally log in with, you have to verify it through email. This would most likely stop almost half of account hacks, as long as people didn't use the same password for their email and their Gaia account. The least you could do is send out an announcement every few months, reminding people to change their passwords. In fact, why not force that? Every three months you HAVE to change your password? That would keep accounts a LOT safer, and wouldn't inconvenience the user too much. You HAVE to pay attention to account and website security more, or more and more accounts will end up getting hacked.

Well, that's the end of my rant. I hope you could get something out of this, or at least 30 seconds of good reading.

-Sayud

From your paragraph, I understand that you don't know about the tools and subtle education + safeguards we give our users.

I'll PM you to make sure that you are using the best email address to contact us with security concerns.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Narumi Misuhara
II HazelSkye II
Who of the administrators have actually played zOMG??

*Raises hand*

So that's what you do behind all those monitors.
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Ridley Starsmore
And your CL?

I cannot speak for Narumi, but I am CL 10.
Narumi Misuhara
7 last I played.


codemonkey37179
Corinth Maxwell
[NPC] Horse
Existential Existence
[npc] horse need to post more often.

i like how he caused someone to rage at his spamming in that one thread. it was fun.

NPC horse where are you?

(...)

cat_stare Ok, who's the freak show? cat_whee

Are you referring to me? stare


biglanky14
Rosalind_of_blackwell
Hi lanzer!

this is my first participation in the ask the admin night sense it started.

i have a few things to ask you regarding site event changes and zomg

ZOMG

1. are the servers still under construction or testing, there seems to be a ton of glitches and problems when there are chance items, or events on the site itself, and i was wondering it that was normal or?

2. lagging is a problem... i have a 3.0 processor and good net and it still laggs.. long lived problem.

SITE EVENTS

ok this is going to be more of an opinion thing but, i don't understand why the events have been so... idk, they seem less fun.. i've been on gaia sense 05' the events and the items were awsome, but honestly with all the donating at Christmas, and strictly forum oriented events, i'm less inclined to partake in the event itself.

we need more flash interaction and hunts, or contests like there used to be. i'm not saying the forum dosen't deserve the spotlight but it seems sense zomg came out that the on site events have lost their luster and it makes me oh so sad.

the items are one of my big dibates tho, great idea's, love them to death, but they are made to be in wierd positions on the avitar that make it less appealing.

for example, umbrella's. your parasols are cute but they never go behind your avi when they are granted items, they go on top. things like that, like clothes that are too big, or too poofy in the wrong way, the detail put into them isn't the same...

i also miss when the events story tied into the items as well. miss that tons.

sorry for being negitive, just been really disappointed lately with some of the changes and events. :/

Hi Rosalind,

Thanks for the honest feedback - hopefully you'll like what we have coming up!


biglanky14
Rizuzua
codemonkey37179
rosae albae magni
can you give me freee gold

No, but thanks for asking.

(can I give you free gold?)

yes!
codemonkey37179
Rizuzua
codemonkey37179
Rizuzua
rofl Code monkey hasn't 'sponded...but I guess I can try? He could use a dapper hat or...socks?

Oh! You were talking to me? I thought you were talking to the original poster.

Ha! You can if you like, but it isn't necessary. I much prefer a quoted response.

*epic high five* YEEAAAAAAH!! I'll give you a pair o' socks...

Thanks Rizuzua! Now more cold feet. I've got glowing socks!


carbonphyber
Winter Hue
All I really want to know is why the DressUp feature hasn't been fully fixed yet.
Drop-down handheld poses on EIs are still being quite glitchy.
Are the Devs still working on this issue? Or have they moved on?

Still on my list for this week.


codemonkey37179
Dexigone
siskataya
PuddingCow
Reposting.

Whats this I here of glitching hair in the salon, where the male hair is visible for female bases, but doesnt apply when bought?

Is there a plan for unisexing hair? Sorry if this has been asked already).

Heya PuddingCow!

Actually, this was a glitch with older items - sorry if there has been any frustration over this!

Just so you know, the artists have actually been working on unisexing items on an ongoing basis and are trying to get to all the items eventually. I cannot give you a specific time when this will happen because there are a fair number of items to fix, but it is definitely on the ongoing to-do/are doing list biggrin

Take care! ^^
Sisky

Sorry to annoy you with a repeated question, but are there going to be any Armenian Items? how about an expansion on sports items on Gaia? Am I the only one who cares about them?

I don't know of any plans for any Armenian items, but what did you have in mind?


Lanzer
Purloined Parfait
I've had a problem with the fish obtained from Dumpster Dive and Daily Chance which I posted about in the Bugs Forum, any news on that front? (Fish dying after being fed, and then appearing back in my inventory)

I'm looking into that problem right now, some fishes do have longer lifespan than others but it might just be a bug in the system. Thanks for letting me know.


biglanky14
Corinth Maxwell
cat_stare Also........When, exactly, will this particular young lady get an answer to her question? cat_whee cat_stressed
Lanzer

Nissa chan
When are you going to make a site-wide announcement concerning the status of zOMG development? It's not fair that a lot of users don't use the forums and so they are in the dark about it. It's been weeks now and you've yet to even release a dev alert about it.

cat_stare I share this particular sentiment. I mean, how long does it take to write up & post a simple site-wide announcement for this? cat_stressed cat_scream

Hi Corinth,

Sorry for the delay in answering. Honestly, I'm not going to commit that we actually will do one, but in general if we do, we'd like to make some progress on the things we are working on so that everyone can see the whole picture. That said, we're hoping we'll have some of that news pretty soon.


Lanzer
Dexigone
Sorry if I am annoying you but I feel like this has to be asked!

Are we going to get Armenian stuff? Im Armenian and I would feel insulted if there was a Global imports update without Armenian things! Actually, all the Armenians would be upset!

Im one of the rare sports player here on Gaia and im disappointed that the uniforms and equipments are at an all time... THERE ISNT ENOUGH. Are we ever gonna get a real sports update? And if this is related to the 3rd Gaian olympics, CAN WE HAVE SHOTPUTS?

THANK YOU FOR WORKING SO HARD TO FEED MY CRIPPLING ADDICTION YOU EVIL GENIUSES.

We try to do as much as we can when it comes to global ethnicity items. Meanwhile, anything that raises interest through a petition will always get more priority.

You're right that there's not enough sports uniform out there. We'll keep that in mind for planning on this summer's event.


codemonkey37179
WideEyed
PuddingCow
WideEyed
ikr...it's supposed to be 25 here on Wednesday.
25!!!
I don't expect to see that kind of temperature until the 2-4!
If this winter is what Global Warming is all about, bring it on! blaugh

Feeling 30, mind you. Pardon me, Master March, but Madame June called. She would like to inquire about the returning of her temperature. (10 points if you read that in a Sebastian or likewise British voice)

Immediately thought of Sebastian Cabot from "Family Affair".

Oh Gawd, I'm old! rofl

Sebastian Cabot- also the voice of the narrator in Winnie the Pooh.

I'm old too sad


carbonphyber
PuddingCow
Man that horse is everywhere.

What's this I here of glitching hair in the salon, where the male hair is visible for female bases, but doesn't apply when bought?

Is there a plan for unisexing hair? (Sorry if this has been asked already).

All new hair is bi-sexualunisex; some older hair items that have not been upgraded aren't.
The older hairs in Salon Durem where both genders show are will be updated soon so you only see the hair for your current gender.

Thanks for reporting the issue!


Lanzer
Elementis_Dragon
Hi admins I'm glad you are taking the time to talk about things to make Gaia better. I have a few things to ask and at least one suggestion for an item.
1) Is it possible to adjust the marketplace so there's like a cap on it, I mean everything now a day's is so inflated.
2) Can you look at the status of soulbound items. I understand completely about needing ZOMG items to be soulbound, I'm not talking about them. However there's two items like the S.I.N and B.O.O items that I'm sure people would like to get rid of, or have the other of the two. And is it possible that since the Bloodstone amulet becomes soulbound upon going into the Deadman's shadow can you at least add some cool looking poses to it so it doesn't seem like it's just being useless in peoples accounts?
And finally
3) I think that the Rosamund's Revenge would make an awesome recolor, like white roses and hair, and white arm poses.

Anyway's thanks for taking the time for reading Adims.

Unfortunately as prices are set by users, we really can't force others to sell at certain prices.. Inflation is ultimately caused by an economy where gold is given away more than they're spent on things like gold shops and features. Things like the 2% marketplace tax is one of those things that are made to counter inflation but they were met with much negativity and we stopped any other gold reduction related enforcement on Gaia.

It makes a lot of sense and we'll look into it. Hope we'll have a fix soon.

Yes, a white variation would look nice. A re-color isn't something in the works unfortunately, but thank you for the suggestion regardless.

Thank you for joining us on this week's ATA. See you all next week!


biglanky14
Acciokeys
Acciokeys
Hello Everyone heart First off this is my first question so if it's lame I'm sorry.

Anyway I would like to point out that there are TONS of people who still have glitches with ZOMG with "silent NPC's", it's been almost a YEAR since I could advance in ZOMG because I can not complete the quests, mostly because I can not be assigned the quests. It's incredibly frustrating especially for someone who has been playing since the beginning and has put lots of time and effort into the game. I have reported this bug a few times and I know there is a thread out there for people with "silent NPC's" I guess my question is; what (if anything) is being done about this? When can we expect this problem fixed?

I appreciate all you guys do.
Thank you

Bumping my question again, because I would like this to be solved :/

Hi Acciokeys,

Have you added this issue to the master bug list thread in the zOMG forum? We'll be using that to prioritize some of the bugs that we attack first. Thanks!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
March 26th

Lanzer
Hello everyone!

As fans of Adventure Time we had a blast with the Adventure Time event and it was great being able to chat with Pendleton Ward. Hope many of you enjoys the show and the event.

Welcome to this week's ATA!


biglanky14
Hi everyone,

We have a few updates on some topics that have come up in the last few ATAs.

Alchemy
This isn't necessarily a major update, but we wanted to let you know what we're working on. Details are still being kicked around, but we want to take some of the chance out of the process where we can, and give you guys an element of choice (such as with the Philosopher's Cache). Like I said, we're not totally there yet and we're not going to go to a "full choice" system (just to make sure I'm not setting crazy expectations), but we're working on some ideas here. Hopefully we'll have something for you to check out sooner rather than later.

zOMG
We're now working on the bug list we've prioritized, so you'll see some of them get fixed pretty shortly. We also are planning to recycle last year's Easter Event (yay!).

Ok, that's it for now....


Zero Omega
Crystal Sparda
Hello admin and devs!
I had BEAUTIFUL rainbow cake yesterday for my brother's birthday!
It was delicious! He took most of it to work with him
to share with his coworkers, so sadly none left for you. :[
ON TO THE QUESTIONS!

1. Just checking in on mod apps. They going okay? ' w ' User Image

2. Do the Gaia artists ever do art freebies? I'm on an avi art binge. 'A'
{FEEEEEEEED MEEEE, SEYMOUR! rofl }

3. Pleeeease tell us that your rubber duckies will be made into items?
So many of them were so cute! I want a bunch of duckies!

4. Carbon said that the Marketplace Preview feature was fixed.
I beg to differ. I see no difference between two days ago and today.
Many other users in the bugs forum agree.
PLZ FIX 4 REAL THIS TIME?

1. Very, very soon. ninja

I REMEMBER YOU! scream

As in, tonight soon.


siskataya
MrsrachaelSnape
2. What going on with past contests , were there any winner for- Gaia Fortune Cookie Contest?

Heya!

Glad to see you around the AtA! We're sorry about this - d'oh! These should have been announced a while back but apparently they didn't get posted. We'll get on this ASAP. Thanks for the reminder! biggrin

Be well ^^
Sisky


carbonphyber
Crystal Sparda
4. Carbon said that the Marketplace Preview feature was fixed.
I beg to differ. I see no difference between two days ago and today.
Many other users in the bugs forum agree.
PLZ FIX 4 REAL THIS TIME?

It's partially fixed.
I'm still working on fixing it 4 REALs this time. I also have 2-3 other preview-related bugs on my plate after the Marketplace bug is fixed.
Should be 1-2 days.


Lanzer
MrsrachaelSnape
Hi lanzer and others.

1. What the updates on Alchemy? There a thread here -http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/gaia-stop-ignoring-alchemy-admin-response-p-6/t.78731175/
that give great ideas. I heard you guys had a meeting on it can you tell us anything that you came up with in that meeting?

another idea a user came up with was this-User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.

2. What going on with past contests , were there any winner for- Gaia Fortune Cookie Contest?

3. Vampires on gaia , can they get drunk?

We've made some progress and we think that we've got something that will greatly increase the chance of obtaining the alchemy item that you want.

We'll look into it, sorry for the wait.

They get flush when they drink blood, but that's about it.


siskataya
Starshine
Thank you for adding the gold refund to BB tickets, and for fixing zOMG'd daily chance. mrgreen

SDplus doll for swarf?
User Image

Heya Starshine!

Thanks for the nice words - you are most welcome. Glad you got your refund, and enjoy the fixed DC in zOMG!. As for the SDplus Swarf doll, we'll pass your request along!

Be well ^^
Sisky


Zero Omega
Kloob
Zero Omega
Kloob
Lanzer! Did you see hunger games!?

I totally did! Loved it.

You are now my favorite admin!

I'mg lad somebody liked it. Everybody in the Hunger Games forum is complaining about horrible it was!

I totally thought your post said, "Did anyone see Hunger Games?" And not just Lanzer. xd emo

I made a few posts in the forum explaining why I enjoyed the movie.
Zero Omega
Kloob
It applies to you now since you replied first! XD

Anywho, I've been explaining to people the reason they cut things out, or why couldn't have them. At one point I created an entire thread.

Linkage: clicketh

Yes! Now I remember you, I actually read this thread over the weekend. Very well put together.


DJ Helsing
XDiamonds Arent ForeverX
Do you guys ever think of reconsidering who you partner up with in terms of Gaia Cash Offers? Because SponsorPay is quite honestly disappointing, they haven't replied to a file I had reported for days.

Were currently reviewing our offer companies.

Please pm me with what your issue was etc etc.

thanks!


Panagrammic
biglanky14
Existential Existence
A lot of people have frustrations with the <3/</3 thread rating system. It's an effective system in SF because <3/</3 has an accepted premise of meaning "i (dis)like this idea", but everywhere else the rating system becomes ambiguous. Also a lot of people tend to perceive </3's/dislikes as social feedback rather than feedback about the threads people make themselves.

Over the past months complaints about the </3 system, or people wanting an option to disable </3 in their threads, have been constant:

2.9 days ago
7.1 days ago
2.3 weeks ago
2.7 months ago
2.8 months ago
3.7 months ago
4.7 months ago
7.3 months ago
10.9 months ago
15.3 months ago
16.5 months ago
16.9 months ago

I found these threads via using the search word "dislike" for thread titles...there are probably more out there.

The thing about the </3 system is that in SF it is particulary useful, so every time someone makes a thread about wanting </3 optional, of course the idea is going to get downvoted to hell, which I think gives passing staff the impression that people don't want it optional. But that's SF. That's not the rest of Gaia. The only time ya'll ever looked for feedback on the </3 system is when you guys made that one thread asking for input before the rating system was pushed out...additionally, that feedback thread was, of course, placed in SF...where a <3/</3 system is useful.

But other forums areas on Gaia have held complaints about how other users are abusing the </3 system as a way to harass others. A lot of times, </3 is used as a way to vent against topic creators if people do not like the topic creator as a person...not because they dislike the topic itself. This has created a rather negative experience for people who make/create topics around Gaia.

QUESTION: Is there any way to get devs/staff to re-evaluate this rating system, taking into consideration feedback from other forums, not just Site Feedback
(where in SF, </3 is particularly useful and even justified to have...everywhere else it is used rather crappily)?

The biggest suggestion going on out there is to make it an optional feature, where thread creators can opt in/opt out of allowing a thread rating to apply to their thread.


You guys may not know it but a sizable number your users are hypersensitive to social feedback/indicators social judgment. The </3 button is a real big issue when it comes to contributing to real anxiety for making new topics around Gaia. Not everyone wants to see this type of thing in their daily forum experience. Not even facebook has a dislike button, and they seem adamant that one will never come to their social network website. Youtube allows it's video-makers to disable liking/disliking.

The <3/</3 dynamic does not have the same premise or interpretation in any one forum or any one thread, except in SF where it's universally accepted to mean "agree/disagree" (in most cases). In some threads, such as quest threads, the </3 button is even useless and IMO is only used by people to hate on other people's quests.

According to what staff has said in the past, people wanted the dislike button. However, that assumption was made before <3/</3 was pushed out, and that assumption was made in a thread in SF where a dislike option is actually useful. Every time someone makes a complaint about the </3 button in SF, of course the thread is going to get a lot of </3's because in that forum the feature is actually useful/doing it's job. However, clearly, via the steady/constant complaint threads that pop up by users about the <3/</3 system, not everyone wants the dislike button.

Hi EE,

I <3 the suggestion!

Ok, I'll have to check around b/c there's probably reasons behind the way it's coded right now, but that's definitely worth us discussing. Thanks!

Yeah, it was originally only "like," but feedback before we shipped was that people wanted both "like" and "dislike." (I don't remember where that thread was, it very well might have been site feedback, but I think we also put a pointer in GCD or something).

There are three possibilities, I guess:
1. leave as is
2. leave <3 and </3 only in Site Feedback
3. allow users to turn off likes / dislikes

The second one is pretty straightforward; the third is definitely more work. The problem with either 2 or 3 is that people will complain that we're trying to turn into Facebook!

Whoops, saved too soon, more info: it would be interesting to see if there's actually a disparity in opinions between people in SF and people in other forums. Art Shops / Life Issues have always seemed like good examples of where not having a "dislike" option might actually be useful.
Panagrammic
Existential Existence
Panagrammic
Existential Existence
#3 seems like a happy medium.
In SF you can talk with users about keeping it mandatory/optional over there, but in other forums it would be great if people had the choice of whether they wanted this option on their thread or not, because in other forums it doesn't share that premise of meaning "agree"/"disagree"...it could mean anything, including "hate you/like you". Even in SF sometimes it's used as a 'hate you/like you' button.

I don't think people will complain about you turning into facebook. If you made it optional, there is still that </3 button (dislike button) that people will have to contend with. Facebook has a <3 only button (no </3)

People complain about you turning into facebook because it's a train to hop on. Youtube allows people to disable the like/dislike...so one could say you're turning into Youtube. Whatever is the case, a lot of people would be happier if the rating system were optional, regardless of whether it makes you guys look like another website or not.

The third option is definitely more work. The second would be an easier sell, if there was some way to get a good read on the community desires here.

Since Gaia is known mostly as a forum website, and the forums are Gaia's strongest points, I think one can argue that the higher ups should be extremely concerned about the posting page and thus should invest a lot of care on this particular page. </3 affects people's experiences with regards to making topics in the forums on Gaia in a negative way no doubt, especially the people hypersensitive to social feedback.

Honestly I think people would rather have the rating system than not have it at all, but if we're going to have it, a lot of people would like for it to be optional, because </3 is used a lot in ways I don't think it was intended for (e.g. "i dislike you"/"your art sucks"/"your quest sucks"/"your grammar sucks"/"your RP sucks"/"tl;dr"/etc....). If it takes a long time to get to, due to being more work, though I don't think people will mind much.

Not sure I see the downside of only having the "<3" button for some forums (or most of them, even).


biglanky14
Fractale
1:When are we getting a continuation of the main manga plot with Meili, Don Kuro, Gino, Sentinel, Overseer, and Zhivago?

2: Why do you guys insist on putting Diedrich into so many events? Don't you guys think he's getting way too much of the spotlight; having been in nearly every event since he was first introduced?

3: How do you decide on which user item suggestions to make, out of certain forums?

4: Olympics for summer event, this year? Will the Orcs, Centaurs, and Imps be brought back?

5: Have you guys forgotten about the CrossStitch entry winners?

1) We're on it smile

2) Because. That's about as good an answer as I have right now. We are somewhat infatuated with him.

3) We look at a combo of factors, primarily the benefit, how long it would take to do, and how does it stack up against the bunches of other stuff we have on our priority lists.

4) Quite maybe

5) Nope


DJ Helsing
Damien_Desdemona
I have a question.. Why can't I get G-Cash trough Wallie-cards anymore? You guys used to use the wallie-card system so people in Europe could get g-cash without having to give their bank account and all.. But I can't find it anymore.

You can use the gaia avatar cards and take them to western union locations in europe.

For more info visit http://www.gaiaonline.com/customcard


Zero Omega
Deojack
Why are mods seeming to be the only people getting chosen for the featured avatars lately? :/

For the next couple of months we'll be rotating between have mods and users featured. Last week we had regular users featured, this week we'll be having the mods. We did this so that both the users and mods can have a chance to interact with each other in a social environment.

For more info, check out the thread I made here.


siskataya
James Daniel Garcia
Can I just sit here lurking or using Vocaroo, to send audio messages?

<(Speech)

Yes, yes you can.... LIKE THIS! xd

Be well,
Sisky


Panagrammic
Mrs Blunder
Panagrammic
Mrs Blunder
Hello, admins. I've got a question, on behalf of myself and many other users:

Why is the Gaia Online App not available on the Android Market? You've made Monster Galaxy available to us, after all.

How likely is it that the app will be released to other markets, rather than just iTunes?

I've recently started a petition asking for it's release, because a search of threads hinted that the admins had no intention of releasing it to the Android Market without explicit interest. Is this true?

An Android version of our Gaia app is definitely something that's been requested frequently, and we know that users are looking forward to it. There are some features which have special mobile versions to make it easier for all platforms (i.e., Forums Lite in Labs), which can help.

So does that mean there is one in development? Or is it still at the "idea" stage?

Well, we actually have some code, although it's been on the back burner for a while.


Panagrammic
Treemie
Panagrammic
Lurking, mostly, but will occasionally snipe questions.
Why didn't you have a ducky in the duck race?

Sadly, my artistic abilities are lacking, and any duck I made by hand would end up looking like some alien creature.


biglanky14
Razumi Yazura
Hey, guys. Hope you're all doing well this fine evening.

(Thank you for fixing the AutoCash problem that many of us were having, by the way.)

I have some pretty big concerns and I know that it's a subject that you guys may not love to answer. It's about Alchemy. I thank Lanky for replying to me a bit about this, but I would still like to address this matter.

I have a very close friend that has been working on crafting the Aurora Kitten Star. I have helped her as much as I can to gather the components. Once they were all gathered to craft the soul crystal required to make the kitten, we thought the hard part was over.

We were sadly mistaken.

After the initial 9 failed attempts at crafting the kitten star, we thought "This is insane. This can't be right." I funded her to try more attempts, but it resulted in more fails. After 16 failed attempts at crafting the kitten, we've decided to stop. A total of 16 million gold going towards failed attempts was getting out of hand. My friend has spent a lot of RL money on Gaia Cash to try and make this kitten and still does not have the finished product. Several people have tried to help her with the crafting fee and it's still failing.

While I understand that success rate is low and fails happen, I feel that Alchemy's success rate should taper. The percentage of failure should decrease after every failed attempt. If not, there should be a point where the success rate changes a bit. Judging by what is happening to this particular formula, the success rate is static. It potentially can chain fail for a very long time. For a formula that requires 1 million each crafting attempt, this is absurd. Especially when the components were already hard to attain to begin with. I've had level 10 formulas crafted before with no fail rates, but had high success rate. Why is it that formulas with components that are easily attained have an easier success rate than formulas that have much harder attained components? That seems rather backwards to me.

While we do not expect to see the gold back and were prepared to see fails, a total of 16 times with no end product is concerning. It's alarming. The balancing of the success rate and how it functions needs to be adjusted.

We don't want her to try any more crafting attempts since it may cause her further stress if it continues to fail. At its current state, it's too upsetting to even look at.

Thanks Razumi. I am sorry to hear about this. I don't have any good answer for you, but having examples like this is good for us to know.
carbonphyber
(1) I kinda like the tapering off idea. We'll discuss amongst staff.

(2) It's possible there's another bug in the system that's making it look as if you are failing the craft when there might be a bigger bug...
We do know there are issues with soulbound component items (if you don't have any non-soulbound versions of the same item). This is an outstanding issue and I don't know what error message you see if you attempt to do this.
If you PM me specifics about which account, which formula... I will attempt to troubleshoot that specific issue (and issue refunds if relevant).


Zero Omega
oTazi
Hello Admins and staff, I have 2 questions.

O1. I noticed that when ever I want to see a preview of an item on my avatar in the marketplace, it closes the preview box, than it makes me click a pore of the item again to see it.

O2. My ring for zOMG, Ring: Hornet Nest, is not soulbound, and I'm pretty sure I bought the ring between the months of November - January. I have used the ring multiple times, and it still isn't soulbound.

2. Would you be able to send me a PM with a screenshot of it not being soulbound? Just wanna take a quick glance to see what you're seeing.


Lanzer
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, Lanzer.

I gotta ask. Do you even know what's going on with this site anymore? In past ATAs, you've made promises left and right. Then, when those promises aren't met, you either blame the users or come up with some other lame excuse. Either communicate more with the staff so you know what's going on or let somebody else run the ATA. Cause I'm tired of all the false promises and lip service.

I'm sorry for the communication issues as I was too aggressive to show details that weren't properly finalized, but I'll continue working on more features and updates, and I hope that at the end of the day it'll be more features for you all than if I stay silent. I'll be more careful and withhold ideas until they're fully hashed out.


biglanky14
Constipated Trillionaire
So ComtesseNicoleDeLancret, worlds suckiest vendor, and I have finally made it to the last level of the Demonic Quest. Can't say we're surprised, but was the your goal to never have anyone complete the quest? If so you've done a pretty good job! Every level combined up until the last formula takes 800 components roughly, and the last level itself takes roughly 1700 components to finish.

Since last I heard you guys we're having to crunch a lot of data I figured I would help you out a little!

Here is a list of all the components needed to finish the demonic quest and the amount of each component needed:


Bloodgrass 52
Chicken Fletchings 15
Anycolor Dyes 5
Demon's Sweat 1
Sacred key 1
Salt 80
Sea Water 100
Giant Squid Ink 4
Sulfur 39
Mandrake Root 6
Nightshade 6
Succubus Blood 22
Succubus Bone 6
Adamantium 13
Hippogriff Talon 4
Troll Snot 1
Growth Formula 5
Basilisks Teeth 5
Moonbeam 51
Wizard Leaf 2
Dust of Time 17
Severed Soul 22
Bahamut's Bone 2
Amphithere's Feather 3
Witch hazel 10
Wolf Pelt 10
Dhampir Blood 24
Troll's Wart 7
Smooth Whetstone 160
Scissors 2
Alligator's Skin 35
Alligator's Teeth 14
Bat Fat 35
Bigfoot Foot 7
Golem's Scalp 7
Lace Fungus 24
Monkey's Paw 7
Lotus Petal 7
Raven's Beak 7
Empty Bottle 16
Fish Oil 120
Zombie Goo 21
Mysterious Mold 20
Cyclops Eye 1
Fairy Toenail Clippings 5
Golem's Toe 1
Monstrous Tooth 2
Griffin talon 3
Raven's Feet 15
Gravite 6
Maggot Butter 55
Haunted Objects 55
Silver Token 10
Rusty tacks 35
Mineral Water 95
Mirror Shards 35
Halogen Cloud 14
Hellium Bubble 14
Lava Jelly 7
Beeswax Loaf 70
Cinderblock 35
Go Berry 14
Zurg Skin 7
Steel Plate 70
Gold Foil 14
Monotite 35
Cosmic Cell 7
Aconite Root 5
Hemlock 25
SS Venom 8
Calcium Scraps 45
Dried Seahorse 15
Geoduck's Shell 15
Mermaid Scales 6
Wriggling Tentacles 45
Unidentified Object 3
Obsidian 20
Onyx 20
Tiger's Eye 55
Topaz 55
Ruby 20
Alphyn's Tongue 13
Bakunawa's Red Tongue 13
Basilisks Tongue 10
Leviathan's Fin 6
Leviathan's Scale 6
Alphyn's Scale 3
Bakunawa's Whisker 3
Sunbeam 25
Copper Token 6
Slothbeetle's Carapace 60
Licorice 120
Unicorn Tear 13
Sugar Crystals 30
Wisp Of Cloud 12
Snow Jelly 6
Golden Apple Seed 6
Fire Salt 6
Cinnamon 60
Platinum Peach Pit 12
Fiery Curse 12
Noble Spirit 2
Amber 20
Aquamarine 4
Peridot 4
Sapphire 4
Quartz 4
Jade 2
Diamond 2
Crushed Gemstones 9
Phoenix's Tear 3
Cherub Feather 19
Dryad's Tears 3
Bag Of Petals 20
Elf Locks 2
Showgirl Scales 10
Golden Webbing 2
Siren's Larynx 1
Glass Marbles 20
Bindweed 10
Geode 5
Amphithere's Scale 1
Dragon Guts 1

Now you'll notice that I've highlighted a few select components that you need an insane amount of to complete the quest. Perhaps you can tell me why these components are some of the hardest components to pull from a cache? Is it you intention to make some of the most needed components some of the hardest to get? That just seems plain stupid, I can understand making something like the elf locks hard to get, you only need need 2 and most all the other formulas out there require a couple at most, not something like 10. Myself and others have crafted 1000s of caches in search of just a few impossible to pull components. My team and I can go through 200+ caches without pulling just 1 sea water or 1 smooth whetstone. (This is just for demonic, I'm sure you guys can do the same for the other quest and then you'll be able to see what other components need to be given higher priority in the caches)

You actually moved in the right direction when you made the caches easier to craft, I have no problem making 25+ a day(besides having to buy those lousy pancakes, please make it so you can buy in bulk). But when 75% of the stuff I get out of them is more or less useless it really doesn't help. You keep saying you don't want to flood the market when in reality you already have. You've forced people to craft tons of caches in search of just a few things. I have hundreds of components that I have no use for and it does me no good to sell them because I can't use gold to buy what I can't find. If me and a few other people actually sold all that we have instead of just wanting to trade for stuff we do need the market would be flooded!

Additionally, it doesn't really take a lot of foresight to figure that these backwing quest are going to be the most popular items in alchemy. So you just might want to have the caches give out components so that things you need 100 of are a little easier to get compared to stuff like rough cloth, grass jelly, green goo, and so on. Not to mention just one person trying to finish just one quest makes it next to impossible for anyone else to try and finish one with the horribly low supply of components.

I'm not asking for you to make the quest super easy, I understand you want them to be hard. I'll let others address that issue. However, there is a difference between difficult and impossible. At this rate that we pull the most needed components we will have to open over 10,000 caches to just be able to possibly finish the last level, if you go buy the prices of caches in marketplace that's just 1,700,000,000g. You can't tell me that was your original intention?

In summary, there is a major problem with the supply of components. There are too many components given out that are needed in next to nothing and not in demand(rough cloth) while components that are in high demand and needed in large numbers(sea water) are incredibly hard to get from a cache. You could change the way caches give out components, or make it so heavily needed components can be gotten through an alternate and easier way.


Please don't even bother replying to this post if you're just going to give it a canned response like "we're still collecting data" or "we don't want to flood the market". There are some major issues with alchemy right now, issues that are incredibly clear to those that are heavily involved in alchemy. Perhaps you need to spend some time in alchemy from the users point of view!

Thanks - we're trying. That's all I can really say for now.
biglanky14
Constipated Trillionaire
Android Amber
Constipated Trillionaire
rofl Seriously? It doesn't show. Sorry if I appear rude or skeptical, but this is something we have literally spent 100s of million of gold, not to mention countless hours on. And so far the steps you've taken have moved things in the wrong direction.

I'm sure there are some quick fixes you can do until the mentioned changes are implemented? put caches back in the daily chance, change the odds of certain items in the cache!

Look at these items:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/marketplace/itemdetail/1000771

http://www.gaiaonline.com/marketplace/itemdetail/1000759

They are needed in the hundreds, not just by me but others as well. Not one person will mind if you increase the supply of items like that.

You have had plenty of time, we're not asking for a major rework of the system just some more of some much needed items.
Wow...just...wow. I'm glad I held off on Alchemy. >< I sincerely wish you luck, sir. That all sounds like QUITE the mess. Congrats on all that you've accomplished so far though!
Thank you!

Hi CT,

I'm sure you saw this already, but we are working on making some changes that will let you guys have some choice in what you get from the cache. And they are still in DC right now, although I don't know the drop rate off the top of my head.

Thanks for your patience with all of this, and for the feedback. I don't mind the direct stuff at all.


This transcript continued blah blah you know the drill.

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
You know the drill that will pierce the heavens!

March 26th, some more

DJ Helsing
nyxiia
DJ Helsing
nyxiia
I have just one question: When I complete the free quizzes to earn gaia cash, I complete it all the way but I never get the cash. Is it broken or something? I'd like my cash.. .- .

the surveys are really touchy if you do one thing wrong it wont reward you.

I would recommend doing the video offers or the top offers.

they are easier to do and pay out the same if not more for the time it takes.

i don't know how i did it wrong? i answered the question and got to the quiz results page but never got the cash. kinda a waste of my time x;

i would recommend sticking to the Top Offers and the video offers then!


siskataya
ChaseTheBreeze
I'm always afraid that if someone is mean to me, and I'm mean back, that they'll report me and I'll get banned. Where do you draw the line?

Heya ChaseTheBreeze!

Thanks for joining us today, and the great question!

If someone is being mean to you, the best thing you can do is ignore that person. I know, I know - easier said than done, right? Still, the best way to avoid any warnings or banning is to not engage in behavior that violates the Terms of Service. Put that person on your ignore list, report the abuse, and be on your merry Gaia way.

That said, if you do accidentally lose your temper, typically the issue will be reviewed and in most cases, a warning will be sent if your comments are really abusive back.

Hope this answers your question!
Sisky


Zero Omega
Madame Lee
I have a question. I have an old account but it was hacked by some one else, never got it back but is there any way you could delete the old one since I have this one.

Also if some one was banned permanently but they still had items could you guys just unequip there items and dump them into the dumpster dive for others or would that be considered hacked items?

Send me a PM with the name of your hacked account and we can look into it.

As for your second question, probably won't happen, some users may have their permanent bans overturned for various circumstances. So it wouldn't be fair to have a sweeping action like that happen just because someone is permabanned.


Zero Omega
Yuki the Third
@lanzer, a dev, or anyone who talks nerd:
We have a whole bunch of people posting links to china wholesale sites and referral advert sites overnight when very few mods are on. I know the redirect.php page has a filter list that is used to filter out fake login pages that are found.

I was wondering if there would be a way to wildcard-blacklist sites such as wazzub, linkbux, and other spamvertisment sites? Playing janitor and cleaning up dosn't help people learn the rules until the damage is done.

Send me over a list of sites and I can pass this along!


biglanky14
WideEyed
Hi Guys! smile
Well, it’s Monday again, which means of course, time for us to get our weekly zOMG! update.
First off, I’d like to say thanks for fixing the zOMG! D.C.s, and for finalizing the BB refund.
I hope I speak for everyone when I say that we appreciate having those nagging issues put to rest. blaugh

Last week there were a number of things said which gave me some hope that, even though zOMG! will remain in maintenance mode for the foreseeable future, it is far from dead, and I’d like to follow up on those if it’s at all possible.
Re: Bug Fixes...Swarf posted a Topic in the z!F saying that he was working on bugs at the time, and soliciting our input, which I think is fantastic! smile Can you/he give us an update as to which specific bugs are being worked on, and if they’re making progress?
I know I would really love to see the Tutorial and Early Quest Chain Bugs given priority simply because it seems to me that they are the ones that would have the biggest impact on new recruits.

Also at last week’s ATA, DARKNRG suggested (unless he was answering another question and I misunderstood) that Swarf was actually investigating the possibility of automating the Server cycling process HERE, and I was wondering if I was correct in that, and if so, is it doable, and when it could possibly happen.

Last zOMG! question...It has also been mentioned that an Easter Event for zOMG! has been at least discussed at HQ. Could you bring us up to speed on those discussions?
Already Answered blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh

Finally, and hold on to your hats for this one, because it’s not zOMG! related.
I’ve seen it suggested in previous ATA’s that Gaia in general is “under merchandized”, and I for one would have to agree. I’ve been to the on-line store a number of times, and as much as I wanted to buy something, nothing has really caught my eye. As far as I can tell, the store hasn’t been updated in years, and it seems that there’s an opportunity being missed here.

Heck, even Storage Wars is selling merchandise these days!

Is any consideration being given to updating or expanding your offerings?
I suggested once that nice quality prints of some of zOMG!’s environments would certainly appeal to me. There was one example of a concept drawing Shallow Seas Concept that I would definitely buy if it were available, and it strikes me that there might be a number of ways to market Gaia, and zOMG! artworks very successfully.
Heck, who wouldn’t love a frameable screenie of their Crew just as they deal the final blow to the End Boss or Kamila, or an overview of some of zOMG!’s beautiful environments?
I know I have some bare wall space that is just crying out to be filled.
Also along Marketing lines, I was just a little disappointed when I attended Fan Expo in Toronto last year, and found no Gaia merchandise offered at the Panel. I realize that there’s probably shipping costs involved, but would they be so prohibitive as to rule out bringing some stuff to the Con’s?
I know I went there with a butt-load of money, and I spent pretty much all of it, and I’m planning on doing it again this summer. It would be great to be able to come home with a piece of Gaia merch personally autographed by DJ Helsing!
Just a thought.
Thanks again guys! (and gals! wink )

Hi WideEyed,

They're working through the list right now, although I'm not sure how specific bugs are being prioritized at the moment.

Similarly, I believe they've talked about the server issue, but again I don't really have any update (sorry about that!)

The shop is actually run by a third-party vendor now, so it's up to them whether they want to update the inventory, which is why it can be slow.


Zero Omega
Jackson-Leia
Okay I've never done anything like this before but I have a question. I put in a ticket about two months ago and it still says it's a work in progress but there's been no movement in it for about a month and I'd really like to know what's going on with this.

Send me over a PM (man I am sensing a theme here tonight...) with the ticket ID, I'll take a look into it.


Uncle Kenny
Yuki the Third
Oh, also.
THIS NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED.
The ongoing necro-glitching issue, where users are somehow able to necro threads from 2004 without actually posting in those threads, and causing any posts after in those ancient thread to poof. That issue? Yeah, I have tried to ask a few mods about it and all I get is the normal "report and wait" response. Few months later, here we are, nothing has been done.

Anyone able to explain what's going on and maybe get some help?

Awhile back in '04/'05 we migrated the forums to a newer system. Not everything could be migrated though so some things don't completely play nice with the current forum structure. The users are actually making posts, they're just not being displayed. This only affects '04 and earlier accounts though as far as I'm aware so avoiding those threads should keep you from running into those issues.

An actual fix for this has been tossed around but is not currently in progress. We'll likely let everyone know if/when a fix of some kind of put out. In the meantime, just keep reporting the threads so that the Moderator team can handle them.


siskataya
Ridley Starsmore
hotelite
Ridley Starsmore
Hey guys.

1. Y U NO HAVE EIs?!

2. White Dander Recolor, can we make this happen?

3. Could we do another "win a halo" contest so some of use have a snowball's chance in hades of getting one?

4. Alchemy updates, if you please?

captcha? FACE THE MUSIC.
what about a diapered egg white recolor with bluefin instead of ash and an angel instead of cupid

You don't understand. i would punch several people's grandmas to get these ears in white.

Oh my - you really want those ears! But you might not want to punch my grandmas - they are both dead, so it would be a really creepy experience for you! eek

- Sisky


biglanky14
kurl
Will there be anymore Adventure Time events in the future, or perhaps some other CN show like, say.... Regular Show?

Right now we don't know - it's always possible. It depends on how much it costs to use their stuff, what's available, and what they'll let us do. I can say though that we're always on the lookout for cool partnerships like this one.


DJ Helsing
Razumi Yazura
ScarredRavens
Nikolita
ScarredRavens
I was wondering~ Is Gaia thinking of coming to western Canada for Real live event like a con?

Ei:
-Vancouver
-Edmonton
-Sasktoon
?
We're really close~!

Vancouver would be awesome! There was a Gaia panel at Anime Evolution a few years ago (2009 or 2010?) but no Gaia staff or admin were actually there from what I remember.

O: !

Anime Evolution doesn't exist anymore, but there are a few new conventions in Vancouver. I'd love to see some Gaia staff come here someday.

We wont be able to attend in 2012 but they can definately pm me to get free support gold cards and prizes!
Uncle Kenny
Nikolita
I will definitely mention it to the convention hosts then, thanks DJ Hellsing!

In case my other question wasn't seen, just out of curiousity, do you know if there are any updates planned for the guild system in the near future? I know some other users had some suggestions for things they wanted to see, and new features are always fun for those of us who run guilds. 3nodding

Unfortunately, we don't have any fixes for Guilds lined up in the near future. There are several fixes we have on our list for Guilds but there are some other things on our list which are higher priority right now that will have to be handled before we can get to Guilds.


Panagrammic
scullylam
biglanky14
Sheepish Love
"Do you guys plan on expanding the actual cash shop for GaiaOnline in the real world?
Id love to see you guys put out Radio Jack plushies, Carl Plushies, etc.
Maybe some new hats, gloves, and other clothing bits. "

Hi Sheepish Love,

We actually did have a real shop, but sold it to a third-party company because selling real-life stuff wasn't exactly our strong suit. It still exists, but from what I understand the inventory doesn't get updated very often.

On a total side-note, if you or anyone else are going to be at Fanime here in San Jose in May, some of our artists will be there selling stuff.

that sounds cool!

also, i am seeing a "reply by: staff name" with a link to the answer in a different post. is this something new you, staff are using tonight? :O

Fairly new, we've only had it for a few weeks. It helps us keep track of who we've replied to in these crazy ATAs. biggrin


Zero Omega
fly high - icarus
evening, admins!
first of all; thanks for all the hard work you do around gaia.
it's appreciated, more than you know.

a few small questions!
how come only mods are being spotlighted lately in the avatar section?
i don't mind mods being in the spotlight, but why with such unimpressive avatars?

also, a lot of people have been very unhappy with the </3 voting option. many threads get a lot of votes down for no reason at all, and it can really touch a nerve when that happens. do you plan to listen to the users and removing the option to downvote, or the voting options completely?

there used to be a page where one could send an application to become a mod. i had it bookmarked on my old computer, but alas! it got lost. is that thread still around, or am i fishing in the dark?

thanks for your time!

Re: Featured Mods. Might've missed my earlier post about this, but for the next couple of months we're going to be rotating between mods and regular users. Last week we had regular users, this week we're going to have mods. This is an opportunity for users and mods to interact in a more social environment. More information here.


biglanky14
Sweetrolls
What do you predict Gaia will be like in 5 years? As far as long-term goals go, what's in mind?

The internet has changed so much in the last 5 years, who knows what the next 5 will bring. But seriously, we want Gaia to be a place where people can come to have fun and feel like part of the community. That's pretty much our total overarching goal - no matter what happens, we will do our best to keep Gaia fun and welcoming for our users.


Lanzer
Winged Demon X
This time I had time to prepare my questions ahead of time. Yay! smile

First off I would say I don't mean to put down any of the staff at GaiaOnline or GaiaOnline. I respect the staff and developers at GaiaOnline.

1. Is it possible to support SSL fully? Mostly every site I visit supports SSL and GaiaOnline is one of the few who doesn't support it.

2. Is it possible for a friend to make a flash space? It will use GaiaOnline avatars to walk around in the flash space. I have made a function which only does one request to GaiaOnline's Sushi API to get the avatar based on their username. No, this is not an Exploit or Bug as it can be found out by just using Wireshark while loading up flash games.

3. There is a cross-domain vulnerability in ZOMG. I know there isn't any developers for ZOMG any more but it is still a cross-domain vulnerability. Is there any decision about fixing it?

4. As a developer in the GaiaOnline community, I know it's hard to rewrite a whole site. But personally I think it is needed, like one of the developers said before a lot of the site's functionality is "bolted" in. Such as the ignore system, and most social networking features. Do you think it's possible to raise the money to pay your developers to rewrite at least 90% of the site, excluding the avatar system?

5. If you don't have the _money_ to pay your _developers_ to rewrite most of the site then why not hire interns and ask them to do it. Interns don't have to be paid for it or if you feel like it's bad not to pay them then since they are interns you can pay them minimum wage for their work.

6. If you don't have the _money_ or _resources_ then what do your _developers_ do all day? If a developer is being paid say $20 USD a hour I think I would think they would produce more work then I see from the developers from GaiaOnline.

7. Again speaking as a developer within the GaiaOnline community. I think if most of the site get rewritten it will be stable enough to release an public API.

I think that is it, I am sorry if any staff at GaiaOnline got offended by what I said. As GaiaOnline is a US based company I think I can have freedom of speech.

SSL is on the roadmap, not at the immediate moment but hopefully soon.

The backend technology for towns is not so great, I don't think we can do that right now, for the time being we plan to release a lot more flash spaces for users to choose from

That's one of the problems we have lined up for zOMG but first we're choosing to fix the gameplay related bugs

We've wanted to re-write the site if given the time, if the resources is there.

Unfortunately Gaia's system isn't the same as other sites that can hold tens of hundreds of users but is one that can handle hundreds of thousands. It's not something that can be architectured by someone with little experience.

Hey they're quite happy being paid 8 bucks an hour, don't give them any funny ideas! smile


Zero Omega
Que_Arres
Never tried to put my comments here before, but I suppose it couldn't hurt.

What ever happened to the whole Spring Cleaning/Cookie thing? Did I miss an announcement of the results somewhere? All I know is the one thing I was extremely keen on getting an overhaul (the Inventory Arranger) has certainly seen no improvement. Selling off my extra items from CIs is a challenge since I can't readily sort by quantity and the old arranger is, well, old. Any chance that will get a look over? I get that the flash games are exciting and all, but not all of us use them. Anyone with clothes on their avi uses their inventory.

Just my two cents.

We're still going through the suggestions and deciding what to work on next. However we will be wrapping up the forum shortly, of course there will still be the Petitions forum for future suggestions.


Zero Omega
evangelist2010
Zero Omega
evangelist2010
is anyone else having trouble filing a report? I've been try to file a report since my early days on gaia, and im 353 gaia days old!

What's the problem you seem to be having filing a report?

after I'm done filing the report it won't submit, no matter what browser or computer I use, I've pratically given up trying!

What's the error you get when you try to submit?


DJ Helsing
evangelist2010
will there ever be a IRL gaia event in New Jersey?

Not currently but we will be in New York in October!


biglanky14
OoNeko_kittyoO
Good evening gaia admins,staff, and developers. biggrin I just had about 5 questions to ask and i hope you are able to answer them ^-^ Btw Im sorry for the so many questions. sweatdrop

1). My first question is about Monster galaxy, i was wondering if even thogh it is comeing to gaia with out logining into facebook would that help us be able to ask our friends on gaia to be neighbors with out them being our neighbors on facebook? im asking for those who may not have a facebook. but i was curious on if it was going to be like how you have backyard monsters and resort world?

2). My next question i was wanting to know if the game you have on facebook called soul crash if there was anyway you was going to bring that game to gaia aswell with out needing facebook? I personally think that would be awsome to have that and monster galaxy on here.

3). my next question is why is gaia randomly haveing my computer say cannot display this web page just out of random only on gaia? it has been doing it for the past 2 months now and it wont stop.

4). Is there any chance that gaia may create some Resident Evil items such as outfits or anything? i just wondered. (just a huge resident evil fan for a girl lol)

5). For now i have only one more question is there any talk about makeing more games to earn gold instead of tickets?

Anyways Thank you so much for your time in reading all my questions.^-^ and hope to here from you guys soon. heart heart heart

Hi OoNeko_kittyoO,

1) Yes - that's one of the big reasons we want to bring it to Gaia. Your Gaia friends (not Facebook) will make up your friends list. The ironic part though is that there's a bug affecting the Friends part of the game, which is why it hasn't made it to the site yet.

2) It's possible, but not too likely that Soul Crash will make it onto Gaia soon. We're working on that game with another company, and that limits us in terms of where it the game can be played.

3) That's really weird - can you post any information you have about that in the Bug Reports forum?

4) Unfortunately, making official stuff like that costs money (b/c Resident Evil understandably charges to use their intellectual property) so we'd have to have an official partnership with them.

5) Possibly. We don't have any that are coming in the near term, but new games would be cool.


Lanzer
Whimsimaru
omg have diedrich in the aprils fools event please
paste his face on every avatar emotion_dowant

We all love Diedrich, but I don't know if we want to BE Diedrich. smile


Panagrammic
DJ Helsing
Karo Kiba
When you're at work do you guys call each other by your real names or your first names?

depends on the person and the context of the conversation smile

Sometimes a person is referred to both ways in the same sentence!

It always throws interns for a loop when they learn that our bug base runs off Gaia names.
Zero Omega
People typically call me by my first name, I think I might go just a little crazy if people kept calling out for "Zero! Zero!" xd
biglanky14
I call everyone "there he is" and "that person". That helps a lot.


DJ Helsing
Your Inevitable Oblivion
Hello Admins. I have two questions. Has there ever been an Cons in Florida? I haven't heard if there has been, and if not could some cons be held there. And the second is; is there ever going to be an item like Hidan's on here? As you can see I'm cosplaying him from Naruto and using random items for the scythe and wanted to know if there ever will be a full one. The scythe looks like the image below.
User Image

We will be in Flordia this year in June i believe.

you can find out more at

www.gaiaonline.com/conventions


siskataya
Starshine
I was also one among many who helped Keiko-Rin with her aurora kitten star quest, she's spent over $700 and still has no kitten. She's spent so much she'll be in financial trouble soon. Please help her? emotion_kirakira

Let me look into this issue and see what's going on for her! biggrin

- Sisky


biglanky14
SS2-SITH LORD
Good evening Admin!

Is Monster Galaxy close to it's release for the site?

Hey Sith Lord (I feel like I should be bowing or something when I say that).

We're close - the big hurdle right now is that there's a gnarly bug affecting how Friends work. Since you need Friends to really play the game correctly, we need to get that fixed before we can release it. We're working on it now, but I'm not sure how long that'll take. But once that's fixed, we should be pretty much good to go.


Zero Omega
GRI_Saizaku Uchiha
hello there! My name's Saizaku and I was hacked two months ago and it was my original account that was lost and I lost everything on that account. I've filed two hacked reports and I haven't gotten any hints that my account was getting back to me and I've waited a while and still nothing. so is there any chance I'm going to get that account back?

Shoot me a PM (there's that theme for the night again!) with the name of the hacked account and I can take a look into the situation.


carbonphyber
Winged Demon X
1. Is it possible to support SSL fully? Mostly every site I visit supports SSL and GaiaOnline is one of the few who doesn't support it.

I'm still working on SSL compatibility. Some of our marketing partners and Ad networks don't support it. I have to deal with pointing web crawlers (googlebot, yahoo bot, msn/bing bot) to the right protocol+hostname and make sure the experience still works well for regular users. It will take a while, but we will get progressively closer to full-HTTPS compatibility in the next few months.
Winged Demon X
3. There is a cross-domain vulnerability in ZOMG. I know there isn't any developers for ZOMG any more but it is still a cross-domain vulnerability. Is there any decision about fixing it?
Please PM Swarf or I with specifics. We will address it ASAP.
Winged Demon X
4. As a developer in the GaiaOnline community, I know it's hard to rewrite a whole site. But personally I think it is needed, like one of the developers said before a lot of the site's functionality is "bolted" in. Such as the ignore system, and most social networking features. Do you think it's possible to raise the money to pay your developers to rewrite at least 90% of the site, excluding the avatar system?

I'd like the same but we have o justify the costs to the people that hold the pursestrings. If a rewrite adds significant value to the user experience, we can probably justify it.
Winged Demon X
5. If you don't have the _money_ to pay your _developers_ to rewrite most of the site then why not hire interns and ask them to do it. Interns don't have to be paid for it or if you feel like it's bad not to pay them then since they are interns you can pay them minimum wage for their work.
We've had interns in the past. Most "intern work" is too remedial for good programmers and they burn out quickly. Interns are not free (we aren't slave drivers) and living in California near GaiaHQ is expensive. Also, we have to compete to get the interest of qualified interns with closeby companies like Facebook, Google, Zynga, Apple, etc., etc.
Winged Demon X
6. If you don't have the _money_ or _resources_ then what do your _developers_ do all day? If a developer is being paid say $20 USD a hour I think I would think they would produce more work then I see from the developers from GaiaOnline.

http://www.glassdoor.com/
Winged Demon X
7. Again speaking as a developer within the GaiaOnline community. I think if most of the site get rewritten it will be stable enough to release an public API.

We're open to negotiating features for the "API". It depends on what you hope to get out of it.
I think we can do some neat things to speed up the site with a simple API, but right now we have a lot of outstanding bugs that I have prioritized over new features.
Winged Demon X
I think that is it, I am sorry if any staff at GaiaOnline got offended by what I said. As GaiaOnline is a US based company I think I can have freedom of speech.
Pretty mild speech by Gaia standards XP


biglanky14
The Internet Has Failed
Can developers create an iPhone notice system for the app? I miss being quoted and such on my phone because I don't get the red circle in the corner of the icon telling me I have a notice/PM/etc.

Hi The Internet Has Failed,

Thanks for the suggestion! We've kicked the idea around, although right now we don't have the resources to be able to put that in. Maybe down the road though.


Zero Omega
The Undead Suitor
dear gaia

why are you so boring

do something interesting

love suitor

I could try to convince the devs to bombard the homepage with massive explosions and pictures of baboons, but I don't think people would like that very much, I would though. emo


Lanzer
x_Magnus Bane_x
when will they announce the winners of the CrosStitch contest?

We were going through the entries last week, but the plan was to actually work on the items then release the winners along with what the items look like, so it should be a bit of a wait.


milkbun
Sodafop
Will you guys be making the salon hairstyles unisex? emotion_kirakira Because that would be epic.

They are not being worked on at the moment but we have a very long list of items we are currently unisexing... so hopefully one day.


Lanzer
Kloob
Lanzer! Did you see hunger games!?

Watching it tonight! Can't wait. Will start reading the book right afterwards. (I'm the book after movie kind of guy)


biglanky14
marshmallowcreampie
1. Will the later generations of the Case of Pietro have their evolutions sped up? I have an 11th gen. and I hope I don't have to wait two years to get all the items.

2. Will the imps and centaurs ever make a comeback in the Gaia plot?

3. Will Josie ever get a chance to shine as well? I feel she's a neglected NPC.

4. Any word on whether Alchemy gonna be fixed? I really want to craft a Longer Langer but the way it is now, even if I could find the components it would cost me at LEAST 7.2 million gold to make, which is pretty ridiculous for a single-pose, Level 4 item.

Hi marshmallowcreampie,

Good to see you again!

1) I'm not sure - I'll have to check into that.

2) We've got some new plot updates that will be coming soon. But I'm sworn to secrecy on the details (unless someone bribes me with the right grilled cheese/tomato soup combo)

3) See above smile

4) Hopefully you saw my note at the beginning, which has an update on what we're looking at for Alchemy right now.


swarf
Winged Demon X
3. There is a cross-domain vulnerability in ZOMG. I know there isn't any developers for ZOMG any more but it is still a cross-domain vulnerability. Is there any decision about fixing it?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. If you believe you have found an exploit could you PM me with details?

Thanks,


Panagrammic
Elynai
When are you going to use the In The Que forum? It's been well over a year since it was added and it still has not been used.
I was told in a previous AtA session that it would be used for Spring Cleaning proposals that were accepted but that has not happened either.

Biglanky14 mentioned that that are taking a look at what to do with Spring Cleaning. Originally though was to have a modified cookie system for voting on "In the Que" but I think we'll go with something easier / simpler.


Zero Omega
Nadia_LT
Will there be an Easter event for zomg?

BigLanky pointed this out earlier, we're planning to recycle the Easter Event.


biglanky14
Barjova
Hi guys! I'm just wondering about that Gaia Mobile App for iPhone and Android (...or is there even an Android app yet?). How is development going on it? I hope it's still getting updates; it was really nice, but the features were kind of REALLY hard to navigate and it... looked... clunky. sweatdrop But it was useful!

Thank you so much, admins!

I know you get asked this at every AtA, but what about Spring Cleaning 2011 and now 2012? I mean, Spring is here and Spring Cleaning from 2011 still isn't done. Has it even been looked at? The Cookies system was neat, but I think it just kinda sunk. Did you guys forget about it? gonk And will you do it again for 2012?

Thanks again! emotion_yatta

Hi Barjova,

Right now we're not doing much development on the iphone app because we're working on other things. But I'm always interested in what specifically you'd like to see for when we do have some time to work on it.

We didn't forget about it, but it is about time that we closed up Spring Cleaning 2011. We made some changes based on the results of it, and we're still using it to inform how we're prioritizing some projects as well. As for doing it again in 2012, probably not, since it would largely be a repeat of what's there now.


biglanky14
Flz
So many people asking questions xD

How are you guys doing on fixing outfit/nude glitches? Have some of the artists been looking into it lately?

Hi Flz,

Yup, we've actually been putting a lot of effort into getting those fixed. Hopefully you're seeing some good results.


Zero Omega
Scobre
Hi again admins.

1) Why has mint sundae been glitching and not closing for alchemy?
2) Can orb aggregates be sold in bulk or make several at a time to make the recipes easier?
3) What was your favorite event you guys competed in this last week?

3. Scooter Race and Marvel vs. Capcom 3.


Panagrammic
bellamia28
*sigh* ok... hear i go.... several people, including myself, have been having issues with Towns, zOMG, VH, Rally, and the Games in general. all of witch have gotten this same result when trying to enter one, a few, or even ALL of them, they have been stuck on the "joining server" part, in general it freezes at that part. also, for some, if left on for long enough, it will say "server timeout". i beleave that this has been happening for some people LONGER than how long i have been having this issue, for 6 days in my case. this bug is causing a seriouse negitive impact on the people who have this issue. now, will you please fix these bugs if you and/or the gaia staff are not allredy trying to fix these bugs?
(....oh my gosh that was dificult for me to type sweatdrop )

This is often a firewall / antivirus issue -- do you have something on your computer that blocks either port 443 or port 8080?


biglanky14
The Undead Suitor
biglanky14
Soul of Kyr
Dear Artists and Developers....
1. Has the Malicious Ad I have complined about in the last 2 Ask the Admins been fixed??
2. I would love you people to stop making pink,red,blue or white double pigtails and try focusing on colors like orange or purple or green or something. I'd love some long double pigtails in the color purple or even a combo color of purple and black streaks. Take the hairstyle I have now....it is good,but it being longer would be better.
3. What is your obsession with crowns and tiaras??
4. PLEASE cut down on the Lite Fish in the Daily Chances and such. I have enough Lite Fish to choke 600 horses with.
Yes I know most of this is random,but so am I.

Hi Soul,

We like randomness!

1) I believe so - are you seeing it any more?
2) Can't comment on this since my hair in real life has green pigtails and it looks like you're ok with that.
3) We're almost as obsessed as those as we are with Diedrich.
4) That's a lot of horses!

why do you like diedrich

LET ME KNOW THE SECRET

THAT MAKES HIM FUNNY

SOMEHOW

is it pot?

I can get pot

if that makes him funny

Whatever works, I suppose!


Lanzer
ArrancarYoruichi
I'm still a bit upset by the Memphis situation. In the past ATA sessions, the only responses to her return is "I'll release more Memphis Lite into the daily chance" (Lanzer) and "I never liked her from the start. She's unbalanced" (Pan, I believe)

You went back on the promise in the dev alert to bring them back in "a few weeks". It's been over five months. Question: Why not address this whole situation in a dev alert or in some kind of sticky or announcement? Alot of Gaians were (and still are) highly upset that she was removed.

The problem with Memphis the Mermaid was that there was a bug where she was unbalanced and giving way too much gold. It was a bug but we were afraid that fixing it would cause existing owners of Memphis to be upset when their payout was affected, so we end up waiting and waiting. We started giving the free version out for those who wish to own them or buy them from the marketplace, but if that's not enough, we can adjust the balancing and re-release Memphis at Phin Phang. Please let us know if a re-balanced Memphis is something that is acceptable.


Panagrammic
Platonix
USEFUL LINKS

The home of past Ask The Admin topics: Ask the Admin Archives subforum

AskED the Admin: Answer Compilation (built and maintained by yours truly)

I admire your tenacity and have compassion for your aching fingers for this ATA!

emotion_yatta

biglanky14
Eternal Rebellion
Are you planning on updating the guilds? If so, when?
Thank you so much. emotion_bigheart

User Image

Hi Eternal Rebellion,

We're not planning on updating Guilds at the moment - not b/c we don't want to, but b/c we have other stuff higher up the list that we want to get done first. So I can't really give you a timeline right now sad


Panagrammic
Fat Obstreperous Jerk
My apologies if this has already been answered. This thread fills out faster than I can sift through it. Is there any hope of an update to the Inventory Item Arranger any time soon?

IIRC this is on a list to be looked at -- we are thinking of redoing it in HTML/JS for the next generation. Not sure where it is on the priority list ATM, though.


biglanky14
Diablo en Musica 92
Can you give me all the gold on Gaia? ( O w O )
Maybe. Just be on good behavior smile


Lanzer
D_Shadow 1
Aquarium issues still I can add all the fish I want but can't decorate..and a few others have this issue.. is there a fix in progress? heart

I'll look into it, please PM me with as much detail about what you see on the screen when it's not working, and if you've tried it on another computer, or another Gaia account. Thanks!


biglanky14
shruikan
I reported this a few days ago in the bugs forum and nothings been fixed Dx

the item icons no longer close out the item anymore on the second click
this is frustrating during regular dress up because the little "x" is small and sometimes hard to click
but now i just realized that when you use the inventory search, items that are one pose are now impossible to un-equip. You have to get naked in order to take them off

can something please be done about this?

Hi shruikan,

Thanks for reporting that in the forum. I don't know if that's on our list, but that's the best place for it to catch our devs' attention b/c they look in there constantly.


Zero Omega
Dawn Marshall
1. I don't like the soulbound at all with items like the sex changer cause i don't ever plan to use it. Same with fish, im not a fan of the aquariums unless for booty grabs other people do. PLEASE CHANGE!

2. You guys need to fix zOMG big time. In Village Greens there is a bug that still needs fixed with General Mayhem's Quarters, you can't do normal with out having to exit it and keep restarting it. I'd like to finish normal. THANK YOU

1. I take it you're talking about the Gender Bender potions you get for free? We soulbound those first two because we found users were exploiting it by creating bot accounts, selling then emasse, and then moving the gold. As for the Aquarium Fish being soulbound, that's done because the fish have a life-span. It wouldn't be fair to keep a fish in your Aquarium tank for half its life-span, then sell it on the MP to another user who is expecting a full life fish, but only gets a half-life one.


Uncle Kenny
Shirlox
Another question I have is: When can fishing expect the next update for something say, The Angelic Rod PLUS? I realize fishing got an update to include the Angelic Rod, but that now was over a year ago and many fishers have been wondering when can we expect the next stage for it. Also, have you considered adding new rare fish for the new fish that were added in the fishing update of February of last year?

The Angelic Rod Plus is something that I have on my want-to-do list but there are some other more pressing projects that I have to tackle first. Once I get the time freed up and the okay to proceed, you'll probably hear more. For now, just sit tight.

As for new rare fish or other Fishing updates, there's no knowing what the future holds but since we did have an update for it recently, relatively, we don't have another update for it lined up in the near future.


Lanzer
Barjova
Hi guys! I'm just wondering about that Gaia Mobile App for iPhone and Android (...or is there even an Android app yet?). How is development going on it? I hope it's still getting updates; it was really nice, but the features were kind of REALLY hard to navigate and it... looked... clunky. sweatdrop But it was useful!

Thank you so much, admins!

I know you get asked this at every AtA, but what about Spring Cleaning 2011 and now 2012? I mean, Spring is here and Spring Cleaning from 2011 still isn't done. Has it even been looked at? The Cookies system was neat, but I think it just kinda sunk. Did you guys forget about it? gonk And will you do it again for 2012?

Thanks again! emotion_yatta

If there are any problems with the iPhone app please let us know. As for the Android version, it's on the list of to-do and hopefully we can get to it later.

We've already implemented some of your suggestions made in the forum and will pick out some more before wrapping things up. Thank you everyone for your suggestions!


biglanky14
Nikolita
Hello Lanzer and Gaia Staff/Admin!

My question is quite simple - I was just wondering if any updates to the Guild system were going to be planned for the near future. 3nodding

As a side note, re: the Marketplace "preview" feature, it still glitches out when I click the "preview this item only" button, leaving only a box with a little red x. But, as soon as I click the item pose I want to see, my avatar appears with only the previewed item. So for me it's not a huge deal, just a minor detail I thought I'd point out because I saw other users commenting on it in this thread.

Thank you all for the very hard work you guys do. heart I remember my mod days from a few years ago and I know you guys have your plates full.

Hi Nikolita,

Good to see old mods in here smile

For Guilds, not at the moment. It's not b/c we don't want to, but it's a ton of work, and we have a bunch of other things we want to get done first.

And I'm pretty sure our devs are aware of the glitch you're talking about.

Have a good one!


carbonphyber
shruikan
I reported this a few days ago in the bugs forum and nothings been fixed Dx

the item icons no longer close out the item anymore on the second click
this is frustrating during regular dress up because the little "x" is small and sometimes hard to click
but now i just realized that when you use the inventory search, items that are one pose are now impossible to un-equip. You have to get naked in order to take them off

can something please be done about this?

These are on my list of things to do.
I got backtracked last week with allergies and a project to fix a huge issue with emails.


Zero Omega
Dexigone
Are we ever gonna get a sports related RIG?

When will I be featured in the Avatar spotlight?

Be sure to post in the self nomination thread, we randomly select users from there!


biglanky14
TheCookieMunstar
any chance of the inventory going back the way it was?

because when you click on items with multiple poses
the box doesn't close when you click on the item again
but it actually opens another, so you'll have to click the TINY "x" twice. :c

also the marketplace when clicking unequip all
instead of the usual preview with the item already clicked
it ends up being a broken link/image?
until you click the item again.

Hi TheCookieMunstar,

Great ID, btw.

Yup, we're on this one smile


biglanky14
Mew mew n-n
Lanzer
Hello everyone!

As fans of Adventure Time we had a blast with the Adventure Time event and it was great being able to chat with Pendleton Ward. Hope many of you enjoys the show and the event.

Welcome to this week's ATA!

Question about adventure time: Can you put like the episodes of adventure time in like a theature for a limited time of some type for some people who have never watched it (or just don't have that type of cable) To see it?.

Hi mew,

Unfortunately that's not part of our arrangement with Adventure Time sad

That would be cool though!


Gah, another three-post transcript. The drill, it is known.

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
Know it! KNOW that drill! Know it like you've never known a drill before!

March 26th, even more

milkbun
Sinsario
How is the unisexing of older items going?
If I recall one (both?) of the people working on them resigned from Gaia...
And I would really like the forbidden skirts on male bases.

It's been passed on to another artist.


Zero Omega
Alice is Madness
My question is why does the site log you out your account after a few hours of not browsing anything? my second question is when will DMS be open to everyone again?

Security feature! This way in case you step away and forget to log off, someone can't come along and take your account away from you.


milkbun
Frost Metal WestBrook MPD
milkbun
Frost Metal WestBrook MPD
Hello Lanzer,The Admin lead crew and the developers!

One Question! ;D,Could you guys update the item nano-c,it is done evovling but i can't see why the nano-c item should even be in existence if the other gen has the same items as the original gens.!

Some people like collecting the first generation of EIs and some people don't mind and just buy the cheapest version. It wouldn't be right to remove all the other gens from people's inventory.

can you guys decide and have a conversation with the artist team about updating the 1st gen for nano-c adding new items in it like the items?

Sorry, this evolving item is already done ;__;


biglanky14
Ridley Starsmore
Hey guys.

1. Y U NO HAVE EIs?!

2. White Dander Recolor, can we make this happen?

3. Could we do another "win a halo" contest so some of use have a snowball's chance in hades of getting one?

4. Alchemy updates, if you please?

captcha? FACE THE MUSIC.

What up Ridley!

1) We've got EIs, yes we do. We've got EIs, how about you? </cheerleading pun that was only posted by me because my brain has already turned to mush on Monday afternoon>

2) This I do not know.

3) This I do not know either. But I can float the idea.

4) I posted something at the beginning of the chat, but we're basically now working on a plan to take some chance out of the process, and to give you guys a bit of choice. Hopefully it's a good step (assuming we can work out the details).


biglanky14
GBI Agent I
1.) Would you ever hire someone out of state?

2.) Would you ever take on anyone under the age of 18? What about someone who was willing to work for free? (As a developer)

3.) Would you guys ever write a book of Gaia's history? Either published or just available in e-book form, would or could this ever happen? A complete book - not just the manga. Maybe add a little lore, too? Like how, say, there used to be lots of talking cats and now Rufus is the last of his kind?

Thanks!

-GBI Agent I

Hi GBS Agent,

1) We've done it before, but we strongly prefer to have people in the office because we work together so much.

2) This is tough b/c of labor laws and other stuff that I don't know a lot about. We do hire interns from time to time though.

3) Lanzer will probably love this idea. Maybe I'll ghost-write it and demand a 20% royalty.


Panagrammic
Keiko-Rin
Hello Gaia Admins, Devs, Artists, and anyone else who is involved with the Gaian Alchemy system. Thank you for your attention, and I hope you take into account my concerns.
I am speaking here today to bring to your attention a recent incident and my frustrations with the current system and the way that it functions.
I am a loyal Gaia user/customer, and I have been since 2004. I have been in constant support of your site, whether it was through word of mouth- generating hits, and in more recent years continued support of Gaia Cash with my own hard earned money. I have spent/donated 1000s of dollars on this site in the past few years- because I always felt happy to, I enjoyed supporting Gaia with my money because it’s been a part of my life since I was still in high school- and it was always around whenever I just needed somewhere to go to relax, or just have fun with friends. I always enjoyed the avatars and the items, and had been a quester for certain ones here and there over the years.
When the Alchemy system was introduced- at first I was very excited, seeing as the long-awaited release of the infamous backwings was finally coming a long with it -but after learning what Alchemy as a whole entailed, I quickly grew discouraged as did many others who had been looking forward to these things for so long.
I had decided that I wasn’t going to take part in Alchemy, and hope that maybe in the future something would be done to make the system a little more fair for everyone. -but then I layed eyes on the first Aurora Kitten star that had been crafted, and I was captivated. I have always been a huge fan of the Kitten star companions, and this time was no different. I had just recently finished my quest/goal of obtaining the first 4 Kitten star releases -and this was the first time I seriously felt compelled to try Alchemy out. I had to have that kitten. I felt it was within a reasonable person goal, so I decided to quest.
Starting in January, I worked my little heart out. Gathering components, selling, trading -which might I add can currently be an extreme pain to do. A lot of the most expensive components are commonly needed across many of the formulas and formula chains, which can sometimes make then a pain to find, and then even when you do they can be expensive just to obtain.
Alchemy is not a picnic nor a walk in the park. Even with your randomized luck system it can be a long and aggravating time gathering what you need for even the simplest of formulas. -but I wasn’t going to let that discourage me this time. I really wanted the Aurora Kitten.
-because I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, I work a full time job and do art, etc on the side- I don’t really have the time to spend learning how to vend or play the exchange on Gaia, so I make the majority of my gold through Gaia Cash. Which is fine for me, because at the same time I am supporting your site which I greatly enjoy, and working toward my kitten at the same time.
Starting from January of 2012, I have already spent: $910.88 on your website. $755.88 of that was spent on my goal of the Aurora Kitten star, working from when my quest began at the end of January.
Where it starts to go wrong for me is not how much money I spent in total- but when I genuinely started to feel, like for the first time ever on my membership of your site, that my money was genuinely being wasted.
Around Mar 21. I had finally obtained all of the materials I needed to craft the Aurora Kitten Star, and so I decided to get a couple well known and respected level 10 Alchemists to help me with completing my quest. Never did I think that things were about to go so wrong.
I had heard about the Kitten taking different numbers of attempts to craft… 1, 4... Even 9. I thought that 9 attempts was a little extreme, and I didn’t think my luck could get that bad. I was thinking maybe 5 at most? -and I was fine with that. But guess what Gaia….. SIXTEEN.
I have attempted to craft this Aurora Kitten Star a total of sixteen times, and I still have not been successful. How is this in any way fair? How can you actually expect users to go out and gather millions upon millions of gold worth of components, and then when they have finally suffered that task, you slap them in the face again by making them waste another 16 million just for the CHANCE to have the item that they already deserve and worked so hard for?
For the first time ever Gaia, I have genuinely been hurt by your actions. I found myself in tears wondering how I could work so hard at something only to be shot down- and on top of it, feel like for the first time ever I genuinely wasted money on you.
I exhausted my bank account, just to make extra attempts at trying to get my kitten star - I literally might as well have taken a lighter to my wallet and burned whatever money I had left, because that’s where it went. In the toilet. -and what’s worse about it is that you don’t even seem to care.
After spending over 80 million gold on components alone, how is it fair that my high -level formula has a “Low” crafting chance? Your entire system is totally backwards. People who work harder to craft the more expensive formulas should have to pay more and suffer more. How cruel can you be Gaia???
High level formulas that are a lot more expensive to craft should have a higher rate of success. It’s only fair considering HOW much work goes into making them. -and it makes more sense that lower level formulas that are easier to gather components are the ones that should take more tries if anything.
Alchemy seriously needs to be fixed.
This is the first time since I have been a part of Gaia, that I have ever seriously considered quitting, and definitely considered never giving you a single dime of my hard-earned money again.
I thought Alchemy was about hard work. If that really is so, haven’t I done my part already? Do I not deserve my kitten star until I’ve thrown a MILLION dollars down your drains???
I love you to death, but I’m losing faith in you Gaia, and I’m losing it fast…. Please show me a reason why I should continue to be here, and continue to keep supporting you with my time and my money…
…All I want is what I worked hard for and deserve…. Is that so much to ask?

We're definitely looking at the alchemy system.

Can you PM me the particulars of your difficulties so I can pass it on to the team that is looking at the rebalancing?


biglanky14
Bunai
Thanks for the Adventure time sponsor and items.
P.S. return Skittles kthxbai ^_^

My question:
Can we start getting media kits after big Gaia events. For example, in Summer 2k7, there was a download of graphics that held a lot of the artwork from the event. This was mainly done so users could create banners and team pictures without struggling to remove text or deal with low quality.

To continue. I really really would like to see images of the NPC up for download. Example, when the "create a comic" contest was held, we got to work with high quality artwork and background images.

So basically,
Would you consider expanded on the Gaia Downloads page?

Hi Bunai,

Yup, we definitely would like to. I don't know about actual media kits, but expanding the Downloads section is something we'd like to do. We've basically just got to find the time and stuff to put in there.


siskataya
Leader Clair
Are you going to make it so we can easily report annoying/inappropriate topics in Towns?User Image

Heya Leader Clair,

Thanks for the question and bringing this to our attention! I'll forward your request onto the team that handles Towns requests and let them know about this issue. I cannot guarantee if or when this could be fixed, but I'll send your suggestion along. In the meantime, you can use the regular reporting system to report inappropriate names.

Be well biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
The Dark Mirror
What's the deal with the lack of new EIs/REIs? Once upon a time, the art team pushed out RIGs, EIs and CS updates. Then we were told they don't like working on EIs because they take too much time, so we got REIs. Now we're not even getting those, which are supposedly so much easier, on a regular basis. Any explanation? Why does the art team now put out less than they used to? And please don't give the quality over quantity excuse-most of the items from the last RIG are of terrible quality.

We're still doing them - stay tuned.


Lanzer
Nyumonster
Are you going to add more Jigsaw puzzles anytime soon? Not that it's absolutely necessary or anything, I still enjoy playing the old ones. 3nodding

I'll look it into it, it's been a while since the last update.


siskataya
whitewind2715
Have you ever sent people to the GD to look for threads? i seldom go there, but when i do, i usually can't count the number of threads that should be reported on both hands....

I think it'd be extremly useful just to have some people go in there every so often

Actually, we have a team of mods that go into the GD and handle issues all the time. Definitely report any inappropriate content you'll find, and they'll get to it. Mind you, GD is a very fast moving forum, and sometimes we can get a fair number of reports. It can take a bit of time, but they get handled biggrin

- Sisky


biglanky14
Corinth Maxwell
Lanzer
Hello everyone! Welcome to this week's ATA!
biglanky14
Hi everyone,
Panagrammic
Lurking, mostly, but will occasionally snipe questions.
*waves to the staff* cat_ninja

1. First, there's the matter of the "House Inventory Arranger Window". I see that we're now able to use items in our houses that aren't even in the House's inventory, but why does that particular inventory box not yet have "near-unlimited" storage space like the "Storage Locker"? I'm trying to clean up my main inventory, and I still can't move more than 100 items into the "House" inventory. cat_whee

2. While we're on the subject of the "Inventory Arranger"...As far as "Avatar Outfits" are concerned, can we have a setting -- or perhaps an "Ok!"/"Cancel!" prompt that automatically warns users that they are about to "move" or "remove" items from their inventories that are part of pre-saved outfits? cat_burning_eyes

3. I know that the feature seems to be stagnating somewhat, but what are you planning on doing with the Gaia Cars/Rally feature? cat_sweatdrop

Thanks for whatever answers you can provide!

Hi Corinth,

Definitely PM that first one to CodeMonkey if you haven't already.

2) Good suggestion - we can add it to the list, but it's probably not something we'd be able to get to in the near future.

3) We don't have anything explicit planned at the moment, but the work that we're doing in the Flash spaces right now (for Towns, etc) is being designed to be scalable throughout the other spaces. In English that means that we should have the capacity to do some fun things in the future when we have the time to get to them.


Panagrammic
MrsrachaelSnape
gum disease
Big thread is big. I hope Diedrich wins the Easter event.

I MEAN, THE DOGS MAGICALLY WON THE CATS VS DOGS ONE.
SO PLEASE MAKE IT HAPPEN FOR DIEDRICH. twisted heart

we all know the cats won. Pan cheated.

could this face cheat?

User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.
Panagrammic
Ridley Starsmore
That face looks like someone shrunk a wookie.
pj444
AGREED.
You have given me an idea for the best Halloween costume ever. I'll be Han Solo, and my dog can be the Chewbacca! Maybe I can train him to howl on command.


siskataya
Keiko-Rin
Not even a single response. -_-
Thanks Gaia.

Heya Keiko-Rin,

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier - this thread is kind of flying by! I did reply to one person about your issue, but it's best if we speak directly. If you would, please send me a pm about your issue and let me know what's going on for you. I'd like to help, so details straight from the source would be awesome. I look forward to getting you pm ^^

Be well biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
Queen Kianra
Dear Admins;;

This is my first time every posting any ATA questions. [: ♥

Today you posted a Dev Alert about "faster site loading". I have noticed, on all of my accounts, that the site is loading slower & that most of the times my pages aren't even loading! Like, right now, the Adventure Time header just shows a bunch of clouds, nothing else! It was happening on and off before but I figured you would have fixed it by now.
When do you plan to fix it?

Also; with the <3 & </3 thing...I really don't think you implementing it was fair. A lot of people get trolled and get massive </3's. There are shops that want people to PAY them to dislike a thread! that's not very fair, in my opinion, and it's hurting a lot of the business people get. Why did you implement this feature in the first place? when do you plan to fix it's flaws?

And, lastly... I really miss the majhongg dimensions game you had a few months back. I was wondering if you'd be willing to bring it back?

Thank you, Admins, for your time and consideration! ♥

Hi Queen Kianra,

Welcome!

Weird - can you post that in the Bug Reports forum so our devs can take a look?

I wasn't here when this was released, but I understand it was a pretty requested feature b/c it helps people find quality threads. That said, we've heard the suggestion about the dislike and it's something we can discuss.

That game wasn't ours - we were licensing it from another company that decided not to offer it any more, so we didn't have any choice sad


Uncle Kenny
Keiko-Rin
Android Amber
Keiko-Rin
Not even a single response. -_-
Thanks Gaia.
Not POSITIVE, but I think someone else had mentioned the crafting of that item, and a mod replied to them. They even said it COULD be a bug, and they are going to look into it. If it IS a bug, maybe you can get refunds! Good luck. <3

It's not a bug. I already know that much because it had nothing to do with any soulbound items.

It's the end result of a faulty and badly consructed system which at this point they honestly don't seem to care about fixing, because all i ever hear is "We're looking into it."
My case is no different apparently, seeing as the fact i wasted all that money makes no difference to them.

Would you be able to provide me with a timeline of when you encountered the failures that you had, as well as, the account you used to do it, if it wasn't this one. Feel free to just PM it to me if you don't want to/can't post it.


biglanky14
Yuriko Koizumi
This will be my third time at an AtA! I should try to prepare myself instead of scrambling my mind around.

1. Could we get more burgundy colored items? I love it with blues and creams. I was going to make a thread in SF about it.

2. Why does Seelie Order's dress look like a skirt and won't let us equip a top? ಠ____ಠ I'm not going to mention how it's not proportional at all I just did, but that's seriously bugging me.

3. What's the future of EIs? I really do have the feeling that with Pietro finished, and Owl-something or other and Timmy getting more evolutions, I fear EIs might become extinct.

I think that's it from me for this week, thank you all for your time if you read and answer. <3

Hi Yuriko,

1) Please do!

2) This I don't know an answer to, unfortunately sad

3) Nope, not going extinct.


Panagrammic
EliteDanneh
As a dear fan of animated items and butterflies, what hope have I of getting an animated item that uses the towns butterfly sprites?

Oh, that's a cool idea. I'll send that over to the artists.


siskataya
Fatal Connections
Hello! This is my first ATA, not gonna lie. Anyway ON WITH THE QUESTIONS!

1 : Can I have a hug? I don't know why but I feel like it'll make time go faster.

(I need to lay off the sugar...)

heart heart HUGS heart heart

Hope that works for you! Be well biggrin
- Sisky


Panagrammic
Devit
I'm sure I could come up with a few questions, I'm usually bursting with them but I'm moving a bit slower than usual today. Was at school till 6pm because of rehearsals and helping tech crew with lighting and then also the set. Kinda tired.

Anyway to start off:

1. I've always been curious, is there a list of all items on gaia with the artists' name that made it. I'm rather sure there isn't one public but maybe there is one like secretly to keep track of all the items. If so another question would be: Would you guys ever consider making it public. I'd love to know who to thank for certain items and such that I just love over just screaming that I love an item to anyone who like reads my status. I'm aware some artist could keep their own list like in a journal or something but I've yet to meet one who does.

2. Will anymore rings be added to zOMG ever?

I had an idea for like a reversed "bandage" ring. It like takes health to restore stamina like how bandage takes stamina to heal. It'd also make an amazing suicide ring for people who need to return to null.

We don' t provide one, but I know that there are some user-generated lists that say which items were done by which artists.

For now, the priority is on fixing the bugs in zOMG that are preventing people from enjoying the game.


biglanky14
Katlin-chan
Since you've made an Adventure Time avatar items that actually look like Adventure Time things, is it possible that you will create more items, instead of the obvious spin offs and spoofs (like the Sailor Moon items or the Homestuck items)?

Hi Katlin-chan,

We were able to do this b/c we actually partnered with them in order to make official items. Unfortunately we can't just do that for everyone b/c of licensing issues.


Lanzer
Yuriko Koizumi
This will be my third time at an AtA! I should try to prepare myself instead of scrambling my mind around.

1. Could we get more burgundy colored items? I love it with blues and creams. I was going to make a thread in SF about it.

2. Why does Seelie Order's dress look like a skirt and won't let us equip a top? ಠ____ಠ I'm not going to mention how it's not proportional at all I just did, but that's seriously bugging me.

3. What's the future of EIs? I really do have the feeling that with Pietro finished, and Owl-something or other and Timmy getting more evolutions, I fear EIs might become extinct.

I think that's it from me for this week, thank you all for your time if you read and answer. <3


Definitely ask often and give more feedback. We don't usually create items with specific colors in mind but user feedback often help direct our decisions.

The dress might be a little short, sorry it doesn't look right to you.

We still have raid EI in mind, but the traditional long running EI were really hard to keep track of and many artists jump from project to project so it became really hard to manage evolutions.


biglanky14
The Undead Suitor
Holy s**t 9 pages

So like

umm

plot yeah

when is that happening again

after reaper finishes all her sherlock porn?

I have absolutely no idea how to respond to this smile


biglanky14
notwrenja
Hey, So I'm back and I'm going to keep asking these questions until I'm not ignored biggrin

1) What happened to the Coming Soon feature? Did you guys just decided you didn't like having any sort of deadline in terms of upcoming things? I loved this feature and it game me something to look forward to.

2) How about those 'thanks for keeping ads on' ads that you mentioned ever so long ago? I've only ever seen one, it didn't work, and would like to see them again... someday? Whats going on there?

thanks biggrin

Edited to add- THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR RECYCLING ZOMG EVENTS biggrin DD

Hi notwrenja,

1) We just don't always have something to put in there. The same stuff was in there for far too long before because of development cycles, so it wasn't really useful for a lot of people.

2) I think they'll come back at some point.


biglanky14
Evalinna
Hello everyone!

I have a question regrading the case of pietro -if this has been answered i'm sorry for re-asking it-

My question is pertaining to those of us who have later generations of the case. Will the time it takes the later gens to gain new poses be the same as the time it took the original to finish evolving? Like will we have to wait 1- 2 years for it to gain all the poses, or will you guys speed it up some how?

~Eva

Hi Evalinna,

All I can say is stay tuned!


Panagrammic
Jaydi Blaze
Panagrammic
gum disease
I really like this "Replied by: X member of staff" feature. Props and cupcakes to whoever made it. yum_cupcake

Mad props go to edy for that one. We were just talking about it and he went off and implemented it in like 5 minutes.

How about using it sitewide? To keep down the quote-towers, and because it's cool

Yeah. We use memcache to store it -- it's easy, and doesn't cause any database load, and made the implementation much cleaner. Making it a feature for every topic on the site would unfortunately be more work.


Lanzer
ScarredRavens
I was wondering~ Is Gaia thinking of coming to western Canada for Real live event like a con?

Ei:
-Vancouver
-Edmonton
-Sasktoon
?
We're really close~!

I'll have to check with DJ Helsing but I don't think he's visiting those cities this year. Though I would love to be able to go back to Vancouver and see all the Gaians at my hometown.


biglanky14
Kimi-inufan2011
K... just wondering, would you guys ever make a thread for people to post drawings, pixelations, Fan art, etc.. on ideas for gaia clothing, and if you like them then you use the ideas and make gaia clothing, jewlery, accessories, etc. because if you ever do make something like that... then I have quite a few Ideas for you guys! 3nodding whee

Hi there,

You should definitely enter our next item contest in CrossStitch!


Panagrammic
Shinju_hashimfo
For some reason I thought ATA's were a Wednesday thing. WHERE DID I GET THIS LOGIC?! gonk

Perhaps you're ahead of your time.


biglanky14
Starchan13
Yo, admins!

I have some questions:

1.Will there be another Gold Shop update soon?

2. Who draws the storyline manga, and will that be updated soon as well?

3. Is it possible to get the flash features of this site, like games and the aquarium, ever work on an iPod?

Hi Starchan13,

1) Probably smile

2) Several of our artists do - and stay tuned!

3) Unfortunately Apple doesn't support Flash on their products sad


Panagrammic
SRothH
Hey there everyone!

I wanted to ask a few questions in regards to Alchemy so I can have a more realistic set of expectations to work with if I choose to progress with it further than I am currently doing so.

What I would love to know is what does the Gaia team itself think is 'SENSIBLE' and 'EXPECTED' and 'REASONABLE' in terms of all the issues expressed in all these various Alchemy-related feedback threads in the SF forum.

Please and thank you!

There are a bunch of people in the Gaia team trying to evaluate this -- I know they've been looking at data and talking to users and reading the site feedback threads. I think they aren't ready to say right now what is expected, but it is definitely in the forefront of peoples' minds here.


biglanky14
A Kiss In Paradise
when i pm the admin that gives you the marketplace mail will she ever reply back?
is there a way to return a bought item?

Hi Kiss,

If you bought the item from a store, you can use the sellback feature if you'd like.


Panagrammic
ScootNFroody
Hey, Gaia! What's your relationship like with Valve?
As you can see, I'm a pretty big fan of Team Fortress 2.
I would love to see more Valve game items here on Gaia.
Is that at all possible some day, or will Valve not grant Gaia permission?

I would shine Gabe's shoes for a chance to do a Valve sponsorship.

Actually, we have a sponsorship with them next week(*).

(*) Valve time (**).
(**) Actually, I'm kidding. But I really would shine Gabe's shoes to do a sponsorship with them.


Panagrammic
dizziedobsession
Repeating one of two questions I asked a few pages back...

what the heck's going on with spring cleaning!?

Biglanky14 replied elsewhere (which message I cannot find at the moment, but it's in this ATA) that they are taking a look at it and plan to announce what is going on with Spring Cleaning.


Panagrammic
Kloob
Dawn Marshall and Kloob
(long discussion about what is or isn't possible in bringing at least some part of zOMG! to the iPod)
Yes I know you can't do that...

Plus, Apple's products doesn't support Gaia's flash. At least, I just read something like that...

Apple iOS products don't support Flash at all, even.


biglanky14
OddeoFreq
You have GOT to stop at HersheyPark or something, you have no idea how awesome it would make it for me and so many others.

Hershey Park rules!!


Lanzer
DKKs Gamer
I have a couple of questions/suggestions.

1. In order to help alleviate ridiculous inflation in the market place, why doesn't Gaia put a price cap on certain items. For example: if an item has a store price of 60k, that item cannot be sold above 60k.

2. Instead of constantly flooding the market place with items, making it nearly impossible for someone who doesn't play 24/7 OR have the cash to buy all the pixelated items with, why doesn't gaia slow down putting new items out there and instead have re-releases for the old ones? For example: re-release certain RIGs and/or EIs, but still keep producing more MCs.

3. Is there going to be a banking system introduced to Gaia anytime soon? There doesn't even have to be interest or the like, I would just like somewhere to store my gold instead of constantly having it on hand.

If I have any other questions or concerns, I'll be back. Thanks for your time! heart

Unfortunately inflation main affects items that are purchased from the cash shop or event items. We couldn't place caps on items that doesn't have a gold shop price.

It's hard to strike a balance between too many and too little, as we are constantly responding to requests for better items, items fitting certain genres and styles. Many ask for more, some ask for less.

A banking system never made it to the list because the idea of not working to gain gold is something that would potentially inflate the market even more, even though the idea is that interest would help keep up with inflation, it's a weird thing as Gaia's economy doesn't quite work like real life economy.


biglanky14
Little Miss Etta
I had a serious question but I think it is bad that I cannot remember what it was upon hitting the reply button ...

So might as well do something to amuse myself.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Also,

What is the meaning of life?
42


Panagrammic
Treacherous Hat
I wasn't going to bother posting but since this AtA is going on for ever..

Have you ever considered sponsors from outside the US? I honestly had no idea what Adventure Time was before now and I'd like a chance to confuse everyone else for a change. twisted

We don't turn away sponsors (unless they are clearly not a fit for our community). If you have any leads we would love to hear them. Most international sponsors, though, prefer to target sites that have more of a presence in their country of origin.


biglanky14
oMonstah
oMonstah
I just have one question. c:
Seeing as you've just done an Adventure Time themed RIG, why not do something like Pokemon?
There are plenty of people who would thoroughly enjoy Pokemon items here, myself included. It would be super great. heart

I was really hoping to have this answered, but if not oh well <3
I'm super excited that we're doing the zOMG easter event again though!

Hi,

We actually had an official partnership with AT for that, so if we did one for Pokemon, we'd have to have the same thing in place.


Panagrammic
Violently Blissful
Can we fix this too?
User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.
Kloob
[OMG, especially in towns!
I HATE THIS BUG!

Hahaha. Okay, yah, that's annoying. Put in a patch for this.


biglanky14
Violently Blissful
Sorry for the question shooting, but...
IS there going to be more spring cleaning proposals that are gonna be done?

IS alchemy ever going to be leveled out more equally, so that the not-so-rich users have a chance too?

IS there ever going to be zOMG bug fixes?

WHY is Buccaneer Boardwalk never going to be made?

And WHEN THE HECK is there going to be better chance items? So many people have complained about it. I mean, having 20 arrow fish, and NOTHING to do with them... Kinda sucks. (Wish I could throw them into alchemy. I prefer TinierMe's alchemy system more!)

Well, I think that gets most of the frustration I've been having with Gaia recently. sweatdrop

1) Some of the ideas are on our list of projects.

2) We're working on making it easier/more fun/etc.

3) Yes - in fact those are in flight.

4) We're not going to do any major development on zOMG, although we will keep the game available and will fix bugs/add small stuff when we can.

5) DC does have good items in there but they're not common.


Lanzer
Thank you for joining us on this week's ATA! We've seen a lot of new faces today and I'm happy to welcome you to our group chat. Hope to see you all next Monday. Have a great week!
biglanky14
Hi everyone,

Thanks for showing up to this week's ATA! I apologize that we didn't get to some of the questions - this was a busy event, and we simply ran out of time. But hopefully we'll see you here again next week!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
April 2nd

Lanzer
Hello everyone!

Hope you enjoyed the April Fool's mini event. There's been a lot of other April Fool's jokes out there yesterday, my favorite was Google Maps in 8bit, and Kodak's instant kitten creator kiosk. Anyone got their favorites?


biglanky14
Hi everyone,

A couple of quick notes:

We do our best to answer as many questions as we can in the time we have, but there are way more of you than there are of us. Please don't take it personally if we don't answer yours smile

If you haven't already, please check out my thread in SF to give your thoughts on a few project ideas we're kicking around!


biglanky14
Crystal Sparda
Guh, my internet is laggy tonight. TT3TT
God, the new season of Bones is on like, RIGHT NOW.
Does any of Gaia's staff have a favorite cable series they're addicted to?
Just wondering, but Easter event, Y U NO START YET?
User Image
>w<;
Also... Spring Cleaning... How're we doing it this year?
Are you going to keep a few proposals from last year
and open the forum back up for more proposals?
Oh, and the CrosStitch item contest, are we close
to getting voting opened yet, or are you still researching images
to make sure everything is legit before posting the top 12 entries?

Hi Crystal Sparda,

Never got into Bones. The last two shows I was gaga over were The Shield and The Wire. I like Walking Dead, Modern Family, and South Park, but none are absolutely MUST WATCH RIGHT NAO!!

For Spring Cleaning, I don't think we're going to do a version this year, and it's on our list of things to close up. We're still going to keep some of the ideas though smile

As for CrossStitch, the judging is still ongoing right now (sadly, my suggestion of more bolo ties wasn't a winner).
Zero Omega
1. Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, Grimm!
carbonphyber
Local Networks: The Mentalist, The Good Wife

F/X: Archer, Always Sunny in Philadelphia

AMC: Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Rubicon (sadly cancelled)

HBO & Showtime: The Wire (ended), Dexter, W**ds, Calif**nica***n


codemonkey37179
Pirate Captain Sushi
Dear AtA:

1. The NPC's in the April Fools event actually conversed with each other in a thread! Storyline progressed through NPC interaction on the forums! O.O Will we be able to see more of this in the near future? I miss watching the admins/devs in charge of the accounts put on a show for us!

2. Is there ANYTHING you guys can tell us about this years Easter Event? I NEED EGGS SPOILED.

3. Manga storyline update, is it coming?

I've been working on the Easter Event, and I can tell you that is a bit different from previous years and involves spawning. I can tell you more tomorrow.
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Lord Lapin
codemonkey37179
Yeata Zi
spawning... as in.... Diedrich spawns?
biggrin tune in tomorrow!
Tomorrow!? What happens tomorrow!? O.O
The world ends.
codemonkey37179
The Sun comes up.


biglanky14
MrsrachaelSnape
1.If Gaia going to back it's roots , why isn't the Zurg part of it. Just because the event wasn't so popular back then doesn't mean
it won't be popular right now. I mean the first Olympics event wasn't popular until it was re-done in 2008 What can't the Zurg return?

2. Are we going to find out who won the Items designed soon?

3. re-color fairy wings (like red) anytime soon?

Hi MRS,

Nice use of Chorlie Shane smile

Here we go:

1) Can't say anything definitive about the storyline, since I'm under strict instructions not to reveal any spoilers.

2) Yup, we're working on it!

3) This I do not know.


Zero Omega
II Vanilla-Chan II
:O featured avatars are only based on their personality right? If not what are they based on?
rebel_alliance
Hey! I was wondering how you become a featured avatar?

You can go ahead and post in this thread:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-community-discussion/interested-in-being-on-the-homepage-let-us-know-here/t.48450339/
We randomly select users from people that have posted in that thread!


Lanzer
Fractale
1: Aren't you guys sick of Diedrich yet? D:
2: Are we ever going to get a sequel to the Dark Reflection, CI? Love Charm and Famestar both had at least 3 sequels, and I think Dark Reflection was much more popular than they were.
3: What's Meili like, in the Dark Reflection? If he's a tiger in our reality, would he be a wolf or something in the Dark Reelection alternate reality? (I hope we can get a chance to see him a DR sequel)
4: Why isn't Josie in the storyline more?

There's never enough Diedrich!

There are no plans right now, so I can't say

I'm afraid he's dead... so I don't have an answer for you also. sad

I think we're just waiting for the right storyline to appear that works for her.


codemonkey37179
Drevial
Are you going to be updating Towns anytime soon? I think it's fair so many users want a change,even if it's a small one!

YES. Here is a thread discussing it.

www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/towns-2-0/t.78071015/


biglanky14
ComtesseNicoleDeLancret
Hello Admin's as you may or may not know my husband,brother in law, and I have been working on the demonic quest, and finally have reached the last level. And due to the common components being very rare we are a little stuck. BUT I came here to ask.. What exactly is the point of a DIVINE FEATHER in a Demonic quest? To me this doesn't exactly make any sense what so ever and on behalf of my husband and brother in law would like to ask if there is any way you can remove it?

User ImageBlessed Stellarite x20
User ImageDark Matter x5
User Imageb*****d's Heart x5
User ImagePhilosopher's Stone x1
User ImageToscano Jacket by Dernier*Cri x1
User ImageSmouldering Helm by Dernier*Cri x1
User ImageDivine Feather x1

I believe it is very obvious which item really does not "FIT" in. The Divine Feather requires the following:

x1 Angel Blood

x1 Angel Imp's Feather

x1 Angel's Tears

x1Celestial Glow


I thank you for your time for reading this and would love to hear back from you.

-The Trio

Hi CMDL,

Is it ok if I call you that? Otherwise I'm guaranteed to make like 14 typos.

I don't know the history of that formula, but I can definitely at least pass the question along for people to take a look.

Thanks for your patience (and hard work on Alchemy)!


Zero Omega
Queen-of-the-Rogue
Any chance we might can get a Hot Topic for the 100th Anniversary of Titanic's sinking?

Possible! Depends on how much buzz there is around Gaia about it.


biglanky14
gataka
So, any more zOMG! bugs dead yet?
Does the in the work fantasy-themed game have a name yet? Wait, that's a Gaia - Social branch thing : /

@ap-fools: Google maps retro-RPG style made the world awesome emo

Hi Gataka,

Nope, but we're working on them!

For the second part, that's a secret smile


milkbun
Saelune
Ever gonna finish unisexing the site? I wanna wear maid shoes dammit! And Daisy's shoes...and the Winter Skirt... Im sure there are still a couple of lingering "male only" items too.

Eventually one day... it's a long, slow process.


codemonkey37179
johnny1278
How much awesome do you have left, gaia admins? you see, you've been using a lot of it recently and I fear that you may run out before your time.

Best Wishes

We are restocked with awesomeness and snacks every Tuesday.


DARKNRGY
Starshine
Hi guys, its me once again :3

[...]

5. Lastly I some some concerns regarding privacy. I have my birthday hidden from everyone and it doesnt appear on my profile. But when it is my birthday notifications appear in the My Friends Stuff section of My Gaia page for all my friends.

I dont want anyone to know my birthday, if I select to hide my birthday it shouldnt appear to anyone else, even my friends. These days identity theft is a big concern, and a persons birth date is a major component in security for banking and other services. Please change it so that it doesnt show up? Or let me change it to a fake birth date.

Just discussed with the team and we agree hiding your birthday should also block birthday notifications on MyGaia. Fix will be live in about a week. Thanks!


Zero Omega
Pixy Stix Junkie
Are their any thoughts on changing this bidding system in Bid Blast? Or the particular reason it resets to :30. Guess I'm just kind of lost on this whole idea. Just recently came back from a hiatus so not sure on it all. But I can just imagine kids sitting at home, click, click, click, click, so on and so forth. As I'm watching a bid right now, it just makes me think by the time it finally gets down it's just going to be the same price as on the market.

That was put into place to prevent last minute sniping, however, there is a final, final end date that all auctions are set to end on.

For example, we could have an auction end on April 7, 2012. So even if the 30 seconds keeps popping up, it will close up on April 7, 2012.


biglanky14
CleoSombra
So biglanky didn't read that PM I sent him. :<

Hi Cleo,

No, I haven't yet - my PM reading can be really sporadic, and I apologize for it. But I'll set aside some time to look at it when we're done. Thanks for the reminder!


siskataya
Kurotsuchi-fukutaicho
Hello Admin.

I was hacked on my normal account and lost everything on it. The account was The_Joker_Hinamori_Amu and the very first name was something with NCIS because in 2008 I loved NCIS. I changed my name a few times, enough to make it 30,000 to change it again. I would like help to have that account deleted so the person cannot use my account. Sorry for bugging you with this, but please can you help me? I already reported the hacking, it happened on Saturday around 4 pm. I just would like to have this person stopped really and the username that hacked me was chriswashere2. Please can you help? I lost many items I used very often.

~Kurotsuchi-fukutaicho

Hello Kurotsuchi-fukutaicho!

Thanks for the message and letting us know about this. We're sorry to hear you've had your account compromised. If you filed a report, the team that handles hacking reports will get to it pretty soon! As for the items on the account, we try our best to restore accounts to the way they were before they were compromised - this means we'll get you back your items, gold, Gaia cash, etc. if anything was taken.

Not to worry, this issue will get sorted out - thanks for being so patient while we work to get everything resolved for you!

Be well 3nodding
Sisky


codemonkey37179
Empress Boa
codemonkey37179
Empress Boa
Is it ok to pm developers? Because i pmed one today i hope that's not an intrusion of privacy or business. The question I asked is directly related to a question about towns that I'm not sure about. thanks c:

I'm the flash dev on towns, and it is fine to Pm me, I try to answer, time permitting. If it is a question or comment about the new towns you can post in this thread.

www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/towns-2-0/t.78071015/

thank you. i'll send it to you. i sent it to edy sorry! thought he was the towns guy.

Edy is the backend dev for towns. That means he works with the data, and processing. He's really great at it, but it keeps him very busy.


biglanky14
The Fair Knight
Hey Admin~

I was wondering, is there a known bug with wishlists? mine keeps erasing itself

Hi Fair Knight,

I don't know of that bug, but that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Have you posted in the Bug Reports forum? That's the best way for our devs to see it and take a look.


Zero Omega
Queen Kianra
Zero Omega
Queen Kianra
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, staff.

I think that Gaia has lost its way. Lately, you guys have been making a better effort at communicating with the users. However, at the same time, you do and say things that cause some of us to become disappointed and lose trust in you. Let’s take your facebook games for example.

I know you’re creating all of these facebook games to bring in more money and I’m okay with that. However, it seems like HQ is paying more attention to facebook than the main site. You claim that you have two different teams . One to work on Gaia’s games/features and one for facebook games. But you then turn around and remove developers from Gaia’s projects and place them on projects for facebook.

Do you even care about Gaia anymore? Instead of putting the majority of your focus on facebook, put it back on Gaia and its unique games/features. That’s why people log onto this site. Not for facebook- like features, but for the features that make Gaia Gaia. Quit trying to turn this site into a fb clone and stick to being original.

Now, about zOMG!. When are you going to implement dev notices that alert users to when DMS is open to the public? Also, any word on when the game’s glitches will be worked on? The sooner these glitches are fixed, the sooner more people will be able to enjoy the game.

I agree with a lot of what she said...
Why are you guys focusing on FB games more than Gaia? Why is it since GC has been implemented, it seems like you all don't care about what's going on here?

And....lastly....why is it with the featured avatars you guys have been picking DEVs and really crappy profiles a lot of the time?
I've been trying to get featured since last October, and I know a few people who've been trying to get featured for a long time but to no avail.

I thought the point of being featured was because you have a nice reputation ehre and because your profile/avatar/etc looks really nice.
What's the point of featuring people when their avatar and profile look like crap? Why is it that people who have posted once in the featured forum get it, but people like me who have been trying for months get nothing?
whatever system you're using for features isn't fair in the least bit.

With regards to the featured avatar, it's a place for anyone to be spotlighted. Taste is subjective, what I see as a really good avatar or profile for having all blue, is something you may not see as good.

However, with regards to all the devs being featured. These are actually our moderators, we put them up there to give everyone an opportunity to get to know and hang out with them. For more information, you can check the thread about it here:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-community-discussion/meet-our-featured-mods/t.78456535/.

This week we will be featuring normal users, so be sure to post in this thread:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-community-discussion/interested-in-being-on-the-homepage-let-us-know-here/t.48450339/

For your chance to be featured, we randomly select users from there.

I post in that every since day. that's why I was wondering why I haven't been featured yet, considering I've been posting since October.
I can understand about the Devs being featured, but still... [/shrugs.] The way you pick who gets features still seems unfair to me.

Thank you for your reply.

Sorry if it seems unfair, it's truly just a matter of being random. gonk Just keep posting, never know what might happen.


Lanzer
Shadey Kitty
Good evening everyone. I hope you all are doing well.

Tonight, I'd like to bring up the topic of captcha frequency for Bootygrab.

On September 30, 2011, a gold cap of 150k was imposed for Bootygrab. Once a player reaches that amount, he or she is no longer able to play until the next day.

October 04, 2011, IP restrictions were put into place. If a household had more than 1 person who had an account here on Gaia, they were basicaly SOL as far as BG went, causing a lot of frustration for BG players and no doubt also causing tank owners to take a hit in profit.
On this same day, it was stated that...we have too few players to support the number of tanks even now.
(Gee, I can't imagine why, haha!)

On October 6, 2011 IP restrictions on tank play were removed however, captcha frequency was increased to every 4th tank.

October 7, 2011 Again the concern seemed to be that there were too many tanks and not enough players to go around. ...We're trying to slow down the creation of new tanks for a bit.

February 27, 2012, it was stated yet again that there were too many tanks for the number of players available and that the situation did not resolve itself so stemming the creation of new tanks was being done.

IF your concern truly is that you need more Bootygrab players, it seems to me that you need to change your approach and do something to attract them and less to annoy them.

How to make BG less annoying:

One way to achieve this is to reduce the captcha frequency for Bootygrab. This may make the game appealing to more people, possibly helping to pave the way to a better tank / player balance.
You could also please do something to make that thing easier for human eyes to read!
I also suggest making an announcement about it to help potential player awareness.

With the daily gold cap of 150k in place, I fail to see the harm in giving this a try.

How to Make BG More Attractive:

I offer this food for thought: Are you aware that there has not been any events that included Aquariums since December 9, 2009 ?
(At least AFAIK.If I am mistaken, please forgive me and supply the information - including links because I would like to make the corrections in my thread)
Past Events For Aquariums

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll look into the captcha frequency and make necessary adjustments. I'll look into including aquarium for events, but because it's kind of a solitary experience, we usually don't have a lot of ideas for events.


Uncle Kenny
x EpiK Low
Will the Angelic Rod PLUS be released anytime soon?

This is something on my "want-to-do" list but I have some bigger projects that will have to be taken care of first. When I get some time freed up, I'm hoping to look into making this happen 3nodding


edy
blondegrl1314
emotion_bigheart What has been going on with the Gaia Towns lately? - Any time I try to save my bugs it won't let me. Is this going to be fixed anytime soon? emotion_bigheart

This should answer your question:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/dev-notices/site-changes/t.63632027_509/#509


Lanzer
n u u d l e s
Do you know why the fish drops aren't appearing in my inventory? I just flushed over 10 of them and none are appearing in my inventory o ____ o

Please report the problem to a moderator and we can check what happened and restore the items for you.


biglanky14
Ashlizzle
Whew, I made it. I haven't been to ATA since I went into the Americorps back in Febuary xp So, how are things with you Admit?
1: You guys said that things would be picking up with the stroyline and for a while you guys kept your promise. But since then you guys have dropped the ball, again! Is there hope at all that the storyline will be a priority?!
2: ok, I just have a sugestion. I think you guys should put in a cancel bid for people who place a bid on an item but change their minds before time is up (for example, if they find the item for less gold elsewhere in the market place)
3: Happy Easter! How are you guys at the office celebrating?

Hi Ashlizzle,

Welcome back!

1) Yes - yes it is. Soon.

2) I'm assuming you're talking about Bid Blast? We can at least take a look at it.

3) Thanks! We're having Lanzer dress up as a giant Easter Bunny and hide chocolate eggs. And then we're shooting him with a BB gun.


DARKNRGY
Rainbowed Weed
I'd like to know when you guys are planning on releasing a Gaiaonline app for android.

It would be awesome for us non-iphone users.

We'd like to. I have an Android phone too stare . Right now we don't have any plans to work on one.


DARKNRGY
lingling366
MY ad block has cats instead of of the ads

Lol. That's Ad Block's april fool's! If you hover over the ad and click "Don't show me cats" (or something) it will go away.


Zero Omega
iFun Size
First my account got hacked a month ago and still havent gotten anything on it, how long does it usually take?
Is there a way to get SDPlus #338 Lumen the Firefly Spirit other the the guardian totem things? I have been looking for a week and no one is selling one anywhere.

Sorry to hear about the problem. Could you send me a PM with the name of your hacked account and report ID (if you have it)?


Uncle Kenny
DittoUsedTRANSFORM
Good evening Gaia Staff. c:
I only have one issue thats been bothering me as of late. It has to do with BidBlast. I was in the chatter box and saw some users talking about using "Automatic Clickers" to do their bidding for them. Is this considered cheating or botting? Is this even allowed?

Using a program of any kind to automatically bid for you in BidBlast is a form of botting. If someone is found to be doing this then they run the risk of their account being banned.


Panagrammic
EIIiot
Just one question;
Do you have any intention in re-releasing the Integrity ring on zOMG? Just because I wasn't on Gaia at the time of it's initial release, and since it was an event ring obtaining it is now impossible.

This is true of any of the soulbound event items, though.


biglanky14
oMonstah
Just a quick little question~
Are you planning on making anymore Animated Items? It would be awesome if you did. Especially some kind of tail, or blinking eyes.
Thanks for being so awesome Gaia! 4laugh

Hi oMonstah,

Thanks! We appreciate the kind words smile

Yup - we'll do them from time to time.


biglanky14
ScarredRavens
That was a great event~ It was so funny! And I loved seeing the NPCs.

Thanks! Massive kudos to Narumi Mishuhara and Siskataya for helping to pull that off.


Uncle Kenny
Daranigan
Okay so I have spoken with the admin from kixeye. I have posted in the kixeye forums and gone everywhere I can. is there anyway the admin can push kixeye for an update to Backyard Monsters. We are way behind from the facebook version and it's not really fair to us to be left behind like that and those of us that prefer gaia to facebook, or are at level 40 and higher, don't want to re start the game. I have put a lot of gaia cash into shiny to buy all the upgrades the store offers and I want to go a little further in the game. is there anyway to get an update for the game?

Unfortunately, everything related to Backyard Monsters is handled by Kixeye/Viximo. We have no control over what gets updated, added, or removed. It is really just completely up to them as to what they do with it.




Zero Omega
Hera
Zero Omega
Hera
Also- can you please stop from making gaia so addicting @_@

I've been on this site since 2003 and I still can't stop logging in every now and then..

Sure i've taken breaks..done this that and the other thing..but darnit gaia is still around and so is my inventory @_@

<~~ *knows this will never be granted but just wanted to say what she felt needed said* >.>...

NEVARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! scream

OMGAWD YOU ARE CRUEL AMAZING!!!! mad emotion_bigheart

Fix'd
Zero Omega
Hera
Zero Omega
Hera
lol

You can be cruel and amazing at the same time. k? ...k... emotion_donotwant

Amazing, or most amazing? [/faux Colbert]
I just..
I don't even.. emotion_kirakira

Captcha for this - total shamble

I read this and kept thinking of a Rolling Stones song and it was bugging me, only to find out that I was mistaking "shambles" for "tatters."
Zero Omega
Hera
Zero Omega
Hera
o.O;;

Name the song..cause now you've got me all confuzzled.

"Shattered Tatters" by the Rolling Stones.
W00t youtube...

*reads the lyrics youtube gave me*

What..in..the..world...

ONLY YOU ZERO...ONLY YOU emotion_facepalm

It's the Rolling Stones! Why does this surprise anyone? gonk
Zero Omega
Hera
Zero Omega
Hera
xd

We are on gaia online right?

Where its mostly filled with pre pubescent children who listen to One Direction and Justin Bieber?

I listen to lots of different things though!

http://www.last.fm/user/FirstTalis

LOL I feel semi retarded right now.

I went to that link~ And it said "listening now"

I was like..wait..HOW AM I LISTENING WHEN THERE IS NOTHING COMING OUT OF MY HEADSET!?!?!?!?

Then realized it shows YOU listening to it.

Eh-heh ^_^;

That's something we like to call, magic!
Zero Omega
Hera
It was nice goofing off with you for a bit.

Im gonna go stream some Tera Online and mess around with this weird link you gave me. I've never heard of this site and I'm kinda interested~

THIS IS WORK! scream

Enjoy!


Lanzer
Desirable Acrimony
emotion_awesome

Bet you guys can't wait for spring break, so you can work some more. ;D

Unfortunately there's no spring break here in Gaia HQ. No fun and all work ToT


siskataya
Starshine
Hi guys, its me once again :3

3. Also a big thanks to Sisky for passing along our wish for a sdplus swarf doll, and for fixing up Keiko heart

You are most welcome - happy to help! 3nodding
- Sisky


Panagrammic
II_iMuddy_II
Hey Staff.
This is my first time attending ATA meeting. Here are some of my concerns and I really hope that you can answer them. Thanks!

~When is the new zOMG!-like going to be released? Facebook or Gaia first?
~Exactly when will Memphis return to Phing Phang? It has been MONTHS. It's really disappointing how long it is taking. I really hope you can speed up the process.
~Fix Tektek Layering. PLEASE! Or at least change it to match Gaia's layering.

- what do you mean by new zOMG like?
- if Memphis returns it will either a) be a different fish and not give out as much gold, or b) be more expensive. It almost certainly won't return at the old price point.
- Tektek is actually an external site, and we don't control it.


biglanky14
WideEyed
HI Guys! blaugh
Got here late, and typing quickly, so I apologise if I'm about to ask something that has been asked already.

And for the inevitable typo's. redface

1: Re: the Trailer for the April Fool's day.....was it supposed to work, or was it part of the prank?
1a: If it was supposed to work, is there a chance it could be re-posted for those of us who didn't get to see it? I think it didn't run for a lot of us.

2: Can you please tell us when the Easter Events will begin, both in the Forum, and in zOMG!?

Thanks so much! blaugh

Hi WideEyed,

1) I'm pretty sure we're going to post it to our Youtube channel soon smile

2) This week, at least on the site. We're going to try to do zOMG around the same time too if we can.


Panagrammic
twincestluvr
What made you guys decide to use adventure time? Why not Young Justice or something that is not completely stupid?

We have a lot of Adventure Time fans in the office. sad


biglanky14
Kurayami Illusions
1. why does meebo not work?
2.What happened to the donation items?
3.could you keep adventure time around a little bit longer? x:
4.do you love me?

Hi Kurayami,

1) We're looking into that right now.

2) I'm actually not entirely sure what you're referring to smile

3) It'll be around for a bit, even if the header isn't. Keep an eye out for chances to win AT stuff next week.

4) Of course!


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Eruravenne
Will there be a Hot Topic for The Avengers? I'm pretty much obsessed with that movie and it hasn't even been released yet. sweatdrop

Are you guys going to go see it? I entered a contest to win a trip to the premiere in Hollywood, but I probably won't win, lol. Got a favorite Avenger? Mine is Iron Man, but I'm going to be horribly torn throughout the movie because I also love Loki... I don't know what I'll do when they actually fight each other. eek

(sorry, I have no serious questions...)
Maybe ninja ninja

I am, but I can't speak for the others.


Narumi Misuhara
The Undead Suitor
Narumi Misuhara
Hey guys, the Easter event will be launching this week. I'm happy you guys liked the April Fools event special thanks to Reapersun and Siskataya for helping make it happen smile

So is the Easter bunny coming back for Easter, or are you guys going to sweep his victory under the rug and continue with diedrich because bias.

Not sayin'!


biglanky14
Creamy Smooth
I haven't been on for long...
But When I was last on, in gaia towns, you used to be able to sit and stand rapidly, right?
Well, jus letting you all know how greatful I am for having it removed- It was sooo annoying!

But here's my real question- Any exciting events planned?
Oh yeah- and how long is Deidrich going to be the star of the show? Aren't any of you sick of it yet?

Hi Creamy Smooth,

No problem - that was annoying for us too!

Yup....maybe sooner than you think smile


Panagrammic
carbonphyber
Eurotte
Hello!
Paper or plastic?
Reusable bags!
There is a local ordinance in the city where GaiaHQ is that prevents stores (like grocery stores) from handing out disposable bags.
Remember to bring your shopping bags with you.

And in the bathroom, I prefer paper. Toilet plastic is just not comfortable.
Yes, but try brushing your teeth with a paper toothbrush!


Lanzer
Poshul
I have lite fish alive well after they should be dead... is staff looking into this?

Sorry not all lite fishes die at the same time. I'll make a list of their lifetime, meanwhile, I'll keep checking and see if there are bugs preventing fishes from dying.


siskataya
Harlan the Ninja2
Lanzer
Hello everyone!

Hope you enjoyed the April Fool's mini event. There's been a lot of other April Fool's jokes out there yesterday, my favorite was Google Maps in 8bit, and Kodak's instant kitten creator kiosk. Anyone got their favorites?

u guus are mean i hope u suffer a horrible easter

Mean? Horrible Easter? crying

By the way, I am curious - why do think we are mean? Seriously, I cannot think of mean things we've done, so if something is bothering you, please let us know!

Sisky


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Ali the Vampire Princess
Hello Gaia staff,
I was wondering when are you going to have a special form fro Role-playing only? I understand that is what the Chatter box is for but what about a Role-playing form? thats all Role-playing all the time. Please reply soon

Ali the Vampire Princess~

Hi there,
The Barton Town forum is for roleplaying. Additionally, there are many guilds devoted to roleplaying.


Panagrammic
axisofsymmetry
I have a question about the mobile stuff. Not iPhone, just mobile, like it sends stuff to my phone via text.

Is there any way you can change it so that like, at least with PMs, you can REPLY rather than just receiving the notification?

Our agreement with our provider (4Info) is receive-only, unfortunately. Plus, given the way phones are going, it just seems better to improve our mobile web site rather than worry about SMS.


biglanky14
xXelroyXx
U should find a way to get more ppl playing gaiaonline again cause lately the numbers are decreasing >.>

Hi xXelroyXx,

Regardless of our numbers, we're just trying to provide the best platform that we can for you guys to have fun. If we do that, everything else will take care of itself.


Panagrammic
WideEyed
Lily-Bell-Cat
HOW DO YOU GET THE NERD ACHIEVEMENT???

I already hate myself for this.....

Don't we get it the moment we join?

No, you have to quote Firefly, Monty Python, Princess Bride, or any established Internet meme.


DARKNRGY
0o Pisces o0
What are you guys doing to prevent hackers from hacking?
Have you thought about creating passwords just for a users inventory when sending trades? Perhaps, a separate password then that of which the users use for their Gaia accounts to log in.

For example:

Password: *********
Inventory Password: ***********

We have a pretty wide ranging set of technical solutions along with moderator systems and processes for preventing "hacking" and fixing accounts that have been damaged.

Almost all "hacking"s are not true hacks. Users are tricked into giving away their password or into typing in their password on a page that is not run by Gaia. Some of our solutions target this - for example preventing typing your password in plain text or with certain patterns in a PM. The "You are leaving Gaia Online" interstitial page is another example. Despite these efforts, some people still give away their password.

The secondary password is not a terrible idea, but it likely wouldn't help our particular set of problems. If someone can be tricked into giving away their main password, they can likely be fooled into giving away a secondary password.

Your best defense is to never give away your password and to always check the URL of the page you're on before typing in your password. We will continue to implement solutions as they become available.


Zero Omega
Taylord_Davie
id like to know how to get my money back ... i was hacked and lost 96K ... T~T

You can actually report a hacking here:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/hacking

Our staff will be able to review your report from there, sorry to hear about the situation.


Lanzer
aKeychain
Er- a bit of a bad question, but i know a while back we had layering problems with coats and Meido Aprons as well as the Gaia-tan / Gaia-sama and Meido Aprons [[ specifically the Deluxe Aprons ]], i was wondering if that was ever going to get fixed..?
I miss being able to layer a deluxe apron with my gaia aprons as many other gaians i know do.
I heard it was being worked on but that was about a year ago..?

I was told that the layering was changed to work with other items, and there's difficulty making it work with everything. I'll look into it some more but I'm afraid it might be one of those problems where it's compatible with some things but not others.


biglanky14
Lilly-sempai
First off, I wanted to say, I love the site. But lately there seems to be so many issues with it.
I wanted to know if you guys had any intention of fixing the big zOMG glitches and issues yet?

Also, I wanted to know why there is some ridiculous prices in the MP? I under stand the few million gold items, but 10, 20 or 30+mil seems rather steep...Is there a SPECIFIC reason for this? Or is it to "keep people from leaving" or whatever.'

Thanks for your time guys :]

Hi Lilly-sempai,

Yup, we've got a bug list for zOMG (mostly compiled by users) that we're working through right now.

As for the marketplace prices, those are set completely by users, theoretically based on supply and demand. We don't interfere with them.

Have a good one!


Lanzer
enzerubebii98255
Hi i have a suggestion and a question. The suggestion is that can we have a eggpocolypse during easter? and my real question is. and i know he must get this alot but, Why is Lanzer so cool? *idols*

Rumor has it that Lanzer's a zombie, that's why his body temperature is so cool.


biglanky14
xXDIEnoSAWXx
ik this is stupid to ask but if i may ask why are all the good items so high priced like what im saying is we save and save for these items but sooner or later they drop in price so is there any point for them to be so high? thank you for your time to read this

Hi there,

Marketplace prices are totally set by users, based at least theoretically on supply and demand. In short, we don't interfere with it, and don't manipulate those prices.


biglanky14
blackaddersfork
boo to facebook. be gaia and not a fb clone.
thanks for tha april fool's mini event.
are we going to get some easter love in zomg? even if it's a retread of the last one. i love picking up the chicks in zomg. User Image

lastly why can't we sell back the arrow fish? i've gotten them endlessly in the daily chance and dumpster dive. i have no plans to use them, and would like a sell back option, much like with the goldfish.

Hi blackaddersfork,

Glad you liked the April Fool's event - we had too much fun brainstorming that thing.

Yup, we're hoping to recycle the Easter event in zOMG, although I'm not entirely sure on the timing.

I thought there was a sellback - are you talking about the lite fish? We can at least check into it.


Uncle Kenny
asedc
again :/ any word on a organize my inventory update sad being ignored even when its not alchemy related :<

A new arranger is on our list but there are a couple larger projects we plan on tackling first. Not to worry though, it will happen eventually.


biglanky14
Lily-Bell-Cat
What should I buy with 425,000g?

Buy me some more lottery tickets smile


Panagrammic
Memory Manipulator Namine
Also I would like to bring up the fact that, GAIA'S MARKETPLACE WILL NEVER WORK LIKE A REAL MARKETPLACE. for the one simple reason of, People don't NEED to spend gold there. So all those lovely things that work in the real world for self regulating markets just doesn't apply.
I bring this up because the inflation in the marketplace is Out of CONTROL. Seriously, it's a major problem.

Also, coming out with new chance items every month and new evolving items isn't helping inflation. The more Cash items that come out, the more Inflation gets worse.

Have some pity on those of us who are poor and broke!!

Actually, our marketplace has many close parallels with a real marketplace -- we had an economist on staff for a while that was able to use many analytical techniques from the real world on our marketplace.

The cash shop actually reduces inflation -- more information if you like can be found here and here.


Mmmm, whatcha saaaay,
Ooh, that I wrote a long pooost?
Well, of course I did,
Mmmm, whatcha saaaay,
Ooh, it's continued next post?
Of course it is...

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
  • Winged 100
  • Balance Begets Creation 500
  • Waffles! 25
Calling it now--this continuation of the previous post is totally going to end up on Page 39.
(added later) Or not. Now that I actually look at the post count, though, next week's transcript is almost guaranteed to get divided by the page split. Funfun.


April 2nd, some more

Lanzer
Shade7510
I was (among many other gaians) very pleased with the AT event. Do you intend to do any events like that in the future?

We'd love to, we put a ton of work for the AT event as we need to do a lot of approval so that our art is up to standard and co-ordinating with their team to make the whole thing happen is actually quite tricky. So hopefully we'll be able to have the right chance and time to do it again.


DARKNRGY
xKaru
Hey xKaru here, member since 2003 (went through many name changes and account changes in the process but i digresss)

ANYWAY, I'm pretty sure this was addressed at the time it was added, but i cannot for the life of me recall for sure so i'm asking here.

What is the purpose of the 2% surcharge when selling an item in the marketplace? other than a literal removal of gold from the system whats it for? and who does it benefit?
If you ask me removing 2% of everyone's profits only causes them to jack up the prices more to make up for the loss, which only makes the inflation of gaia items so much worse. i remember a time with 70k was considered high for a nitemare scarf. (not saying removal of the tax would lower prices THAT much but i do believe it would lower prices somewhat, as 2% of a 10 million gold transaction is a 200,000 gold loss at the end of the sale. either the seller eats 200k, or raises the prices so the buyer eats the 200k)

Your thoughts on this issue?

The 2% is mostly a counter-inflationary measure. We had a economics grad student work with us while we were developing MP and this was the recommendation. He had a bunch of other really good reasons which elude me at the moment. It reduces inflation by removing gold from the overall system. If the seller may pass along the price, which would cause the price to be 2% higher for that transaction, but inflation happens in aggregate. The less total gold in the system, the lower the prices will be. This isn't to say we don't have inflation - we do - because of an imbalance in the way gold is being granted. It's something I work on when I have the chance.

PS: Items that are no longer being generated (Nightmare Scarf) will always go up in price as their rarity increases.


Panagrammic
KingBet
Hello,

As a regular forum user I've met many different individuals using Gaiaonline. Due to my many experiences, I've always wondered if there would be any consideration towards creating an 16+, or 18+, forum where users could post more mature content. Considering all the users are older than 13 that would mean that many of the experiences we see in our day to day lives are most likely events that are above the pg 13 standard that is in use now. I'm not suggesting that with an 18+ forum there should be porn allowed, but instead content that is generally more acceptable to gaians in that age group. Also I'm aware of guilds that use the premise of accumulating mature audiences, but considering how obsolete towns are there is very little to no incentive to even contemplate joining them, let alone being under the grace of the guild owners as opposed to the gaia staff.

I'm not quite familiar with the age demographics for this website, but I was hoping an admin could possibly lend me some insight as to why, or why not, there aren't such forums.

I've met a lot of different gaians in my time here, and at least from the way I see it, there are quite a large amount of users that are 18+. Although I could be horribly wrong, or those values might not run parallel to the goals gaiaonline runs on. Either way, I hope someone can answer my question.

Thank you.

We've discussed this a couple of times, both internally and with users. Unfortunately it was difficult to find an age verification process that worked internationally and was cheap, and most users were not interested in being in an 18+ forum if it meant they had to spend a few dollars to get age verified. (Also, even with age verification, you're still going to get some underage people in the forums).


siskataya
Thirteenth Rose
Good Evening Admin.
I'm Thirteenth Rose... obviously and I have a few questions for you.

First I wan't to state that I feel like I'm talking to a star because gaia is honestly my first life.

Now I was wondering when people get banned, why don't you eventually let them get
there account back. Like other sites. I know they ban them for like a day or a week. I
mean now you don't have to, but it would be a good idea. Even though I have never
been banned I think its a good idea. Like the first time they get banned then it
would be 48hours and then double.

Now my second and last question, Will there be anything huge coming up in the next
few weeks, like big lotto give away? Or anything huge.

Thank you for your time, and if you have the chance to get to my questions and
respond, I was wondering if you could quote me or something to get my attention.

Heya Thirteenth Rose!

Good evening to you as well! Aside from a very few personal or account safety issues that result in an immediate ban (e.g. hacking someone's account), the overwhelming majority of account bans start with a warning, then go through a process of ban durations. These are either 3 day or 14 day bans depending on the severity of the offense. The goal of these bans is hopefully for the person to have some time away from Gaia to reflect on the behavior and make appropriate changes. Not to worry - immediate permanent bans are rare, and saved only for the most egregious of offenses.

And yes, there is something big coming up in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!

Be well biggrin
Sisky
biglanky14
Hi there,

We don't typically reverse bans for a variety of reasons, usually because we don't like to ban people unless the violation was especially egregious. We will give people shorter-term bans though depending on what they did.

Depends on your defintion of big, but we do have something fun coming up very soon smile
Zero Omega
Thirteenth Rose
Thanks for the reply!
But please answer this. VERY IMPORTANT
What do you mean?
You dont usually reverse bans?
so that means you do rarely?

If we have evidence to believe the ban should be reconsidered and reversed, then yes, we will unban the account. For example, I've reversed a couple of my own bans because of new evidence that came about that the user was able to present.
Zero Omega
Thirteenth Rose
And they give you the evidence through a mule right?

You would actually want to appeal your ban at: http://www.gaiaonline.com/help

But yeah, you would have to use a mule to get there as it requires a Gaia account.


biglanky14
.~.Lady_Aji.~.
Evening, staff.

I think that Gaia has lost its way. Lately, you guys have been making a better effort at communicating with the users. However, at the same time, you do and say things that cause some of us to become disappointed and lose trust in you. Let’s take your facebook games for example.

I know you’re creating all of these facebook games to bring in more money and I’m okay with that. However, it seems like HQ is paying more attention to facebook than the main site. You claim that you have two different teams . One to work on Gaia’s games/features and one for facebook games. But you then turn around and remove developers from Gaia’s projects and place them on projects for facebook.

Do you even care about Gaia anymore? Instead of putting the majority of your focus on facebook, put it back on Gaia and its unique games/features. That’s why people log onto this site. Not for facebook- like features, but for the features that make Gaia Gaia. Quit trying to turn this site into a fb clone and stick to being original.

Now, about zOMG!. When are you going to implement dev notices that alert users to when DMS is open to the public? Also, any word on when the game’s glitches will be worked on? The sooner these glitches are fixed, the sooner more people will be able to enjoy the game.

Hi Lady_Aji,

Thanks for the feedback. The company is pursuing two different paths - one is Gaia Online, and the other is our social games. We care a ton about Gaia, which is why we have a dedicated team working on it.

Work is indeed underway on the bugs within zOMG, so hopefully you'll see some progress there soon. As for dev notices for DMS, I'll check with the team on that.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
Panagrammic
Tsukiyomi_no_Hannah
My dearest admin nobility, XP

Do you guys earn gold and cash like the rest of us, to buy items, or do you use your high positions to just make things magically appear in your inventory?

We're not allowed to grant gold or cash or items to ourselves.

A new Gaia hire gets a 50k grant to buy stuff for their avatar, and then they're on their own!

Wait, I didn't get 50k. crying
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Hera
Go sell your mini wings and you won't need that 50k. xd
But I like them. sad
Panagrammic
Devit
Oh I see, I wasn't aware of the 50k grant.

Just a wild guess but I guess that explains some of the avatar, they only use that 50k to make their avatars then the rest of gaia to them is a job. Not working on getting items and such. Correct? =]

Yeah, I get profile comments all the time that are something on the lines of "how can you be a dev when you have such n00by clothes?"


biglanky14
Toast Ninja
biglanky14
Toast Ninja
Not really a question, but I wanted to express my gratitude towards this site. I had joined back in '06 shortly after I started talking to another user. We became quick friends. Exchanged instant messaging screen names. Eventually leading to exchanging phone numbers. After about year we decided we'd like to be more than friends and planned to meet up in the real world. She was from Washington state and I was from NJ. She came and visited and we hit it off real well.

Fast forward three years, we're now living together and have plans for marriage in our future.

Not only that, but I have met couple other great friends who I have made real life connections with. Gaia has played a big part in my life since I joined. Thanks to you and all of the Gaia staff.

This is awesome! Would you mind throwing this in a PM and sending it to me? I'd like to share it with a few other folks internally who would appreciate hearing this smile
Of course! I'll send it right away.

emotion_c8

Thank you!


DARKNRGY
Lily-Bell-Cat
Dear Admin,

Would it be possible to change the marketplace so we can sell 15 items at once?


We had some ideas to tie in the MP limit to achievements - so that after you sold XXX items or XXX gold, you'd get a bump. I still like the idea and I can keep it on the radar. It's not super high priority at the moment.


carbonphyber
Young Master Seke
Is meebo going to get fixed today?
and sometimes I don't get any notifactions for anything, it comes and goes. Is this a bug or somthing?

No word yet on if the Meebo problem is Gaia's issue or Meebo's issue.

There are independent settings for different notifications. Are there periods of time when you get _no_ notifications at all when you clearly should?


siskataya
Self Love
Will the Gaiaonline Moderator 18+ Requirement ever be lowered to 16?

Heya Self Love!

Thanks for the post. Unfortunately, in order to be able to handle certain mature content, moderators have to be 18 years of age or older. Not to worry though, FA's (Forum Assistants) can be 16 years of age or older - this is because FA's do not handle mature content or content that breaks the Terms of Service.

Hope this answers your question!
Sisky


Harbinger of Pandamonium
The Undead Suitor
Harbinger of Pandamonium
Teh Savior
Does lanzer still love ribs.
Is the sky blue?
no its black

because its nighttime

so then I guess he doesnt like ribs anymore
It's not a true black, just a darkdark blue.

Zombie-Lanzer likes all ribs.
Harbinger of Pandamonium
The Undead Suitor
Harbinger of Pandamonium
It's not a true black, just a darkdark blue.
so he kinda likes ribs then? like..maybe only on tuesdays?
You'll have to ask Zombie-Lanzer yourself. Don't worry if he starts gnawing on your skull.


Zero Omega
Fancy Green Tree
Zero Omega
Fancy Green Tree
ANNNND More "we love you posts" being answered instead of the tough questions.
STILL.
At least like everything else with gaia you guys are predicable.
A+++ in that area. blaugh

Some of the questions being asked actually require more discussion amongst the staff here before we actually post an answer. wink Additionally, not everyone here knows the answer to some questions being asked. For example, I know nothing about coding or flash development, so I can't answer any of those. However, it's easy for me to answer a question asking, "I was hacked, what do I do?" Lastly, AtAs typically move incredibly fast and we can't get to all questions right off the bat. gonk

xD
Fair enough I acknowledged all of those factors and respect them but I personally find the ratio of conversational answers and real information to be lacking. Felt the need to point it out wink

Thanks for the answer, and as I mentioned and meant, you guys are if nothing predicable, it has it's downsides but I've grown to expect and even (yes I'm going to admit it) enjoy it. Gives me something to poke at ya'll about.

One could also argue it's fair to the users that we get to the fun questions also because it's their opportunity to chat with us. However, I do see your point. I have seen in the past that a lot more of the serious items get answered closer to the end when things have slowed down.


biglanky14
dizziedobsession
So last week there was mention of the <3 </3 system a few times...
What is being done on the admin side about it? Are you guys constantly discussing the system or do you just know you need to and aren't really?

Also curious: How often do admins go through site feedback and petitions? I posted asking about this a week ago in regards to a post i'd had in site feedback with 100% support. It was something I, as well as others, felt was an easy fix to implement but felt like it would never get seen because the <3's on it weren't bumping it to stay in constant/ public view.

Hi dizziedobsession,

At any point in time we have a lot of stuff that we're discussing - new projects, changes to old ones, bug fixes, etc. Of course there's also current projects we're working on. We prioritize everything based on several factors (user feedback being one of them), and get to as many as we can.

And we read both of those forums constantly smile


biglanky14
Lily-Bell-Cat
HOW DO YOU GET THE NERD ACHIEVEMENT???

Here you go.

But shhhh - don't tell anyone smile
DARKNRGY
Since biglank14 didn't explain - this was attached to an event. There was a challenge where users had to solve a challenge which involved some decryption and other little hacker things. Once the first person solved it, they shared it and everyone in the event went to that link to get it.


Harbinger of Pandamonium
II BlazeoftheCookies II
Harbinger of Pandamonium
II BlazeoftheCookies II
II BlazeoftheCookies II
Hello admin. I hope you are all doing well. This is my first question/comment so I am trying to be very formal.I have been on Gaia since '10 and if I got hacked, I would go to the hacking/scamming report, and I would usually get it up to 3 days time. It was very nice then, but now, I don't know what is happening. I had sumbited a hacking report not too long ago and nothing has happened since. I know your mods are working hard for this site, I get that, but it might be decreasing in production. I just want to get all of my items back. Thank you and I hope you have a nice evening. Note: Please reply to this Dx.

Can you please reply? 4 minutes left..
Hi there,
I don't see any reports filed under your account.

Omg.. I feel stupid. Sorry its on my other account, BlazeEvilHolyGod. Sorry, I was a little caught up on the formal thing >.<

Hi there,
I do see an open scamming report filed for that account, so you'll just have to be patient for now. It hasn't been lost or forgotten.


Lanzer
Le Noire Marionnette
I was wondering, why are there items still around that can't be used? I have several in my inventory, no one wants thm and it won't let me get rid of them.

Generally events or rare items cannot be sold since we want to avoid any accidental deletions, if there's a particular item that should be able to be sold, let us know and we can look into it.


biglanky14
xXNingyoXx
Hello Admins.
This is my first time asking something to you guys.
I have been wondering about this for quite some time now.

What is the point about those cookies and sacred key? The fact you guys haven't made an announcement about it nor giving us details about why they are in our inventory is quite bothersome. I would really like to know why they are in the inventory and what can we use them for?

Also. Is there any other way to delete old accounts on here without having go through the request and all that pointless nonsense?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Hi Ningyo,

The cookies were part of Spring Cleaning last year (they let you vote for your favorite ideas). The keys have a mysterious purpose, most recently rumored to be part of Alchemy.

You do need to file a Delete request, but it should be pretty simple for you to do.


Uncle Kenny
Black Dawn Rose
Which rounds up my final question. Why are you guys always cranking out new items? It seems to me that instead of focusing on new items, you should be putting more effort into new Gaia games and fixing glitches. Honestly, it's kind of silly to have backyard monster and etc when you can make your own things isn't it?

Thank you for your time. I really hope I can get an answer, and I am sorry if you have answered these a million times already!

The Avatar and Item system are the heart of Gaia essentially. We want to make sure everyone has as many possible ways to dress up as possible. Plus, if we never updated that, dressing up would get boring.

Also, the individuals responsible for items are Artists and the ones responsible for games/bug fixes are Developers. These are two separate jobs and neither really overlaps with the other. For example, you would never want me to make an item for you, trust me. But I can fix stuff pretty well!


DARKNRGY
Cain Lucifer Hellbond
Dear Gaia
For a user who has been around for three years and have witness both the good and bad of gaia through my experience. I have noticed that the glitches on gaia has been growing and in worry and concern, I have to also question the ability of moderators. For a while I have been wanting to join the Gaia and yet their application hasn't been giving any chances for me to take that. Though I wonder: Who is really working on the pixel glitches of our avatar items and who is working on the avatar lay out.

Who is it that is really taking the time to evaluate all the problems and actually accomplish what the people of gaia, your customers, the people who play gaia; their problems.
I understand that nothing is easy. But I have to know: What can I do as a gaian person wanting to help in my current state? I am not a gaia moderator: So I can not do much more but follow and respect the t.o.s. and the other gaian members.

What is it that I can do to better benefit; the needs of people as well as gaia.
To be honest: I just want to as well fix the problems that also bug me the most and the people. Cause these glitches seem to be more focused on the real problems of gaia while no one is working on the minor problems that have been an annoyance and has been talked about for years.

Suggesting boxes for rally upgrades seem to be ignored.
The avatar item glitches seem to be rarely fixed; Why my Valhalla (The black armor set) for the male still has a massive green glitch when you put the helmet on and turn around.

Little problems can't be ignored as much as major problems.
What is it that Gaia expects us to understand besides there is patience.

It's hard for me to say if the glitches are increasing or decreasing. We spend a good part of our time resolving bugs. You can help us by providing specifics about glitches in the appropriate forum. Site bugs go in Bug Reports. Avatar glitches go in the thread for that purpose: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/avatar-item-glitch-report-thread/t.69242947/. Keep in mind we have to prioritize the bugs we see - if only one person is seeing a bug, that is going to be less important than one that is effecting a large number of users. It helps us out a great deal if we have good information - like steps to reproduce, your browser info, etc.

Some problems we cannot fix in a practical way. For example Inventory Arranger is basically a big mess and we have to wait until we can actually rewrite the thing to make it work better. We have limitations in the current implementation that prevent us from doing little quick fixes.

Anyhow, one of the main focuses of the management group is to improve the existing experience by fixing bugs and reducing complexity in the way the different pages flow together.


siskataya
Crown Royals
GAIA STAFF please read!!

I have waited very patiently, i filed a ticket on 2/21/12 for my account "Duke Sean" which got perm banned at "Parental request" (thats what the mods told me) even though im 18.. It still says "Work in progress" and its wayy past the 14 business days and i never got a reply. I've checked my email almost everyday and i just feel like you guys don't really care..

I don't know why i got banned, my parents dont know what gaia is, so they couldn't have messaged you guys asking for my ban. :/

Please help me out?

Hello Crown Royals!

Thanks for the post! My apologies for the delayed reply to your ticket. I do care about your issue, it's just taking longer then normal to resolve your case as there are extenuating issues surrounding this situation. I'll reply to that ticket with updated information for you soon - thanks for being so patient!

Be well biggrin
Sisky


biglanky14
ILU 5 EVR
Hi there! I work in the game industry and often chat with players in-game, as well as do a bit of game design. I just want to say props to you guys for having these chats, especially because I know firsthand how frustrating it is when people demand immediate results/don't have the whole picture/etc.

Props to y'all. heart

Thanks - we appreciate it! smile


Lanzer
Maguspaladin
hey gaia staff and admins, just repeating my questions from last time

1.) when the admins announced that the wing formulas would be available to everyone and somewhat expensive to make everyone mainly focused on the 'available to everyone' part so far the formulas themselves are rarer then scarce leaving whatever market listing for them tallying up into the tens of millions and from what I've heard in the ATA in the last few weeks is that the the cost of each step is even more expensive then the formula's themselves, I know the staff and administration stated how they don't want to over flood the market with formula components for fear of pretty much making the items worthless, well not to sound ungrateful or anything But when are you guys going to stop talking about it and start doing something about it? I mean come on every other ATA thread where alchemy is brought up it's always the same old answers

2.) I know that the site has some super sentai / power rangers themed items but is there any chance we can see some Kamen Rider themed items, after all kamen rider celebrated their 40th anniversary during the airing of Kamen Rider OOO and also there's the up and coming super sentai vs kamen rider movie this month, also some more super sentai themed items wouldn't hurt too bad since they also celebrated their 35th anniversary

We are in the process of making components more obtainable, and afterwards we'll look into making formulas more available also. Thanks for your patience.

Ah, we've got quite a lot of Ranger fans in the office but not many Kamen Rider fans unfortunately. Seems to be only myself who actually watched the show... I too hope we'll see more sentai items in the future. Dunno if we have any planned right now.


biglanky14
Purplesnoopy
Taylord_Davie
id like to know how to get my money back ... i was hacked and lost 96K ... T~T
That I can tell you- you need to contact an admin directly and make a complaint so they can open a case file. I believe there are instructions in the FAQ.

OK so my questions:
1. There was at least one new Adventure Time episode this evening. Since you're here with us, it seemed unlikely you go the chance to watch it, but for all i know there could be a TV in the lounge. so, anyone? OH, and is i it true the sword quest will reopen?
2. Is there any possibility we can get some new manga within a month or so? Will Gino's ship ever get a proper name? Is there any chance that, besides Gino, there are other descendants of Titans who're just off the radar? I wondered as Nicu said he doesn't get powerful alchemy effects with "normal people" though it could simply be because Cresento's an elf.
3. The Overseer was stripped of his powers but there are still clams in aquariums. Did the dispersed power take that form when he became human? (You're lucky I try to close your plot holes for you . . razz )
4. Any chance we could get part of the storyline in the form of a "Gaiavania" flash game within the Von Helson mansion or the dark elf area?

Hi Purplesnoopy,

1) No TV where we can see it unfortunately sad And the sword quest might come back later - it's a bit up in the air.

2) (Stays coy on this one)

3) Thank you smile . But I'm not allowed to comment on storyline for fear of unintentional spoilers.

4) That would be awesome if we could pull it off. Highly unlikely, but it would be awesome.


carbonphyber
Tsukiyomi_no_Hannah
Tsukiyomi_no_Hannah
Hellew my lovely admins, just a random question.

I am a HUGE Hunger Games fan, and was wondering why there was never an advertisement/ sponsorship involving the film coming out. Could you not get them to co-op, or did it not occur to you? As a fellow fan of this book series and movie, I find it very disapointing
Reposting, because I feel this needs to be answered.
We had an item grant in the Hunger Games Hot Topic forum but I don't know if it was an official sponsorship.

We can't make movie companies pay for marketing with Gaia =( I've heard it's a book series -- maybe there will be a sequel/trilogy...
DARKNRGY
We're always exploring a bunch of different options for sponsorship. I can't say for sure if we looked into Hunger Games but we're past the point now where it could be done. They have to be set up way in advance. If you have ideas for future sponsorships, post them in AtA or Site Feedback.


Panagrammic
Lord Ravyn The Chosen
Thirteenth Rose

This is way off topic, but fantastic username. My father got me a 13 rose bouquet when I was sick. A dozen white and one red. It's been my fave since.

Fun fact: in Russia it's considered bad luck to give an even number of flowers -- so a bouquet of 13 is much better than an even dozen. (Unless it's for sympathy or funeral or something, in which case you send an even number of flowers).


Zero Omega
Self Love
How would you go about becoming an FA?

We go ahead reach out to users who we think will make potential FAs.


biglanky14
The Asian Alex
Hello just want to know if your planning on ever doing another promagedden? That was my first event i participated in and quite frankly i had a blast just wondering thanks!

Hi,

Honestly, I don't know. We're putting a lot of effort into our events (and trying to do a lot more mini-events), but we can only do so many. Not sure if this one will make the list or not, but stay tuned!


Lanzer
Castiel Lover
Any news on what you're planning to do about the lite fish and their drops?

There are too many of the fish being given out. It is FLOODING our inventories and tanks and the mp.

The items in the drops are useless and they need to be used for the NEEDED alchemy ingredients.

I'll make more adjustments to the payout, and meanwhile we are making some pretty big changes to alchemy, so please hang tight and see what changes are ahead for us.


biglanky14
Novv
Hera
Novv
Stop making items. Seriously. You guys need to sit down and fix your site. More problems have come up in the past 2 or 3 weeks than I've seen in my 3 years of being here.

Houses are a mess, you finally update them and then they turn out to be complete and total crap. The movement is shaky, you can't turn much at all while sitting, they take way too much time to load from useless crap that's buggy and the camera I guess you could call it- doesn't follow very well.

So far all you guys have been doing recently is setting your money grubbing hands to work in creating more and more terrible looking RIGs. I don't even need to think about it in saying that you don't care about the site at all anymore. You only fix parts of the site when there is a large upheaval of complaints from the already dwindling population of gaians. When I joined, The main page's user count was in the seventy thousands consistently. Now it averages just under thirty thousand.

TL;DR

Stop making items, fix all the bugs on gaia, start giving a s**t about your 'Customers' again, start making items again while fixing bugs as they appear. Profit.

I hope you realize that the people who fix bug issues don't make items...unless of course they are multi talented..

I'm sure there are separate groups of people who create, design, and fix etc.

No matter the site issues im sure the Dev's will always be working on new items to bring to gaia online.

The bugs on gaia have nothing to do with them xd

But the staff as a whole hasn't been paying any attention to its problems. I'm pretty sure the people who are supposed to be making sure the site doesn't have any bugs have been dead since 09, when they still sort of gave a crap. It's just incredibly frustrating to see a site I like crumble and deteriorate over time, not by anybodies fault but the creators.

Hi Novv,

We actually spend quite a bit of time fixing bugs and other things that are bothering our users, to the point where we've occasionally delayed work on other things in order to focus on them. I'm sorry that's not translating for you though.
biglanky14
Novv
Thank you so much for at least 1 member of the staff to say something. If you say you are, I'll believe it. It just doesn't feel like it is. Oh well, you guys know more than I do about it so I'll be quiet now. Thank you and good luck.

No problem - if you have your Dev Notices turned on you'll see some of our progress. We don't put everything in there, but a decent chunk of them end up in there.

Have a good one!


Zero Omega
jonjon21428
i hope this will help with your investigation sweatdrop
http://i1012.photobucket.com/albums/af241/litchfield1695/meebo.png
and the March Celebrations Hot Topic is still up..

March Celebrations: Whoops, will be gone in a few.


siskataya
1XxRenxX1
1XxRenxX1
1XxRenxX1
This is my first time participating in this but I have a few questions...

1. Do you think you're ever going to add a feature to the gaia app for iphone to make you be able to go to the guilds area?

2. Do you have any idea when meebo's gonna be back up?

3. Do you think you're going to add a meebo feature to the gaia online app too?

Also on my old account I was perma banned for password phishing when I got hacked. I filled out a report and they said to press the forgot password button on the login page but I never got an email, I checked the spam folder and waited for weeks and still haven't, any help? My old account's name is fileape.

Please reply emotion_kirakira

Heya!

Thanks for the post. I'm not sure what happened, but you were actually sent an account recovery message back in December 2011 when your hacking report was resolved. Your mule account has been ready to use since then - you just need to do use the password recovery system to get into it! You can access that system by going to http://www.gaiaonline.com/account/sendpass/ and following the instructions.

Good luck getting back into your account!
Sisky


DARKNRGY
Lily-Bell-Cat
How do I put videos on my profile? crying


Make sure you are using the new profile system:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/account/profileprefs/ -> Choose Profile -> Current -> Click Save all Changes

Go to your profile

Click Edit My Profile Layout (top right corner)

Click Content in the menu (bottom right)

Click media, close that window

Click edit on the new window, enter youtube address.


biglanky14
Catkid_neo
I have a few questions for you guys if you don't mind taking the time to answer them. cat_3nodding

1. I've noticed how some of the items have been layered a bit oddly, especially the head gear. I want to know if anyone could get around to fixing that.

2. I know you guys have a lot on your hands and I don't know if anyone's still asking this, but could you give us an idea about when the current plot line will be updated? I'm still curious to see what will happen next. cat_ninja

3. I really love the cat-faced emoticons so much! cat_4laugh
If only there are more of them out there... cat_crying

Hi catkid_neo,

1) Our artists try to address as many layering issues as they can, and we appreciate you guys reporting them to us.

2) Soon smile

3) Glad you like them!


Zero Omega
Shinju_hashimfo
Rowan Damia
Are any of the bugs/problems ever gonna be fixed in zOMG?
I have been stuck on the fluff rush for almost two years.

Stuck in the Flfuff Rush - my thread in the zOMG bug forum

They've been working on them for the past week.

Correct, zOMG bugs are still being looked at and on the list. ninja


Lanzer
Geners
How did you like the Hunger Games lanzer?

Last ATA you said you were going to go see it.

I like it, though I can't stop thinking about Battle Royale even though the stories are vastly different. smile I wasn't a fan of the scenes where the hero was in trouble but was "saved by a random person who just happen to be there" type of thing.


biglanky14
dizziedobsession
Question: If I can keep up with the fastness of this, then why is it that still some threads are overlooked and never answered...?

(this on behalf of everyone who has to keep reposting in hopes of getting a reply)

Hi again,

It's because there have already been ~350 posts by our users, and only a handful of us in the office that are reading and then typing out responses as fast as we can. We do our best but there's no way we can answer everything.


Zero Omega
ScarredRavens
Is there going to be an easter event?

Of course! Keep your eyes peeled. ninja


Zero Omega
iPret
Leader Clair
iPret
Will the layering issues of some items ever be fixed?
Are the screwy wishlist sparkles because the list is too big or a coding issue?
Will the trash, bugs and flowers in Towns ever be used to make more than a bouquet?
And what are those danged sacred keys for?
And what if I was hacked years ago but never put up anything about it, anything I can do?
I wish I could remember my old account now. crying
To answer your hacked question, you have to report the hacking within 30 days.
Man I was dumb. Oh well.

In certain exceptions we will take cases older than 30 days, so feel free to report but please, please add a reason as to why you couldn't make it within 30 days. The reason for this is not to be mean, but sometimes if a case is so old, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to actually determine if you actually owned the account.


Zero Omega
frozen angelic moon
is there any justice on a some1 being hacked and account banned these days? i mean reallyi got hacked and taken joy ride for in my past first account it got banned i receive email on it and i got called the hacker in the email to me what kinda justice is that? i justwantto know why admin why did you betray me o.o i don't like term hacker to my name v.,v

You should be reporting a hacking here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/hacking if you got hacked. We take hacking cases seriously and ban any users found hacking others.


Lanzer
BLVCK
Lanzer, what's the most magical experience you've had since creating gaiaonline? what doors has this opened for you in life?

Being at conventions and meeting hundreds of Gaians always feel very surreal. It's always the fact that I get to talk to different people though different walks of life that's special. Working on Gaia also let me make a lot more friends who worked on their own games or website. Being able to share experiences with others is tremendously helpful.


DARKNRGY
Lady Cressida
Dear Admin,

I want address a serious issue that should be look into. I know Gaia does not do perma IP bans from what I was told however, I think in some circumstantial events IP bans should come into play. I am not talking about hacking, but harassment or shall I say Cyber Bullying.

As technology becomes greater with social media's like Facebook, Twitter, etc. cyber bully flourished and has gotten worse. Gaia has a 0 tolerance to harassment on this site from what I understand, however I am sick of hearing the same reply back "Put them on Ignore, Can't do nothing with no evidence, etc" You CAN put them on Ignore, Better yet they "hide" proof they are harassing or play "I am the victim" or "I am innocent" which is all lies. Hard to report someone when they are covering their tracks.

This is why I brought up the IP ban. BAN those who bully innocent people for no reason. Spreading false information to others people that have no relation to the victim, having their friends spam the victim profiles or PMs, and sending them hurtful messages through anonymous means with mules so their main accounts don't get banned.

I personally been dealing with this some time now, so has my friends who don't even know these people. We are tired of being stalked, getting hateful messages through anonymous means, and having false BS spread all over Gaia. Ignore does not do justice I am sorry. They still can stalk your posts, profiles, and friend list. We shouldn't have to run to a corner of Gaia to avoid these people and have them stalking us there. We shouldn't have to keep OUR profiles private or messages/comments to friends only to be at peace with these people.
If Gaia has 0 tolerances to harassment, they should treat cyber bullying seriously. Banning their accounts will not work. They will make another and continue bullying. IP ban will solve that problem.
I am not speaking just me and my friends, but true victims from cyber bullying on Gaia, and what I mean by “true” victims, are those who are not pretending to be the victims when they are the ones harassing others. I will keep posting this until this issue is solved some way to prevent others stalking you without putting a total lock down on everything.

Thank you for reading this.

IP banning doesn't really work as advertised. Some users are on IP addresses that change constantly, others are sharing an IP address so a ban could ban a whole school, etc, it's also possible to go through services that hide your real IP. We do use IP for certain things, but we're limited in what we can do.


biglanky14
Kouru17
Hello Admins!

Gaia sure has changed in these past 7 years~ ('05 Member.) :3

Anyways, my questions:

1. I noticed a lot of things have been updated on Gaia regarding old features, but what about towns? Will there be a towns upgrade? And also, for holiday events such as Halloween or Christmas why not give towns a whole new look instead of the same ones each year? I'm guessing it's because there's no time?

2. Will there be more plots centered around Ian and Louie? o 3o

3. Does Gaia use Autodesk Maya? As in, do any 3D Art? o: I was wondering since I am a 3D Modeling major. ^^;

4. Ever done Paper Art? x3 Random, sorry~ I'm loving the technique haha.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to us! ^^

Hi Kouru17,

1) Yup, we're actually doing a major upgrade of Towns right now. Stay tuned on that - we think we have some pretty fun stuff in there.

2) I've been sworn to secrecy about plot updates smile

3) This I don't know - probably best to PM one of our artists directly smile

4) I have not, but that's because I have exactly zero artistic ability. I can't even draw a straight line.


biglanky14
The Tentacle Lover
This is more of an entertaining question than a pertinent one.

Have any of you recently picked up an old game and gotten sucked back into it? I'm reliving Shadow Hearts and FF8.

Oh yes....Shining Force. One of my favorite RPGs of all time. The iOS version is taking up all of my free time.


Lanzer
A-B0T
I really would like to see an upgrade on the flowers and paper items from Towns. The items they create are worthless and no one ever puts them on their avis. Are there any plans in the distant or near future to reinvent their purpose like you did with the bugs?

We hope to address many of these problems with alchemy though there are many issues that need to resolve within alchemy itself. As we roll out the new version of Towns we'll see about getting new items as well.

Thank you for joining us on this week's ATA! Enjoy the Easter event!


carbonphyber
Novv
You guys need to sit down and fix your site. More problems have come up in the past 2 or 3 weeks than I've seen in my 3 years of being here.
...
When I joined, The main page's user count was in the seventy thousands consistently. Now it averages just under thirty thousand.
Novv
But the staff as a whole hasn't been paying any attention to its problems. I'm pretty sure the people who are supposed to be making sure the site doesn't have any bugs have been dead since 09, when they still sort of gave a crap. It's just incredibly frustrating to see a site I like crumble and deteriorate over time, not by anybodies fault but the creators.
Generous Devil
whats the point of this ask the admins when they aren't caring about stuff

Hi. Thanks for posting in ATA.

The supposition of this is not accurate.

Gaia Developers (with the exception of Events/Sponsorships) are not working on building new features. We've been working on fixing bugs for 6 months straight. We have been posting in the DevNotices every time there is a major issue or public-facing bugfix that we want to announce.

We've tried to prioritize what users want fixed. zOMG is a complicated issue to "fix" and alchemy is a long, on-going process. We're actively fixing inflation in the economy from game abuse, fixing scripter abuses in Flash spaces, security fixes, rewriting thousands of lines of code a day to make code faster, smaller, simpler, etc.

The numbers you are quoting are apples and oranges. We changed the way we count "users online" about ~2 years ago so numbers from before the change don't translate 1:1 to numbers after the change. Also, there was this... recession... that affected all businesses in the USA.

As mentioned, artists (that create items) do not have the ability to code features for Gaia. Different skills are needed and they don't transfer.

Please keep posting in the Bug Reports forum and we will get to your issues as we are able to.

Also, I prefer to think of Gaia's profits more like this:
User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.
but it's sadly not. =(


biglanky14
Ky to the rescue
Hi guys! I think this is my first time making it to one of these.
I was just wondering what happened to Spring Cleaning.
It seems to have been just... forgotten.

And on a related note, the only ones that seem to have progressed past the 5000 cookie mark are ones that have been noted by the developers as the least probable. So does that mean that absolutely nothing's going to come of it?

Hi Ky,

We haven't forgotten it, although we do need to close that up. We've already done some of the things that are on the front page, and have a few more that we're exploring at the moment.
Zero Omega
With regards to Spring Cleaning, we're still looking into all the possible things we can do. No guarantees we can get to all of them, but it's data we're still interested in.

IN AFTER LANKY! gonk


biglanky14
bbiram
Hi and Thanks for all the fun I'm having.

Is there a New Users to Gaia Guide anywhere on the site? With pictures for those of us who might need a bit of extra help with those big explanations.

Awesome - welcome!

If you haven't already, check out the Welcome to Gaia forum here. There's some good stuff in there.


carbonphyber
SteffaDOTnet
What is the max amount of items you can have with 1 account?
There is no code-limit, but users start to get problems using the site at around 20k items.


DARKNRGY
SG6
Good Evening Gaia Staff & Admins,
I have a problem with bid blast today....I was bidding on bom bom the bunny today & it said I won the aucution & that I was the top bidder on bom bom the bunny then the bid blast page or the website page itself stop working on me so I had to close & reopen the tab & when it did it said that the aucutioning for bom bom the bunny was still going this happened to me twice today stressed sweatdrop & I thought about going to the marketplace to buy the item itself cause i have horrible luck with playing the chance items like love charm III & it was 44 million on the marketplace for it & i cant pay that or even pay a million for the item & most memebers on here that are selling bom bom the bunny wont take trades or other bargaining.Bom bom the bunny is basically my most favorite item on here & it breaks my heart that this happened crying & that i cant just buy it or the chance item to win bom bom. Why did this happened to me today with bid blast? & why wont youins fix this glitch or problem with bid blast? & have youins consider changing bid blast to where it doesnt keep adding 30 seconds when a new bid comes in on that item-that the timer just keeps going until it runs out or at least add 1 second each time someone bids or a new bid comes in? dont you think that would be fairer to the memebers on here & give them a better chance on winning that item?

There is a bug, but it only effects the display of the information. If there is a network glitch or if the timing works out badly, sometimes it says you won when you didn't. We know about the bug and plan to work on it when we get a chance.


biglanky14
Thanks again to everyone for coming to the ATA! We answered as many questions as we could, and apologize to anyone who didn't get answer.

Hopefully we'll see you here again next week!

Eloquent Informer

37,875 Points
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Quote:
You could just make an unrelated post to fill up the page and make it so the next two posts are together. Even if you delete it, it'll count.
Ooh, that sounds like a plan. Yeah, I think I'll do that.

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