A question fore everyone who joined before 2009. :)

[Rikumay-chan]

I just played the basic games because wen i first joined they didn't even have zomg

[the fluke]

pretty much bumping. gold was worth much more back then, though.

[HINApon]

I remember selling some bad avi art (I apologize for anyone who bought it) bumping and poll whoring. I also sold some old seasonal items (christmas stuff and such) at marketplace.

[[Atsui]]

I had an avi art shop on my original account.

It's probably telling just how long ago it was that I charged only 2000g for a fully colored full avi pic.

[xLexC7x]

I was addicted, I did everything!
But before Gaia I was on neopets, earned millions of munies (Idk how) but I trade my millions for a few Gaia items, one I remember was a lunar scythe. I was temporarily banned for 2 weeks. O: I was a bad girl.

Back then I wanted a Katana, 60k and a Chyaku Norisu scarf, 40k. So items didn't cost nearly as much.

But yeah when the cash shop came out I bought some cash used it to buy the cheapest thing, sold it in the marketplace for 900k each, like 30 times? Yes I used to be rich!
Then I tried to quit Gaia, gave all my stuff away and now I'm back so I'm poor girl O:

[Perverse]

I remember making a HUGE amount of money selling letters (sort of) in Nov. 2003. The letters didn't have placeholders at the time, so if you donated you'd get a letter the day the items released (at the time it was at the end of the month), so it was kind of a risk paying someone gold to donate for you. I remember selling my slots at a reasonable 2500 gold.

I made pixel dolls, voted in polls, tried to be an exchanger...The first money I made at all was after Gaia's first server rollback, where they gave everyone 1k for the inconvenience. If they hadn't given me that gold I probably wouldn't have stayed (getting items was indeed hard).

[Avaline Fitheach]

Mostly stuff like zOMG!. Believe it or not, zOMG! actually had a much higher gold payout than it does now, so "dedicated player" generally used to mean "in it for bucketloads of easy gold". It also was pretty common to see people playing the marketplace's lil' song'a'dance to make mountains of gold on expensive items by watching the market fluctuations like they were the real life stock market.

[Lustful Toxin]

I vent.

[Skyeclops]

I started in 2008, and got gold by posting.

[ChAiNsOnChAoS]

I would say that things back then weren't as expensive as they are now so inflation has changed things. Back then I think the most expensive item I wanted was the ancient katana and that wasn't even a million back then. Now items seem to reach the millions easily and it's sad. I joined back in 2008 by the way ^^ even zOMG wasn't out yet back then. It came a little later as a beta. XD

[Siphoviridae]

I was here before any of the games existed. To be honest, I miss the days when you got gold primarily through posting. As has been stated, that was kind of the whole point, gold as incentive for interaction. I've never paid actual money for cash items, and now I feel like I'm spending a silly amount of time watching the same advertisements over and over and over. I miss pre-ad-infested Gaia. The constant ad sponsorships have gotten to be too much.

[felixtheswordsman]

When I joined in '03 all we had was posting and trying to buy/sell in the marketplace forum (absolute chaos).

[iExterminate]

When I joined in '05 it was still hard to earn 9k for the fox tail and ears and I basically just posted the hell out of the cb and then I went on hiatus for a bit. sweatdrop
But for the expensive items like the monthly collectables, I used to save up all my change and mail it to Gaia. lol $5.00 in quarters, nickles, and dimes. lol Such a heavy envelope lol

[ContraSprite]

Gold was worth a lot more back then but there were still ways to get it. I remember when the games came out and I would do black jack all the time. Tickets were worth a ton so I'd just go sell them in the market. I would also play the market a lot by buying items for less and selling them for more. But that was also before they added the 2% tax to the market, it's not as easy now but you can still make a lot if you go to the exchanges. :3

[Lilithiann]

Thelisis

Little Fuzzy Bunneh

Thelisis

Little Fuzzy Bunneh

I mostly posted a lot and would lurk Towns for gold

Lol, YES! lurk is the perfect word!
emotion_bigheart

Oddly enough, I don't think I added lurk to my vocabulary until I came to gaia

Hah, well you did have to lurk around a lot - waiting for those damn giftboxes to show up gonk
emotion_bigheart

omg ikr! They were like unicorns!
Now they are a little more common, but there's different gift boxes to get :3