Gaia's communication?

[Godess The Hyper Fangirl]

I had fears about soulbinding when it first came out. I honestly did. Things like this do not change that fear. I knew that soulbinding zOMG things would not help the profit, and low and behold there are clues that there is a struggle. A lot of people play the market, and thus soulbinding eliminates the money coming from those people. It's really one of the reasons I don't play zOMG(the other being I play MMOs alone and in zOMG it's beneficial to have a group). It was said they didn't want people paying their way through the game and that's why they at first soulbound rings, but really instead of paying with gold you're paying with cash. I know I could still try and get through the game without it, but honestly it'll be a pain in the a**. I've heard some bosses it's pretty much a must to have the power ups. It was a domino effect.

However on to the main topic and away from the backstory, hiding it makes me feel even worse with that fear. I know the reason for the OMGaia! forum, for example, was to communicate. However, how often do people leave their home forums? And I know the reason I don't go in is because I'm still a bit bitter about the name >> Nevermind going into the zOMG or Aquariums forum to find stuff.

I feel like I'm rambling @_@

[hermie_the_frog]

The action pack soulbinding doesn't worry me because of the lack of communication, much. What I am worried about is that this is the first step towards Zomg becoming a pay-to-play game. I made a thread discussing this already, but basically, I find it a little too convenient that the last chance to get power-ups without cash was cut off right as they gave us BAB in the game. I don't want this to be true. If a dev or some higher-up just stopped by my thread and said, "Relax, Zomg won't become pay-to-play, we swear," I'd be happy and close the thread. (Of course I'd keep the quote for later in case they go back on their word.) You're right, communication does suck. We need more site-wide announcements and less site-wide announcements for stupid stuff like SaySwap. That one particularly irritates me since they posted the damn thing FIVE OR SO TIMES! I digress.

[Jayce Reinhardt]

hermie_the_frog

The action pack soulbinding doesn't worry me because of the lack of communication, much. What I am worried about is that this is the first step towards Zomg becoming a pay-to-play game. I made a thread discussing this already, but basically, I find it a little too convenient that the last chance to get power-ups without cash was cut off right as they gave us BAB in the game. I don't want this to be true. If a dev or some higher-up just stopped by my thread and said, "Relax, Zomg won't become pay-to-play, we swear," I'd be happy and close the thread. (Of course I'd keep the quote for later in case they go back on their word.) You're right, communication does suck. We need more site-wide announcements and less site-wide announcements for stupid stuff like SaySwap. That one particularly irritates me since they posted the damn thing FIVE OR SO TIMES! I digress.

That was the exact thought I had each time we saw Sayswap.

They can repeat that several times but they can't let us know that the things we received with Cash cards would be soulbound?

Why is say swap more important than letting us know that the things we paid for with real money all of a sudden developed restrictions after several months of being able to buy them with no problem.

Gaia is the only site I know of that soulbinds things in user accounts.
If there is another site that does I do not know about it.

[Jayce Reinhardt]

legal bump

[street horrrsing]

I wonder if they are breaking a law by not telling you on the cash card that it will be soulbound...? That is troubling.

They have been very bad at communication for a long time now. They propose things to us, such as splitting General Discussion, and then we never hear anything about it again. I know it's a bad economy and they're probably over-worked, but it seems like more of an inefficiency problem!

[Galvatron]

I'd like to mention another example of important communication:
The Raffle Tickets that were so generously given out recently now have winners!
But no announcement about them.
They got a Spotlight, but it seems like the kind of thing that would warrant a full-blown announcement.
Many people spent time wondering what to do with the tickets, let alone when we'd be notified of winners. IMO the Spotlight didn't seem like it should have been the place for such a big site "event"

[Jayce Reinhardt]

Legal bump

@Galvatron, I have added that to the first post.

[Enix Ona Demonie]

I truly must agree.

Although all of the things you have stated does not affect me, it affects majority of Gaia and I can't overlook it.

I was angry for about 10 seconds on Friday, seeing how the Pearl, Vials and Reve was yet again delayed. I truly hate it when the SF explodes, pissed off about delayed items (In which I stay away now). This can EASILY be fixed by being organized and writing a single sentence or two, explaining WHY the EIs were delayed. It would save time for Devs from making journal entries and even posts.

With the zOMG items, I knew for awhile. I get bored so I browse the forums and notice stuff. The GCD is also a great resource... but Gaia REALLY needs to make announcements about them. Some people who don't even play zOMG are affected by the lack of communication. Its why I don't buy zOMG items in the Cash Shop anymore... that and I'm at the highest level.

[Rya Dracosin]

Gaia has always, in my view, had a BIG trouble with communication. They thought putting up a special forum where you could subscribe to threads there would be enough, apparently. But here's the thing, you can't subscribe to a forum to know when new topics/stickies/announcements are placed, and i don't think there are many users who'd really WANT to know when ever someone posted they had a hernia in chatterbox, or what devin's real favorite color is in GCD. Knowing full well there are people who actually go to those forums.

But when it comes to things like changes to their cash cards, they can cover their asses with "rules subject to change without notice" bullcrap all they want, but they change the rules without notice, they'll lose trust of their user base. Sure there will be new people who jump into it first knowing these things, but they'll lose their old userbase...or most of it...or at least part of it.

Let me point out that i'm not talking about gaia as a whole. But those who's sole responsibility it is to control the things i speak of. Where are they in response to things like this. They let others handle their dirty work of trying to talk to us. Which i respect those people for, but seriously, i'd like to hear from teh people in charge of making such moves without thinking how this'd affect the people who are...affected... rofl

Gaia, are you trying to phase out your old users? Are you trying to push us away so you can have your new hip facebook/myspace style Gaia? I feel, to me, that is what you're doing. The new people may not all care about these changes, because they come in with these already in place.

All i really am asking is that we see announcements, REAL ANNOUNCEMENTS on what is to change about the cash cards, soulbinding, items purchased with cash, ect. the people who signed up for text announcements, well that was their choice, if they don't want text spammed with announcements, then they can turn them off. But your userbase really needs to know and understand what is going on. Please and Thank You.

[Malignant Virus]

Gaia was never really good at communication.

Yes. It got so bad to the point where I actually accepted it.

[Koniji]

hermie_the_frog

The action pack soulbinding doesn't worry me because of the lack of communication, much. What I am worried about is that this is the first step towards Zomg becoming a pay-to-play game. I made a thread discussing this already, but basically, I find it a little too convenient that the last chance to get power-ups without cash was cut off right as they gave us BAB in the game. I don't want this to be true. If a dev or some higher-up just stopped by my thread and said, "Relax, Zomg won't become pay-to-play, we swear," I'd be happy and close the thread. (Of course I'd keep the quote for later in case they go back on their word.) You're right, communication does suck. We need more site-wide announcements and less site-wide announcements for stupid stuff like SaySwap. That one particularly irritates me since they posted the damn thing FIVE OR SO TIMES! I digress.

» What's sad about what I bolded is partially why the action packs became soulbound. I don't remember how far back this announcement was (probably after the easter event) that mentioned a way for players paying to ADVANCE in the game. I think that the purpose of the power-ups were changed due to that new goal.

As for soulbinding the action packs, it wasn't done before. ONLY individual ring polishers, superchargers, and orb doubles were soulbound regardless of them being granted in-game, bought through the cash shop or through a cash card. This was considered by Qixter as "the worst update of the worst updates to come up" and was done to prevent the mistake of the christmas event when a lot of these were granted. I can understand it's in beta, but why weren't ALL the RINGS soulbound before touching the polishers/superchargers/orb doubles when they're more helpful for users who can't access gaia cash? That makes no sense to me, I think, unless it was done for $$$.

A similar thread about the soulbinding that's been talking about in this thread can be found here in the SF (so you know that others are annoyed by it, too): http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/zomg-action-pack-soulbinding-fail/t.53983455_1/. You make lots of good points, OP. Thing is, zOMG! doesn't make enough money to gather enough profit, which can be told by the price lowering for the buffers. Null fragments: $0.25 > $0.10 > non-existant (can still be traded for rings/orbs) > WORTHLESS. The same might come around for the buffers, but who knows?

Rya Kaiski

Gaia has always, in my view, had a BIG trouble with communication. They thought putting up a special forum where you could subscribe to threads there would be enough, apparently. But here's the thing, you can't subscribe to a forum to know when new topics/stickies/announcements are placed, and i don't think there are many users who'd really WANT to know when ever someone posted they had a hernia in chatterbox, or what devin's real favorite color is in GCD. Knowing full well there are people who actually go to those forums.

» YES. I'd love that feature very much, especially in OMGaia! But not just thread subscriptions (hardly reliable for real-time updates), but able to send us emails. Other forum softwares have this feature, so I'd wish for it. Not even zOMG!'s twitter mention anything about soulbinding, unless it was in a "deleted" announcement.

「 コニジ 」

[LelouchviBritannia_Zero2]

uh, okay. question neutral

[Jayce Reinhardt]

Please do not spam in my thread, thank you.