Welcome to Gaia! ::

Personally, I am not upset that it had to go. It was quite obvious that the game wasn't going to last. Not because there wasn't a lot of people playing it, but because of the lack of staff members actually caring for it. Since GaiaOnline management team had laid off or fired devs of Zomg and even some devs quit themselves (I think) it was no surprise that Zomg was going down hill. Uncle Kenny is the last staff before leaving Gaia who attempted to fix any issues on Zomg. Ever since then, it was clear that the game was going to be neglected.

However, it's how the staff and management of Gaia handled the situation of Zomg that made me upset. They may have attempted to fix the site, but let's face it, it was clear there was no going back. You had heavily neglected the game. There was no new actual stuff for the game and updates were a "once-in-a-blue-moon."

Then with the whole announcements explaining that Zomg was being closed down for a while to repair stuff has been past a month already. Take a look fellow users and staff who may be reading:

show spoilerhide spoiler

This was it, this was all you gave to us, users, about the maintenance. You made people believe that Zomg was coming back. I would have understood a bit more had you warned us about how hard the situation truly is, especially because (let's face it) you didn't have the proper devs to do the job. Not to mention that it was taking so long, a month to be exact.

Then you finally leave us with this announcement:

11/06/2014

As many of you know we shut down zOMG! to perform critical repairs to the game servers. Particularly we were addressing some critical vulnerabilities in the server infrastructure. We could not give a specific repair completion date because the extent of what systems the repairs would make to the game were unknown. Sadly, the changes needed were extensive and due to both hardware and Engineering limitations we had to make the tough call not to proceed. This means our beloved zOMG! MMO will not be making a triumphant return.

We will have an update for you next Wednesday regarding recipes, your existing rings, and other zOMG exclusive elements. To all of our loyal zOMG'ers, we wish to thank you for years of loyal support. Over the next couple weeks we will be holding various contests to help commemorate and celebrate your favorite moments in the game. In fact, we have our first one starting, just check it out below! zOMG! was an exciting journey into a whole new world of fun and excitement.

Announcement can be found here.

It was absolutely no surprise for me, but at the same time I was pretty disappointed how it was handled. It took you a month to tell us this. A month to simply explain the issues you were facing. A month of having users' hopes 'weee' high.

You said, and I quote, "Sadly, the changes needed were extensive and due to both hardware and Engineering limitations we had to make the tough call not to proceed." Now if you knew that you didn't have the proper hardware and engineering to begin with (because this is something that should have been brought up prior to fixing or updating a game in general), why were you unable to give us a proper heads up about this prior to this announcement? I'm sure this was figured out midway through October, unless you had postponed the fixing to the game since it took you a month to tell us that you had to shut down Zomg completely.

However, I was also slightly fishy about this. During the maintenance, you had also stated that you closed down the shop for Zomg so that no one would make purchases for the game since it was going to be down for maintenance. Why would a store be shut down for a game that was only suppose to go under maintenance? This is one of the other reasons that led me to believe that Zomg was most likely not going to continue.

As I said, I had no hopes of it coming back. In fact, I expected it. The game was severely neglected and the developers for the game no longer worked for GaiaOnline. But I was disappointed in how it was handled.

Feel free to make any extra points or opinions to this thread. However, refrain from insulting a staff or a user on this. I was this to be a clean thread. Thank you.

Agreed! Some direct responses would be nice.

When I worked Front Desk for a hotel I often found that just that was enough to reassure upset guests, even if a solution wasn't possible. If there is a reasonable explanation. most people will accept it, if they can only hear it.

"Least said soonest mended" is not the proverb for this mood.

I never cared about zOMG. I played it maybe a handful of times, but from a business standpoint, and heck even from a basic rational standpoint, you do not make promise after promise and reassure people a product will be back and then scrap it.

That's what has me angry atm.

Thank you for posting it. I'm somewhat upset with the community in that they are naive in thinking that the same thing won't happen with other features next too. Alchemy will be next to go and then probably guilds, fishing, and rallies. At some point there will be nothing left but a cash shop left on the site. I mean it's a shock that forums are even still around since it isn't profitable either and probably takes a ton of server space and expenses to run anyway. I'm very sad about zOMG! and won't be staying. zOMGaians have already been lied to enough, so this just added to the large mountain of lies told to the community. Mavdoc a former artist for the game I think expressed it the best. You know things are bad if one of the nicest Gaians on the site starts cussing. As an accountant, I don't see the site lasting longer than a year now. zOMG! may have been small, but it had a lot of cash spenders that liked to show off their avatar in the game. With them gone, the rest of the community will feel the effect of the further cash push, so good luck guys and enjoy the rocky ride. I already told my brother about the news and he was like, "Yeah I'm so glad I left when I did. Gaiaonline cannot survive if they keep removing features. But I'm sad that zOMG! is gone." I will be joining Dota 2 with him at least. I added some friends on Skype as well. zOMG! may be gone, but the community will find a home elsewhere and I hope that my friends and I can agree upon a new home.

The way you worded all of this is perfect. I have been here since '04 and seen the site go through a lot of changes, and I can say that I will miss zOMG. I understand that it may not have been possible to fix though, and I am not furious that it is gone, just sad that I will miss it. However, the communication was not handled well. And I think the worst part about it was that immediately following both of these zOMG announcements, there were several cash shop announcements. I used to love buying my monthly letters, but this is just way too much, and they didn't even give a moment for the dust of zOMG to settle.

From the moment I saw that the shop Gcash feature was closing was sign enough for me that something shady was underway.
I am quite disappointed as well how ZOMG! was handled. A game that was used quite frequently deserved a much better end than "Oh hey! We're taking this away for maintenance that we don't think we can do, but hey we're telling you that it is all gravy because we think it will be all right!"

Heck, Cartoon Network handled the closing of FusionFall way better and CN sucks when it comes to their games closing down.