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Destructive Bunny

Sign the petition to continue development for zOMG!

___THE_DRAMA___
I figured that compiling a thread that links everything together would be helpful for those who are confused or don't play zOMG. Since this incident is ongoing the thread is a work in progress. 

This is also a skeleton thread, meaning in order for it not to be a huge wall of text and drama, only the basic information are composed. 
For details it is highly recommended that you read all the links.

_____HISTORY_____
zOMG is Gaia's MMO game, released in late 2008 and is currently three and a half years old. By thanksgiving 2010 the zOMG dev team has been reduced to 4-5 people. About a year and half ago we started getting information from the devs that zOMG is in trouble, and unless the players all rallied to support it, it will become a unsustainable game. At this time only one dev was left on the team. Many users dug deep into their pockets and bought zOMG Gaia Cash items.

Example of a support zOMG thread + more info
_____________________________________________________________________


____BEGINNING____
On the 17th of Feb the news broke that zOMG no longer had any staff left and will no longer be updated. The last dev will be leaving to work on a new FB game.
Screenshot of the dev meet announcement:
[1] [2] [3]

Announcement thread by JK on what is happening with zOMG
_____________________________________________________________________


__THE_MOVEMENT__
When the players heard about this news they campaigned hard for those in charge to reconsider and make zOMG a viable asset to Gaia. They wanted to know how much would have to be paid to keep zOMG updated, as well as other key essential questions.
An open letter to Gaia was written, a dozen more followed.
An Open Letter to Gaia

Here's a comprehensive list of other threads users posted about in Site Feedback forum and Gaia Community Discussion forums.
What Others Have Said About zOMG!'s Situation
Update! A newer version of this compilation list has been created.
Collection of zOMG awareness threads
_____________________________________________________________________


_THE_ATA_MEETING_
On 22nd of Feb the admins held an "Ask The Admin" session, where Gaians were invited to freely ask admins and other Gaia staff questions. Predictably, zOMG's future was the hot topic. This session of ATA was 28 pages, an average session of ATA is 3-8 pages.
ATA session thread for 22nd of FEB

Now 28 pages is a lot to read, so here's a summary of most posts relating to zOMG by Gaia staff.
Missed the ATA? Here's What the Admin Had To Say

A pretty grim and depressing tale is painted of zOMG's financial viability as well as its popularity and future.
_____________________________________________________________________


THE_TRUTH_REVEALED
Swarf of the zOMG developers who has been there from the inception of the game revealed the truth. Dated early morning of 23rd Feb.

Basically:
zOMG is a viable game financially, it brings in more revenue than it costs to run it.
When zOMG is given an update, revenue also increases.
zOMG was never marketed and advertised heavily, therefore it had no player base outside of Gaia. Whether it can attract large amount of people or not has not been tested. This is due to the high cost of advertising a MMO.
Key zOMG staff were not invited to a meeting that discussed zOMG's future right before the ATA event.

Members of the zOMG community dressed up as pirates or in pirate hats in support of swarf.

This thread is no longer available for viewing due to its nature, however I can be PMed for more information for anyone who wants to know.

A follow up explaining why the thread was removed and user responses is here. Thread is now locked and can only be viewed.
Swarf, where'd your thread go?
_____________________________________________________________________


_DAMAGE_CONTROL_
It took almost a day but an official response from Gaia's admin appeared. The severe differences between the ATA meeting and the dev's now deleted thread was explained as a viewpoints issue. Dated evening 23rd Feb.

This thread was open to responses but now has been locked.
zOMG Update
_____________________________________________________________________


FOLLOWUP_RESPONSE
On 24th of Feb a follow up announcement of the situation is posted. The thread is clearer than previous responses however there is nothing new. One thing can be confirmed.

zOMG's development has died for real, and will not be revived.

We can all hold a funeral service now.

The thread is open and can be posted in, however it has lost it's "sticky" status as of 28th of Feb.
Follow up on zOMG from the admins
_____________________________________________________________________


____z!F_EFFORT____
Petiele is organising a meeting of all parties with an interest in zOMG, to discuss the latest developments.
The Official Unofficial zOMG Saving Meat (& discussion)

The first meeting was held, 2 members of the dev team, swarf and s2b2 also attended.
Points raised in the meeting are summed up in this post.

UPDATE: A second user meet has been held with ways of promoting zOMG outside of Gaia discussed, Tumblr blog and tags, and twitter accounts for zOMG has been made, for more information go to petiele's thread.
_____________________________________________________________________


___THE_2ND_ATA___
ATA meeting was held 27th of Feb. It was 44 pages long.
ATA meeting thread

Things of relevance are:
They might hire a new contractor to work on DMS glitches.
Pan has asked about a list of all glitches. Berryfarmer has started a thread here.
Sitewide/ingame client announcement was asked for, but brushed aside.
Fundraising target to save zOMG was asked for, and rejected.
We are still waiting for the news on the BB tickets.

In preparation for the next ATA, here's a thread to gather all your questions.
Formulating Questions for the Next ATA

Here are some ATA feedback threads.
Opinion on ATA?
Well, it took 43 pages, but I got a reply in the ATA.

Here is a thread that compiles every staff response during the ATA, includes non-zOMG related questions.
AskED the Admin
_____________________________________________________________________


___BUG_REPORTS___
Pan has clarified that halzy will be the dev to tacking zOMG glitches.
Panagrammic
The contractor we're working with is an experienced zOMG dev (halzy). He was also instrumental to getting DMS out.

DARKNRGY has created a new sticky asking for documentation and system info regarding known glitches.
Bug Reports
_____________________________________________________________________


_DEV_MEAT_3RD_MAR_
Summary of the latest Dev Meat. Thanks Petit!
Petit Marionette
Summary: JK warped all of us into the coliseum where we fought a bunch of ginormous animated for a good half hour before we died, and then he spawned a 13.0 NF which killed us all repeatedly. We eventually got it down to just 2k health, but then it kept regening back to full until we had all used up our revives and were exhausted. Kuzuan joined us for the fun, and it was a total blast!

We didn't do much talking, but the points of interest were that JK said there might be an announcement regarding zOMG on Monday and they had a meeting today to talk about the game (but he couldn't divulge any details), he doesn't know if the new game he's working on will have a flash space conducive to meats, and he may be at the AtA on Monday.

Lesser points of interest were that JK snores when he sleeps, but does not drool, and he last saw Kuzuan irl last Christmas.

Thanks for the great evening, JK and Kuz!

Petit Marionette
Oh yeah, a couple other things: JK said they will try to hire someone to fix some of the major bugs in zOMG, but they're not sure if they'll be able to get him or not. I asked if they could recycle the Easter event, and JK said they COULD, but likely won't, because Swarf is the only one who can do it, and he's really busy.

_____________________________________________________________________

__CURRENT_STATUS__
Currently the situation is as follows:
- We WILL be having a recycled Easter event this year.
- Users who bought BB tickets with GC can get a GC or real money refund by filing a billing ticket with the sales department. Or a 300k gold refund by sellback function in their inventory.
- The huge list of zOMG glitches and bugs are being worked on @_@ YAY!
- Swarf has been working on a script to automatically cycle servers, but he needs more dedicated time to do it.
- Lanzer is looking into the broken daily chance grants in zOMG. Now fixed.
- Broken badge tooltips got fixed. When you visit someone's profile with badges, you can see when they got them.
- It's unlikely that a site wide announcement of zOMG's current status would be released anytime soon.
_____________________________________________________________________

Last updated in May, 2012, I won't be updating anymore as it seems fixing glitches has been dropped again and nothing much else is happening.

Fashionable Prophet

Thanks gurl.

Questionable Genius

You might wanna put a note in there about why we're all dressing as pirates. A lot of people in other forums have wondered that, even after I explained what is going on.

Conservative Wrangler

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Thanks indeed!

Invisible Consumer

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This was posted 4:21am, so since last night it was said tomorrow more would be revealed wouldn't that be today then? Ha ha. Yes I am getting all technical on you.

Time-traveling Marshmallow

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would it be needed to say that thanksgiving 2010 staff was cut down to about 4-5?

just if you think that would be helpful with part of the history.. ^^;;;

Destructive Bunny

Amended as suggested, thanks guys! heart

Opinionated Bookworm

People are dressing as pirates for something? WHY HAVE I NOT HEARD??///

Enigmatic Duelist

Desirable Cat

-Debates PMing link to this thread to all her zOMG buddies like she did for the cookie one in Spring cleaning...- gonk

That took a lot of time, and the Slow down! Too fast! shnizz about PMing too quick grated on my nerves... But this thread wraps up pretty nicely what has been happening recently and in the past. If nothing else, in my crews I'll be sure to direct those who aren't aware of what zOMG is going through to your thread. Thanks for taking the serious amount of time to organize it all.

-Gets on to her pms~~~!- It may take me a few days... But I'll get them to all my zOMG friends in time!! emotion_kirakira Not everyone goes on the forums(ANY forum) at all. So if you're a player and don't frequent either z!F, GCD or SF... You're outta the loop majorly unless other players inform you.

Destructive Bunny

Nissa chan


Thank you Nissa ^^ a lot of the international players don't go on the forums much, and a lot of my friends just zOMG too much to go on forums :3

It's a great idea, I will send some PMs too.

Rindul's Fav

Shady Shapeshifter

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*subscribes*

Stellar Hunter

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this is not my best pirate avi..but i did what i could to support the cause!
Nissa chan
-Debates PMing link to this thread to all her zOMG buddies like she did for the cookie one in Spring cleaning...- gonk

That took a lot of time, and the Slow down! Too fast! shnizz about PMing too quick grated on my nerves... But this thread wraps up pretty nicely what has been happening recently and in the past. If nothing else, in my crews I'll be sure to direct those who aren't aware of what zOMG is going through to your thread. Thanks for taking the serious amount of time to organize it all.

-Gets on to her pms~~~!- It may take me a few days... But I'll get them to all my zOMG friends in time!! emotion_kirakira Not everyone goes on the forums(ANY forum) at all. So if you're a player and don't frequent either z!F, GCD or SF... You're outta the loop majorly unless other players inform you.

Thank you for the pm. Currently working on doing the same. I'll change my avi shortly. =]

IRL Vampire

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