Ask the admin (04/29/2013)

[Lanzer]

Hello everyone, ATA will start at 5pm today. Before that, I just wanted to share with all of you a message from us:

Last week was a tough week for all of us as we had to say goodbye to many of the staff members here in Gaia HQ. Those individuals were not only staff members but some of our closest friends, so there have been a lot of sleepless nights and high emotions for many of us. We've been partners in building such great features for Gaia, and it's tough to say goodbye to people we have grown to love.

The downsizing which happened last week was an unfortunate necessity of needing to balance our budget. Our new CEO Gary had a tough decision to make - he had to decide how many staff members we can afford to retain given the amount of revenue Gaia makes. Unlike Gaia Online (with dedicated members like you as our audience), not all of our new projects have turned out to be as successful as we anticipated. When projects don't turn out as well as expected, a company has to review the situation, and take steps to ensure the budget is balanced, and that the company is in a good position to continue going forward. As painful as last week's downsizing was, it was done in order to ensure that Gaia continues to remain a viable and vibrant community.

Please know that Gary, and all of us in the Gaia Online office, feel the strong presence of the Gaia Online community. Gary did what he could to prevent interruption of Gaia Online's features. As a result, all the engineers who had been programming for Gaia Online currently are all here, and dedicated to continuing to support the current site as well as creating the next set of features, events, and various updates.

One thing we want you to be aware of is this: We've heard your feedback, and the focus moving forward will be even more towards our Gaia Online community, and working to continue maintaining and growing this amazing site. We've made the decision to put less focus on multiple game titles, and the consolidation of teams (such as Heralds of Chaos) is what happened last week. While we aren't going to say that we'll never work on other off-site projects again, the focus is back on you, our loyal Gaia community.

We do understand that even though some team members had been working on these new game titles in the past years, most of these staff members had produced great features in the past, and their contributions will be missed and shall always be remembered. All staff members here at Gaia treat each other like family. And although this event is painful for us, we are friends forever and for many of us our paths will cross again at one point or another. Gaia is still a big family today, with over 50 staff members, dedicated to making things fun for all of you.

[jonjon21428]

Happy Monday AtA,
It is very unfortunate that our staff was cut but I hope we all can eventually get through these tough times together. heart

Towns 2
I hear the team is almost finished with the next major update. Codemonkey already posted some of the future plans of Towns 2, up to 2015. I was wondering if weather, such as rain, is possibly on that list of plans?

zOMG!
Any bug updates?
Also any idea when those achievements will be rolled out?

Etc.
A SDPlus Marshall? ninja

[Sextans]

#26

Having a drop menu to select friends only / public like the gifting system would be nice and would help prevent Unauthorized Trades. I assume they made the gifting system like that because way to many people were getting gifted hacked items and admins would ban all of them which took out a lot of users.


Is there anyway we can get a setting that would allow us to block and/or enable trades?

Sometimes we just accept any unlabeled trade without thinking about the consequences.
We think its a "Tip" or just a random trade with a donation of gold.
yet 3 months later our account is warned, locked,or banned due receiving that insignificant or enormous amount of gold.


Sometimes we don't even receive warnings,we just get banned. I've seen it before in the forums from several people wrongfully banned that spend almost a year trying to get it back
because it takes forever for someone to go through IP's that have accessed the account and trade history.

#26-1 Adding more safety features to the site can only benefit the users ,so I ask you-can we please get a setting for trades like that on accounts settings page?


ps. Z.O.
i was thinking about it actually. and as you can see im not here to complain , i am here to give Solutions. heart

[Maggot]

How's that facial hair coming along, Lanzer?

[RafiCat]

There's a rumor that there is a 1 million gold payout possible in the zOMG! Daily Chance... is this true?
If so, what are the odds? Has anyone ever gotten it?

[Platonix]

USEFUL LINKS

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AskED the Admin: Answer Compilation (built and maintained by yours truly)

[Lizmay]

Please bring back Panagrammic! Please!
Gaia won't ever be the same without him!

[Ma Ajmala]

how is everyone tonight

4th time in a row on page 1 cool

[ChaosTrooper]

Hello ATA! heart

I just wanted to know if there were any plans to ever make an SDPlus Bogie?
Since there are already SDPlus versions of Bibbles and Cookie Boots, I thought it would be made eventually.

Also because Bogie reminds me very much of my cat Sassy who passed away last month due to liver failure,
and was hoping if SDPlus Bogie was ever created, if the item description would read something like “In Memory of Sassy~”.
If that could be done it would really mean the world to me. I would greatly appreciate if you would please consider it.

I have already messaged PRlSM regarding this idea, but due to recent events, I will most likely not get a progressive response, if any.
Regardless, since it would be a recolor, any talented artist should be able to accomplish the task.

For reference, this is the original message I sent PRlSM going into a little more detail regarding the matter:

I was gonna save it and bring this up in an ATA,
but I think it might be a little too personal and I would
feel a lot better to bring it up to you first.
This is especially because it would be your item,
and I want to respect your wishes as an artist.

Now I don't know if this idea is in the works already
or not, but there should be an SDPlus Bogie.
Especially since Bibbles and Cookie Boots have their
respective doll versions of themselves already.

The reason why I'm so passionate about this idea is because
I really love Bogie in that it reminds me of my cat Sassy,
who passed away last month due to liver failure.

Since I had gotten her when she was 3 or so, I never had
the chance to see her as a kitten, and in some way I think
the SDPlus version of Bogie would fulfill this dream.

If possible I wish the item description would read "In Memory of Sassy~"
but if that is not possible, if a description or a pun that includes "sassy"
in it, to somehow commemorate her memory, that would be beautiful.

If this is something you do not want to do I will understand,
because of what I said in the beginning I want to also respect
your wishes as an artist. Please let me know your thoughts if you can,
and I'm very thankful for your time.

[King Awesomolocity]

IS THIS OFFICIAL?

[tobi-chann]

Will we ever get an update to the friends list? Like make it easier to organize it?

And do you think we could get an option to remove the quote button from the first post? It's really annoying when people quote OP.
smile

[Starshine]

Hello everyone~ I'm sure this will be an eventful ATA, so I'll keep this short.

My best wishes go out to all the staff that had been laid off, I hope there's great success in their future endeavor.

I'd also like to wish all those who "dodged the bullet" best of luck fielding today's questions.

In memory of PRISM I've decked out my avatar with her gorgeous items. I hope to see her works on other sites in the future.

[worlds suckiest vendor]

It's been another 3 weeks now and I'm about to be finished with the Angelic quest and I need the medium wings to finish it.
Would be great to have my wings back, because I have provided the proof that they are mine.
Thanks!

[Parexus]

Any plans for new achievements coming out? Maybe some related to your old games such as puzzles, word game, slots?

[Zamio]

I will never believe there couldn't have been some other way for Gaia to survive without getting rid of the very person who dedicated his heart and soul to this site for so many years, went above and beyond, even working nights and weekends WHEN HE WAS SICK and who was so kindhearted and well loved by so many on here.

That there couldn't have been some other way for Gaia to go on and still keep Pan, who deserves to be here if anybody does. I will never ever understand that as long as I live!!