Ask the Staff - 10 Nov 2014 - CLOSED

[meemster]

its a curse

Misc

Is Gaia closing down before or after the black friday sale?

No need to fret, there are NO plans for Gaia to shut down. heart

[Zero Omega]

II CuriousAngel II

Art

I'm curious to know what happened to the Paw NPC Fan Art Contest Gaia was holding last month? It's seems to have died off with no winners announced and no update as to what's going on.

Prizes this week. Guaranteed.

[meemster]

BrokenHeartedKairi

Events

Question:

When is something going to be done about the Halloween grant items this year for the demon's side? A few of my friends have gotten theirs already, and one gave it to me so I can use it for something, but I have not yet received my own, and I know there are a LOT of forum posts of people saying the same thing.

Please file a ticket so we can get this resolved for you heart

[Princess Angelishia]

nikiera

Princess Angelishia

His Majesty King

Features
What new features can Gaians expect for the [near] future? (i.e. a new game announcement, renovating older features, adding onto Towns, updates to mini games/introductions to new mini games, sneak preview for a holiday event, new contest)

The next big feature coming up is one of the most anticipated: an updated inventory arranger.

Before we celebrate, please tell us if gaia inc. is planning on making that feature free/gc related.
I think it will be a very big mistake if the staff/upper management plans to make that cash related.
Same with adding more slots to the wardrobe.

We'd all appreciate some more transparency , less half-promises and less surprises at this point, please.

thank you for your work but a lot of users are very wary of the staff and management's word.

It's planned to be a free feature.

[Finni]

Niki-Senpai

Items

Hello guys! Thank you for having another ATS, hope everything is going well on your guys' end.

Anyways, while I am loving the yellow items you guys have been putting out recently, is there any chance that we'll be getting more or even different shades? I'd love to see more recolors get the pastel yellow treatment, such as Lucid Lucy and Sweet Angelic Bride did.

Thank you in advanced for answering!

I-I love yellow. emotion_kirakira

[meemster]

KaguraSakata

EVENTS

Could it be possible that for the next Halloween battle we could please see a leader board for healing? This latest event aside from the horrible glitches was rather boring event wise, after my goal of getting the advocate hat was achieved I really had no motivation to keep playing. This event really felt geared towards people who like to kill kill kill they got more attacks and more soul candy for attack's compared to the healing option I don't expect them to be equal but a little better balance would have been nice. A leader board would at least give those of us who prefer to heal something more to have striven for.

Thanks for the feedback! We will definitely keep that in mind for our next battle event. =) heart

[meemster]

My Tea Addiction

Misc

Will you ever include GC sales/rewards on the Gaia App? Many people, including myself, are only able to buy GC through the app, and would like to save some money like other users.
(I'm not too sure if this goes under misc)

We are actively looking into different specials that we can offer via our mobile app, but honestly for right now our priority is on fixing critical functionality issues. heart

[Princess Angelishia]

pj444

Kanahit

Misc.

First of all, yes, I am sad to see zOMG! go, but I understand that it had to be done. Now here's a controversial question. Why wasn't it taken down sooner?

On June 16th, we were told, "In a few weeks time we'll be shutting the game down in order to repair a critical issue that could potentially affect many Gaians playing the game."

It wasn't until September 30th that the game was taken down, three and a half months later.

On November 6th, it was revealed, "Particularly we were addressing some critical vulnerabilities in the server infrastructure", implying that Gaia was aware of what the issue was when the first announcement was made.

November 7th, we were given more clarification that "...during an investigation into issues with zOMG!, it was discovered that zOMG! had a serious flaw in the code. Basically, there was a security exploit in the game that, had it been abused (and thankfully it wasn't!), would have allowed people not only access to zOMG!, but to our site's servers and ultimately, to all your accounts."

On to the question: On June 16th, was Gaia really aware (as announcements seem to imply) that zOMG! had a hole allowing people to potentially access the website's servers and all of our accounts? Did Gaia really leave the game up for three and a half months while being aware of this massive security issue? If so, why? What caused the delay in shutting the game down if Gaia was aware of this?

This is pretty important and I am sure it deserves an answer.

In the summer we were aware that there was a potential problem, but at the time we were unaware how large. We didn't know at the time that leaving it up was such a huge risk, so we left it up while doing what little maintenance we could while it was still live. It wasn't until we took zOMG down and began to dive deeper into the issue that we uncovered that this small problem was a symptom of a much larger security risk. When we came to the conclusion that there just wasn't a feasible way to fix the issue, we made the difficult decision to stop maintenance on zOMG and announce that we were unable to bring it back.