Ask the Staff - 13 Oct 2014 - Updated w/collected answers

[Rude]

Question about the chance items that drop tickets: Aside from when they go x2 - x5 chances, has Gaia ever (past or present) adjusted the drop rates without telling us?

PS: Thanks for starting this up again.

[Bluecandescent]

Hi staff!! I sure really super hope you're prepared to handle the incoming onslaught of questions from the community!

Sorta big question I guess - I've seen quite a few complaints about it. Will CrosStitch contests be making a return? It's been ~3 months since the last one ended. When's the next going to be announced?

Please don't cut it completely! The Gaian community is very talented and the bottom 99% will never get their hands on a custom ticket. Also, we need more gold shop updates to, you know, fix that old inflation issue. So the contests will contribute to that! Win-win.

[Kid Jak]

oops hit submit twice sorry please ignore

[Slick Southpaw]

You may have noticed I'm wearing a Gaia T-Shirt.

I have some plot burning questions!!!


➨Is Ivan's time-traveling plot a one-off storyline, or can we hope for more events exploring Gaia's past while the Airship Saga continues?
➨How likely are we to have an event that actually ties into the plot ever again?

➨Will we ever use the battle system developed for last Halloween again? It was awesome and I want to be able to use it.


This is to raise awareness to the: Save Our Plot Movement.

[Shadey Kitty]

Good evening smile

I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that the ATA has returned. Thank you for restoring this feature and giving us a chance to interact with you out in the open.

What I would like to address with you tonight is the neglect of Aquariums. I attempted to bring this to your attention in the Feedback Forum but as of this writing, there has been no official response.

Events here on Gaia use to include a broad range of areas including not only forums but shops, Towns and zOMG too. Special mini games were developed for the events as well. Events were a pretty big deal around here and a lot of people knew that and looked forward to them eagerly. In September of 2008, Aquariums came to Gaia and in October of 2008, tanks were inlcuded in the Halloween event.

If tank owners had the Creepy Phonograph in their tanks and chose the "Calm Water" song, the tank would get really dirty, turn black and then when it appeared again, all fish in the tank were skeletons.
(this did not affect the tank's health in any way, AFAIK) Screen shot
* Note: This was only enabled for the duration of the Halloween event and no longer works.

Tank owners continued to enjoy having Aquariums be included in the special events for just a little over 1 year in 2009.
(You can see a list of events that have included Aquariums here if you like) Sadly, December of 2009, 5 years ago was the last time.

Through all of the nerfs, the neglect (remember your other cash shop, Phin Phang?) and even the unpleasant (putting it nicely) changes Gaia has made within just the past year, there are still quite a few tank owners trying to hold on and keeping their tanks full even though it is (most likely) no longer possible for them to break even on the price of doing so.

I think that at this point, some attention to Aquariums and some appreciation for those tank owners who are still with you in spite of yourself is way overdue. How about at the very least recycling those Aquarium holiday effects ? It seems such a small thing to ask.

The base for the effects is already in place. (isn't it?)
Doing so would not add the the inflation problem.
This would go a long way towards giving some cheer to the tank owners.

As one person stated in my thread in your Feedback forum (linked in the 2nd paragraph above) :

Quote:

give a little gaia, intead of taking thanks!

Thank you in advance for reading my note.

[shellsmachine]

Please pay some attention to Gaia Aquariums!

It has been three years since the majority of fish were removed from Phin Phang "for a
few Weeks".
Since then, we Aquarium diehards have watched our numbers dwindle day by day.
You raised the Booty Grab limit recently. Unfortunately, that was more of a hollow gesture than
anything else - even though the limit is now 500K/day, with the diminished amount of
tank owners, it would take almost a full 24-hour day to reach that amount.
You could consider increasing the Booty Grab payouts, but it would have to be by at least
tenfold to make it worthwhile.
We Aquarium folk have been patient, hoping for change, but now even some of the most devoted
have left for other sites.
Aquariums is a unique feature among all the sites I've visited. It's a co-operative game where
everybody wins. You should be proud and polish this jewel, instead of consigning it
to the dumpster.

Think about getting chuckp2 involved in this - when he was the Aquarium dev,
he was really enthusiastic about it and we had things like the Earth Day aquarium flower and
Aquarium Snow Crystals in the Daily Chance - there's another suggestion, bring back the Snow
Crystals to DC, and that wouldn't cost anything in terms of development.

As a token of good faith, you could re-enable the Creepy Phonograph so that it once again makes
the eerie sound and changes the fish into skeletons, at least during October.

Please take what I've written into consideration. Thank you for your attention.

[Yeata Zi]

You may have noticed I'm wearing a Gaia T-Shirt.


I am pleased to see the return of the Ask the Admin Staff!

I hope everyone is doing well!

As you may or may not know, I run the Paparazzi NPC Interaction Tracker and Magazine. I created this thread after we were promised increased NPC posting around the forums at the beginning of this year. For awhile, this was wonderful! We got more NPC interaction, and it was a nice way to feel connected to the Gaia Mythos when the plot was at a standstill. After the beach party summer event, we have seen a drop in interaction, and I think this is a shame.

My paparazzi love the experience of chatting and interviewing with NPCs. Will we go back to increased NPC interaction? It was wonderful and I would hate to see it go away.

The Kickstarter NPC hosts could even help to advertise for the kickstarter by rallying support in the forums. I know it could be a good way to get the interaction we so desperately crave while also hopefully getting more people to care about the kickstarter. If each kickstarter was given a little more depth by allowing the characters to explain their position further, I believe you would find them to be more popular.

It has also been suggested that you try to do a Monthly NPC Q&A occasionally in a similar way to the AtA, only with NPCs. They could be asked mythos questions, and all kinds of things. One NPC could be featured a month. It would be wonderful.

TLDR: More NPCs posting please


This is to raise awareness to the: Save Our Plot Movement.

[Umbience]

I remember you guys use to promote a game like Dragon Ball Z, Dynasty Warriors, Street Fighter, and Etc. I was hoping would you guys promote Persona Q? Or is it too much time and trouble to promote a game?

[Magnificent Moonbeam]

Hello,everyone. I hope you all are well and I am wondering very much about the art in the kickstarter? Are they all just new NPCs or some existing ones? I know I'm jumping the gun on this a bit since one of them looks familiar to me.

Edit: I also want to say thanks for making a new version of Ask the Admin. It was well needed.

[Vannequin]

Are there a set amount of tickets in all the Projects?
Are there still tickets in Project Loyal Recolor Me and Project Oldschool?

[Alexius08]

1. Have you tried doing an interview at Reddit's IAmA section?
2. The current system can only handle 64-bit variables (hence the 9.2 quintillion cap). Have you figured out a way to raise the cap beyond that should the need arise?

[Yuekazehime]

Greetings staff~
It's too sunny in San Jose today. But then again walking to/from the light rail in a black insulated hoodie wasn't smart...

Here are some questions~ I know they aren't all the charge of the same department, so anyone who can answer any of these is great heart

gaia_nitemareleft I'd imagine CrossStitch contests may face some modifications (entry limits, new requirements?), but will they make a comeback?
About CrossStitch in general: link

gaia_angelleft Can philosopher caches be made multi-openable? (Or the refreshing of the page non-existent? When I sell items in the marketplace or donate things from my inventory, the constant, time-consuming refreshing doesn't occur)

gaia_nitemareleft Can the marketplace graphs be changed to more clearly show numbers above 9,999,999,999?
10 billion and above currently cut off at the side, so abbreviations to 10 B or even 10000 M would help~

gaia_angelleft Could we have GST back in the header for those outside the PST time zone?
I'm PST, but the time conversions aren't convenient for others at times.

gaia_nitemareleft How are the tiers for Kickstarters decided?
Kickstarter tiers: link

gaia_angelleft Could someone tweak the code on for bugs in Towns 2 to let all types be found?
Towns 1 lets you find rare bugs, but towns 2 doesn't (or at least not all the rare ones), and they're needed for alchemy.

gaia_nitemareleft Are there still plans in the works for letting us spend our achievement points?

(Do you hate my overuse of parenthetical statements? gonk )

gaia_angelleft How is ramen irl? What is the taste and texture and smell and experience?
I've always seen it in pictures and in anime, but haven't gotten to taste the proper stuff (Maru-chan doesn't count here). And I know at least one person in the office must have had some...

Thank you for reopening this platform~
(I'm going to try to link any answered questions into this post as well. Hypehypehype)

[lost in the rhythm]

lol

[Cyleki]

Hello! This is my first time participating in something like this. I hope all goes well! c:
Can you tell us anything about the future of games (zOMG in particular), Aquariums, Alchemy, or GoFusion?

[Castiel Lover]

Will you please release more Ruby tickets? Only two were ever won - one has been used and the other was bought for use.

If your artists are spread too thin, maybe spam the cash shop a little less and put more tickets out? No one would be upset about a few less items and announcements a week.