Don't your users matter? Dev replies; More replies please!

[[ .NK. ]]

Yuucius - Exactly.

Radpops - It's hard to enjoy a website when something you've been looking forward to for years is going to be based around Cash, based on what I've heard so far.
I didn't mean to make it sound as though the older users are suffering most - everyone is, but it's a bigger punch in the gut to us.
You can say whatever you like, but regardless of how much money Gaia needs, that doesn't mean they can break their promises and keep milking us for money.

The thread is up now, but please don't post yet as I'm saving posts.

[Brenlvln]

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

@nk: I'll tell you why it's all about the money. At any time of the day Gaia has 75,000 to 100,000 users accessing its servers, wearing down the bandwidth to the tune of thousands of gigs per day.
Let's add things up.

A site of Gaia's size is using many servers, so..let's throw an estimate of ten out there.
A Dell PowerEdge set at base cost (no frills) is $1,032.

That's $10,320 for just the server racks.
Next, how about hosting? using netro.ca's calculator, if Gaia only had 10% of its current userbase online, using a speed of dsl for access (756kb/s) and an average stay time of 15-20 mins, they would be running about 22,192 gigs a month. now, multiply that by ten, and that's the full 100% Gaia gets. 225,000 gigs of just browsing traffic per month, not including games, towns, or anything else. Using their $3 per gig average, that comes out to $675,000 per month to keep this place up and running.

So, all together, it's about $680,00 to have ten servers handling Gaia's traffic.
This isn't including name registration, or liscencing, or the payment of the staff, or the air cooling units that those servers would need (you can cook an egg on em) or rent or the cost of materials for the shop items.......and the only way they are getting funds for this is with Google Adsense pay per click ads, sponsorships and donations. And you know what it's all for? TO KEEP YOU HAPPY.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

[Vampire Lemons]

xUke_Yukix

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

@nk: I'll tell you why it's all about the money. At any time of the day Gaia has 75,000 to 100,000 users accessing its servers, wearing down the bandwidth to the tune of thousands of gigs per day.
Let's add things up.

A site of Gaia's size is using many servers, so..let's throw an estimate of ten out there.
A Dell PowerEdge set at base cost (no frills) is $1,032.

That's $10,320 for just the server racks.
Next, how about hosting? using netro.ca's calculator, if Gaia only had 10% of its current userbase online, using a speed of dsl for access (756kb/s) and an average stay time of 15-20 mins, they would be running about 22,192 gigs a month. now, multiply that by ten, and that's the full 100% Gaia gets. 225,000 gigs of just browsing traffic per month, not including games, towns, or anything else. Using their $3 per gig average, that comes out to $675,000 per month to keep this place up and running.

So, all together, it's about $680,00 to have ten servers handling Gaia's traffic.
This isn't including name registration, or liscencing, or the payment of the staff, or the air cooling units that those servers would need (you can cook an egg on em) or rent or the cost of materials for the shop items.......and the only way they are getting funds for this is with Google Adsense pay per click ads, sponsorships and donations. And you know what it's all for? TO KEEP YOU HAPPY.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

Except they're not keeping alot of us happy anymore. O: What about the hundreds of people who said "no Gaia, we don't want you to change the layout, we like it as it is now!" and they changed it anyway, for example?

Or all the glitches we keep complaining about that are being ignored over and over in favor of new feature we don't want or really even need?

[Brenlvln]

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

vampire lemons

Except they're not keeping alot of us happy anymore. O: What about the hundreds of people who said "no Gaia, we don't want you to change the layout, we like it as it is now!" and they changed it anyway, for example?

Or all the glitches we kee complaining about that are being ignored over and over in favor of new feature we don't want or really even need.

The layout has changed before, and has been changed to give better access to other features that people do want, such as the MMO and GIM.

And they changed it many times before, there has allways been resent at first but then people grew to love it. the only thing constant is change, lovie.

And the glitches currently accouring I belive are from the devs poking in the guts and spleen of Gaia orking on making the MMO live when it needs to, since it will have a flood of people. they fix problems, it causes lag while the site catches up to itself. they add features, it lags while it catches up to itself. It will lag anytime the site is messed with.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

[[ .NK. ]]

xUke_Yukix

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

@nk: I'll tell you why it's all about the money. At any time of the day Gaia has 75,000 to 100,000 users accessing its servers, wearing down the bandwidth to the tune of thousands of gigs per day.
Let's add things up.

A site of Gaia's size is using many servers, so..let's throw an estimate of ten out there.
A Dell PowerEdge set at base cost (no frills) is $1,032.

That's $10,320 for just the server racks.
Next, how about hosting? using netro.ca's calculator, if Gaia only had 10% of its current userbase online, using a speed of dsl for access (756kb/s) and an average stay time of 15-20 mins, they would be running about 22,192 gigs a month. now, multiply that by ten, and that's the full 100% Gaia gets. 225,000 gigs of just browsing traffic per month, not including games, towns, or anything else. Using their $3 per gig average, that comes out to $675,000 per month to keep this place up and running.

So, all together, it's about $680,00 to have ten servers handling Gaia's traffic.
This isn't including name registration, or liscencing, or the payment of the staff, or the air cooling units that those servers would need (you can cook an egg on em) or rent or the cost of materials for the shop items.......and the only way they are getting funds for this is with Google Adsense pay per click ads, sponsorships and donations. And you know what it's all for? TO KEEP YOU HAPPY.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

You can defend them all you want. But we clearly aren't happy anymore regardless. We've waited four years for the Battle System. We weren't going to have to pay for it. But now we likely will. A lot of us have donated more money to Gaia than we want to admit. We have every right to be angry.

Many of the free features are in desperate need of repair while the things that net the most money work fine. Many of the things we have wanted for years now cost money. That would be most of the EIs and Aquarium, and soon, it will be the BS too.

Yes, we're angry. We have every right to be angry. Gaia gets money from other places as well, not just us. Everything we donate makes up around 8% of their total income. That's it. So they don't need JUST us.

Aside from the money, they don't listen to us, they don't fix the glitches (and instead continue to bring out new crap that's pointless), and that's on top of shoving ads and sponsors down our throats - ads that get in the way of enjoying the site, AND make us pay to play things we've wanted for years.

Yeah, shame on us for complaining.




In lighter news, the thread is very nearly done.

[Make Up Sex]

I'd like to add to what NK said by pointing out that Gaia got $8 million+ in investments in 2006. Just imagine how much they get now, after two years of success. They're getting endorsements from some of the must successful and wealthy entertainment companies around (MTV anyone?).

To say that Gaia is "barely" keeping up with their expenses is just plain bullshit.

[Moonlight Silver]

xUke_Yukix

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

@nk: I'll tell you why it's all about the money. At any time of the day Gaia has 75,000 to 100,000 users accessing its servers, wearing down the bandwidth to the tune of thousands of gigs per day.
Let's add things up.

A site of Gaia's size is using many servers, so..let's throw an estimate of ten out there.
A Dell PowerEdge set at base cost (no frills) is $1,032.

That's $10,320 for just the server racks.
Next, how about hosting? using netro.ca's calculator, if Gaia only had 10% of its current userbase online, using a speed of dsl for access (756kb/s) and an average stay time of 15-20 mins, they would be running about 22,192 gigs a month. now, multiply that by ten, and that's the full 100% Gaia gets. 225,000 gigs of just browsing traffic per month, not including games, towns, or anything else. Using their $3 per gig average, that comes out to $675,000 per month to keep this place up and running.

So, all together, it's about $680,00 to have ten servers handling Gaia's traffic.
This isn't including name registration, or liscencing, or the payment of the staff, or the air cooling units that those servers would need (you can cook an egg on em) or rent or the cost of materials for the shop items.......and the only way they are getting funds for this is with Google Adsense pay per click ads, sponsorships and donations. And you know what it's all for? TO KEEP YOU HAPPY.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

Whoop de doo. Gaia gets over one million dollars from MC and Cash Shop sales ALONE a month.

[Moonlight Silver]

[ .NK. ]

.

Yes, we're angry. We have every right to be angry. Gaia gets money from other places as well, not just us. Everything we donate makes up around 8% of their total income. That's it. So they don't need JUST us.

Can I ask where you got this 8% from?

[sendo1920]

I think Gaia needs a slap in the face, from all of its *not sure how many* users. I think it might, though, have something to do with the United State's economy being s**t, because perhaps they want to keep their worth up. I really hope that the current owner sells gaia to someone more along the lines of a nerd in the basement, although it'd have to be a pretty ******** rich nerd, because at least that nerd would, more than likely, know what the users want and what their complaints are.

[Vampire Lemons]

xUke_Yukix

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

vampire lemons

Except they're not keeping alot of us happy anymore. O: What about the hundreds of people who said "no Gaia, we don't want you to change the layout, we like it as it is now!" and they changed it anyway, for example?

Or all the glitches we kee complaining about that are being ignored over and over in favor of new feature we don't want or really even need.

The layout has changed before, and has been changed to give better access to other features that people do want, such as the MMO and GIM.

And they changed it many times before, there has allways been resent at first but then people grew to love it. the only thing constant is change, lovie.

And the glitches currently accouring I belive are from the devs poking in the guts and spleen of Gaia orking on making the MMO live when it needs to, since it will have a flood of people. they fix problems, it causes lag while the site catches up to itself. they add features, it lags while it catches up to itself. It will lag anytime the site is messed with.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

Bit of a lag though for some people who had Item Normalization glitches, don't you think? I told one of the staff in person at a con about a glitch during the Item Normalization that took 17k and a whole load of my MC/rarer items that I had recieved over time as gifts from friends for birthdays and things, and not only was I handed a card and brushed aside in favor of autographs (which I can't blame him for because there was a huge crowd of people bugging off for autographs and whatnot and security was bugging out because the crowd was blocking a main hallway), and even when I reported it, I've yet to get any of that back, even though I was told that when the normalization was done, I'd get my items back. I haven't yet, my friends got me replacements, which I plan to pay back when I have the gold. It seems more like they're just throwing out shiny new features to distract us from glitches that have yet to be fixed even after a few weeks/months rather than "We fixed the glitch, so here's a new feature for you to play with while you wait for it to finish clearing up in the next hour or whatever". There's also alot of things we've asked for, like guild rewrites that they promised us that have yet to be done, yet cash items are still coming out. It feels alot like they only care as long as we pay. The community feeling it used to have feels like it's gone and it's all about the Cash Items and features that pay.

I'm also a bit disappointed with the reply people are getting about the aquarium complaints. It was said that the aquarium was made as a gold-generating feature, since the clam gives out items for happy fish.

The problem with that is for happy FISH. So, if you don't happen to get lucky enough to get fish from the DC, and you don't have the gold to spend in the absurdly priced MP fish (1k for a goldfish? Really?), then you don't gt the gold or items. I mean, I've played the DC now for three days and got a gold fish twice in the entire thing.

And I know it's been said that Lanzer and other staff are opposed to alot of these changes that make us unhappy, but surely there's a better solution to the "fish store is only cash, I hate you gaia" issue than "well, the aquarium generates gold so get over it!" feeling kind of repsonses I've been seeing in threads where mods are answering questions/complaints.

[[ .NK. ]]

Moonlight Silver

[ .NK. ]

.

Yes, we're angry. We have every right to be angry. Gaia gets money from other places as well, not just us. Everything we donate makes up around 8% of their total income. That's it. So they don't need JUST us.

Can I ask where you got this 8% from?

I can try to get you a link later after things aren't so busy, but there's a link to an article somewhere in this thread, around page 15 or so I think.

Sorry I can't get the link, I'm working on the petition.

Which by the way, guys, is up and running now. If you want to sign, go here.

[[ .NK. ]]

The petitions are officially ready. Whew. XD

[Snapelicious]

xUke_Yukix

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

@nk: I'll tell you why it's all about the money. At any time of the day Gaia has 75,000 to 100,000 users accessing its servers, wearing down the bandwidth to the tune of thousands of gigs per day.
Let's add things up.

A site of Gaia's size is using many servers, so..let's throw an estimate of ten out there.
A Dell PowerEdge set at base cost (no frills) is $1,032.

That's $10,320 for just the server racks.
Next, how about hosting? using netro.ca's calculator, if Gaia only had 10% of its current userbase online, using a speed of dsl for access (756kb/s) and an average stay time of 15-20 mins, they would be running about 22,192 gigs a month. now, multiply that by ten, and that's the full 100% Gaia gets. 225,000 gigs of just browsing traffic per month, not including games, towns, or anything else. Using their $3 per gig average, that comes out to $675,000 per month to keep this place up and running.

So, all together, it's about $680,00 to have ten servers handling Gaia's traffic.
This isn't including name registration, or liscencing, or the payment of the staff, or the air cooling units that those servers would need (you can cook an egg on em) or rent or the cost of materials for the shop items.......and the only way they are getting funds for this is with Google Adsense pay per click ads, sponsorships and donations. And you know what it's all for? TO KEEP YOU HAPPY.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

For Durem!

Soft applause for this post, because it is true, Gaia does need money to run. And there are a shite load of people who use the site, all at once, and take up bandwidth, and want new features and fixes on old features and all that good stuff. So I agree with defending them for charging some money.

That said, I feel like they're taking it a bit too far. Now, I'm not saying they're greedy. They're a company, they need money to run, and profits help a company grow. However, the thing that really killed it for me was Aquariums. In Aquariums, we see Gaia's first ever "pay cash for an expiring item" ploy. My complaints were a bit more severe when it first came out and I didn't realize just how likely it was to get an Aquarium item in DC. But, judging by the movement of several fish and items from Phin Pang to La Victoire, I'm doubting you can get everything you want from DC. Why else would they move items from a cash only shop to another cash only shop?

Now, I'm not saying Gaia owes us anything. But it seems like good business to cater to as many of your clients as possible, especially if you have the means to.

LET'S HUNT SOME ORC!

[Brenlvln]

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

[ .nk. ]

You can defend them all you want. But we clearly aren't happy anymore regardless.

would you rather they didn't get their money and just let the web page turn into a giant 404 page not found? Be happy the site's even here. this is what the funding is for.

Quote:

We've waited four years for the Battle System. We weren't going to have to pay for it.

helooooo? hosting and bandwith and servers don't just fly out of thin air. They have to be bought somehow. you don't help out, they don't get a place to host it, you don't get the battle system. plain and simple.

Quote:

But now we likely will. A lot of us have donated more money to Gaia than we want to admit. We have every right to be angry.

and I have donated my fair share too. and that's what keeps this site alive. would you rather be here, or stare at a 404 page for hours?

Quote:

Many of the free features are in desperate need of repair while the things that net the most money work fine.

everything on here costs money, just not your money. Gaia's money.

Quote:

Many of the things we have wanted for years now cost money. That would be most of the EIs and Aquarium, and soon, it will be the BS too.

lol....the aquarium dosn't cost squat.

Quote:

Yes, we're angry. We have every right to be angry

when all the money is spent to further your enjoyment, not realy. it's kind of edging on the definition of "spoiled brat", getting everything but never happy.

Quote:

Gaia gets money from other places as well, not just us.

thank you for repeating what I posted above.

Quote:

Everything we donate makes up around 8% of their total income.

[ CITATION NEEDED ]

Quote:

Aside from the money, they don't listen to us

kind of hard to listen to 100,000 people at once.

Quote:

they don't fix the glitches

....ummm...what? yeah, they do.

Quote:

and that's on top of shoving ads and sponsors down our throats - ads that get in the way of enjoying the site, AND make us pay to play things we've wanted for years.

Woah, hold on, McSourface, The ads are to help pay for the site so you don't have to (and use adblock plus, it's not 1996 anymore), and I have yet to see anything you have to pay to play. so, please, educate me, back up your rant. what games here require a credit card? it is word bump...? or is it fishing? oh! I know! it's the slots, right? stare

Quote:

Yeah, shame on us for complaining.

no, shame on you for being a spoiled brat when more than half a million each month goes into trying to make you happy.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

[Vampire Lemons]

Snapelicious

xUke_Yukix

Ka dos inbal ssinssrigg, dos xuat ssrig'luin ulu inbal jalbol mzild

@nk: I'll tell you why it's all about the money. At any time of the day Gaia has 75,000 to 100,000 users accessing its servers, wearing down the bandwidth to the tune of thousands of gigs per day.
Let's add things up.

A site of Gaia's size is using many servers, so..let's throw an estimate of ten out there.
A Dell PowerEdge set at base cost (no frills) is $1,032.

That's $10,320 for just the server racks.
Next, how about hosting? using netro.ca's calculator, if Gaia only had 10% of its current userbase online, using a speed of dsl for access (756kb/s) and an average stay time of 15-20 mins, they would be running about 22,192 gigs a month. now, multiply that by ten, and that's the full 100% Gaia gets. 225,000 gigs of just browsing traffic per month, not including games, towns, or anything else. Using their $3 per gig average, that comes out to $675,000 per month to keep this place up and running.

So, all together, it's about $680,00 to have ten servers handling Gaia's traffic.
This isn't including name registration, or liscencing, or the payment of the staff, or the air cooling units that those servers would need (you can cook an egg on em) or rent or the cost of materials for the shop items.......and the only way they are getting funds for this is with Google Adsense pay per click ads, sponsorships and donations. And you know what it's all for? TO KEEP YOU HAPPY.

ka dos xuat inbal ol, ol 'udtila naut selg'tarn vel'bol dos inbal

For Durem!

Soft applause for this post, because it is true, Gaia does need money to run. And there are a shite load of people who use the site, all at once, and take up bandwidth, and want new features and fixes on old features and all that good stuff. So I agree with defending them for charging some money.

That said, I feel like they're taking it a bit too far. Now, I'm not saying they're greedy. They're a company, they need money to run, and profits help a company grow. However, the thing that really killed it for me was Aquariums. In Aquariums, we see Gaia's first ever "pay cash for an expiring item" ploy. My complaints were a bit more severe when it first came out and I didn't realize just how likely it was to get an Aquarium item in DC. But, judging by the movement of several fish and items from Phin Pang to La Victoire, I'm doubting you can get everything you want from DC. Why else would they move items from a cash only shop to another cash only shop?

Now, I'm not saying Gaia owes us anything. But it seems like good business to cater to as many of your clients as possible, especially if you have the means to.

LET'S HUNT SOME ORC!

They don't owe us everything, but they do owe us something. Without users, you have no site. Without us joinging the site, who would they sell their cash items to, and who would have made the site as big as it is now, if there was no one on Gaia?

That's not to say to cater to our every whim, but at the very least, they should actually listen to our feedback, especially when they ask us what we think.

If we're telling them glitches that they said were fixed weeks ago/months ago are still happening around the site, they should fix those glitches, not throw out another feature to distract us, which in turn then glitches at some point, adding even more glitches to the list of things they need to fix.

No, they don't owe us everything, but they at least owe us the consideration of listening to our complaints and trying to come up with solutions that will make both themselves and their users happy. Obviously this won't be all of them, but the ones they do have the power to fix should be fixed before they add anythng new that will inevitably need to be fixed somewhere down the line.