It's Baaaaaaaack ~ Hello CB!

Would you like to see Flynn's Booty/Chest rereleased?

Yes.	3.1%	[ 44 ]
Only in a very limited amount.	9.4%	[ 134 ]
No, never.	83.5%	[ 1196 ]
I'm indifferent.	4.1%	[ 59 ]
Total Votes:			[ 1433 ]

[Flustershy]

For players who have been around for a while, I'm sure this all sounds just horrific.

But, think of those of us who are NEW. A month of so many mishaps and mayhem all trying to get into our pockets without even letting a new player settle long enough to even access the Market Place..? I'm wondering why I should stay.

A friend pointed me here, speaking highly of Gaia but gave me the warning not to touch Gaia Cash for a while. Things must be in a sad state for that.

[Ants In Your Underpants]

Gaia is in trouble ._ . so much trouble.

[twiterpert]

Flustershy

For players who have been around for a while, I'm sure this all sounds just horrific.

But, think of those of us who are NEW. A month of so many mishaps and mayhem all trying to get into our pockets without even letting a new player settle long enough to even access the Market Place..? I'm wondering why I should stay.

A friend pointed me here, speaking highly of Gaia but gave me the warning not to touch Gaia Cash for a while. Things must be in a sad state for that.

New users are really interesting to me, especially since there tends to be an influx around Halloween. With this debacle going down around the same time, I've been wondering what the retention rate is. I've been assuming it's quite low, and this seems to be confirmation.

I didn't really give a Gaia a chance when I started in 05 because all I could find were ads for GC. Looking back, there was maybe one page for them that I happened to stumble on, but since it made the site seem pay-to-play, I was turned off and abandoned my account for a bit. A friend later got me into it, but I can't imagine the constant barrage of cash ads and 'sales' is doing much to attract new users, let alone keep the older ones.

[frozen_water]

Flustershy

For players who have been around for a while, I'm sure this all sounds just horrific.

But, think of those of us who are NEW. A month of so many mishaps and mayhem all trying to get into our pockets without even letting a new player settle long enough to even access the Market Place..? I'm wondering why I should stay.

A friend pointed me here, speaking highly of Gaia but gave me the warning not to touch Gaia Cash for a while. Things must be in a sad state for that.

I'm actually really glad you posted this. The "new user" perspective is something I've always lacked here (as I've had an account pretty much from the beginning) and I've always been curious how Gaia comes across.

Honestly, I feel like if I hadn't already invested so much in this site I'd have left by now.

[Sash0]

Now I remember why I felt annoyed at Gaia this month too

[TS Sailor Cronus]

Flustershy

For players who have been around for a while, I'm sure this all sounds just horrific.

But, think of those of us who are NEW. A month of so many mishaps and mayhem all trying to get into our pockets without even letting a new player settle long enough to even access the Market Place..? I'm wondering why I should stay.

A friend pointed me here, speaking highly of Gaia but gave me the warning not to touch Gaia Cash for a while. Things must be in a sad state for that.

There's been a rumor that Gaia is deliberately trying to push old users out and bring in new ones just to change the site. I think it's just a conspiracy theory, but I have to say, they're doing a great job of *almost* living up to that.

Except of course for the fact that you, a new user, think you shouldn't stay. I'm certain there are other new users with your exact feelings right now. I am so sorry you have to come in at such a rocky time as this. Disregarding all the blatant irresponsibility lately, Gaia is a wonderful site to call home. To me, what makes it worth staying is all the friends.

However, that circle is ever-shrinking this past year...

Just try to hang in there for a while and do your best to make your voice heard with the rest of us. We may still be able to inspire positive change.

[l 9 9 l]

Great thread.

[TS Sailor Cronus]

puella-insomnia

I've been here since '05, I was never in the anti-GC crowd, I happily bought it on the occasions where I had money to spend, and thought it was a perfectly ok thing. I thought it was great that we were regularly getting nice new items all the time, and for a while even gold shop updates were regular, which was rad. I rolled my eyes while people screamed about GCash (and literally every other change ever) bringing about "the end of Gaia!!11!" I still don't think it's an inherently bad idea, but almost every announcement (and now even site updates) are just BUY CASH BUY CASH SALE SALE SALE SALE. If you'd told me in 2007 that someday Gaia would sell backwings for $500, or sell GC items that literally just generate gold, or release a cash-only game, I would have dismissed it as naysaying SF theatrics. This is totally out of control. The idea is fine, the implementation stinks.

gonk I am a little brokenhearted over this. Gaia has only been an on-and-off hangout for me, but it's special to me nonetheless. Staff, please stop breaking the nice thing.

Perfect summation. I've been here since '08 and yes, I have previously enjoyed spending cash at the cash shop. It was great.

Looking at announcements nearly makes me sick now.

[Tala Grey]

I've been on and off Gaia since '05 and have seen so many changes, some for good, some for bad - and most of the time I would welcome it. I wasn't against the introduction of GC either- heck if people want to spend their money for these items, go ahead!

However I find it sad how it seems that throughout the years, Gaia moved from being an user-orientated site to something less fun (seriously, a game where you have to spend GC in order to play for top prizes?! luxury items that can only be obtained with real money?) I feel like our opinions aren't valued anymore especially with the inflation issue. Maybe I should join the rest of my friends and move on from this.

[xx I met my fate xx]

Kangit

xx I met my fate xx

Kangit

I'm not sure if anyone brought it up yet, but they also announced they were going to switch the site layout to be centered for everybody, with no way to change it back (I have no idea when they're going to do it). It will supposedly look like the Centered Site option in Gaia Labs (which makes it squished). This was announced September 5th, so it's still within the "Month from Hell." They're apparently doing it because:

Narumi Misuhara

We entered into an agreement with a popular anime site. The agreement required that we center the site. More details on who the partner is will come later when we are closer to launch.

Even so, what's annoying is the poll asking what our opinion about it was. The "No, I prefer the site to be left aligned!" option got the most votes, and the "Yes! About time it was centered!" option got the least votes. "Yes" won because they combined the yes and neutral votes to be more than no. "No" is at 47.8%, which is still equivalent to half the site (especially since a lot of people who voted neutral will probably regret it when Gaia finally centers it).

Honestly I like the centered site. I use bettergaia and the site is centered in my settings for it. I think it looks much better.

Yes, but you have the option to use it. I wouldn't really mind if being centered was the default, as long as the original option was still available, but they're going to get rid of the current default. On some computers, being centered looks better, and on others, it looks worse. It also depends on visual preference. For me, it looks considerably worse when centered. All it does is squish the text, which makes it hard to read, and the background is distracting (and I predict it'll have those scrolling ads that follow you when you scroll up or down, like on other centered websites, which I hate). Even if the majority of people preferred it to be centered, and it sounds like they don't (or are content with the Gaia Labs version), there would still be a lot of users who can't use their preferred option. All I want is to have both options, one way or another.

There is a very simple way to solve it. Get BetterGaia. You can change your background, disable ads, and fix the "Squish" issue that I've never even noticed.

[RoseMoneyyy]

Thanks so much for this thread.
Even though it makes me feel dirty looking at the GC I've got hanging out on my account.
emotion_puke
I'll do something with the amount that I have left, but I won't be restocking when I run out.
besides, with all the inflation in the mp that's been going on, I feel like I'm gonna be rich after this whole thing blows over.
emotion_dealwithit
...
if there's anything left

[Kangit]

xx I met my fate xx

Kangit

xx I met my fate xx

Kangit

I'm not sure if anyone brought it up yet, but they also announced they were going to switch the site layout to be centered for everybody, with no way to change it back (I have no idea when they're going to do it). It will supposedly look like the Centered Site option in Gaia Labs (which makes it squished). This was announced September 5th, so it's still within the "Month from Hell." They're apparently doing it because:

Narumi Misuhara

We entered into an agreement with a popular anime site. The agreement required that we center the site. More details on who the partner is will come later when we are closer to launch.

Even so, what's annoying is the poll asking what our opinion about it was. The "No, I prefer the site to be left aligned!" option got the most votes, and the "Yes! About time it was centered!" option got the least votes. "Yes" won because they combined the yes and neutral votes to be more than no. "No" is at 47.8%, which is still equivalent to half the site (especially since a lot of people who voted neutral will probably regret it when Gaia finally centers it).

Honestly I like the centered site. I use bettergaia and the site is centered in my settings for it. I think it looks much better.

Yes, but you have the option to use it. I wouldn't really mind if being centered was the default, as long as the original option was still available, but they're going to get rid of the current default. On some computers, being centered looks better, and on others, it looks worse. It also depends on visual preference. For me, it looks considerably worse when centered. All it does is squish the text, which makes it hard to read, and the background is distracting (and I predict it'll have those scrolling ads that follow you when you scroll up or down, like on other centered websites, which I hate). Even if the majority of people preferred it to be centered, and it sounds like they don't (or are content with the Gaia Labs version), there would still be a lot of users who can't use their preferred option. All I want is to have both options, one way or another.

There is a very simple way to solve it. Get BetterGaia. You can change your background, disable ads, and fix the "Squish" issue that I've never even noticed.

So far, I don't see a way to change the background (and I would make it something solid color like the right side of the left-aligned version anyway, so it's not distracting). In order to disable the ads (which they may make impossible to disable, like the Flash Space ads), I would have to keep buying Gaia Cash, which I am currently boycotting. If they make it so it doesn't look squished, it should look pretty close to what I already have, but it probably wouldn't count as being centered anymore. As it is now, there is nothing I like about the Centered Site version, and I never will, unless they make drastic changes to it. Just because you have certain preferences enabled, doesn't mean everyone else should have them, or even like them.

[piyuu-chan]

TS Sailor Cronus

There's been a rumor that Gaia is deliberately trying to push old users out and bring in new ones just to change the site. I think it's just a conspiracy theory, but I have to say, they're doing a great job of *almost* living up to that.

Except of course for the fact that you, a new user, think you shouldn't stay. I'm certain there are other new users with your exact feelings right now. I am so sorry you have to come in at such a rocky time as this. Disregarding all the blatant irresponsibility lately, Gaia is a wonderful site to call home. To me, what makes it worth staying is all the friends.

However, that circle is ever-shrinking this past year...

Just try to hang in there for a while and do your best to make your voice heard with the rest of us. We may still be able to inspire positive change.

I personally don't think Gaia is smart or organised enough to think that far in advance to actually plan something like that. I think this is just honestly some retarded form of management that's just turned out this way.

It makes no sense to deliberately push out your long loyal customers, who bring in a predictable cash flow, as a sacrifice for new users whom we know nothing about. It doesn't make sense to risk losing your old playerbase which stuck for years for a new one that could just go away in a month either.

Even if they were deliberately trying to change Gaia's population, it would give them nothing in terms of survivability. People don't tend to spend money on avatar-based sites if there's nothing to gain from spending there in the longer term from what I gather.