An Open Letter to Gaia.

[One Winged Asuka]

Edit: After hours of contemplation, soul searching, and arguing with other SFer's, I've done a bit of editing to this post. No, I still don't have any "proof" of my numbers beyond my own memory and my word, but I hope that you can still understand the heart of what I'm trying to express here.

Dear Gaia,

I've been here a long time, and I've seen you do a lot of things right, and a few too many things wrong, but I noticed something today that made my heart sink with a realization.

Gaia, your online user count today was barely over 15,000 (11k in the daytime, 16k at night). The highest I've seen it in the past few weeks was around/barely above 20k.

The last time I took notice of your online user count, also during the summer time (2008 - 2010), it was at least around 200k. When Gaia ran it's Facebook "like" campaign, they received likes from nearly 500k unique users.

It's the middle of the summer.. where are all your users, Gaia?

I don't think you're losing money because of adblock, or because you had too many expensive employees, or because your projects haven't been taking off..

I think you've just lost your popularity. Nobody talks about you anymore. No one invites their friends to come here, instead they're going everywhere else to chat.

And I really don't think that a tabletop card game is going to bring that back.

I'm an anime convention person, I have been since I was 16. There's a whole new generation of anime fans.. and they've never even heard of Gaia. I remember a time when people at conventions would share their Gaia names when they met new people so that when everyone went home, they could stay connected. Now, they all go on Tumblr for all of their art-sharing and roleplaying needs, and share their Tumblr names at conventions. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I don't have a Tumblr, and when I ask people if they're on Gaia, they say "What's that?".

And I feel like I don't even have an answer to that question anymore. I used to be able to ramble on about the storyline and the events and the community.. but I haven't been able to do that in a long while now.

So here's my call to action; It's time for you to return to your roots, Gaia. This site was built on the idea of community, a world apart encompassed by it's own story, and it's own people, called Gaians.

Now is the time to become bold, to make us feel like more than just customers, and for us to become Gaians again!

How would you accomplish this, you ask? I have two simple suggestions (which are mostly one large suggestion but I broke in two for ease of understanding *exactly* what I'm suggesting)

1. Run simple, forum based events, and NOT just on holidays. The last time I can say I felt connected to the community was during the Dragons event, and it really had no point other than 'Dragons are attacking, fight back!". It made us work together as a community for a purpose, and it felt really good. Yeah, it was simple, and yeah, it was short, but it was still a lot of fun! Flash games and events are fun, I'm not saying they should go away at all, but would it hurt to do some more simple stuff *not* on holidays? What about simple, gold sink stuff like helping Ian pay Rufus' vet bill? Or sending Peyo to the zoo again?

We don't need item prizes for these things, the prize is the adventure! We have to stop being so item-centric, or people will never be satisfied- There will always be a new item to make, or a recolor to do, or another 50 hairstyles to wear, but is that really all that Gaia is about? No!

2. Create atmosphere; You have all kinds of interesting forum NPCs, with numerous intertwined story lines, MAKE THEM INTERACT! What ever happened with Sasha's love triangle? And what's going on with the Kuro's? Where have our Demi-gods been hiding?

Write some short stories about these things IN the forum, we don't always need a manga or webcomic! Manga and webcomics are great, they were a wonderful edition to our world, they gave us a visual representation of the story we were following, but I feel like a lot is still missing in between- Just a few text-based storyline updates would be fantastic! They don't have to be excessive, but even once every week or two would keep us up to speed, and keep us interested for when big story stuff does happen!

The point I'm trying to drive at is.. you have to make us CARE about what is going on in the world of Gaia, because if we never hear about these people (NPCs) and what's going on day-to-day, how can we give a damn about their adventures? How can we relate to them?

When I was at the Gaia panel last Metrocon, I was asked for my opinion of what would make Gaia better.. My answer was IMMERSION. Make Gaia feel less like a store, and like it's own WORLD again!

If you can make Gaia stand out, as it's own unique world again.. I can at least promise you that this Gaian will start telling her friends about you again.

[Labtech Soosh]

Really? 15,000?
Cause 4 minutes after posting that it's 20,068.
Semantics aside, I agree with the subject matter of the post. I do feel immersion is a key quality that is needed in the site. RIGs totally ruin it for me, and with the recent Halo fiasco and the event item bundle, that just made it worst.

The event team has been doing a good job at bringing back that immersion, but this latest one was a flop and felt like an excuse to replace an event with unsuspecting beta testers for their new pet system.

[Zandy]

While I agree with what you said about re-establishing community within Gaia, this has never had 500000 let alone 250000 people online at one time sweatdrop .

[npulse]

Gaia has never had that many uses online at once...and when they did have a lot of users online it was later found out that many of the numbers was from bots and not legit users.

Anyways, Gaia is already trying to get back to it roots. But these things take time. They are communicating with us more, they are making more active events, they are running more community events, ect.

Off topic: I'm going to MetroCon this year emotion_kirakira

[One Winged Asuka]

Pirate Captain Sushi

Really? 15,000?
Cause 4 minutes after posting that it's 20,068.
Semantics aside, I agree with the subject matter of the post. I do feel immersion is a key quality that is needed in the site. RIGs totally ruin it for me, and with the recent Halo fiasco and the event item bundle, that just made it worst.

The event team has been doing a good job at bringing back that immersion, but this latest one was a flop and felt like an excuse to replace an event with unsuspecting beta testers for their new pet system.

When I logged on this morning, the count was actually 11,000, but when I started writing this, it was 16,000, so I actually rounded up a little. The point is, I haven't seen it go anywhere over/near 50,000 in ages, which is already a huge drop from 200,000.. which was the old 'average' from a few years ago.

In addition, I'm not a "back in my day" Gaian- I've been ACTIVE from 2008 til now, my 'perfect attendance' achievement should be hint at that. I took a break from 2006 to late 2007, but I've been here every day since I came back, no other hiatuses.

I didn't say anything about the cash shop, or rigs, or items- I DID say that Gaia feels more like a store than a world, because it's true- The announcements we've been receiving are all about items, and very little about the story, community, and NPCs.

[One Winged Asuka]

Zandykins

While I agree with what you said about re-establishing community within Gaia, this has never had 500000 let alone 250000 people online at one time sweatdrop .

Yes, it has, I distinctly remember it. I wish I had a screen shot.

You can look it up, Gaia did a 'Facebook like' campaign around that time and accumulated almost 500k likes. Gaia genuinely had that many active users at one time.

I'll look up their usage statistics later, but trust me, summer used to draw an average of 200k online users during the day.

[Labtech Soosh]

One Winged Asuka

Pirate Captain Sushi

Really? 15,000?
Cause 4 minutes after posting that it's 20,068.
Semantics aside, I agree with the subject matter of the post. I do feel immersion is a key quality that is needed in the site. RIGs totally ruin it for me, and with the recent Halo fiasco and the event item bundle, that just made it worst.

The event team has been doing a good job at bringing back that immersion, but this latest one was a flop and felt like an excuse to replace an event with unsuspecting beta testers for their new pet system.

When I logged on this morning, the count was actually 11,000, but when I started writing this, it was 16,000, so I actually rounded up a little. The point is, I haven't seen it go anywhere over/near 50,000 in ages, which is already a huge drop from 200,000.. which was the old 'average' from a few years ago.

In addition, I'm not a "back in my day" Gaian- I've been ACTIVE from 2008 til now, my 'perfect attendance' achievement should be hint at that. I took a break from 2006 to late 2007, but I've been here every day since I came back, no other hiatuses.

I didn't say anything about the cash shop, or rigs, or items- I DID say that Gaia feels more like a store than a world, because it's true- The announcements we've been receiving are all about items, and very little about the story, community, and NPCs.

Never did I criticize you on anything but the usercount.
Everything else was from my own observation. ninja

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

Was this 250k number before or after the purge of the bot accounts?

i'm genuinely asking.

i'm really all for a greater amount of immersion, but i'm also for making sure they make plenty of back-up plans.

[Nomadder]

I'm so tired of Site Feedback, this s**t is ridiculous. Not you, you made a very nice and respectful post suggesting some ways Gaia can gain some popularity, and telling it maybe it should focus on it's story.

I'm talking about the people who gave it a "</3". I swear to god, the Gaian community especially in Site Feedback has some of the rudest people I will ever meet. Holy hell.

In other terms, your suggestions are all fit, and I definitely agree it's more of a store than anything else. It's how alot of great sites fall. Well made thread. Sorry some people can't take the fact that if someone suggests something that is medicorely against Gaia, it doesn't mean the OP "hates" Gaia.

[One Winged Asuka]

Cecilia Davidson

Was this 250k number before or after the purge of the bot accounts?

i'm genuinely asking.

i'm really all for a greater amount of immersion, but i'm also for making sure they make plenty of back-up plans.

After. The bot purge was in 2008. These peaks I remember from summer of 2009&2010. I was less active in 2011 because I was working full time that summer, and wasn't really watching because everything was still on the upswing.

I really only noticed today how few of us are here.

[Voat]

I would like to see NPCs post around too biggrin

especially Gino...with a ghost Meili sprite since Meili's dead and all.

i would probably log in gaia more time each day just to see them e-kiss and-

[Ariel Yardena Davidson]

One Winged Asuka

Cecilia Davidson

Was this 250k number before or after the purge of the bot accounts?

i'm genuinely asking.

i'm really all for a greater amount of immersion, but i'm also for making sure they make plenty of back-up plans.

After. The bot purge was in 2008. These peaks I remember from summer of 2009&2010. I was less active in 2011 because I was working full time that summer, and wasn't really watching because everything was still on the upswing.

I really only noticed today how few of us are here.

I actually recall a second more recently. It was around 2011-2012, in fact.

[One Winged Asuka]

TheAntiHeroJD

I'm so tired of Site Feedback, this s**t is ridiculous. Not you, you made a very nice and respectful post suggesting some ways Gaia can gain some popularity, and telling it maybe it should focus on it's story.

I'm talking about the people who gave it a "</3". I swear to god, the Gaian community especially in Site Feedback has some of the rudest people I will ever meet. Holy hell.

In other terms, your suggestions are all fit, and I definitely agree it's more of a store than anything else. It's how alot of great sites fall. Well made thread. Sorry some people can't take the fact that if someone suggests something that is medicorely against Gaia, it doesn't mean the OP "hates" Gaia.

Thread dislikes don't bother me, I understand that some of the people who like, or dislike, a thread don't read the whole thing. Some do, and just disagree with my points. It doesn't bother me either way; if it did, I could have turned off voting, but I want everyone to have their opinion on this, even if it's opposite of mine.

Thank you for your support of my topic, I do care about Gaia very much. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother posting.

[Nomadder]

One Winged Asuka

TheAntiHeroJD

I'm so tired of Site Feedback, this s**t is ridiculous. Not you, you made a very nice and respectful post suggesting some ways Gaia can gain some popularity, and telling it maybe it should focus on it's story.

I'm talking about the people who gave it a "</3". I swear to god, the Gaian community especially in Site Feedback has some of the rudest people I will ever meet. Holy hell.

In other terms, your suggestions are all fit, and I definitely agree it's more of a store than anything else. It's how alot of great sites fall. Well made thread. Sorry some people can't take the fact that if someone suggests something that is medicorely against Gaia, it doesn't mean the OP "hates" Gaia.

Thread dislikes don't bother me, I understand that some of the people who like, or dislike, a thread don't read the whole thing. Some do, and just disagree with my points. It doesn't bother me either way; if it did, I could have turned off voting, but I want everyone to have their opinion on this, even if it's opposite of mine.

Thank you for your support of my topic, I do care about Gaia very much. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother posting.

Oh, it might not bug you. It's just.. over the past hour of my time in site feedback, I've seen countless occasions where people assume that if someone says something SLIGHTLY against Gaia, it means the person hates the site.

It's me, not you. Anyway, great thread.

[Sakura Latte]

TheAntiHeroJD

I'm so tired of Site Feedback, this s**t is ridiculous. Not you, you made a very nice and respectful post suggesting some ways Gaia can gain some popularity, and telling it maybe it should focus on it's story.

I'm talking about the people who gave it a "</3". I swear to god, the Gaian community especially in Site Feedback has some of the rudest people I will ever meet. Holy hell.

In other terms, your suggestions are all fit, and I definitely agree it's more of a store than anything else. It's how alot of great sites fall. Well made thread. Sorry some people can't take the fact that if someone suggests something that is medicorely against Gaia, it doesn't mean the OP "hates" Gaia.

People are allowed to upvote and downvote a thread if they so wish. There is nothing rude about disagreeing nor downvoting a thread. In case you are not familiar with Site Feedback, people are allowed to disagree with certain issues. You cannot come in here and expect everyone to agree with you. Regardless of how calm the OP was, people are still allowed to voice and vote their disagreements towards her thread. And by the way, downvoting a thread means you disagree with a thread. It does not mean that they have a problem with the user, although in some cases, the OP's attitude can be an indicator on whether a thread gets downvotes or upvotes. Meanwhile, you need to stop trying to defend any users who are getting negative feedback.

We're hardly rude, either. A lot of us are actually nice people. However, respect has to be earned around here as well. As the saying goes, respect others as you would respect yourself. Coming in with a bad attitude and throwing a fit will lessen other people's opinion of you, as well as refusing to listen to reason to the other side's argument.