Welcome Home Lanzer

[Lanzer]

I've just unblocked previously blocked messages in the thread.

In the past 2 years there had been rules set to prohibit mentioning of certain personalities within Gaia Interactive, and I noticed our moderators had been following the rules as they're instructed to.

I've asked Zero Omega to forward a new request, and I'll state it here also:

From this point forward, all Gaians should be able to address us Gaia staff directly without consequence. All moderators, please do not block off messages that mention current or past Gaia staff members. With exception to posting of personal information such as address, phone number or social security numbers, I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence. 3nodding

[Lanzer]

Katulain

I think lanzer mentioned before that they won't make changes to the current monetization model until they have a strategy. That's smart because Gaia shouldn't abandon all sources of income on principle and leave itself dry for when it wants to start making some larger, structural changes.

I hate to say it but you are correct. As we come back in, on day one our bank account reads zero dollars. We need to be extremely careful with our spending, and be equally careful with what we're selling in order to stay in business.

That being said. The current item release schedule is overwhelming and we have all the intention to dial things back, and step away from things like gold gens and tickets. That will be a gradual program as our first priority is to have a positive account balance.

Quote:

However, I think it's a massive waste of time to be fixing old features. I think it'd be better to take a seemingly radical approach and re-design Gaia from the ground up in HTML5 and focusing on simplifying everything so that the few features that require investment and heavy workload can be easily prioritized.

The current plan is to focus on building new stuff that will ultimately replace old features, or would provide a better experience compared to current features. At the same time, I will find the time to fix small bugs that are pain points for Gaians. It'll probably be a 90/10 effort of spending most of my time building new features or events.

Quote:

Building avatars, minigames, zOMG and hangouts. I think the flash spaces need a big update. The avatar builder has always been improving so I don't think much work needs to go into that for the time being. ZOMG on the other hand... people fell in love with that game. I know I did. It would be cool if gold sinks made their way into zOMG. Like some kind of amusement park.

I plan on meeting Swarf next week or after new years to get some pointers on how to fix the server. It's not a easy problem to fix so I can't hold any promises, but I will try my best!

[Lanzer]

Saffrons_Curse

WHICH BTW LANZER, can y'all remove that stupid as ******** option Goldemort added to the MP where you can buy items, in the MP with goddamn gcash? That s**t pissed me off so bad. emotion_donotwant

We have a big list of things that we want to have fixed, and that function is under review also. Though as I've mentioned earlier, we're in a situation where it's quite scary, or dangerous for us to do revenue related changes for the time being.

My philosophy is this - as a member of Gaia staff, we need to proof to all Gaians that we're focus on bringing you all great features, creative events, and a fun place that you would like to call home. And we would ask for your monetary support if you deem that our efforts are worth supporting. We're not at that point yet, and I hope that in 2017 we can proof to you that we are a team who see your interest and enjoyment comes before everything else.

I'm 2 weeks in and we're at a transitional phase right now. I hope that we'll get to the point where I can achieve what I mentioned, so that we will have the resources to hire some of the old staff members who loved working for all Gaians.

I've talked to CodeMonkey already and he would love to be back. But first, we need to establish step #1 - to proof our worth, before we can get to #2 - regain monetary support from Gaians, then we can reach #3 - hire more staff members to build even more features. Please be patient with us as we finish planning what to tackle next!

[Lanzer]

Zelda_of_the_Triforce

lanzer

What are the odds of being able to find some programmers and other staff to work as volunteers? You could put up some ads in the area seeking help. My place of employment has a very large pool of absolutely incredible interns and volunteers who do a ton of work for all of our departments, and it always amazes me the things people do without getting paid for it! You could perhaps offer them the prospects of a future job once funds become available, or maybe just look around for some die-hard Gaians in the area who are ecstatic to see Lanzer and most of the Dream Team returning (and, you know, you can also bribe them with things like milk and cookies). You could also maybe offer them some sort of online incentive(s), especially for folk like artists. Besides that, volunteering also looks great on a resume!

It's true, in the early days of Gaia, staff members such as Darknrgy was working remotely as he build marketplace for Gaia. I will be reaching out to see if any Gaians are interested in being involved in future projects once I ironed out the plans for 2017. Stay tuned!

[Lanzer]

bluecherry

I like how communicative lanzer has been with us about the state of things so far. I hope it keeps up. Gaia has a history of being very bad about not communicating and making big decisions without seeing what the users think and plowing ahead no matter how much we then are upset with the results.

Thank you for all the wonderful suggestions and comments. Many of the items listed will be dealt with, and while there are items that I can't focus on right now, I will add them to the feature list for consideration.

I know that we had done many weird and questionable stuff in the past that not everyone agree with, but now that I'm back on the helm, things will be different. Not that we won't be making stupid mistakes, but that I'll be here to tell you why I've done something stupid. smile

[Lanzer]

Slutty_Eddie

lanzer

~~~~~

Since I have your attention, I want to make another suggestion. You don't have to do it, but I think it's a good idea.

What I suggest is creating a completely new forum system entirely.

Restart guilds, but allow a mutli-guild view. Where users can browse multiple guilds on the same page. When that becomes popular, roll the original forums into the guild style forums.

That way we'd have a modern reddit.com style forum system, but we'd keep our dress up avatars.

I honestly think that would keep gaia fresh, since gaia style forums are old school.

My heart is really in having a great guild system. It still baffles me how we never reached the level that I wanted to be with guilds. I have to be honest that we will be focusing on some of the more major features first, such as improvements to forums, but it is my wish to have a guild system that is even more popular and enjoyable than the forum itself.

[HighClass Badass]

Slutty_Eddie

lanzer

~~~~~

Since I have your attention, I want to make another suggestion. You don't have to do it, but I think it's a good idea.

What I suggest is creating a completely new forum system entirely.

Restart guilds, but allow a mutli-guild view. Where users can browse multiple guilds on the same page. When that becomes popular, roll the original forums into the guild style forums.

That way we'd have a modern reddit.com style forum system, but we'd keep our dress up avatars.

I honestly think that would keep gaia fresh, since gaia style forums are old school.

No thanks, I like Gaia's style of forums, it makes the site unique to itself.

[Nyadriel]

HighClass Badass

Slutty_Eddie

lanzer

~~~~~

Since I have your attention, I want to make another suggestion. You don't have to do it, but I think it's a good idea.

What I suggest is creating a completely new forum system entirely.

Restart guilds, but allow a mutli-guild view. Where users can browse multiple guilds on the same page. When that becomes popular, roll the original forums into the guild style forums.

That way we'd have a modern reddit.com style forum system, but we'd keep our dress up avatars.

I honestly think that would keep gaia fresh, since gaia style forums are old school.

No thanks, I like Gaia's style of forums, it makes the site unique to itself.

I agree. It's really comfortable here too the way it is.

[HighClass Badass]

Nyadriel

HighClass Badass

Slutty_Eddie

lanzer

~~~~~

Since I have your attention, I want to make another suggestion. You don't have to do it, but I think it's a good idea.

What I suggest is creating a completely new forum system entirely.

Restart guilds, but allow a mutli-guild view. Where users can browse multiple guilds on the same page. When that becomes popular, roll the original forums into the guild style forums.

That way we'd have a modern reddit.com style forum system, but we'd keep our dress up avatars.

I honestly think that would keep gaia fresh, since gaia style forums are old school.

No thanks, I like Gaia's style of forums, it makes the site unique to itself.

I agree. It's really comfortable here too the way it is.

If I wanted a "reddit" experience, I'd go to bloody reddit x.x

[Nyadriel]

HighClass Badass

Nyadriel

HighClass Badass

Slutty_Eddie

lanzer

~~~~~

Since I have your attention, I want to make another suggestion. You don't have to do it, but I think it's a good idea.

What I suggest is creating a completely new forum system entirely.

Restart guilds, but allow a mutli-guild view. Where users can browse multiple guilds on the same page. When that becomes popular, roll the original forums into the guild style forums.

That way we'd have a modern reddit.com style forum system, but we'd keep our dress up avatars.

I honestly think that would keep gaia fresh, since gaia style forums are old school.

No thanks, I like Gaia's style of forums, it makes the site unique to itself.

I agree. It's really comfortable here too the way it is.

If I wanted a "reddit" experience, I'd go to bloody reddit x.x

Same with FB. If I wanted an "FB" I would go there. And I dont even do FB.


Gaia is it's own world.

[Kilarra]

Welcome back, Lanzer! As a 2k4 oldbie and ex-moderator, I have to say this is the only thing I've seen in recent years that gives me some optimism for Gaia's future smile Best of luck in breathing some vibrancy back into the site!

[Sabbycak3s]

lanzer

I am just ecstatic that you are back! I've been a member since '05 and still going strong. c: I knew sticking around would pay off whee

[Saffrons_Curse]

lanzer

Saffrons_Curse

WHICH BTW LANZER, can y'all remove that stupid as ******** option Goldemort added to the MP where you can buy items, in the MP with goddamn gcash? That s**t pissed me off so bad. emotion_donotwant

We have a big list of things that we want to have fixed, and that function is under review also. Though as I've mentioned earlier, we're in a situation where it's quite scary, or dangerous for us to do revenue related changes for the time being.

My philosophy is this - as a member of Gaia staff, we need to proof to all Gaians that we're focus on bringing you all great features, creative events, and a fun place that you would like to call home. And we would ask for your monetary support if you deem that our efforts are worth supporting. We're not at that point yet, and I hope that in 2017 we can proof to you that we are a team who see your interest and enjoyment comes before everything else.

I'm 2 weeks in and we're at a transitional phase right now. I hope that we'll get to the point where I can achieve what I mentioned, so that we will have the resources to hire some of the old staff members who loved working for all Gaians.

I've talked to CodeMonkey already and he would love to be back. But first, we need to establish step #1 - to proof our worth, before we can get to #2 - regain monetary support from Gaians, then we can reach #3 - hire more staff members to build even more features. Please be patient with us as we finish planning what to tackle next!

Fair enough. As soon as you're able, though, getting rid of that option would be amazing.

Your philosophy is a good one; one the previous CEO never adhered to and it showed through like a gigantic pimple under concealer. lol I was so ready to be like Okay, I can get behind the new CEO now, but every time he/his management did one thing right, almost immediately, he/they went and turned around and shat all over it.
IT GOT REALLY HILARIOUS WITH GEEMOJI THOUGH. OOOOOH BOY. I laughed so hard at that whole debacle, it was so gloriously terrible. It was like some parody of itself, it was so unreal! rofl The little forum they made for it was full of so much sarcasm and sass. xd

Of course I can be patient - change is slow and the previous CEO did a lot of damage. It'd be ridiculous to expect you to just snap your fingers and WOW! IT'S LIKE GOLDEMORT WAS NEVER HEEERREE~!! Sad [for Gaia] to know the rumors about him and his history of sucking websites dry turned out to be true. Thankfully, your leadership before attracted a lot of really awesome people here, who, like me, are too stubborn to leave, so no matter the kinds of stupid crap he pulled, there's always been a really cool userbase to keep each other here. But with you OG folks back, I can actually trust that you'll be acting in the best interests of the site/users and not the fattening of your wallet. So thanks~~ Now there's a chance for Gaia to not die. heart

ALSO I want to mention; thank you for not having the thin-skin and phobia of criticism that Goldemort and his crew [Or was it just those two who were the ones in charge, making all the decisions?] had, because wow. What cowardly babies. Head of the company, but don't speak ill of them - actually don't even mention their names, as that's personal information, because it'll hurt their feelings[???] and they'll have you banned forever! If you don't how they run things, then leave. lol I remember something to that effect in... their ToS changes? some... sort of feedback thing they had? summarized to 'Don't like it? GTFO' ... what a way to run a successful company. smdh

[Ranusha]

HighClass Badass

Nyadriel

HighClass Badass

Slutty_Eddie

lanzer

~~~~~

Since I have your attention, I want to make another suggestion. You don't have to do it, but I think it's a good idea.

What I suggest is creating a completely new forum system entirely.

Restart guilds, but allow a mutli-guild view. Where users can browse multiple guilds on the same page. When that becomes popular, roll the original forums into the guild style forums.

That way we'd have a modern reddit.com style forum system, but we'd keep our dress up avatars.

I honestly think that would keep gaia fresh, since gaia style forums are old school.

No thanks, I like Gaia's style of forums, it makes the site unique to itself.

I agree. It's really comfortable here too the way it is.

If I wanted a "reddit" experience, I'd go to bloody reddit x.x

Reddit-style boards have the most boring aesthetic. They also feel more disorganized for a forum like this. talk2hand If you put that kind of layout on Gaia, it would alienate users who are already used to Gaia's current style and layout. Sure, I'd love a few shake-ups, but we also need some familiarity. 3nodding

[Ghost of War]

lanzer

I would like to ask Gaians to respect the privacy of everybody, not just Gaia staff members.

I believe that transparency and communication need to be the essence of our relationship as admins and Gaians. If I mess up anything, I deserve your honest opinions, no matter how brutal, critical or upsetting the opinions might be. I will try my very best to stay true and honest, and I want all Gaians to know that you are free to be honest with me with no consequence. 3nodding

That is such a great thing to hear, because I have privacy concerns. I'm glad that posting anyone's personal info w/o their consent is a punishable offense.

Also allowing freedom of speech to your member base is exactly how I think a company should be run. It lets us know you're listening, and that you give a damn. Ahh Gaia is in the right hands. I hope you keep it forever.

Very excited. 3nodding

ps Merry Christmas