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Recently, users have noticed an issue with the captcha in that they cannot save their fish, and some of them cannot even load the captcha. This has lead to much panic among the fishing community, where some fishers are unsure of what the future for fishing holds. Many are afraid that fishing will take the path of zOMG and be taken down for "maintenance" and never to return (or if it does, it will be a totally different experience), while others herald fishing's "reboot". In any case, in a recent staff notice³, bluealaris said "We are re-writing the entire game to be a duplicate of the previous experience, only with updated code that can allow for better captchas", so we can all rest easy that fishing WILL NOT be scrapped, and we (assumably) will not have to deal with such awful captchas. Furthermore, bluealaris also said that they hope to have this accomplished as soon as possible (hopefully sometime this summer), but due to a lack of resources, there is no real set date on it's completion⁴.

For now, all we can do is wait for this problem to be fixed, however when it will be fixed is a concern for many fishers, as in the past gaia has taken years to update some of the features in fishing, but only time will tell...

As for myself, it seems that my work as a reporter for the monthly lake news will be put on hold for the time being, however I will still be reporting any and all related fishing information as I recieve it. heart

Sources:
¹ Google Definition of Captcha
² Wikipedia Definition of CAPTCHA
³ Fishing Captcha Notification by bluealaris
⁴ bluealaris' reply in site feedback*

* Special thanks to wagnas for sharing the link heart

Alright so it's going on June, and yet again The annual pro-fishing tournament seems to be running behind schedule. That said, a fellow fisher, as well as current moderator, Shirlox apprently went to Gaia's Fanime 2015 panel, and there he talked with some of the staff about fishing, where he was told some exciting news about the upcoming (as of yet un-named) lake, as well talking with codemonkey himself about the current status of fishing.[3] (I cannot find it at the moment, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the annual will happen at some point this summer).[4]

In today's AtS, we had a few topics addressed by the staff, one of them was concerning the status of captchas themselves, where codemonkey himself hinted that it may be possible to get rid of them all together them in the future fishing update![5] This makes me wonder what sort of countermeasures would be in place to combat bots, but still this is welcome news indeed. The other major topic, was whether or not trophies would still be granted even if only half of the month was spent fishing, where Zero confirmed that indeed trophies would be granted for the month of May.[6] Now if only we could get trophies granted a little faster. gonk

That's all for now! Overall I'd say this is all good news so far, and we can all relax in knowing that fishing will indeed be coming back and will not be going the same route the late zOMG! did. Furthermore, it seems all we can do is wait, and hope that the staff can solve this issue as soon as possible!

Sources:
1. Google Definition of Captcha
2. Wikipedia Definition of CAPTCHA
3. Fishing News from Fanime 2015
4. [SOURCE REQUIRED]
5. Codemonkey's reply in AtS
6. Zero's reply in AtS

Alright, sorry guys...I have been tied up with work recently, so I haven't been able to update this as quickly as I would like, but since it's the weekend and I don't really work on the weekends, I have time to update it now, so with that said let's jump right into it.

With June halfway in the books, and fishing still offline many of us feel like fishing is less of a priority than other things (read: gcash) for gaia. And as angie_sash pointed out, this appears to be the case, as codemonkey said that they are busy working on the summer event, but after that is over they will be back to fix fishing [3], but as codemonkey later said "it is a complicated system.[4] Now, I can't help but feel like fishing will be constantly juggled between their main projects on the to-do list, since I do remember codemonkey later saying that after the summer event they will begin work on the upcoming halloween event; this may just be speculation on my part however.[5]

As angie_sash pointed out, bluealaris hinted that the upcoming summer event might be related to lake kindred[6], and as she also pointed out, perhaps this "lake kindred" is related to the upcoming lake for fishing itself? It certainly is an interesting theory it would be quite a creative way to introduce the new lake, though I do not really think this is the case. =v

That's all we've got so far, and I think that nothing seems to have changed since the last week as far as actual progress goes. All we can really do is hope that the staff can finish the summer event and get back into addressing fishing (hopefully before autumn). sweatdrop

Sources:
1. Google Definition of Captcha
2. Wikipedia Definition of CAPTCHA
3. codemonkey's reply in AtS
4. codemonkey's second reply in AtS
5. codemonkey's third reply in AtS
6. bluealaris' reply in AtS

*Special thanks to angie_sash for sharing the links* heart

Alright, with that out of the way we can get on with the news! Well, the thing is, there hasn't been much talk lately about the status of fishing, although the most recent batch of news bluealaris did hint around[3] that fishing could possibly be up and running right after the summer event which should have happened a week ago[4]. This delay in the summer event leads me to believe that gaia should hire less artists[5] and more developers. In this reporters honest opinion I will close with this, while artists make stuff nice and fancy lookin', developers are the people who keep things running nice and smoothly.

Sources:
1. Google Definition of Captcha
2. Wikipedia Definition of CAPTCHA
3. bluealaris' reply in AtS
4. bluealaris' second reply in AtS
5. bluealaris' post in the staff notices
Special thanks to the always informative angie_sash for the links! heart

Alright, much like last week, not a whole lot has changed in terms of progress that I know of. We did get to see
a few familiar faces express their concerns with fishing, however. Most notably Raining Miroku, who many regard as
being one of the most dedicated (as well as legendary) fishers. Sadly Miro's question went unanswered for the entire
duration of AtS[3]. Shortly after Miro's question KingMemphis confirmed that while codemonkey37179 might not be an in-house developer anymore, he would indeed continue to work on his unfinished projects. This did not sit well with
Mama Gen who was a little flustered over KingMemphis' reply, and when she called him out,[4] she too was ignored.
Later DarkRybrin also expressed her concerns with the status of fishing, needless to say they also never got a reply[5]...

On a more positive note, Zero Omega did say that receiving fish through dumpster dive is a possibility while fishing is down[6].
While this might be somewhat of a bandaid for some people, for the actual fishing community it is little but a tease and possibly an insult.

Overall, it seems to me like the staff are getting a bit irritated with how many fishers are constantly asking about its progress,
and so I can't help but feel like maybe they simply are ignoring us, not to be mean to us, but because there hasn't been any actual progress
with it lately. While I can't help but feel uneasy at this thought, all we can do at this point is wait and try to stay optimistic until
we hear more on this pressing issue.

Sources:
1. Google Definition of Captcha
2. Wikipedia Definition of CAPTCHA
3. Raining Miroku's post in AtS
4. Mama Gen's reply in AtS
5. DarkRybrin's post in AtS
6. Zero Omega's reply in AtS

Fishing Reboot!
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A message from vikinghalex

Fishing, for many, has been a staple in their everyday routine on Gaia, but for nearly a year it was down
(Iirc it went down May 15, 2015). The minute it went down users were all up in arms, threads were made,
even an sd doll was made in honor of fishing, but for months all of that seemed to be for nothing. Cries
for action seemed to fall on deaf ears from staff. In time, many users simply feared that perhaps fishing
would meet the same fate as !zOMG, and yet others never return at all.

For months, and nearly a year, this seemed to be the case as Gaia did not appear to show any real interest
or progress on this issue to "fix" or remake fishing as was supposed to have been in the works. As a result
of this, many old faces in the fishing community simply gave up and either quit altogether or went on a
"permanent" semi-hiatus and would only log in once a month or so to see if any progress was made.
To the dismay of these users, none was ever made. There was however, a select few who never gave up
hope and tried their best to keep fishing in the spotlight, either with petition threads to "Save Fishing"
or simply posting every week in ATS...These people never gave up on the game that had kept them here.

I personally have a deep love for fishing, to the point to where I poured my very soul out one ATS, and I
can't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, perhaps my words reverberated somewhere within the staff.
Soon after my proclamation of loyalty, Gaia came up with a survey that asked what Gaians wanted to see
updated...and one of those things was legacy games. As it turns out, these legacy games were among
the top 5 things users wanted to see updated or fixed and so nearly a week ago (forgive me again my
memory is incredibly...derpy sometimes, and quite honestly I'm still shocked and overjoyed myself)
fishing had finally returned.

With the return of our beloved fishing, so too did many of those old faces who retired nearly a year ago.
I can still honestly say that I was surprised to see such activity at the lakes on the eve of its return,
and though my remake may never see the light of day, I think I will have my hands tied with Hooked
and I do look forward to the months, and perhaps even years to come.

So with all that said, I leave you all with this: Happy Fishing and I can't wait to see you all at the lakes! /)

-Z