Rayinte
Lady Pyre
Not to mention that most of the people joining Gaia these days seem subhuman in intellect. Having to "work" for things caused many an ill-inspired idiot to quit within the first few days in the past. Not anymore.
Having to work for clothes also discourages the people who DO have the potential to contribute to Gaia. If I joined today and had to start out naked, or with peasant clothes, and if I knew nobody on the site, I'd probably not stick around very long. It's not a matter of work, it's a matter of not having incentive to stay on a site where I'm clearly at a large disadvantage.
And yet, three years worth of newbies started out at a large disadvantage and found enough incentive WITHOUT the starter items.
Everyone is at a disadvantage. Alongside a lot of the people I joined with, I'm poor as hell. And people whose most expensive item is an emo bag, which I say "so what?" to, are still envied by a LOT of people. It's all entirely relative. Does that mean they should give out easter slippers to my "generation" or devil tails to the next and so on down the line?
Besides, I don't think many newbies even realize what a disadvantage they're at until they're a month or two into the game. Gods know that I didn't realize we'd eventually have to resort to item trade to get anything that wasn't sold in the stores - I thought buying and selling was raping the public for profit and I'd eventually get everything I wanted just by posting. And there are tons of topcs everyday asking what x donation item is and how to get it. If they haven't found SOME incentive after a few months of time, what's the point of staying, items or no?
The Gaia economy is infinitely ******** up. All starter items do is mask the problem. Hell, I'd even say they create more, by the sheer numbers of the damned things. You have to be damned lucky to get anything BUT starter items as prizes in word bump, but nobody is going to buy them from you. So you're stuck selling them back to the store to 1-5 gold, which is hardly even worth the effort with how much LONGER the admins have decided to make that process take. But if you don't, they'll just sit in your inventory forever...
What they should have done is... I dunno... actually worked on the battle and quest system instead of all these ridiculous games that were never part of the mission statement? You know... introduce alternate means of obtaining items before any hit the 1 mil + point? But they didn't. They gave us half-hearted attempts at curbing inflation like the casino and hair salon, while actually increasing it by changing the rare event algorythyms...
Let's face it. The Gaia economy is never going to get any better. They've let it go out of control for far too long. The people who manipulate the economy at the expense of others are the whiniest bunch of users when any change is even suggested. "fomg! u meen invistmnts arnt alwees safe? no fare!!! giv me mai inflashun bak!" And even though they're the smaller, bunch, the admins listen because they're the LOUDEST bunch. So they can't REVERSE inflation. And even if they were able to stop it at it's current state so everything had a fixed highest price? Most of those are still ridiculous.
Ha. That's assuming they even care. No. They'll continue implementing illusory "fixes" like gold sinks, more items for newbies, and the daily chance, but they won't adress the root of the problem.
