Welcome to Gaia! ::

It is very obvious Gaia cranks out a high end fish like a watermeat or a dolphin to boost cash sales in the fish shop.

Then after milking a fish for as much cash as they can get they nerf the fish. They don't TELL people they just do it sort of sneaky like.

When people complain they claim they had to do it because the fish was causing too much inflation.

So then we end up with the 'bait and switch' situation where a lot of people spent real cash or hard earned gold only to be very upset with Gaia for changing what they bought into something less. As someone else pointed out every dolphin or watermeat out there was purchased with real cash by someone.

Last weekend I attended the Gaia panels at Sakura-Con. In the Q&A I asked if they plan to nerf the dolphins like they did the watermeats. DJ said yes, they do plan to nerf the dolphins but he does not know when. When people figure that out there will once again be a LOT of very pissed off people and another wave of "Don't buy fish!”

Cash sales will take another dive and after a bit Gaia will introduce another high dollar fish with specs to entice people to open their wallets. In fact I asked at the convention if they will be introducing some other 'bread and butter' fish after they nerf the dolphins and was told yes. So, the cycle continues and each time they alienate many of their best fish customers.

I suggest an alternative solution that is simple and would probably keep everyone happy.
Introduce great fish but make them available for a limited time. Don't nerf dolphins; just stop selling them in the fish store. Announce ahead of time when they plan to stop selling a particular fish. So what happens?

Those who want the fish will buy MORE of them with cash before they leave the shop.
Those who own the fish feel special because now their fish is rarer. They will be able to keep collecting gold at the rates they planned on when they purchased the fish.
The fish will naturally die out over time and become rarer so they will have less and less impact on gold being pumped into the system.
The remaining unused fish will probably become a rare overpriced item but who cares? Items sold on MP is just gold transferred from user to user, not gold pumped into the system.

So, Gaia gets its cash, the inflation effect of the fish dwindles as they die off, people who own them can feel elite or special but if they use them they too will die off over time, Gaia is free to introduce the next big fish as an exciting new addition instead of making people feel they are being cheated by the next bait and switch operation.

To me this is a no-brainer solution to generate fish sales, manage inflation and avoid pissing off customers.

One of the basic facts of psychology is people are much more accepting of things they know about ahead of time and have time to adjust to instead of stuff they get blindsided by. If Gaia simply said up front, "Here is the dolphin (or other great fish). It has great specs and will make you gold. In six months we are going to stop selling it so buy one now!" That would go a long way to keep people happy. People would either buy in knowing they would not be able to buy more in six months or they would not buy at all. Either way the consumer would feel it was there choice.


_----------------------------------

AND FROM ANOTHER POST I MADE:
---------------------------------------




I totally agree. And the inflation issue is really completely separate from the issue of being honorable as a business. Gaia is very obviously collecting real money on high end fish based on the gold they drop. To change the product after the sale is just plain dishonest. Gaia has done this repeatedly. As I stated in another post a more fair way is to simply stop selling the particular fish and let the remaining ones die off. The affect of said fish on the economy dwindles but those who purchased are not screwed over. Then Gaia can wait how ever long they feel is appropriate and introduce the next great fish.

I've spent about $200 real money on fish so yeah, I'm pissed.
For those of you who do not buy fish but buy other things, consider how you would feel if you spent your $7.50 on an EI because Gaia said how great it is and hyped how great it is going to be. Then later after Gaia had your cash they removed most of the poses on the EI. Would you feel cheated? That is essentially what they are doing with the high end fish.

IMO Gaia keeps shooting themselves it he proverbial foot by repeatedly using sneaky monkey techniques when they could just as easily be up front and honest with their customers. Sell high end fish for a limited time and say so up front. Don't take away a large portion of a product after it is sold. Gaia KNOWS when they introduce a high gold producing fish it is going to pump a lot of gold into the economy. To choose to do so in order to get the cash and then change the fish (or the glow times) after they have the cash in hand is just utter crap in my book.

In addition to stopping selling a high end fish there are several more things Gaia could do to change the cash generated / gold generated ratio of fish.
1. Fix the Barrett's freezer glitch that essentially lets dolphins and several other fish live forever.
2. Fix the 'ghost fish' glitch that also essentially lets fish live forever if you do not visit the tank after their appointed dated of death.
3. Fix the 'dolphin tap' glitch if indeed that is a glitch. For those of you whining about it being cheating - please consider programmers often put in 'easter eggs' or other surprise features in order to get people to spend more time in the game looking for them.
4. Stop selling high gold producing fish - PERIOD. I am personally not in favor of #4 but at least it would be honest if Gaia was really just worried about inflation. I doubt this will ever happen though because the truth is Gaia wants the cash they generate.

Oh, and to the person who said something about the '100 or so people who buy high end fish' -- get a clue. There are many hundreds of tanks FULL of high end fish and thousands more partially full. Again, if Gaia was not selling a lot of these fish for real money they would not bother making them. Or, to view it another way, if there were really only 100 or so users out there buying high end fish (out of MILLIONS) they would not be able to have the big sway on the economy many of you seem to think they do.

It might happen. There is a strike being organized by another user trying to get HT tank owners to remove all their HT fish from the tanks for a period of one to two weeks.

I believe there will be a petition involved for non-tank owners to also voice their discontent.

You should post your two posts in the SF as a possible solution to the glow issue. 3nodding You'll get more attention that way and people will be more likely to take notice 3nodding

Except that the zOMG devs actually announced the changes and listened to the players for some more re-balancing.

I commend them for being up-front about what they've changed. As for GA, the devs really need some more accountability.

but they never said what they did, they wait till we done got involved in the tweak and we are not prepared and we wind up dead.