The Complaint Dept

[MiroIsBored]

Miro thirds that sentiment mad

Also also, Miro wants to complain about clerics mad Miro always plays a cleric or cleric type character in games, which tends to be a class that not many people want to play. Of the people that do, Miro has noticed two recurring personality types:

a) those who enjoy helping others
b) people who are incredibly self important

What this means is that clerics can be some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in an MMORPG ..... but they can also be some of the biggest melodramatic assfaces you'll ever have the misfortune to cross paths with stare  

[ThisEmptySoul]

*flips a table over how freakin' tedious and slow leveling in the Halloween event is for a Jack-aligned rogue* scream

I got far enough to get this dagger and I think that's about all I give enough of a s**t to bother with.

I was trying out the event with my own account and Mir's at the same time, figuring since she's EB aligned, if I can't find anyone else to attack, I could just attack her ninja She leveled over twice as fast as me with less effort stare  

[Icy Reign]

125,000,000 FOR MAD AND LOONY HATTER!!!! scream ARE YOU ******** CRAZY!!!! AND I THOUGHT 20 MIL FOR LA BELLA FIGURA WAS A KICK IN THE GUT! stressed GOD DAMNED THIS INFLATION!!!! *tablefliprage*  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Damn. I thought it was pretty expensive when I got mine all that time ago, but compared to 20 mil, that was a steal burning_eyes  

[Lil Brat]

Wondering why I busted my arse so much for D-Tails and OMGs and other-such only to have them released for jack-squat monies - same price for both ~ seriously, Gaia... it's the chance items that are kicking up inflation to begin with. emotion_donotwant  

[Kits Rose]

No, Brat, I think that's all the gold that's being released into the system. cat_stare Use cash, get gold right away, no middle step of the marketplace or anything.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Old items like OMGs and Devil Tails originally were so pricey in the marketplace because of the natural progression of supply and demand. As people left Gaia and accounts got banned and so on and so forth, they became more rare as new ones weren't being introduced and the limited supply was becoming smaller, but people still wanted them. So the price went up. Same with the rarer chance items. To add to that, some people who normally wouldn't want them do solely because they're rare, adding to the demand when the supply is slowly diminishing.

Releasing them again for cash is no different from how they were originally available, except now they cost more and won't be as readily available. Formerly, you would have only needed to pay $2.50 and had an entire month to acquire them and now they're almost $15 and will only be available in short 4 hour windows over the course of 3 days.

If you want to be angry about people paying "jack-squat monies" for something you had to work hard for, be angry at those who bought them in the first place for $2.50 that whole month back in '03. But then again, if they hadn't, you wouldn't have been able to get them in the first place.

These flash sales where they release rare items for cash is their way of not only getting themselves money, but also releasing more of them into the marketplace to help bring the prices down to something a bit more reasonable. It's not a bad move at all, business-wise or Gaia economy wise. It might upset the Gaian rich who depend on selling these rare items at high prices to make their fortune and those who bought them at their inflated prices, but it helps balance the overall economy.

What -is- a bad move, however, is the direct money-to-gold system.

Items for cash only causes "item inflation", and them limiting the amount of time they're available for purchase in addition to the cost reduces just how many actually enter the market. Trading gold for items bought with cash doesn't add gold to the system. Matter of fact, it helps reduce gold inflation because of the 2% tax on the marketplace, which most people use rather than trading because of the convenience of it.

Paying money for gold, however, introduces new gold into the system. The more gold there is out there, the less valuable it becomes and the more it requires to actually buy something. And it's a self feeding monster, really... because as prices go up due to more gold in the system, the more users demand easier gold and the more that are willing to shell out cash for items {or gold} because it becomes the only plausible way they'll get the items they want.

If the higher ups knew anything at all about basic economics, they would realize Flynn's Chest/Booty were horrible ideas for the Gaia economy {but great for their wallets, so perhaps they -do- know}. The Halloween gold sink didn't mean s**t because they rereleased the very cause of the runaway inflation during it. Booty Grab was the start of the inflation, but it's just gone completely insane with Flynn's money for gold.

Gold shop items and chance items for gold are better gold sinks that would help provide a lasting solution to the Gaia economy, but right now I don't think they higher ups can bring themselves to see past all the dollar signs. Who cares if the fake Gaia economy goes to pot so long as they're making money.  

[Kairanha]

From what I can tell, Gaia is trying to building up revenue to build an entirely new website so it might not care if the economy of this one gets trashed anymore as long as they can get some money out of it.

setting that aside...

I have a friend who will talk endlessly about Naruto even though I keep telling them I don't like the show and stopped watching it years ago. Pretty much every major shounen anime has turned me away for dragging on for far too long, the quality of the art getting better while the quality of the story goes to s**t, themes getting repetitive or the story falling into a pattern, the emphasis no longer being on character development, but who can pull of the biggest landscape destroying fart, if a character falls in love they usually die not long after or suffer some tragic fate or just leaves it unspoken and unrequited for hundreds of episodes/chapters just to play at every once in a while as a cheap plot device to get things moving again, people don't die when they are killed.

I'm sure I'm missing a few things as I'm getting rather frustrated because at one time or another I did really like some of the series at one point or another and I was really invested in them, but it's just to much time to put in to watching something that no longer entertains me or the choices the writer(s) make on the direction of the series just outright anger me.

I feel like I've said this before.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

*sees there's a Lucies bundle and thinks that would be great for Mir*
*checks the price tag*

NINETY FIVE ******** DOLLARS FOR IMAGINARY CLOTHES!!??! YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN' ME!! classified_fu  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Also...
GODDAMN YOU SPICE KIT BUNDLE! classified_fu
*flips tables*  

[Lil Brat]

rofl Inflation luffs ~ wink  

[ThisEmptySoul]

With all this recolor frenzy, I'm still waiting on table rage...  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Not really a complaint... more of a ABOUT ******** TIME!

RIGs for gold in Loyal's Bazaar. Finally. Hopefully they're pumping out items that are of decent enough quality for people to sink their gold in over and over to try to get them. And while everything in Loyal's is super expensive, not going to complain because it's a good gold sink. Now all they need to do is stop re-releasing cash for gold items... stare  

[Carter_Peggy]

Back in my day if you had 50k or more in gold you were rich. Now that wouldn't buy you half an outfit. I remember when we all got mad about the 2% tax that was added to buys from the market place, now I wish it was 20%.

*shakes fist at the sky* DAMN YOU AND YOUR ECONOMY PLAN TO HELL GAIA!  

[ThisEmptySoul]

My complaint: Gaia prudes. Underwear were added back to this pose because of them, some claiming it looked like the avatar was masturbating and "OMG! Think of the children!" For one, even with it being Taus and having drawn Taus playing with himself, this pose to me looked like he was just cupping his junk. And for two, I honestly believe none of these ******** remember being a teenager.

By 13, you've already had sex ed in school and likely already knew about sex one way or another beforehand. Also have likely been doing some "self exploration" for a while already. Granted, some people live far more sheltered lives, but you can't stay sheltered forever nor should you. People are complaining that, even with clothes on, the crotch grabbing makes them "uncomfortable". It's a goddamn pixel doll. It's not some creep on the street standing next to you, wearing nothing but his own hands.

But Gaia prudes isn't anything new so this shouldn't surprise me. Hell, back when I joined in 2004, I made some people "uncomfortable" by having my avi in just his boxers all the time and a few had capslocked at me to at least put on my peasant clothes... which I couldn't even if I wanted to because I sold them soon after creating the account.

And the bigger point that's going right over their heads: it's not that Gaia is pushing these items onto people. They're made because users WANTED items like it. They're in the business of making money, so they create what they know will sell because they know users want it. The reaction seems to assume that Gaia is just force feeding the user base revealing and suggestive items when really it's the user base that has been calling out for more.

However, the most annoying argument of all: "This is a website for 13 year olds"

.....

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I'm sorry, but this is not a site strictly for 13 year olds. It never has been. The 13 to sign up rule is a legality issue. Are there 13 year olds on the site? Of course. This guild was made to avoid them. But Gaia was never made specifically for them. The original go-gaia even had a dating section to find people and hook up. It was removed when they found out that there were actually a lot of underage teens on the site. Moreover, the very people making this argument aren't even 13 themselves. They're in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, assuming that everyone else on the site is a teen but them apparently.

At this point, Gaia is a dying site because of the cash push and the inflation, which makes it to where new people and kids without means to spend cash can't get into it, thus leaving it mostly to people who have jobs {16+ crowd} and those who have been here for years already, which, surprise surprise, would also put them in the 16+ crowd even if they joined at 13. While 16 still seems young to a lot of people, it's long been a common age to lose virginity. I know I did at that age. emotion_awesome Had nothing to do with "sex in the media" and s**t... it was simple teenage hormones.

And, again, even if there are still 13 year olds out there, kids aren't "innocent" at that age anymore. As young as it may seem, just take a moment to think back to when you were that age. Items like this aren't "corrupting their innocent minds" or traumatizing them for life.

One point I will concede on is this: admittedly, it -is- weird to think that some of the mostly naked and suggestive avatars you might see out there could very well have a kid on the other side of it. emotion_eyebrow However, I don't come to the conclusion that such automatically means the items shouldn't exist or need to be censored as the avatar itself is still just a pixel doll. I likely would have made my avatar the same way at that age if I had been on a site like this with these items because that's just what I do. It's not that the site would have corrupted me by having them. I had that mindset already. And if a kid's parents were at all attentive, they would have taught them about internet safety and being cautious about who they talk to, what kind of information they give out, how they interact with others, and what kind of attention they draw to themselves.