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Narumi's Adventures

The Adventures of Narumi Misuhara

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Looking forward Yarrr mateys it be time for anoder update! cough cough ...what the.... A lot of behind the scenes happenings have been going on here at the office. By now you all know biglanky14 left the company to move on to his dream of teaching. Many people however do not know what exactly it was that he did here (don't worry neither did we). razz His job was senior product manager of Gaia Online. What this means ...we're not entirely sure... but what he did was decide what we worked on, what priority it would take, who got what resources and ensuring we were all playing nice with each other, then reporting all this to the CEO. His greatest contribution however was talking. I know that may sound dumb, but he was always talking to us about various things in meetings and in doing so we started engaging more with each other. The end result was an environment of increased communication and understanding. News of his departure, despite being his second run, was still saddening. It also left a hole in a key management position. Instead of filling the role it was decided to split the responsibilities amongst the remaining managers. The end result is as follows: Siskataya is now the community communications manager, Pepper-Tea remains the Art Director with additional direct oversight over particular features, DJ Hellsing is now managing our business development (this covers finding and acquiring partnerships like Adventure time and managing the various ads we have on the site), and I'm now managing the entire development team. So what does this mean for events? In my many transitions here I've always had to split my programming and leadership responsibilities. Up until now despite the increased responsibilities I've always been able to do so. However with this new role there's just no way I can do both. I will be stepping down as the primary event developer. Some of you may have already noticed that Uncle Kenny has been much more active with events and this is because for the time being he will be the lead developer for them, including our Halloween event. I will continue to product manage them. Which personally I feel is what I do best for events; scheduling them, getting the teams together to come up with new ones, plan them out and make sure all department leads are executing per plan. My new responsibility basically means I will also be extending this skill set with all of our features and products on Gaia Online. In managing the entire dev team that also means planning out our roadmap, deciding what we're going to work on and when and then making sure we do so. 2012 is now completely planned out and here are some things you can look forward to... Games We are currently in progress of changing our games to unify their grants. Once done they will give out either tickets or items. Near the end of the year we plan to have some new games for you. Ads We will be adding some more ads around the site. The one area we are considering that will affect you all the most is adding ads to the Daily Chance. We’re still in discussions on how that would work but it is something everyone should be aware of. Alchemy We’ve done the band-aide fixes and after meeting to discuss where we should go from here, we’re now preparing for surgery. I won’t go into details on the changes we plan to make because they require a lot of other things to be in place before they will be possible (in fact this project might extend into 2013), but do take note more drastic changes to the system are planned. The one hint I’ll give is that if everything goes as we’re intending our games will play a larger role in it. zOMG We have bug fixes but their still not out yet! D: We’ll be working with the few remaining zOMG peeps to get these out and hopefully also address other small misc. issues. Pannagrammic has successfully created an auto server restart script so the lagging in the game should not occur so often. Apparently we also have un-released zOMG items facepalm, we’ll be working to get those out as well. Towns 2 Codemonkey3717 has been hard at work on Towns 2! We plan to have enough of it completed this year to close down Towns 1. This means having bugs and flowers in place and the housing system available. Events The one bad news on this front is since we are working on the new towns we probably won’t be doing Halloween or Caroling in the housing area this year. We do however hope to come up with a much cooler system for Towns 2 next year. Otherwise events will continue… as they always do smile Now lets see how much of this we're actually able to get done sweatdrop ... smile ...Until next time, Narumi Misuhara Manager, Engineering

Posted by: Narumi Misuhara Fri Sep 21, 2012 @ 08:09pm

New Kpop community?!?!

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Nyadriel
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 06:56am


	Thanks for all the info. These are really big changes! Good luck to Lanky! Hope he will pop in from time to time!

Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 08:22am


	biglanky14 was the only admin who ever talked to me. He even gave me hope that one day I could be a dev for this site... ....I'll miss the buggar.

Myraseth
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Glasya
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 08:25am


	No trick-or-treating in Towns? Bummer, I love the Halloween Towns music.

Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 08:30am


	thanks for the update

jonjon21428
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Arcarius Tesfa
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 08:31am


	ninja Edit: Whoops, misread it. Either way, keep up the good work.

Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 08:52am


	Happy Halfling Day to you!!! žöღβîể ðåЯ₭ £Øℜɖ çªïи€

Deruku Rorude Kaine
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Seers to the End
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 08:53am


	Sad about the no trick or treat/caroling, other than that I'm excited. Good luck with all that work!

Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 09:31am


	Thanks for the info & good luck to biglanky14 at his dreamjob :3

xXx--DeaD_AnGeL--xXx
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Voat
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 09:43am


	Lanky's position sort of reminds me of an admin at a biomed engineering lab i used to work at. She pretty much brought everyone together even though people were only feet apart in different rooms. She mostly brought us together...with food. biggrin Engineers are funny. No trick or treating or caroling in Towns you say? rubs hands together at the thought of the inevitable baw fests twisted salivates Well there's always the shops....you better drop that bomb on users early if you don't want to shock people too much. I think people will understand you're too busy working on 2.0 stuff if you explain it well enough. The zOMG community will rejoice at the unreleased zOMG items! That sounds cool! Make them super hard to complete! mwahahahaha!!!!

Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 09:49am


	Not having trick or treating in towns could mean more lag on server... but tht's ok. I'll miss the music. Not that much, but will. In the other hand, those new items for zOMG do seem... promising. They've always been either interesting or profitable. Looking foward them.

Draedellus
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Praylaya
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 03:02pm


	OMG! Buccanneer Boardwalk Itemz??? mrgreen Speaking of Towns 2, the servers seem to switch quite often, to where most of my friends can't seem to get on at the same time. Could there be an "invite person to server" button?

Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 05:24pm


	Sounds very interesting... I subscribed btw. biggrin & Happy Half-ling Day! emotion_awesome

Gregory Oliver Daniels
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Nada Kyo
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Commented on: Sat Sep 22, 2012 @ 07:28pm


	Looking forward to when Towns 2 gets released, and the updates to Alchemy. <3 Congrats to biglanky and thanks for sharing all this news with us!

Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 12:09am


	That's some strange way to make people check your journal.. or wasn't it all about? Anyway, some news are great, some sad. Won't miss Trick-ir-Treating at towns that much, myself. But I'm worried about having to move my town house, when Towns 2 overrides old Gaia Towns... Will miss my neighborhood if we have to. Our dear Gaua staff member will be mussed, as all who ever been part of this wonderfull "family". But all we can do is wish him all the best while he pursuits his dreams. After all, it's dreams Gaia is made of.

Thorz
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TheBloodyRoseCrusnik
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Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 03:36am


	Haha this is like Hobbit from Lord of the Rings. The Hobbits or Halflings.

Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 08:08am


	Thank you for the update and for all the hard work you do. I think you guys need to hear what a good job you are doing more often. I seriously have no idea how you guys do all that you do. @.@ It is very nice how you keep communicating with the users; watching Gaia grow as it has and evolve over the years has been an awesome experience and I appreciate all the effort that goes into keeping the site alive and healthy. This is my favorite thing about the entire internet- this site. And without all the hard work you guys do it would not be around. You guys rock. ^.^

RadiantFlare
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Mirraruka
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Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 08:47am


	That's a lot of extra work. Good luck to you and the rest of the team. I'm sure the end of this year will be a blast. <3

Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 12:12pm


	Thanks for the big update! emotion_hug I will also miss the trick or treating and caroling in Towns as others have said, but at least those of us who read this journal entry are aware of it. cat_3nodding

Feevil
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gataka
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Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 06:52pm


	This answers questions I had. Looking good (^u^)b Now I'll bug you about those zOMG! items at every AtA 3nodding

Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 08:23pm


	Thank you for sharing!

miku_gyaru
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deadrun
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Commented on: Sun Sep 23, 2012 @ 11:33pm


	you devs are a scrappy bunch! I'm really excited about these changes and movement to streamlining game rewards. biggrin

Commented on: Mon Sep 24, 2012 @ 09:11am


	Please, Please, Please!!!!! Do not put ads in daily chance. I think users would stop going to daily chance if ads were placed in it. I know I would. Put it in before game loads.Most sites do that,and surprisingly Gaia does not use the tactic.

Blueturtle79
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Sacher Torte
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Commented on: Mon Sep 24, 2012 @ 11:02am


	Some of these new things/changes sound exciting, I'm looking forward to it! Good luck guys!!

Commented on: Mon Sep 24, 2012 @ 03:38pm


	I hope the ads in the D.C don't make it impossible to collect for people with adblock emo though I can understand your point of view if they do.

Thy Almond
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Chibi Halo
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Commented on: Mon Sep 24, 2012 @ 09:20pm


	Regarding the whole deal with the ads in the DC carts I just wanted to leave my two cents because it could just be a good compromise to consider. If you're going to leave the DC cart as a pop up overlay and put ads in them then do please strongly consider looking into text ads. A lot of people when discussing this are concerned the ads will be too much and possibly lead to issues for their computers. From other sites I've been on text ads are less in your face, still do the job that's needed, and don't add more strain on a person's computer. So do please take text ads into consideration for the DC carts.

Commented on: Mon Sep 24, 2012 @ 10:14pm


	Wow, thanks for all the updates as usual! heart I appreciate that you're letting us know what's happening with it all even if some things are only in the early stages! Alchemy tweaks are always loved too! I'm looking forward to a more integrated spin on it.

Sand Dancer Shaka
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Aries-on-fire
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Commented on: Tue Sep 25, 2012 @ 03:05am


	please, please, PLEASE do something fun for the holidays, especially if youre going to take out the old towns... why are you even doing that??? sad hopefully the glitches and stuff for the new towns will go away, and we'll be able to enjoy it. smile

Commented on: Tue Sep 25, 2012 @ 06:13am


	I'll miss biglanky14, he always seemed really happy about what he was doing. Anyways not having tot in towns or caroling is gonna be kinda odd since I've made tradition of going there and getting the event items but as you said next year something will be planned for towns 2 and in closeing I wish you and the rest of the GaiaOnline staff the best of luck.

Alice Allusion
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Daffodil the Destroyer
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Commented on: Tue Sep 25, 2012 @ 10:43pm


	Aww man, but didn't Lanky just come back to Gaia? gonk Well, I hope his new job works out for him.

Commented on: Wed Sep 26, 2012 @ 01:52am


	"The one hint I’ll give is that if everything goes as we’re intending our games will play a larger role in it." Will this include zOMG! or just the classic games? There's a ton of farmable loot already in circulation that zOMG provides, I really hope all of it will gain a use in Alchemy.

Owlie
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Sevalle
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Commented on: Sat Sep 29, 2012 @ 05:34am


	There really are too few of you now.

Commented on: Sat Sep 29, 2012 @ 02:09pm


	Interesting, Lanky is gone again. But at least it's not based on lack of funds company side....hopefully. As for the ads in DC.....the amount of crap you're going to get for that.....use your engineer magic and create a fire dome to surround yourself in. Crap flinging is bad and you don't want to get pied in the face. neutral Can't say I'm happy about the thought of this act coming to fruition. Well it's nice to know that the games are going to be uniformed, however I'm sad to see you guys make Slots take in gold instead of the tokens. With the suggestions I've seen of improving slots, this recent news isn't a happy one to me. I mostly save up my tokens for slots, there are hardly any games that take them beside Blackjack. So what are we supposed to do with them? Hopefully you'll introduce more games that'll take them. I'd hate for them to be phased out with no sellback. Maybe you guys can make it an option to either take in gold or tokens? Also, I hope you'll be lowering the chances for people to hit jackpot. All these years and hardly anyone has won. Sudden thought here, but was the decision to replace the slot tokens with gold come from a notion that perhaps: a) a user-controlled gold pot could easily replace the old Lottery game? and b) It's a good way to redistribute gold even though the old way only gave you tickets?

Catalyste
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