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Notes From Gaia
Random thoughts from inside Gaia
Development Update 7/9
Bugs I'm Tracking
- people are saying that they can't equip items -- would love to get a reproducible case of this

Item Normalization Fallout
Still lots of work to do on this -- DARKNRGY and others are cranking away on this. Definitely, though, see DARKNRGY's journal; he has some details about the night and a cool time-lapse video that we made.

We had huge checklists for bringing down Gaia. It really was like doing open-heart surgery: at some point you have to turn everything off and hope that you can get everything done in time.

What will item normalization allow us to do? Just some things off the top of my head:
- better metrics, which means that finally have a way to determine a CPI (consumer price index) for economy analysis
- functional items far and beyond that of Faunzy's Flute
- better performance during events and gold shop updates
- evolving items that start evolving when you buy them (i.e., no generations)
- items that force you to interact with them -- i.e., a plant that you have to water once a week, a pet that you have to feed, so on and so forth

Economy
Talking about the economy...

We need to keep an eye on it, but some of our key indicators are showing that some of the changes that we've made in the past months are really starting to make a dent in the economy... inflation seems to under control, at least for now, and prices have been deflating for a while now.

Some Fixes Going Out
- fixed list rendering in some sections of the site
- miscellaneous item norm changes
- some changes to the friends list
- fixed 404 error on profile pages
- fixed paging through user searches
- fixed an exploit with the Gaia redirection warning






User Comments: [29] [add]
KeybladeMaster99
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 01:02am
Congrats on successfully implementing item norm! Can't wait to see the kinds of items you've described in action.

Just off the top of my head: is the bug with housing arranger not properly displaying the contents of houses on the fix list?


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 01:08am
I've noticed the market is a bit stumbly since item norm as the kinks get worked out, but it looks like it's functioning fine otherwise. That was a great gaia adventure if ever there was one. xd

Is there any way to get some better graphs or something posted to give people something to show about deflation? I've noticed prices have been steadily coming down again (or at least on most items, anyway; I've given up hope of the >1mil prices being affected anytime soon, if ever), but you have to hand out a few dozen individual item pages to prove it, since the graph on the market main page doesn't show it all with all the influx of new items balancing out the deflation on other things.

And are we ever going to see "Friends & Enemies" reverted? Isn't that fixable by just editing the generators for the page headers and footers, and then editing the banners?



Endrael
Community Member
Miles To Go
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 01:35am
Your changes do not effect items that inflate the worst (03s, 04s, which inflate by millions at a time).

Prices on those deflated because there were 3 users dumping a ton of 03 items into the vend.

Maybe your tactics work for smaller items, but 03 items are still out of control.
That dump alone caused items to drop drastically, some more than 10m. And that also effects smaller items, because item values are overall determined by ratio, and when the bigger ones drop, so do the smaller ones.
But the fact that they deflated by such a large amount just by a few being introduced cheap really says a lot about how terrible inflation really is on big items (03s and 04s).

Also I'm sure those dumps effected tiny items prices too, considering over 300 million gold was spent during the dump, and probably banned or abandoned with the accounts who were dumping. I'm sure you understand the kind of effects removing that much gold from the economy would have.

Sorry to be a downer Debbie but insight never does any harm.


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 02:13am
Quote:
- items that force you to interact with them -- i.e., a plant that you have to water once a week, a pet that you have to feed, so on and so forth


this intrigues me. cool so does the evolving items without generations. i'm curious how that will work. will we still get updates? is it the end for timmy and the doctor?



snufflypoo
Community Member
pirhan
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 02:32am
Thanks for the hard work! :3

I hope the items aren't too interactive. I killed all my pets on Neopets. Man, that was tedious.

Your captcha: late performed


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 03:00am
I can equip items fine. Only glitch I've hit was that double everything in houses (please leave that btw)

Nice to know the economy is being watched. Prices do seem to be going down finally. On some items at least...

I'd call item norm a success. Congrats on pulling it off!



France Hopper
Community Member
Ginger Flare
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 03:02am
The only bad thing about Item Norm, besides the hellacious (yay for made up words) amounts of work is that now items have inflated a bit. Which is to be expected since all listings of said items were completely gone. It was only asking for people to try and get their artificial inflation on.

I am extremely please that before things were deflating. The Bear PJs which I'm questing the last time I remember looking before the deflation was around 240k it dropped to 155k before item norm. I'm sure it'll be back down there soonish.

I would EIs without the friggin' generations.


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 03:10am
I'm curious about whether or not EI's that don't have generations would allow you to continue using the earlier poses as the newer ones come out. I know A LOT of people sit around saying "I can't wait until I can use 'insert pose here' again."



pantherwisdom
Community Member
Makoto_Gin
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 08:07am
User Image
[♠] [♦] [♠]
â–¬ â–¬ â–¬ â–¬ â–¬



Item norm was indeed a huge success and glad hear there weren't many major problems.

It did seems to have the inflation and market manipulation,almost makes me worst it happened more often xD.Also the new items you mentioned have me interested,look forward to them :3.Thanks ago for your hardwork long with the reset of the team.



â–¬ â–¬ â–¬ â–¬ â–¬
[♦] [♠] [♦]
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 11:15am
I must agree that your changes are not affecting the items that inflate the most. For instance, the AFK was less than 3mil just about 4 or 5 months ago and now it is above 9mil. Something MUST be done about this. It is way out of control.



Nerelda
Community Member
Kiyoske Dante
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 04:52pm
Good to hear that some of the issues around the site are getting fixed.

I can't wait to see the next active item. It looks really interesting as is, and the "far and beyond" bit sounds good too.

I really hope that generationless EIs don't dismiss Timmy and Doctor Singh. ):

@Miles to go: Artificial deflation (ie, user deflation) is still deflation. It doesn't matter if it is the anti-bot measures (which brought down prices in o4 and o5 items) or the CAPTCHA for spambots (which brought down prices on o5 and o6 items greatly); deflation is still deflation, no matter the source.

reCAPTCHA: turing machination
Pan, are you running self sufficient code?


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 05:31pm
Quote:
[...] inflation seems to under control [...]


...

Are you kidding? confused



Syd Barrett
Community Member
DogCow
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 05:35pm
Panagrammic, I see you're still in programming mode: you've escaped the single quote in the link! smile

Otherwise, the new items system sounds quite intriguing!


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 06:24pm
I wonder if Faunzy's Flute functionality could be updated, now that Item Norm is out. It's a pain to have to re-equip every flute I own every day. I wish I could just go to them in my inventory and hit some "play" button instead.

Generationless evolving items sound like they could make good NPC store items. They could be simple but high-priced, and people would still buy them.

And item interacting sounds fun, but... please don't make something that needs to be interacted with every day for forever. That gets really tedious and boring. A few weeks of feeding every day, I don't mind.



Chibigreen Tejinashi
Community Member
MasterSaul
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 06:48pm
We're gonna get interactive pets on Gaia?!
Awesome! ~wishes for a interactive rock puppy~
I hope the changes run smoothly whenever you finish.


commentCommented on: Thu Jul 10, 2008 @ 07:11pm
Thank you for making all those fixes!

I agree with the other comments about being able to care for plants and pets on Gaia. How cool would that be?! whee

I love your journal because I feel like I'm getting inside "secret" information.



Belle612
Community Member
snufflypoo
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Fri Jul 11, 2008 @ 03:08am
yay! i like the friends list changes! heart thank you!


commentCommented on: Fri Jul 11, 2008 @ 04:40am
Okay. I really need help from SOMEONE.

I don't know what the heck is going on. And in my opinion, admins are much more helpful than mods.

So starting today.. Every time I try to log into Gaia it says my password is incorrect.
So I send my info to my e-mail. Click the link it gives me to re-set my password. And then I re-set it and it logs me in.

But I have to do this EVERY TIME I log in.. Anyone know what's going on?



[K]iba [I]nuzuka
Community Member
dizziedobsession
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Fri Jul 11, 2008 @ 05:49pm
I was wondering. I'm not so sure exactly what this item normalization is doing. But anyway. I just realized that all the clothes i've recently worn end up back at the end of my list, When I distinctly have all my inventory set up to be in order... all my shirts together, bottoms together, etc. I was wondering if this was something changed by this 'process' or is an error or something that you will still be fixing?

if someone could please let me know because i'm not very happy about having to reorganize my inventory every time i change an outfit.

on a plus.
i love what youre doing with the whole economy deal.
and i cannot simply WAIT for interact items. I've been wanting these forever.


commentCommented on: Fri Jul 11, 2008 @ 08:22pm
The inventory organiser is totally messed up, I arranged all my items in to careful order (head items, torso / upper body/ legs / shoes/ accessories / items) and I was adding stuff in to that arrangement from my storage but now everything is a jumbled mess!!

;.;



Jiang Ryudo
Community Member
Platonix
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Sat Jul 12, 2008 @ 01:11am
I find it strange and a little worrying that you did not list the return of item engraving as a feature that Item Norm will make possible. That was one of the big things people were looking forward to with this.

captcha: month masters. Perhaps foreshadowing that July's MCs are going to be amazing?


commentCommented on: Sat Jul 12, 2008 @ 02:35am
The Item Norm ruined my joy!

I had finally defeated that damned faunzy and was happy as hell because I could finally get Lowered Horns, I clikced to receive my prize and the Lowered Horns still haven't come to my inventory!!

gonk

But the game has reset itself to the 1st battle (for Dragon Queen Horn thingies).


crying I can has my horns back plz?



Generic Monster
Community Member
chicksineggz
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Sat Jul 12, 2008 @ 02:44am
Items that FORCE you to interact with them?!
I don't think I really like that..
But whatever. I look forward to see what you are really going to do with that.


commentCommented on: Sat Jul 12, 2008 @ 04:10am
About the pagination of the My Avatar page- aside from the fact that it runs extremely slow and buggy for me compared to how smoothly the customization used to work for me... but that's not the point I'm bringing up.

I'm a bit concerned about it as recently I got a "Slow Down Hotshot" today simply from trying to put an outfit together on my avatar. Now, I am a rather indecisive person and I sort through items and tabs a lot when trying to make an avatar until I find an outfit I like. I've always done this, and I've never had any problems (bugginess or not) until today.

I am very worried as the Slow Down Hotshot has changed to an offense that is possibly bannable if enough warnings are given out. So, naturally, I and other users avoid anything where there could be possibly a slip up of "too much activity" to flag the warning.

It's rather disappointed that I now have to be concerned about this when changing my avatar- which is one of the few things on Gaia I still find enjoyable and possibly the only reason why I am still a user of Gaia today. Other users feel the same way.

I'm not really sure if there's even anything you can do about this- However, it was suggested by another user that I drop you a line. If in a possible future journal entry or by giving a heads up to someone, this issue can somehow be addressed- that'd be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time for reading this if you do.

... Also, are you Korean? X3 *curious*

-Bohemian Polka



Zakiyama
Community Member
The Last Lord of Time
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Sat Jul 12, 2008 @ 09:02am
Inventories are "broken" again crying The page reloads when you change section when equipping items.


commentCommented on: Sat Jul 12, 2008 @ 06:53pm
cool smile



MisticalAir
Community Member
damn bird ate my C-3PO
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Sun Jul 13, 2008 @ 04:27pm
CoOol! Interactive pets sound awesome!


commentCommented on: Tue Jul 15, 2008 @ 08:53pm
Another note on paginated inventories. It took me 12 minutes to make this avatar. I've made it many times before, I knew each and every item to use, and it took 12 minutes. That's unacceptable. Please make a preference for paginated inventories or I'm just going to stop changing my avatar. And if I stop changing my avatar I stop buying your company's products. And I won't be alone in this. In an attempt to fix a feature for 1% of the population you've broken it for the other 99, and it's insufferable.

I'm sorry to be so frank, but it's seriously unbearable to change an outfit. I can keep my inventory under the upper limit if it means I can get access to all of my stuff in one long pageload. That's fine. It would be so much better than this.

And in a funny turn, the captcha: final gulpure. Huh?

And shuffling the items to the bottom of our obsessively organized inventories is massively annoying. You've just got to turn that off. Just lock the items from being moved to Housing or Storage the way the game items are locked.



Kunai Jones
Community Member
Chibi Halo
Community Member
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commentCommented on: Wed Jul 16, 2008 @ 10:28pm
I realize this was necessary and that you guys are going to be able to do great things with it in place. I'd have no qualms about things that had to be taken down because of it and all the frustrations, however, I've yet to get any estimate as to when gifting might be back up. I've had to put my event on hold because of this and have forty people patiently waiting for gifting to return. Is there any estimate as to when you guys think gifting will be back? Can you give any estimate as to when gifting might return? Are we talking days or weeks here? I know if this goes much longer people are going to start to drop out of the event I had planned.


User Comments: [29] [add]
 
 
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