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Development Update - 6/10 For TL;DR type readers: if you read and comment on only one thing, please read about the Spring Cleaning at the bottom of this journal entry. Life Yes, it's been incredibly long since the last update, and that's tragic, and I have really no good excuses. Sometimes you trip, and you just have to dust yourself off and get up again. (Actually, lately, it's more like: I trip and fall down, and while trying to get up two burly men tackle me and shove me face first in the dirt, and while in the dirt I see proof positive that my parents hated me and a breakup letter from my SO. It's been kind of that sort of thing.) Less excusing, more writing! Achievements So, we rolled out the achievements systems in Gaia Labs a little while back. We did it as a Labs feature so that we could get some feedback from the users; the most engaged users are the ones that tend to use Gaia Labs, and they provide a really good sense of how a feature will go over. Achievements was not related to new users, not related to cash, but just our attempt to make the site more fun and game-like. Anyway, the response was great -- a fair number of users tried it out, and almost exclusively the feedback was really positive. Given the positive feedback, we've decided that we're going to be adding tons of achievements and (eventually) moving achievements from Gaia Labs to the whole site. Economy Booty Grab has become one of the major sources of gold in the economy right now. To some extent, this is okay, but it's getting to the point where it's extreme. So we have the issue of a) trying to make sure that the gold grant from BG is proportionally correct, and b) making sure that users who spent real cash on fish aren't left out in the cold. It has to be adjusted, though; your comments on the situation welcome below. Communication So, there are a lot of people here at the Gaia HQ, and there is no doubt in my mind that every single one of them cares what the community thinks. Given that, why does Gaia appear to be such a cold and calculating corporate entity sometimes? It's a combination of a number of factors, including: there's not just one viewpoint -- Gaia is a vast and multifaceted elephant, and there is not one single point of contact that can tell you everything that is going on. Sometimes, one part of the company can have decided something, but it's not known by other parts, which leads to two people from Gaia very fervently and honestly saying completely opposite things. Note that this holds true for the community at large, as well; we can ask a question and get 1,000 different responses, reflecting the wide range of opinions from the different types of users at Gaia. we're trying to move fast -- There are many projects that are under tight deadlines, and sometimes it means that stuff gets out without getting a lot of review. The e-card invite system, for example, was basically a two week project -- unfortunately, when you're on a two week cycle it's difficult to try and get user feedback on it. That said: the outcry from the SDC was heard, and we've tried to make a conscious effort to keep users apprised of the changes that are coming. That is one of the reasons why we put Achievements in Labs, and is also one of the reasons that we're doing a Spring Cleaning (see below). New User Initiatives With that said, why do we spend so much time on new users? Every time we simplify flow or reduce navigation, there are tons of responses along the lines of: "Why are you making this site easier? When I joined you had to walk ten miles in the snow to get your peasant boots. Uphill. Both ways. And they just didn't GIVE you your peasant boots, you had to kill a grizzly with your bare hands. And we were glad to have the chance!" New users, however, are good for a site. A site shouldn't be all about new users, of course, because then you just end up with a constantly rotating population of mostly-disengaged users, but having a stream of new users gives a community a vibrancy that is hard to replicate otherwise. We've done a number of studies and Gaia is really scary for first time users -- the site is so big and so complex that people get scared off. We also believe that some of the users that are scared off are actually users that we want, users that would love the site and use it lots and interact with other users. So, sometimes we try to improve things that only new users see: the registration, for example, or even the page that the new user sees when they first hit the site. This is not directly something that will appeal to an already established user, but I hope that it at least seems arguable that making the site friendly for new users could be good for the health of the site. New users means more people to spend gold on your marketplace items! Super Kablooie Spring Cleaning Fixathon Note: not the actual name. Given that want to really do something for the current community, and given that we want to improve communication, what can we do about it? Well, we're doing a Spring Cleaning. Basically, this quarter we're spending two weeks on fixing a bunch of stuff that we've wanted to fix for a while. There is lots of old and crufty code that needs to be gently rehabilitated (and, by gently rehabilitated, I mean taken outside and killed with fire and rewritten). We're finally getting a span of time to actually do this. But, even better, we're going to give the community the chance to weigh in. My thinking on how we'll approach this (and this is what I'd really like your comments on): - put up a new forum, one topic per potential bug fix - the amount of activity on the forum threads will determine how high the bug gets prioritized. Posting for the first time in a thread will count for a lot, posting second and subsequent responses will count for a little. - we'll weight users that have been here more. I think this will work by giving a user one "vote" per year - your "votes" are split over all the forum topics that you comment on. So, if you're a five year veteran with five votes and you comment on 8 topics, you added 5/8 of a vote to those 8 bugs. - Probably: allow users to start their own threads, and the ones that are getting a lot of traffic can be moved in and "voted" in the same way. - Not decided: should we make it so that you have to say "APPROVE" or "DISAPPROVE" in your message for it to count as a "vote?" (i.e., This would encourage discussion both ways -- so you could comment on a potential bug fix/feature without counting as a vote, but it also makes it more complicated to understand) - Not decided: some more votes to people who contributed to the site? This makes sense from most aspects, but has the taint of commercialism and money. It's kind of a forum game + bug fix + features requested by the users, all combined into one. So: does this sound cool, or completely whack? Would a straightforward voting system work better? Would anybody actually participate in this? Comment below! Recent Bug Fixes - profile comments not showing up in notices section/popping bubble - bubble links should anchor to that section on My Gaia - 'Export' link is missing from My Gaia > Avatar page. - In My Gaia page, request message to join Clan says you have been invited to join the guild. - "MyGaia" Tab missing icon next to "More" link - Auto-redirect to topic is not working - PATCH: Games heading - Inventory Sparkles not showing with test data - Backend and infrastructure improvements

Posted by: Panagrammic Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 10:01pm

Read my journal!

User Comments: [49] [add]

Gabriel Faust
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Commented on: Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 10:39pm


	First off, its great to see that you weren't eaten by the cannibalistic users we have gnashing their teeth around here. Secondly, I'd like to mention that I've personally noticed more newbie-centric changes have been good for me; going from a 6 year account to a new account has changed my perspective on the entirety of some features, and the transparency of navigation has really helped. Personally, I've never seen an issue with Gaia's communication; Gaia tends to go in cycles of closed mouths for secrecy, and then slowly gets more and more chatty about all the cool things in development. Its not a problem with me, as I seem to have a more in-depth understanding of what Gaia goes through than quite a few other users (having been a Gaia Beta tester, a Gaia user, an off-site moderator, and an offsite discretion adivsor) seem to. I'm absolutely finding Gaia's balance of artistic sense and user interface to be astounding at times - Achievements was one of those times. Modals to show you got an achievement, animated flash glints to show you added to your achievement points, and otherwise it stayed the hell out of your way. Very professional. I personally think user threads for the Spring Cleaning Explosive-ganza should be in an alternate subforum, and that Hot Topics should be shut down during the time so those moderators can make sure we don't have a thousand threads recommending Gaia scribble penises on everything (just in case; we do have changing amounts of maturity in our audience). I'd make a recommendation to have a poll, plus recommending posts discussing your viewpoint to help the Gaia Staff clean and improve the site more tailored to the users who use it. To finish, I'd like to recommend you make a sticky or thread in forum 91, our "Tech Talk" subforum, to discuss a major rehaul of the BBCODE filters. We of the C+T have to help people with all sorts of issues, and having javascript and user commands filter out makes our job incredibly hard. We'd like to have a developer talk to us about these filters, even if just for the Spring Cleaning time frame. Seeing as how we've all worked on backend systems, including PHPBB, we all have an immense understanding and some very creative solutions we could help implement.

Commented on: Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 11:05pm


	hugs you Aah, life! I know the feeling a little too well @__@;; Criticism seems to pour like a heavy down pour and there are only a few shaky parasols under which to stand. Firstly, I'd like to say thank you for all the hard work! While I know many users state that it's your job to do this stuff, I do think that it isn't part of the job description to go above and beyond as many staff members do - so (a the risk of accusations of sucking up) I thank you guys for the hard work/effort! I only feel this way because I've been working in retail recently and found, few people appreciate the extra effort you make for them. Also, I appreciate the explanation as to why Gaia doesn't appear to communicate as much as it did in days gone by. I had started to wonder why it had appeared to be so much more silent, and seemingly aloof. I like the achievements a lot! And the spangly animations that you get upon being awarded one was a really nice touch, I reckon!! New user initiatives are good! The site is huge and confusing to newcomers! However, I'd also like some time to be spent on older members too, though proportionately less I think. It's not necessary to do LOADS of new things for oldbies, but I'd request that you guys bare in mind that we don't miss out on too many cool things!! xd You probably already take that into account though! As for spring cleaning? It's a nice idea to give a little more weighting to older members, as we've seen a lot of features that came and went. and things that worked and didn't, coupled with things that are felt need more attention over time. While discussion of the subjects is great, I've actually found that few people change their minds about a topic, and adding the "approve/disapprove" would only serve to over complicate things but that's just me!! xd Maybe I'm just easily confused! I'm not all that net savvy!! rofl But I think I'd like it to be more than a plain super simple voting system, I like the commenting vote weighting. However, I'm not clear on what is meant by "those who contributed to the site"??

Sand Dancer Shaka
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rae-chan-sensei
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Commented on: Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 11:24pm


	The Spring Cleaning thing sounds really interesting, and I like that you really want to listen to your users to find out what they want fixed the most. That being said, I think it sounds like a very bad idea to give more worth to the votes of those who can contribute money to the site. There are many people who are very active on Gaia and have been here for a long time, but are unable to donate to the site due to real life obligations. There is so much on the site already that is becoming more difficult to do without the help of Gaia cash: please do not make voting for what features should be fixed one of the things that the cashless can't do. Thank you for the updates, and i'm looking forward to Spring Cleaning!

Commented on: Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 11:27pm


	Yay an update! Achivements was nifty and cute; it was the work of less than half an hour to reach 1000. People have been talking about trading in achievement points for items ... and I've been saying over and over that it's a bad idea and why--and I'll reiterate it here if it hasn't been seen: Don't we have ENOUGH under-utilized forms of alternate-currency or trade-in-ables on this site? Tickets from the Casino games, Credits from Word Bump, as well as Bugs/Fix/Trash/Powerups ... Adding another that will get a lot of attention for six months, tops, and then be promptly forgotten seems like a bad idea. I have always appreciated that Gaia does listen to its users and tries to incorporate our feedback... but yeah, it OFTEN feels that Gaia isn't listening--but then, it's probably because it's trying to listen to everybody, and so comes across as that old Aesop. It sounds interesting to allow users to weigh in and help prioritize the To-Do list. I really like that idea. I'm kind of iffy on the "seniority = more votes" notion. I mean, sure, I've been here since '03, and there are maybe four or five things I could easily name that could use work ... but just because I've been here for so long, does that really mean I deserve more? Some say I would, but others might think it's favoritism. Same with "paying" members. I think more weight should be granted to the responses that are well-reasoned and explained. Someone going "OMG FIX THIS THAT AND THE OTHER THING" should have a reduced vote compared to someone going "This really needs your attention, detail detail detail, possibly suggestion, thanks for your time, goodnight." Like most oldbies, I've run across a few site features (houses) that really could use the tender loving touch of a developer who can fix everything that is wrong with them (houses) and restore them at least to their former level of functionality (which, in the case of Houses, was "barely" wink , and possibly (finally?) incorporate ideas and dreams that have been hinted at for years (more rooms for houses) as well as updates that have not seen the light of day since a sneak peak at a convention several years back (furniture?). (Also did I mention the inventory arranger and how it seems half-broken when it comes to the houses suitcase?) Though, I think pretty much all of the flash spaces need to be seriously re-worked. That "killed with fire" thing is probably what will have to happen. And that's a project that would definitely take more than a two-weeks-spring-cleaning. But I'm glad that there's a part of the site like Gaia Labs; it reminds me of Google Labs, and some of Google's best features came about as personal side projects. Gmail, anyone? Yeah.

Rayinte
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Chocobo Princess
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Commented on: Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 11:31pm


	Pan~! Thanks for updating your journal. I'm sorry to hear you've been having a rough time lately; I hope that changes soon. Also, great job updating your avatar! Achievements: Hooray for Achievements~! I really enjoyed the Lab and can hardly wait to see the official rollout of the feature. I understand from DARKNRGY's posts and yours that this is designed to be an ever-expanding feature, which sounds quite exciting. I like to match Achievement icons to my avatar. mrgreen Communication: Panagrammic Gaia is a vast and multifaceted elephant. heart I prefer Journals as a communication method. I have subscribed to all the dev/admin/artist journals I could find, and I'm always excited to see an update. There seems to be a focus recently on off-site communication, which seems a little bizarre to me. I understand that you want to have a big advertising presence on Facebook, but for actual Gaia news, I'd prefer to be able to be told on Gaia. I don't understand about the blog and its off-site placement and sometimes random-seeming content. I don't Tweet or use RSS feeds. I do continue to check the Gaia News & Updates forum, which is barely used these days. Kudos to Narumi Misuhara for updating the Sponsors Sticky when relevant, though. heart Cindy Donovinh's Monthly Newsletter used to be published there, as well, which I really appreciated since I'm not getting it by email despite having checked the relevant box in Account Preferences. However, it hasn't appeared in the forum in recent months, and previous to that, it was only given as a screenshot, which meant that none of the links worked and it was blurry. gonk I was disappointed, and I'd love to see the original newsletter posted in GNU again in the future. Regarding the Case of Pietro, etc.: reapersun's recent journal article letting the Gaian populace know that she's not forgotten it and hopes to get allocated some time for it soon was helpful. However, it does not seem fair that the artist creating the item is the one taking the brunt of the criticism for the delay, since from the information available, it seems the overcrowding of her plate was someone else's decision. That person has never commented or taken responsibilty for the decision, as far as I know. We do not even know who that person is. That person is the one contributing to the communication problem and the perception of Gaia as a soulless business run by robots out of touch with the community (not my personal opinion, by the way). We know that not every decision the business makes can or should be transparent to all Gaians; however, given the extraordinarily long delay that resulted, a simple, "I pulled reapersun off of the Case to do some important projects for me. These projects became more all-consuming of her time than I had anticipated. Sorry. She's back on the Case now." would have meant a lot. New User Initiatives: I think Achievements is going to become a very awesome upgrade to the New User Quest. I was surprised by the number of respondents who said they had discovered new parts of Gaia while doing the Achievements. I would like to see a new login page for existing members that doesn't focus solely on joining, as they have already joined. sweatdrop My personal vote would be for the Mermaid page (Be Who You Really Are) or the World art by jenzee. whee Super Kablooie Spring Cleaning Fixathon: This sounds extremely promising~! blaugh Panagrammic Basically, this quarter we're spending two weeks on fixing a bunch of stuff that we've wanted to fix for a while. There is lots of old and crufty code that needs to be gently rehabilitated (and, by gently rehabilitated, I mean taken outside and killed with fire and rewritten). We're finally getting a span of time to actually do this. Hooray! I hope this includes fixing Word Bump, my favorite game, which I suspect does need to be purified with fire. xp Regarding using a new forum to collect feedback: Would this be a subforum of Site Feedback? Or of Bugs? Or of Gaia News & Updates? Whichever you choose, I hope you will publish a site-wide Announcement with a link to the forum when the project starts. Regarding "Approve" or "Disapprove": Polls are your friend here; many Gaians have a more nuanced response, such as "Approve with reservations", "Approve somewhat", "Approve as long as it is not made a Cash feature", etc. You could also post a poll in the main Sticky asking users to vote for their most-wanted change (Unfortunately, I don't think the poll system can allow users to rank all the proposed fixes according to order desired.). Weighting by amount of Cash purchased does sound like a dirty trick, as well as one likely to bias your findings; some Gaians are boycotting Gaia Cash at the moment as a vote for or against certain changes. Perhaps one of your threads could address this, asking, "Do you currently purchase Cash? If not, are you protesting something? Please tell us what you're protesting if so." Thank you SO MUCH for reconsidering the Social Daily Chance idea. Although I agree that rewarding members who recruit others is a good idea, the Daily Chance does not seem like a natural place to put that reward. Perhaps the Overseer grant would be a better fit for it. Thanks so much for fixing the redirect. As ever, all my best to your team. Keep up the good work~! Edit: I have no idea why the quotes appear broken; they look correct in Preview mode. redface

Commented on: Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 11:40pm


	vast and multifaceted elephant ... My image of Gaia as a company is now going to be that of a colossal, many-headed Lovecraftian horror of a pachyderm with tiny cute angel wings. I'm not certain this is appropriate, but it does amuse me. Spring cleaning sounds complicated. If each user is given a vote, how are you going to deal with mules? It's true that if people create them just to vote they won't even be a year old, but lots of people have had mules for years.

Waltzkrieg
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snufflypoo
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 12:11am


	spring cleaning - sounds interesting. i'd stay well away from the "more votes to people who contributed" idea. there are a good many folks who can't contribute for whatever reason (i'm not one of them but still...) and people would probably think it was elitist. does the voting really need to be weighted in any way? i'm in favor of a straight voting system. can the topics simply have approve/disapprove polls for each one and let the chips fall where they may? i agree with the first posters idea of putting the topics in a subforum all their own. many users (all over the web) seem to be oblivious to stickies most of the time. whichever way you decide to go, be sure to make an announcement and drive traffic to the topics (as opposed to just putting it in a sticky or the blog or whatever and hoping people notice it).

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 12:46am


	Economy Booty Grab has become one of the major sources of gold in the economy right now. To some extent, this is okay, but it's getting to the point where it's extreme. So we have the issue of a) trying to make sure that the gold grant from BG is proportionally correct, and b) making sure that users who spent real cash on fish aren't left out in the cold. It has to be adjusted, though; your comments on the situation welcome below. Every.Single.Time. the tank owners end up getting the shaft, and after maintaining a tank for edging on towards a year now, I'm lethally sick of it. All you guys ever do is hurt the tank owners by targeting the fish themselves, and never the players. If you guys can't just release a product and leave it alone, then I'm not playing anymore. I mean, my god, you guys can't even be bothered to communicate with us about it, it just gets done and either when we find out, we're greeted by dead silence or claims it's a "glitch". /rage

Kai-Shan Valandria
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Absol - Ruler of Chaos
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 12:56am


	Re: Economy I think Airsharks should be left alone they are meant to the the most epic fish they should not have been nerfed (MP value is 10 times tank payout before nerf) Yes, I agree there needs to be something done. Here are some suggestions: Fix dolphin red gold it is worth 5 each should be 4 each Nerf grab value of all fish and raise the percentage of gold the owner gets Grabbers scores is used to pay owner (grabber looses 25% of their winnings) (only use one of the last two of those) Re: Life Make me feel sorry for you. (Is that true or is that a metaphor) Hope it gets better for you. BTW I have a glitched hermit in my tank id=1303147867.33881.aaeb4ce2aac4dbcea83030f26cc48344 serial=1303147867 I don't have a problem with it I just don't want to get in trouble for it ninja should not be in tank got it in a trade (today) I have 500 hermits so it was not easy to find out which it was

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 01:27am


	Commenting on the Spring Cleaning- I think it's great to give the users a say in what they feel is highest priority. It will probably prevent a lot of the "but we wanted you to fix X bug, it's much more important than Y bug!" complaints that invariably crop up. I would definitely put my two cents in.

Tevokkia
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Bee Movie Suit
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 01:48am


	@Spring Cleaning I like the idea. The only thing I see going wrong with it would be like you said, everyone has their own opinions, and people often get angry if they don't get what they like, but that can't be helped. I'd say take small steps and see where it goes.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 01:48am


	heart Thanks for the update. :3

pirhan
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Shiarka Jonless
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 03:58am


	I cannot wait for more achievements. I love it. It's awesome. The fact that it's not related to all those other things is a huge part of what makes it great. Please release more achievements really really soon. I found it helped me become more active when I was otherwise just lurking. Uh... as for Spring Cleaning. Maybe it can be made into a mini-event to make it also entertaining and fun. Maybe even a poll similar to item design contest voting, only it's checkboxes and everyone gets several votes.(Or priority numbers, if that's not too complicated) And I agree that giving the vote of an older user more value isn't necessarily fair. A newer user may be just as informed and aware of a bad bug as someone who's been here 6 years(like myself). Also... thanks for fixing auto-redirect. I was beginning to think it was deliberately turned off. whee

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 04:53am


	I like the idea of the spring cleaning voting system. You should definitely make "approve" or "disapprove" required for it to be counted as a vote, though, otherwise you know you're going to get a bunch of spammers thinking it's just cool to post in a new forum and throwing the count off.

Lady Pyre
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Ketira
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 08:03am


	1: new forum w/one topic per bug fix --two thumbs up! This way, it will keep spam (meaning: questions about other things that need to be fixed) from piling up in a single thread, especially in the Games subforum of Bugs/Technical Support. Go for it! Suggestion for Games Subforum: not only one topic per bug, but one sub-subforum per game. This way, the Dev in charge of each game can work on his/her section rather than wade through a bunch of threads about other games' bug fixes. 2: Voting - putting "approve/disapprove" in message - I think that if this is implemented, have it done in bold font so you Devs/Admins/Mods can get a more accurate count. (If they put both words, don't count it as a vote.) 3: Voting - more votes to those who contribute - perhaps on a sliding scale, based on how long they've been around as well as how much they participate? Just an idea.... Other than that..... about the breakup: I grieve with thee. Been there, done that - and I've a shoulder to cry on if you need it. hug

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 09:51am


	cool i'm liking the oldbie idea. though the way it was worded reminded me of the 3/5 compromise gonk

eluzabeth
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Endrael
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 11:04am


	RE: Achievements and New Users This is the kind of feature that can be an absolute boon for helping new users learn about the site if you pair it with a simple quest, because it will actually give them a sense of accomplishment when they finish a step in that quest. Even if you don't attach a new user quest to sign up, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to make some achievements that are specifically newbie friendly, with an explanation of where to find/do certain things. If we're able to use the points we earn from the achievements for something (keeping header backgrounds is a really common request) and that's explained on the achievements landing page (somewhere prominent so people don't miss it), you've got a really good hook right there for keeping people's attention if they're new to the site. RE: Economy Like Aloysius said, it's always the tank owners that get the short end of the stick every time BG is nerfed in some way. Reducing the glow rate or the drop rate or whatever invariably decreases the gold the tank owners make, and they're the ones who put more work in to get their tank played. If you're a player, all you have to do is wander the threads on the front page of the aquarium forum and you'll find hundreds of tanks in easy reach. What needs to be done is nerf the gold earned by players, because, as it stands now, you're rewarding the players several times above what the tank owners get, and all they're doing is the easiest part of the game. The players haven't invested anything except a few minutes of time, while the tank owners have invested time, work, and cash or gold (as the case may be) to get their tank setup and attractive enough that people want to play it. Unless you're one of the few people who have a really popular tank and spend the hours a day necessary to make it that way, the rate of return you get on the investment you make in your tank is hardly worth the effort, and ultimately ends up being a disincentive for people to even bother buying fish and decorations. But it's not just BG that's a problem for the economy. It's the RIGs, as well, with the everlasting persistence of dumping gold shop and mythrill coins (or some sort of mythrill coin imitation, like the spirit shards) in them every single time. Given that RIGs are insanely popular and there are, at this point, well over a thousand different RIG specific items (a lot of the commons having sellback values of some sort or another), there really is no good reason at all to be including GS items or mythrill coins/mythrill coin imitations. From what I've seen of the last few based on the results others have posted (since I don't play them myself), there haven't been any GS items or mythrill coins, but the sellback values have been steadily increasing on the commons, and that needs to stop. Yes, it provides a price floor in the market and reflects an increase in the general amount of gold in circulation, but increasing the sellback value on the commons doesn't help the problem because it adds more gold to the economy than if the sellback values remained at a constant level. RE: Super Duper Amazing Bug Fix Marathon GO! I'm not so sure that a voting system would be a good way to go about getting feedback on what features are the highest priority for the community to see fixed, since there's so many possible ways to skew the results (mules, a large guild, GD organizing a "raid", etc.). A few core threads centered on a specific set of features (one for games, one for guilds, one for forums, and so on) asking for feedback, with possibly a few prompts to get people started, have seemed to work best. It's a little more work to sift through the posts, but it's generally not that difficult to find the posts that have substance (since they're usually much longer than the others, like this one sweatdrop ). I'm also not so keen on giving more weight to those who have been here longer or who have spent cash. Yes, oldbies are more likely to know the ins-and-outs of any given feature and where it comes up short, but newer users are just as likely to have good ideas as oldbies are, and those ideas may actually end up being much more workable and user friendly than something an oldbie would want to see. And spending cash? Gaia is an entertainment company, and while I can vote with my wallet about what I like and don't like where it concerns cash items, I honestly fail to see why that should give me or other cash users a bigger voice in deciding what feature needs to be fixed, since we're not the only people who use the site. That and it would leave a really bad impression on users in general if you gave cash users more weight in the decision making process, since there's a general sentiment that gaia's already too focused on being a money grubbing whore as it is.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 12:42pm


	Re: Communication. I'm going to copy and paste my response to this from the My Gaia "feedback" thread (the feedback part being completely farcical, of course). Why such tight deadlines in the first place? I can understand if there is a major glitch and you have a tight deadline to get it fixed. Or, say, an event since delays and glitches to events usually have users grumbling and/or screaming for blood. But changes like My Gaia, that should be user reviewed, shouldn't be pushed through so quickly without testing, review and discussion. And yes, user opinion is multi-faceted (not, this is a slightly more eloquent way of saying, ahem, "multi-faceted elephant" wink but, as we can see here with the My Gaia, there is clearly a very popular, major opinion - that we do not want this. Which is things like My Gaia should be reviewed while they are still on the drawing board. The more I hear of Gaia's business practices the more I am...extremely baffled. As you are stating here, you don't really seem to care for feedback (look how long the thread had to get and how outraged people had to be for you all to actually realise how foolish a social daily chance was) so why post such farcical feedback threads in the first place? Either ask and use our opinions...or don't ask at all. We are, as a whole, intelligent human beings and we don't like being treated in such a back-handed, pathetic manner. You all need to stop contradicting yourselves and make some sort of decision - either allow users to properly review site changes and accept our feedback...or don't. But don't act like you are listening to opinion when it is clear by the many, many threads in SF that...you are not.

Cheeva Beruvain
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Catalyste
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 02:06pm


	Awesome. Thanks for taking the time out to explain these concerns of ours. I really look forward to the Spring Cleaning aspect and truly hope that the Games section, Homes, and Towns get that much needed "set on fire and rewritten." Poor things have been neglected for far too long. As for the voting, just make it a general vote. Even though some of us have been here longer, it doesn't make them any smarter than a newbie if they've been MIA for X amount of years, plus sometimes you can meet a person who's been here for 6 months and they've already summed up what's wrong with this site. So I think to make things a bit fair, just make it a regular voting system. No caste involved.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 02:34pm


	re: the economy, booty grab was just a bad idea, period. i get that the idea was to persuade people to spend $7.50 on a fish that will die in a few months, but there's simply no way to do that without making the return gold worth the cash expense, which in turn grossly inflates the economy. if i spend $7.50 on a temporary item, i want to see a return of several hundred thousand gold, minimum (being that for the same $7.50, i could buy an EI that will stick around forever and be more visible and useful). if i get, say, 500k in booty grab returns for every $7.50 fish i buy, i could be rolling in millions upon millions of gold in just a few months, not to mention all the gold the PLAYERS of my tank will get. it's sad that a highly requested feature - an aquarium that we could put the fish we catch in - was turned into a profit-making venture which in turn completely ******** over the economy. re: spring cleaning - sounds like a GREAT idea to me! i can't think of anything off the top of my head that needs fixed, per se... i know i've been waiting AGES for an upgrade to guilds that would, at minimum, allow me to move from one guild subforum straight to another. i'll have to see what bugs you're considering to start with before i weigh in on what i want fixed. :3

diet otaku
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sodium
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 02:39pm


	I love the idea of forum specifically for this Spring Cleanup and I like the idea of a single thread for each item. But for some reason I feel like your idea of rating based on posts and votes and years users have been here and such is mega complicated. Do we still have the "thumbs up/down" rating system? Maybe you could put that to use in this idea. It's simple and would keep things fair. You could still give posts and other votes into consideration along with this. And I agree that you'd need to allow people to post their own threads and/or have a thread for "Miscellaneous" issues. In case someone notices something that's not addressed. D: That's my two-cents at least. I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 02:58pm


	Spring Cleaning sounds like a nice idea, as long as we get an announcement about it. Knowing me, I would like to comment on all the bugs but not necessary give them all the same votes. I think it would be better if it was a combination of vote/post and view counts/activity.

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armadillodreamer
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 05:51pm


	Achievements: Love 'em. They're cute and fun, which totally justifies them being completely pointless. I think this would be a great vehicle for user quests, like the ever-rumored Back Wings quest. Economy: Please, do something about it. I hate to say it, because I'm one of the users that's heavily profited from spending hours and hours playing Booty Grab, but something needs to be done because this is crazy. I'd like to see a gold shop with items costing between 500k and 1 million gold, with a slowly rotating stock. I think that would get more activity than DernierCri, since most users can't afford DC. Communication: You guys are doing a whole lot better now than you used to. I think part of the issue is knowing where to go for information. As an '04 user, I'm comfortable checking Site Feedback, GCD, dev journals, artists journals, the blog, etc. Newer users and users who aren't as obsessed with Gaia as I am won't do that. Spring Cleaning: That sounds awesome!! I am so happy to hear that you're planning to poll the users to ask what they would like to prioritize. However, I think that the voting needs to be made more clear. I'm a six year veteran, so that should give me 6 votes by your example. I might post on 10 topics, but that doesn't mean that I like all 10 of those fixes. I might be arguing against a fix, if I feel that the glitch should be a low priority. People need to be able to freely discuss possible fixes without unintentionally using their votes. I like the APPROVE or DISAPPROVE idea, but I hope you guys have an automated way of counting up the approvals. One other thing you should note in the Spring Cleaning forum: feasibility of fixes in the time allotted. I'd love for you guys to "fix" guilds by re-writing them entirely, but that sounds like it may beyond the scope of a 2-week glitch-fixing period. Also, I have a feeling that popular fixes may turn out to be far more difficult to fix than anticipated. Assuming that the definition of "success" is "we figured out what was causing this glitch and re-wrote or repaired the code within 2 weeks" then you might even want people to consider the "probability of success" when voting. If the "probability of success" is low, I won't vote for it, even if I think it would be a valuable endeavor.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 06:34pm


	Quote: Booty Grab has become one of the major sources of gold in the economy right now. To some extent, this is okay, but it's getting to the point where it's extreme. So we have the issue of a) trying to make sure that the gold grant from BG is proportionally correct, and b) making sure that users who spent real cash on fish aren't left out in the cold. It has to be adjusted, though; your comments on the situation welcome below. Hello and thank you for your journal update. I hope things start going better for you. Please understand if my tone comes through as rather harsh but I am very upset with Gaia right now. I'd like some clarification on what you mean by "proportionally correct". How disappointed and angry it made me feel when yet another nerf happened after the strike. I had entertained hopes that Gaia got the message that tank owners do not like being ripped off but that hope has been dashed. This latest round of nerfing is an extra slap in the face to tank owners since it happened right around your "Member Appreciation" event. Tank owners are not feeling very appreciated! Gaia opened this "kettle of fish" and I don't know how they are going to fix it but ripping off the tank owners is NOT the way to do it. Quote: ...we've tried to make a conscious effort to keep users apprised of the changes that are coming Not one single nerf has been communicated to tank owners beforehand that I can recall. Not even the latest one. The History of Bootygrab Taps Please?

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Voat
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 06:56pm


	Wooooww. Thanks for the journal update! heart heart Economy: There are several options I think would be reasonable from both tank owners and grabber's sides: 1) crack down on aggregate sites 2) make BG as a game harder (this is just an example: a pirate fish swims around with a net stealing your gold, unless you shoot him down he continues stealing your gold; different types of fish you own in your tank bring out different villains – if you have 17 airsharks, for example, this brings out the most evil villain of all who steals a s*t ton of gold unless you’re able to shoot him down during your 1 minute game) 3) fix the tapping trick ->temporary to economy though (probably not a good long term solution since dolphins will die out eventually) 4) if introducing new fish, maybe they could drop a different reward than gold coins. like specialized coins that can only be used in a specific/new item store (sort of like how slots/BJ give ticket rewards that can be redeemed at Prize and Joy, instead of gold rewards). Once people buy an item from this specific/new item store it becomes soulbound (which encourages people to actually grab for these specialized coins if they want an item from the new shop). OR new fish could drop a combo of these new coins in addition to regular gold coins, so in actuality the drop rate of regular gold coins is less. The point of the soulbinding though is to sort of tell people that if they want these new items from this shop, they have to work for it (because if people sell the new coins on the MP the inflated price might not be worth it and it’d probably be better off that they grab for them). I’d be for soulbinding the new coins as well but that might discourage tank owners from continuing buying the new fish if there is no MP value attached to the new coins. If the shop cycled items as well (sort of like DC) that would keep up time-sensitive interest in the new coins as well. There would be a long term interest in these new coins because of how the new shop sort of makes items "limited edition" to obtain. You could also always promise that after X months or after the item gets taken out of the new shop, the soulbinding would wear off wink . The added burden of this would be: making new items for the shop from time to time, making a new shop, making a new fish currency, soulbinding coding and soulbinding BAW. New User Initiatives I don’t know what effect it’ll have but when a new user joins you can always give their gaia account a ‘welcome user’ PM (after they verify their email account), which gives them a short crackdown (with pictures/images and links included) of things they could do on gaia, like play zOMG, step into towns/rally, or post in the forums). Since the PM pop up would catch their attention they’ll read it and it might give them a good direction for how to start off exploring the site. You could also get users to create this PM by doing a short contest. Design the Welcome to Gaia PM! To be judged on by Gaia staff. Free labor!! Spring Cleaning The downside of a tiered/weighed voting system by year is that it takes out the weight of opinions of people who might have a really good understanding of things around gaia. I don’t think time experience with a site necessarily means they have better insight into the systems involved. But I guess as long as someone is actually reading the comments and takes what people say into account (for features) it doesn’t matter. I don’t really see what the purpose of weighing votes would be beyond putting less weight on votes of people who are less serious about using their one vote-per-year on something…and I wonder how people will try to weigh in on these things with mule voting/commenting too. If it turns out that this voting forum isn’t really popular someone could really skew the results by voting/commenting in with their multiple mules. An official voting page (that limits to one vote per IP address) might help fix the mule problem . But then it’d screw up the ‘approve/disapprove’ thing you’ve got going on in conjunction with comments (and reasons why people approve/disapprove, which I think gives valuable info, for features at least). Also the problem with mixing bug threads in with feature threads in this new forum is that it forces people to use their one vote on either a feature or a bug. These things seem sort of separate to me with varying degrees of importance. I can really see a certain set population of gaia (those affected by X bug) fixated on wanting certain bugs fixed…whereas a different population of gaia (those not affected by X bug) fixated on determining the fate of new features. Although the commenting system allows for people to weigh in on both bugs and features, the voting system seems a bit weird to have it split between asking people to use their first vote on either a bug or a feature. I know it probably has to do with determining what you guys are going to spend most of your time on (a bug or a feature), but you might end up seeing a whole lot of votes for features and not a lot of votes being used on bugs, unless you’ve got a forum with only bug topics. Then again this trend might not happen. Who knows…It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out with the new forum, if it’s made. Another possible issue is that new bugs (that devs aren’t as pressured to fix so they might seem good to put into this spring clean forum) always pop up as the year rolls on…and a 1-vote-as-you-comment-per-year thing sort of gets lost on that aspect. A forum system like that might seem neglected if the topics in it stay the same, though I’m guessing that’s not what will happen (and you’ll input new threads as spring draws near). But then some people might complain about the voting thing, that they wasted their one vote on X topic when what they probably would’ve wanted to vote on is this new Y topic. The impatient people lose out. XD You might want to implement the one-time-voting thing on a certain week, a month or two before the spring clean date, when all the topics are displayed for people to vote on. Or something.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 07:09pm


	Economy: Yes, Booty Grab is a huge offender, but every time you nerf fish directly, you are stabbing your customers in the back. I don't buy a car and then a month later allow the salesman to come and take the radio. I paid for it! It's only right that I keep it. That being said, Booty Grab does need to be nerfed in general, but you need to target the right party: the players. I really see only one feasible way of doing it that will hurt the tank owners the least, and that's by changing the winnings ratio from 4:1 to something less (like 2:1 or even 1:1) and decreasing the payout. This way, the player will receive considerably less per game without chipping into the tank owner's wallet directly. Or you could also just sell only cheaper fish with low payouts and stop selling pricier fish, but I really doubt that that's happening. Booty grab also has other issues (immortal fish, no set drops before a fish is released, etc) which need to be fixed so a Booty Grab overhaul is in order. Booty Grab isn't the only reason gold is rapidly increasing in volume on this site. RIGs, or CIs, are a huge contributor as well. They're undeniably one of the most popular items in the cash shop. So why does it give us gold? RIGs never should have gold shop items, "mythril coins", or items with sell-back values. Why? Because it's just asking for inflation. It's the only way to get gold on this site without having to actually do anything but spend money. Gold should only come into the market by the user being active on the actual website (loading pages, posting, playing games, etc.). I shouldn't be able to spend $1.50 to get a 100k gold item that's good for nothing but pumping gold into the economy. That's worse than just having a cash to gold converter! At least in the gold shops there's a consistent cash to gold conversion that's acceptable but not necessary (1:60). (I don't even know why you can buy gold shop items with cash... it's just not necessary and could add to the problem.) Just keep the cash and gold separate or keep a steady sellback/conversion. New User Initiatives: We need need NEED better new user quests. This site is incredibly daunting for new users. The front pages are looking great. Registration looks great. The actual site itself is a heart attack! Some users may not appreciate "being led by the hand" but that's really what we need for this site. Really, the only thing new users get right away is Moira's very small quest which isn't as helpful as it could be. Instead, we need a quest that shows new users around the site's landing pages. We need to show them "hey, this is where you can find this, this and this" as well as push them more to explore right away. Right now, if I was a new user, I'd sign up, do Moira's quest then go "wtf did I just do?" and log off and walk away. Spring Cleaning: Why should older users have more power? Why should I have a more valid opinion than someone who's only been here two years but knows what they're talking about? Same goes for spending money? Why should I have more of an opinion than that same person I mentioned simply because I spent some money on this site. Buying products from a company isn't the same as being a shareholder. Just keep it simple. Keep it open to discussion and use your best judgment. I know you want to have a solid method for choosing, but for something like this, it's just not possible without complicating things for both parties. There's no need for yays or nays. If it's something users want, they'll post and you'll always get people who will expand upon ideas and post their opinions on those as well.

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Spirit Crusher
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 08:29pm


	First of all. OMG PAN ISN'T DEAD. blaugh I just have to say that I sincerely appreciate these journal entries. It gives us a window into the backend of Gaia and let's us know that things are actually getting done. Life I'm sorry that you're life has sucked recently. :[ But a one sentence journal entry is better than no entry... Achievements This was fun, albeit extremely easy. The points are nice for bragging rights, but for some achievements (the harder ones), I believe that an item grant is in order. I mean, after all, this is Gaia and not XBOX and we're here for the friggin' items! XD Economy I guess you could just phase out the fish that are dumping the gold into the economy, like what happened to the Dolphin. Communication This is the worst part about Gaia. It's like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Someone has to grow some balls and take charge here. The "Ask the Admin" threads are an absolute joke and a waste of time because Lanzer is rarely right. I propose creating a Decided Issues Sticky, similar to this old thing. The Decided Issues would be a reference point for all of Gaia, dev and user alike. Who ever wears the pants around there decides how to respond to each issue. No ambiguity. This is kind of a common sense solution, but it needs to be stated apparently. And how about a link to the Gaia Blog in the main navigation bar?? I can't find the darn thing without digging... New User Initiatives Gaia has one hell of a learning curve. You've created a beast here, so of course you should spend a lot of your time making it accessible to new users. Super Kablooie Spring Cleaning Fixathon O. M. G. I think this is kind of the best idea ever created. First of all, why only two weeks? :/ Put up a new forum pertaining to our Feedback on your Site? What a great idea. lol All joking aside, the new forum is a good great idea. - Weights voted by seniority is an excellent idea. We've been here longer, we matter more. - Voting by saying "APPROVE" or "DISAPPROVE" is a great idea. How else would you do it? - People who buy Gaia Cash and donate to the site should have more votes. These people care enough about Gaia to keep it going and aren't just leaching.

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 09:11pm


	How about fixing the forums in general? They are so extremely cluttered, disorganized, and hard to navigate at times. Why are there something like three or four forums for announcements? Why are there specific subforums for "X" but not for "X" when there's so many forums just for announcements? If anything should be spring cleaned, it's the forums.

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Akabi Yoru
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 09:50pm


	Thanks for the update, Pana-chan!! 4laugh First of all... hugs Poor Pana... having a really crappy time must be even harder when you have to deal with the bitchy Gaian fanbase sweatdrop Then, about the Super Kablooie Spring Cleaning Fixathon ( I love the name btw): I love the fact that you're giving us the power to decide what is more important among all the things that need to be done. However, I think the idea is... complicated. I like the idea of giving votes depending on our time in Gaia, and, as commercial as it sound, I think people that had contributed to the site deserve a tiny extra boost... maybe one extra vote? No more, just one extra vote. As for the idea of having to actually post... wow, sounds tough. We are a very vocal, insane population, and somehow I feel that having someone actually reading and counting votes in a thread is... almost imposible. How about simply making polls for each topic? And maybe it's posible to code something in such way that we can only vote in a determined number of polls? Like... you can choose your 5/6 topics to pick as priority, and after that you cannot vote in any other poll inside that forum? Hope this made sense sweatdrop

Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 11:13pm


	JK That being said, Booty Grab does need to be nerfed in general, but you need to target the right party: the players. I really see only one feasible way of doing it that will hurt the tank owners the least, and that's by changing the winnings ratio from 4:1 to something less (like 2:1 or even 1:1) and decreasing the payout. This way, the player will receive considerably less per game without chipping into the tank owner's wallet directly. I just feel like I need to address this. I do not think that targeting the players without directly affecting the tank owners is a good idea. Frankly, it's a PR nightmare. It sends the message that Gaia strongly supports people who spend money on fish, but does not appreciate the people who spend tons of time playing the game. Gaia has always been set up to reward users who spend more time on the site, and there will be a lot of backlash if it changes to support people who set up tanks, post in several of Booty Grab threads, and then walk away.

armadillodreamer
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JK
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Commented on: Fri Jun 11, 2010 @ 11:33pm


	@ armadillodreamer: See, but I don't view the tank owners as not contributing. Having a successful tank isn't just about spending money to fill it up and posting a couple times and watching the gold rake in. They have to be active on the site as well, advertising their tank, bumping up their own tank thread when it glows, etc. It's quite a bit of work to maintain a successful tank for profit which is what we're looking at. We're not looking at the people who fill it with pretty fish and just let it sit there. We're looking at the people who spend money on something temporary because of a set expectation of what they're going to get out of that temporary something. They can't keep punishing their paying customers, otherwise there won't be any more tanks to play once people are fed up with this bait-and-switch bullshit. It's either nerf the whole game, nerf the tank owners, or nerf the players. Options one and two will hurt Gaia's profit on the game the most because they affect the tank owners the most. Option three will still affect the tank owner and Gaia's sales, but it will be the least damaging of the three choices followed by option one (which is why this whole fiasco is so ridiculous to me that Gaia is willing to hurt themselves like this by choosing option two).

Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 03:32am


	Hells yes! A spring cleaning would be soooo welcome. Thank you so much!

Bardic Inspiration
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abandoned_nr_5775944
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Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 11:19am


	Regarding the new navigation ...Even though it isn't new any more sweatdrop I still don't see how removing links and making it big and blocky makes it easier. I'm covering the damn thing up with BetterGaia but the other day I was borrowing someone else's computer to go on gaia. What you say about "going miles through the snow blablabla" is nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. Now if ever do you have to go further to find something, if you can find it at all. I see your point when it comes to frightening off new users, but that sentence claiming it was harder to get around before was so stupid I had to speak up against it. Really, I love gaia at it's core and you do a hell of a job, but stupid talk is stupid and there's no excuse for stupid talk talk2hand

Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 03:02pm


	JK - Good points, but I still don't think that nerfing the values unevenly is exactly the way to fix the problem. I realized later that I wasn't very clear about that in my previous post. I suggest that we fundamentally change the way that the game is played. When Booty Grab first came out, the devs imagined it as a surprise: a Gaian is just posting and happens to see a glowing tank in a thread. Joy! Now we have Dolphinmania and glow timers. Tank owners know exactly when their tanks will glow and can be on-hand to bump their glow threads. I think it would work much better if glows were truly random and worked per user. Imagine Towns: you don't see the same bugs that I would see, even if we were in the same area! Bugs and random giftboxes and trunks are particular to an individual, and glows can run the same way. This scenario would still reward players for playing, and tank owners for having a rocking awesome tank, but it would eliminate glow timers and Dolphinmania. Tank owners still need to work hard (posting a lot so that their tank gets good exposure) and players need to work hard too (keeping a careful eye out for glowing tanks). Threads of tanks would still be advantageous, because users could load those pages to see if they can catch a glow. Even if the current values aren't nerfed, I bet truly randomizing the glows and making them unique per user would seriously cut down on the amount of gold being earned from BG, and thus, cut inflation. However, the people who really worked at it could still earn a lot, regardless of whether he/she is a tank owner or player.

armadillodreamer
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Aya und Wolf
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Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 04:55pm


	Mm. I appreciate your extensive journal entries, always. Also, all the work you poor Gaian worker slaves are forced into by the expanding community. emo New users are vital to Gaia, although the number of profiles is massively increasing, a good majority of those probably being single users with mule accounts. The only issue I see here being the millions of abandoned, unused profiles. I'm not sure if this taxes any functionality on your system. Your Spring Cleaning idea is fantastic, and yet I feel that somehow, it's going to confuse a lot of people. :c Although it only sounds complex and scary in theory, once we're in forums it might work more proficiently. Approve and disapprove features will only make Gaian staff jobs more complicated and frustrating, while reviewing our responses. We all know very well, that if you allow people that have spent superfluous amounts of cash on the site to have more relevance in the voting, there will be hoards of angry, purely-gold using Gaians attacking you asking why their opinions aren't as important. This is assuming cash is how you define "contributed to the site". I've bought cashcards in the past, so it's not really significant to me. Just prepare for abuse. You poor thing. I hope your life becomes less taxing. ; x ;

Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 05:09pm


	@ armadillodreamer Tank owners do NOT know exactly when their tanks are going to glow. That feature of the glow timer has been disabled since last year (if memory serves correctly). @ Panagrammic I think part of the problem is that if the game doesn't grant something that owners and players value, they won't bother and in turn Gaia will take a hit in making $. Maybe they should just yank ALL of the fish from the cash shop, let whatever gold granting fish we currently have out there die (like they are doing with the dolphins) without nerfing them and come up with some sort of new species that does something else. (what, I don't know) Edit:The oil spill caused their off spring to mutate into a new species! lol This would require a LOT of patience though because who knows how many fish people have in reserve plus there is the ghost fish glitch they'd have to fix... The History of Bootygrab Taps Please?

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Sugar Raver
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Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 06:39pm


	That is a good idea, I feel we have a lot of problems finding the right person to talk to about bugs. Most of the time we just relay info between each other which leads to rumors and misinformation. If I could be notified about this if it happens I would like to be sure to have easy access to it. Also I do think making it a vote is the best way. That is my only input, thank you for all the time you put in.

Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 07:40pm


	Quote: Economy Booty Grab has become one of the major sources of gold in the economy right now. To some extent, this is okay, but it's getting to the point where it's extreme. So we have the issue of a) trying to make sure that the gold grant from BG is proportionally correct, and b) making sure that users who spent real cash on fish aren't left out in the cold. It has to be adjusted, though; your comments on the situation welcome below. Nerfing our fish without telling us is NOT communication. Nerfing how many glow in a group IS hurting the tank owners the most. You guys seriously need to find a way to do this without killing trust. Right now I don't trust gaia as a company and will not be spending money here again in the near future, if ever at all. If you have a problem with how much the fish are pumping into the economy REMOVE them from the shop and release NEW ones with the adjusted stats rather than screwing with the stats of already purchased fish. Also if you guys are actually soooo concerned about the economy for the love of god look at other factors rather than BG always being the damn scapegoat. Remove the sellback values from RIG fail items, adjust the gold drops in ZOMG, and fixing the other games so that they are actually more appealing to users than BG is could help. Also GOLDSINKS? There's plenty of ideas for em popping up every day in site feedback. Edit: armadillodreamer: Owners do not know exactly when their tank is going to glow. The glow analyzer only tells you a minute before it will glow. Also sites like Dolphinmania are what make the game actually playable for a lot of people. If gaia wants to get rid of it maybe they should find a way to make it lag less. Especially since that's the ONLY advantage to playing on Dolphinmania. It's the only difference between playing in the forums and playing dolphinmania. Mind you even with DM I still lag sometimes. But if I try to play from the forums my browser lags out and usually closes.

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Virgo Whiskers
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Commented on: Sat Jun 12, 2010 @ 10:42pm


	@ - Achievements - They're fun. I'm glad you guys added them and I look forward to getting new ones to earn @ - Economy - Please take a second to look at my thread here The short version is to "nerf" future fish and leave current ones alone (but remove them from the shop). Gaia is losing paying customers because of them changing fish around so much. It just isn't the ethical way of doing things. (I bolded this because it's the part I feel most strongly about.) @ - Communication - This journal is the exactly the problem with Gaia's communication. Most users don't stalk devs journals in the off chance they'll post something. I only found this cause it happened to be linked in a thread I saw. Right now Gaia's communication methods are too spread out. There needs to be one place where all this communication is done. Or one place where people can see who's updated their journal or something. @ - Spring Cleaning - Overall it looks good. I'm not sure about giving users who give Gaia money more votes though. I understand why Gaia would want to do it, but you're going to get angry users who feel that they're less important just because they don't have a disposable income. And people should definatly have to say APPROVE or DISAPPROVE specifically that way they know they're voting and Gaia won't have to worry about misinterpreting sarcasm or something.

Commented on: Sun Jun 13, 2010 @ 01:56am


	Re: Communication. I don't see the problem so much, because the folks screeching about Gaia being corporate usually don't have a clue. Really. The bills won't pay themselves. I think it is a wonderful universe where artists like you all can make money doing what you love. I wish you all corporate success. It is not a crime to prosper. That's my POV. Nobody bother yelling at me. I confess, I really enjoy playing BG and furnishing my tank. I don't really want to see it nerfed or diluted. The people who are really really involved with the economics of it... more power to them. I am sure sales of BG fish have helped Gaia do well; don't kill the golden goose. As far as adjusting the gold... I am not so sure that is necessary. Good gold from grabs is a great way for newbs to get money for outfits. The more people play, the harder it is to get a game on a tank. I don't see all the games maxed out... I suppose you could have them drop more giftboxes (ifn you can get the multibox grab glitch fixed as opposed to gold.) You could have them drop coins of even greater value but fewer of/ harder to catch. Please bring back the Dolphin, unchanged. Dolphins are just wonderful, per se. Wouldn't it be better to noodle around with the economy by introducing a good many items into Dernier Cri that are more reasonably priced, but still suck down a load of goldz. Maybe if they sparkled, or were animated or whatnot. Let us greedheads keep grabbing booty and buying booty fish. It has got to be doing IRL Gaia economy more good than it harms the online Gaian economy.

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c.wimsey
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Commented on: Sun Jun 13, 2010 @ 01:57am


	First thing: Wow, I had no idea this was here. I thought the only place to make yourself heard around here was the forums. Hm. Second: Not to repeat everything ever, but new user initiatives: frankly, I'm glad it is WAYYYYYY easier to get items and gold than it used to be. It took me forever to get a decent pair of shoes. HOWEVER. And this is not a new idea-- FIX OLD FEATURES. This in itself is a new user initiative. Why? Because that way people won't come to your site and say "ooh pretty items... and a whole bunch of broken games that hamper my ability to purchase them. Surely there's a better way to spend my time." Unless you're doing this on purpose because if people can't earn gold they have no choice but to use cash? Not sure that will actually attract and secure new users, but I'm not claiming to know anything about business. Third: Big ol' Cleaning Thingummy. Well good for you guys, seriously. I'm glad this is theoretically going to happen. Question: based on your weighting system, how will you control for mules, or will you bother trying? (I don't mean this sarcastically, it's probably impossible.) Also, how will this account for old users who have lost their old accounts, either because they lost their passwords or had that account banned/stolen/etc? And no. Not more votes to people who have contributed to the site, speaking as one who has. Just because I decided in the past that a given monthly collectable was worth spending real money on (and have not actually felt that way since) should not give my opinion more weight than anyone else, the same for someone who buys a bunch of EIs to hoard until they leave the cash shop. Cash shop activity is not an accurate indicator of community interest or anything else, it simply indicates the expenditure of money. And yes, I would definitely participate.

Commented on: Sun Jun 13, 2010 @ 07:16pm


	Economy:- I like the idea that Existential Existence mentioned Quote: 2) make BG as a game harder (this is just an example: a pirate fish swims around with a net stealing your gold, unless you shoot him down he continues stealing your gold; different types of fish you own in your tank bring out different villains – if you have 17 airsharks, for example, this brings out the most evil villain of all who steals a s**t ton of gold unless you’re able to shoot him down during your 1 minute game) :end quote It would definitely make the game more interesting as well as helping the economy without the nerfing, though I dunno how hard that is to code...

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David2074
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Commented on: Sun Jun 13, 2010 @ 11:11pm


	Communication: Thank you for the feedback on communication. The irony of the topic of Gaia Interactive staff communicating with users is so few staff communicate about it. The main points of what I would like to say about Gaia’s communication are in my post 1 here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/Site Feedback/gaia-communicate-with-your-customers/t.61085273_1/#1 I would love for you to read that and the follow up posts if you have time. Communication from Gaia has improved lately and that is appreciated but there is still much room for improvement. Achievements I like. I would like to see more achievements for older users but I understand you wanting to interest new users. Economy: Booty grab may need adjusting but the aquarium group should communicate more. Lots of folks are getting angry about figuring out on their own this or that has been nerfed. During the fish strike a number of good suggestions were made. Please see the user solutions in post 1 here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/Petitions/the-great-gaian-aquarium-strike-petition-update-on-pg-1/t.60146773_1/#1 Spring Cleaning: I like this idea. Both that you are doing it and the voting thing. As a 1 year user I would like to have more votes. Or to put it another way I would like to be able to give constructive input that counted on more than one topic. Are you able to give users an idea of the ‘weighting’ of the fixes? For example, if one fix is going to take so long that it will take the place of three other fixes that might affect how many users would vote for it.

Commented on: Tue Jun 15, 2010 @ 11:48pm


	Hi Pan, I can relate to the life thing, I hope it's going to get better! About the Economy/BG/Bug-Fixing I'd like to bring this particular bug/glitch/exploit to your attention. It's annoying, it's causing people to abandon the idea of making a tank, it costs Gaia money (skip to page 26 or 7) and people possibly exploit it and get away with it. I appreciate you guys putting thought and effort into all of the things you mentioned, though! 3nodding

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Melosaeidein
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Commented on: Wed Jun 16, 2010 @ 12:13am


	I'm sorry to hear things have been full of suck for you lately. I hope things start looking up for you soon. sad About the Super Kablooie Spring Cleaning Fixathon- I love the idea of having a forum dedicated specifically to this; I'd definately participate. But I don't get your voting... thing. Maybe I'm just slow, but it seems really complicated. I'd rather post suggestions and actual feedback more than a yes/no vote. Also, I've been here for a long time, but that doesn't mean that newer users and those who haven't spent money don't have better ideas than I do. I know it's more work for you guys, especially with (what seems to me, anyway) a tight deadline for fixes, but I think the quality of feedback you get from posts will be much, much greater than from votes.

Commented on: Wed Jun 16, 2010 @ 12:14pm


	First: I don't have much to say on booty grab, because while I have an eclectic full happy tank, they really aren't the biggest moneymakers. I just like to have one and enjoy them. Second: FIX OLD PROBLEMS ... even though we sometimes gripe, we really have been patient. But if you are really going to do a spring cleaning, don't just work on the most recent things. Start at the beginning. The biggest of the bunch ... a major overhaul for fishing. Out of all the minigames, that is my favorite and I am most definitely not alone. I've been on Gaia for over 2 years now, and fishing has really never run quite right since the beginning of my time here. Sometimes it is down for 3/4 of the month. New people coming in would LIKE to fish, but get discouraged when nothing works properly. Botters and cheaters always seem to make it top priority to beat the system, and you really need to communicate better on what you are doing in general with this issue (I realize some info is classified as far as security), along with all the other problems like captcha not working and no bait. A simple we're sorry we're working on it goes a long way, but finally saying something weeks after or silence only gets people angry and frustrated. You really don't need that kind of negative publicity! I understand that a major person that covered fishing has left recently. PLEASE hire someone(s) else to work on this. Flash player is having issues with providers, mainly IE, but only in Gaia and mostly in fishing/booty grab. Somehow, if it is working everywhere else, I think we can safely narrow it down to some kind of connection/compatability code or something in Gaia? Unfortunately I'm not that technically informed to give anything but the information I've already stated. Maybe a more methodical/timely/more frequent cleanout of old temp files for GAIA would help, but if you are already doing that, just disregard this paragraph xd . Third: IDEA FOR CLEANUP OH and that reminds me ... Instead of Gaia having to do this all by themselves GET YOUR PLAYER BASE TO HELP OUT IN THE CLEANUP EFFORTS. Heck maybe you can even make it one of the achievements xd ... now THAT's an incentive. Have a sticky or whatever telling them to clean out THEIR computer temp files including add-on info routinely AND HOW TO DO IT (for the less technically inclined people), and some of YOUR problems might go away and vice-versa, meaning less clutter on the forums as well smile . One of the major problems a while back was white/blue screens in fishing, and most people didn't have a clue until the sticky came up what to do. I always find that I have WAY LESS problems on here that others are reporting if I follow the simple "clean it out before entering gaia, and after leaving gaia". Old codes DO get stuck once in a while, so cleaning out the files is not only good for Gaia, but the "health" of each gaian's computer as a whole. Of course, that doesn't solve EVERYTHING wrong, but it sure kept me from adding to the complaints that others seemed to have MANY times. So my fingers are crossed, hoping and praying for the best, may this spring cleanup really be a great one smile .

rainbowlady1
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Sadorath
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Commented on: Fri Jun 18, 2010 @ 03:23am


	Just an idea.. maybe allow use to pick and choose and rearrange what content is on the first page of "My Gaia" since after all it is my gaia.. xD To make a long story short... ...........................don't tell it. .............................. ♪ .........╔═══╗ ...♫ .........║███║ .♪ .........║( ● ) ║♫ .........╚═══╝

Commented on: Tue Jun 22, 2010 @ 05:32am


	You know, I think this is the kind of thing that makes Gaia so cool. It has both a strong community base, and a strong team backing it up... I will admit, after... who remembers how long, I still consider myself a new user. I'm not adept at the forums, I have a hard time finding people I'm alright conversing with, and I usually stay to pump for gold and enjoy the storylines and games. I think it takes a certain kind of company that is willing to turn around and look at mistakes, but then another to turn around and dedicate time to fix them. And not only that, but to ask the community for influence. I can't begin to say how cool I think that is.

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xCrazyxCrystalx
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Commented on: Wed Jul 07, 2010 @ 08:55pm


	hi all you boy i am hot and you are to heart heart biggrin biggrin 4laugh 4laugh cheese_whine cheese_whine cheese_whine eek

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