☆ Moved!

[Ebania]

Updated! Thanks to all of the wonderful people who have pledged to refuse to take part in the destruction of our economy and community.  

[JoyRose]

I like this list because it tells which items offer items OR gold rather than just gold.  

[umbraja]

Chaos and Sour Candy

How's about we users make our own gold sink?

An idea that will actually do something to help the problem rather than just complaining to people who have proven for years now that they not only won't listen but, like in this case, will do the exact opposite of what we're wanting? What a novel concept.

Sorry for the bitterness guys. I too hate the insane inflation around here but these pledges and petitions seem to be having the opposite effect we want. They're releasing gold generators every week and getting tricky too by not always warning you that an item is a gold generator when you buy it (go read the lack of descriptions in the cash shop).

Gaia's not listening folks.

It's time we stop looking to the developers to fix the situation. There are things we can do about this problem to help ourselves. The above example is just one idea. Maybe instead of just taking a pledge and signing a petition we should be putting actual effort into ways we, the community, can fix this issue.

Really long rant about what's wrong with Gaia:

show spoilerhide spoiler

It's going to take a lot more than just reducing the amount of gold in the system to fix Gaia's problems. I actually don't think the gold generators are the problem here. Sure, they're a symptom of the disease, but Gaia's been going down a dark path for years now. This is just the inevitable conclusion of our greed. Far too long we have been focusing on the consumerist aspects of the site. It's been "ooh this fancy item, oh those awesome wings, wow that hair" and we've lost track of what this site is really about. The community.

Gaia isn't about the items. Yes, they're a fun little add on and I admit to compulsively buying them myself but that's just it. Over the years Gaia's items have become a terrible addiction. They're drugs we're getting pushed on us to the point that some of us are spending hundreds of real life dollars on a few bytes of data. Data folks, that's what you're buying when you buy items. You don't even get the pixels because that item's art doesn't become yours, you just get permission to use it. All you really get for your hard earned cash is the addition of another entry into your inventory table. Obviously by my avi, I've fallen prey to this addiction as well but that doesn't make it right.

Back in the good old days Gaia knew what it was about. When we got announcements they were for community things: holiday events, promotional activities, contests, site updates (when's the last time you saw one of those). Since the addition of the cash shops (yes, even before gold generators) the site has been on a downward spiral into soulless consumerism that, quite frankly, makes it inappropriate for the teenage audience it claims to target. But who's fault is that really?

Sure, the developers are easy to blame because they're our pushers but we choose to give in to it. We choose to spend our cash, gold, attention, and time on these glorified status symbols rather than supporting the community this site is supposed to be about. Look around you. There was a time when guilds were flourishing, when the forums were the hot place to be, when art and writing contests didn't close because no one entered. These days you have to offer millions of gold to get a few contest entries. You have to pay your guild members to keep them active (Sweet Treats and Fairy anyone?). And if you make a poll with the option of 'just want gold' that will often get the most votes.

What has happened to us, Gaia?

Are we such sheep that we need the developers to tell us to participate in community activities? Are we so antisocial that we can't reach out to each other on our own? Are we so greedy that we value the state of the Marketplace over the state of the community at large? I know this guild is usually the exception on issues like this (and why I recommend it everywhere I go on Gaia) but why is everyone just complaining and not doing something to actually fix the problem? More importantly, why is it this issue that gets the NSTG to put up a pledge? Gaia's marketplace has been messed up for a long time and has always been one of the worst features of the site. It teaches us very bad things and we should seriously not be so upset that it's encountered such flagrant inflation.

So the people willing to spend actual money on items are driving up prices to where free players can't buy them anymore. This is how the real world works, folks. You don't get something for nothing. If you want to buy a fancy new piece of fashion you have to work for the money to buy it. I've heard complaints that Gaia has become a 'pay to win' site but when did Gaia become a thing that could be won and how do items win it? Because that's all you're being asked to pay for people: items. There is no monthly fee, not cash charge for guilds, no tax on posts or playing games. Just items. Is that all this site is to you, an item collector? A fashion simulator? A cosplay template? NO. Gaia is about the community and items have always been a status symbol for those of us willing to put in the time, effort, and/or money to get them. Status symbols in real life aren't free so why do we expect them to be free here?

For years Gaians got by on charity from the developers letting us use their art, games, and forums for free. They supported themselves on ad revenue and sponsor activities. We earned our gold by giving them ad views and participating in sponsor activities. And then we all got ad blockers and stopped supporting the sponsors. They introduced the cash shops so they wouldn't have to rely on what we often told them were annoying ads and corporate selling out (yeah, they used to listen) to pay for operation costs such as server space and artists. And for those of you that don't understand how Gaia works: every user, every item, every post on Gaia takes up server space. The more there is, the more server space they need, the higher their operating costs go. Also, every item, every re-color, every animal base modification requires an actual human being (artist) to actually draw every last pose and variation of said item. New items are expensive whereas gold generators are cheap. They don't have to pay an artist to draw new gold icons and an increase in the gold does not take up extra space because that data is already part of the user table and a 0 in that field takes up the same amount of space on a server as 1,000,000,000,000. By selling gold generators they can increase their revenue without increasing operation costs. Makes sense for them to be selling those rather than increasing the inflation rate of items on their servers.

There is an inflation on the items too, guys, and it's just as out of hand as the gold inflation. It's not as immediately obvious but if you play the Marketplace you can see it. Yes, the numbers are artificially higher than they used to be but that's an illusion caused by gold inflation. If you look at the value of an item over time you'll see the downward slope of most items' initial value is much sharper than similar items once were and the overall graphs are considerably less stable. To explain: when a new item is released, the first person to put it on the Marketplace pretty much sets the price. Most start ridiculously high and then as other people add their listings the price goes down until it finds wherever people will be willing to pay for it. With each new listing of an item the price will drop as the sellers will (usually) drop the price to be less than the one before it so their item will sell before previous listings. Back in the day this downward trend was dependent on people spending actual cash or gold to buy their items at store or market price so it would settle out pretty quickly and the price would stabilize fairly reliably. Since the addition of chance items, especially those re-releasing old items (and I'm not talking only about gold generators here but item generators), the downward slope has gone insane. Every chance item floods new items, or re-releases old ones, on the market. Of those items there are a few rare grants but mostly you will get several of the same item. Those common grants devalue rapidly as too many of them are put into the market at once and sellers have to sit on ten of the same thing trying to just get rid of it. No responsible retailer would ever buy more of a product than they felt they could reasonably sell but chance items take away our choice in what item we're actually buying and create a massive surplus in the commonly granted ones all for the gamble of getting one of those rare items we just can't afford to pay Marketplace prices for. Seriously, Gaia is encouraging some very bad habits here: consumerism, greed, gambling, and poor business practices.

If you want a hard numbers example of this just take a look at Dolce. Originally from Itty Bitty Kitty, she has been re-released in one of the new chance items (sorry, I forget which one). Look at her graphs. On her first release she was the most rare, seen in how significantly more expensive she was, and stayed, in comparison to the others. None even came close. And then she got re-released and her price plummeted to not even 1/10th of what it was. Sure it's driven up the price on the other somewhat rare ones (such as Winston and Ember) but the re-released Dolce lost her value and is now the cheapest of the kitties (so it's a good time to buy her, folks, if you missed out on the original release).

With the rampant devaluing of more commonly granted items going on it's no wonder that people are buying the 'sure shot' gold generators that will quickly provide them with the gold they need to instantly purchase the items they actually want rather than take their chances at whatever item generator might give them the item if they are very lucky.

Sorry to play devil's advocate here but gold generators aren't the real problem. The whole system is broken and became that way the moment Gaia came up with chance items.

This isn't an irreparable damage though. I actually see the terrible state of Gaia's economy as a great opportunity to help the community by creating a new Marketplace. Not one based on glorified status symbols but one designed to bring the community back together in meaningful ways. A marketplace that can teach members good lessons about what's really important in life and how to go about getting the things we want. A marketplace that rewards hard work while teaching patience and dedication. A marketplace that sets goals and provides ways to achieve them. A marketplace that adds value to its currency rather than takes it away. A marketplace that supports its users, both seller and customer, rather than throwing them to the vicious cycle of consumerist greed. A marketplace that produces instead of consumes.

What sort of marketplace am I talking about?

A Job Marketplace.

Rather than complaining about inflation and looking for ways to reduce the amount of gold on Gaia just stop spending your gold in the Marketplace. Spend your resources on the community instead by paying for services and mini-shop products. This used to be the way it was done. If you needed a large chunk of gold back in the old days you came up with some sort of mini-shop where you could offer whatever service or product you were willing and capable of providing: be it art, writing, discounted items, or even just bumps. We need to get back to this kind of revenue.

A job marketplace (done right) will:

• level the playing field for cash and free players by giving the free players a product (their labor) they can sell to the cash players in exchange for gold or cash shop items.
  
• bring the community together by forcing them to interact with each other to gain gold rather than clicking buttons or paying cash in isolation.
  
• support old and new, rich and poor Gaians alike by giving them a place where they can get help from each other whether they need gold, art, or someone to bump their thread.
  
• teach cash members noblesse oblige, a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege, rather than the consumerist greed encouraged by cash shops.
  
• teach free members to better appreciate what resources they do have and reduce their sense of entitlement by making them actually have to work to get paid. Remember, cash users had to earn the real money they've spent on fake money.
  
• teach working members real life skills such as punctuality, quality, consistency, organization, time management, and dealing with customers.
  
• teach all members the very important and seemingly lost value of work by rewarding service rather than providing the instant gratification of gold generators and charity.
  
• encourage members to be creative and discover new skills to offer as services.
  
• show Gaia we care more about the community than the hollow consumerism they're pushing on us.

Sorry for the long and controversial post but. . . yeah. Pledges and petitions aren't going to fix this problem.  

[Setsunasa]

JoyRose

I like this list because it tells which items offer items OR gold rather than just gold.

Nice info! I found this in the Frequently Mentioned Issues section from Gaia =/

"- You are ruining the economy with new features that offer gold!
This is brought up with every feature that is released. With every feature that we bring out, we try to keep this concern in mind. Staff does watch the economy, and keep track of changes with every new release. If needed, adjustments have been made in the past and will be made again to make sure everything remains on an even keel. Overall, the features that offer Gaia Gold as a prize have little negative affect on the economy, and we also have features that remove gold from the economy. As the prices the users set go up, this is the best way to achieve a balance."  

[Eien Ryuu]

Well, I support you on this fully.

You can even add me to that pledge, not that I can afford any of those gold generators. lol

I'm just a simple soul from Bulgaria with no credit card, so yeah, I can't get these even if I wanted to. xd  

[Ebania]

First of all, I agree with everything you've stated and I think it's all fantastic. A community focus rather than a consumerist focus is a great thing to have, no matter the state of the economy, and encouraging people to set up shops is a noble and fruitful pursuit.

However, I do think that pledges and petitions are noble and fruitful pursuits as well. In the cases of many, many people both inside and outside the NSTG, myself included, we bought gold generators the first time around. It was only when these pledges and petitions starting popping up that I truly realized what I was contributing to with my financial choices, and immediately stopped. If our efforts educate even one person, or manage to convince just one person to not buy gold generators, then I can say that it was a fruitful and noble pursuit.

Furthermore, encouraging newbies to set up shop -- especially if they don't have an immediately-marketable skill, such as drawing -- is difficult. I mean, I recently set up a little shop in the NSTG's Minishops subforum for proofreading academic essays, but I've been on the site for 8+ years and don't expect to receive a lot of traffic to that thread. Some newbies have adapted well without buying Cash, but many of them don't stay for long. Our newbie retention rate in this guild is at an all-time low.

All in all, I think that your ideas are great, but I think that the only way to exact meaningful, long-lasting change in the way things are run is to hit Gaia where it hurts: their wallets. As people become disillusioned and frustrated with the Marketplace, and realize that they can't keep up (1 billion today will be worth nothing in a few weeks, I guarantee), they will eventually give up. Only a very, very small percentage of Gaians can drop ridiculous amounts of money on items, and they alone can't keep Gaia afloat. But again, the only way to get the message loud and clear to Headquarters is if everyone (or a large chunk of the site) presses their lips into a thin line, put away their wallets, and say "No more," and one way to achieve that is by spreading the word through pledges and petitions. Word of mouth is powerful.

umbraja

 

[umbraja]

Ebania

I'm not saying that the pledges and petitions are worthless or that we shouldn't do them (though I do worry that the developers seem to be having a negative reaction). I recognize that they do a good job of educating users about the issue and any change starts with education. I just worry they're teaching the wrong things.

Not so much this particular one, but many of the petitions on this issue are asking for more than just not buying gold generators. Many are telling people not to spend any money on the site. While that will hurt the developers it will hurt the users more if they decide to shut Gaia down because it's not making enough money. I'm not at all saying that we should buy gold generators but there are lots of other things we can spend our money on to help support the site. You can even spend GC on gold shop items which might convince them to release a few more of those.

More importantly though, petitions just aren't enough. Yes, they're great ways to spread awareness of the issue but problems don't go away just because we're aware of them. Petitions encourage lazy activism, letting people get the good feels of being part of a movement without actually doing anything. Yes, in this case the thing they're not doing might actually make a change but it's not a sure thing and will certainly take time for enough names to be gathered before the developers put down their latest cash cow. Petitions are wonderful marketing but our efforts shouldn't stop there.

While I understand it's difficult for newbies to jump straight into activism, that just means it's up to us, the established members, to help them get into it. And isn't that what this guild is all about, supporting new members? That's why I bothered to post this notion here as opposed to one of the many other petitions out there on this topic.

Now then, I'm not saying all new members should go out and open their own little shop. That would end badly. I'm saying that we, this guild or just a few members of it, should start a program that works as a sort of job exchange and training program. That last part is the important bit. Job exchanges already exist but I've not found one that offers job training and like the proverb says, "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and fed him for a lifetime." We should be teaching our newbies how to fish.

Again, sorry for the long and controversial post. I'll shut up about it if you ask me to I just thought it was a good idea.  

[Ebania]

No one wants to see Gaia Online shut down; I don't think that the individuals who signed the pledge to stop buying Gaia Cash (myself included) until aspects of the site improve want to see Gaia Online shut down. (Granted, I'm not overly optimistic about Gaia Online's future, but I digress.) Putting financial strain on Gaia, or any company, is a highly effective method of making sure that someone at Headquarters says, at a meeting, "We need to rethink somethings or we're going out of business." The problem isn't the Developers, Administrators, or Artists; the problem is the higher, higher-ups who have the last word, and the problem is one individual, in particular (who will not be named) who is responsible for the re-re-release of gold generators in order to meet the monthly quota.

If people continue to support a company that they're not totally satisfied with, everything at Headquarters will be fine and dandy. Why change a moneymaking strategy that works? When it no longer works. That's why people are taking pledges in hordes. Gaia is far more than just a company to me, but if they're going to behave like a company, then I'm going to respond like a consumer who is not satisfied with that company: my wallet is closed.

Petitions and pledges may encourage "lazy activism," but due to what I've just finished explaining, I am of the belief that abstaining from purchasing Gaia Cash or gold generators is a statement all in itself. Boycotting does make a difference. This is just a theory of mine, but have you noticed the Gaia Cash sales they're continuously pushing in announcements? I think that they're losing money and becoming desperate. A 100-pack of Cutie Catchers for less than $20 -- an 80% discount of the original price? Screams "desperation" to me.

Furthermore, many of us don't just stop at simply not purchasing Gaia Cash or gold generators; I can only speak for myself and a few others, but I've written letters to Headquarters, I've used my voice to send a message to the 22,000+ people who are in this guild in order to educate them about this issue, made and posted in various topics in the Gaia Community Discussion and Site Feedback. Again, spreading the word via signature banner or guild announcement has the possibility of reaching someone and changing their mind, and that, in itself, is important.

Onto your idea, I think that it's a great idea and would fall beautifully into what it is this guild seeks to do. My confusion lies in what it is you're envisioning, exactly. Are you thinking of something like the Gaia Job Center, but with training, or resources, for individuals who want to open their own shops? And if you're realizing that not everyone can afford to open up a shop or a service, how does that aid newbies who simply don't have marketable services? I'm not opposed to your idea; I think it's a great one and would love to help it come to fruition. But even a year ago, it would have been a challenge to launch this and see it grow; now, with the Marketplace at 3+ trillion gold, I admit that I'm a loss. I think many of us are.

Lastly, I would never ask you or anyone else to shut up. If I wanted this thread to be a resource rather than a discussion, I would have locked it. I welcome discussion and disagreement, because in the end, we're all seeking the same thing: a pleasant Gaia Online experience for everyone.

umbraja

I'm not saying that the pledges and petitions are worthless or that we shouldn't do them (though I do worry that the developers seem to be having a negative reaction). I recognize that they do a good job of educating users about the issue and any change starts with education. I just worry they're teaching the wrong things.

Not so much this particular one, but many of the petitions on this issue are asking for more than just not buying gold generators. Many are telling people not to spend any money on the site. While that will hurt the developers it will hurt the users more if they decide to shut Gaia down because it's not making enough money. I'm not at all saying that we should buy gold generators but there are lots of other things we can spend our money on to help support the site. You can even spend GC on gold shop items which might convince them to release a few more of those.

More importantly though, petitions just aren't enough. Yes, they're great ways to spread awareness of the issue but problems don't go away just because we're aware of them. Petitions encourage lazy activism, letting people get the good feels of being part of a movement without actually doing anything. Yes, in this case the thing they're not doing might actually make a change but it's not a sure thing and will certainly take time for enough names to be gathered before the developers put down their latest cash cow. Petitions are wonderful marketing but our efforts shouldn't stop there.

While I understand it's difficult for newbies to jump straight into activism, that just means it's up to us, the established members, to help them get into it. And isn't that what this guild is all about, supporting new members? That's why I bothered to post this notion here as opposed to one of the many other petitions out there on this topic.

Now then, I'm not saying all new members should go out and open their own little shop. That would end badly. I'm saying that we, this guild or just a few members of it, should start a program that works as a sort of job exchange and training program. That last part is the important bit. Job exchanges already exist but I've not found one that offers job training and like the proverb says, "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and fed him for a lifetime." We should be teaching our newbies how to fish.

Again, sorry for the long and controversial post. I'll shut up about it if you ask me to I just thought it was a good idea.

 

[Morrigan Skylar]

Madam Chai

Oh, I agree 1000X. the gold generators are just... scream Sometimes, I truly think the Gaia admin no long gives a rat's a** about their users. Their only bottom line= make as much money as fast as you can. Screw the rest- all they see is a green $. emotion_facepalm

I totally agree... The guy that owns it now is all about green $... I will get all he can from ppl then just let Gaia go down till it's nothing... I remember when there were waaay more ppl on the there R now.... Now U do good 2 see 25,000 ppl on at a time... But U R very right, maybe even more than U know...  

[umbraja]

I know y'all don't want Gaia to shut down, neither do I, but the way it's headed. . . well, you implied as much yourself. I also know that boycotts make a statement which works well for getting a company's attention, I said as much in my last post. I also support the boycotting of gold generators and see the ridiculous sales they've been putting on them (as well as the frequency they're releasing new ones in an attempt to get us to accidentally buy them) but I worry that a total boycott (not spending any money on the site) might cause the corporate decision makers (those higher, higher-ups who shall not be named) to cut their losses and shut the site down rather than give in to the customers' desires. Perhaps I've just completely lost faith in the company. They might surprise me and do a decent thing for once. Maybe. It really looks to me though like they're actively trying to run this site into the ground and just milking us for whatever cash they can get before pulling the plug. Now that is a valid reason for not spending any more money on the site.

As for treating Gaia like a company, I'm afraid that's how this problem got started in the first place. You see, as I've been trying to say in every post, gold generators are not the real problem here. They are just a symptom of a larger disease. The boycotting, the petitions, the letters to HQ are just trying to treat symptoms and not actually getting to the underlying cause of Gaia's malady. So what is the cause? Well, to be brutally honest, it's us.

Somewhere along the line we forgot what Gaia's really about (community) and every single one of us, myself included, started chasing after items like they were the reason for being here. We turned this site into the consumerist hell-hole it's become. Yes, the corporate pig-dogs put poison in the kool-aide but it was us that drank it. The site could not have gotten to where it is without us buying into their marketing. It's our greed that sets Marketplace prices into the billions. It's our lust that keeps buying every item they put in front of us. It's our gluttony that can never be satisfied with the items and features we have. It's our envy that makes us jealous of the cash player's fancy items. It's our wrath that makes us rage when we can't have everything we want. It's our pride that makes use deny this very truth. It's our sloth that keeps us from going out and actually doing something about it. The corporate goons can't make us act that way. We do this.

We close ourselves off from the community and treat Gaia like an item collector. We sit in our corners with our handful of friends and complain about how things haven't been updated when we're not effectively using the features we already have. We ignore other people's questions, or quests, or guilds, or shops, or threads and just try to make our things better than everyone else's when they're exactly the same as the other thousand out there. We don't work together. We don't support each other. We don't produce anything anymore, we just consume and complain.

Now, this guild is the exception and that's why I'm saying this here. Because this guild is the last hold out on Gaia of actual community and if anyone is going to fix this problem it's going to be this guild.

I think one way of doing this is the job market I've been suggesting but there are other ways too and I think we should encourage people to express their ideas on the subject. As I know you know, getting feedback from the community is an excellent way to strengthen that community.

As for the job market idea, I've not worked out all the logistics of running such a thing but the general idea is this: we open a job market (either a thread in the minishops forum, or a subforum in this guild, or a separate guild even) and in it we post ads for anyone who asks us to. At this point it's just another job resource like the hundreds others out there. I would really like to contact some of these and try to get them to join this project (part of that working together thing). So at that point, it is a big job resource with ties to lots of other ones.

Where it really gets different though is the services we would offer.

Gaia Career Counseling: I strongly believe that every person on this earth has some sort of skill to offer the rest of humanity, they just have to find it. Some already know what their skills are but many won't have a clue. Part of the service we would offer is helping people (newbies and oldies alike) to find their skills. I would like to have dedicated counselors that can walk applicants through a few common aptitude tests (easily found on the internet) and then interview them to identify the sort of job that would best suit them. Maybe that's idealistic and I realize would require a very specialized skill set for the counselors (like a real career counselor) but I think it's worth a try.

Job Training: Once their skills are identified, we would then help them to hone those skills into a marketable trade. Resources would be provided for students to read but if we can manage it I would like this to be more of a hands-on mentorship program than just a static directory of written advice. Of course that is going to require heavy participation from a lot of different people to cover the full spectrum of possible trades but if we can get the people it would be an invaluable service.

Gaian Kickstarter: Since gold is a problem for a lot of newbies and non-cash players, we would offer a donations service to help raise funding for good ideas. I'm thinking it would work pretty much like Kickstarter where we would list people's ideas and then others would donate however much they can to whatever idea they like. Oddly enough this would probably be the easiest part of the program to pull off though it will require some tedious book keeping.

Marketing: Because this is the hardest part of running a shop, we would offer a marketing service that would help with everything from bumping posts, to developing a brand image and even quality assurance (proofing shop posts, cuz grammar). This will require having graphic designers (not just any artist) on staff but I think it won't be too much of a challenge given the quality of marketing this guild has (I'm still in awe of the monthly announcements).

Networking: It really is who you know and not what you know that makes a business successful so we would offer a connection service, putting people in contact with other people that are looking for what they've got to offer. This is another resource that could be boiled down to static listings but those already exist so I want to offer a more hands-on approach. Rather than posting things into the void and relying on people stumbling across each other we would actively seek out and make connections for them.

And I'm sure ideas for other services will come up once it gets started, those are just the beginning.

As hinted before, we would also be creating a whole lot of varied jobs just to be able to offer those services since we would need staff to actually do them. Just a few of the jobs this idea would create: thread bumpers, proofreaders, artists, counselors, trainers, resource writers, networkers, book keepers, and managers. Many of these jobs require a different kind of skill from what is commonly considered marketable on Gaia so between them all I can't think of a person we couldn't employ, even as just a thread bumper. Anyone can bump threads so there's a job for the totally unskilled.

I don't think the Marketplace's inflation will hurt this effort. In fact, if anything, it might just help us. A year ago the gap between cash and free players wasn't the gaping hole it is today. Free players could still afford the items they wanted just by using Gaia's built in allowance (playing games, booty grab, daily chance etc) for income. With the current economy, though, Gaia's charity just isn't enough. We've developed a large poverty class and, while that's bad for them, it does mean they should be more willing to work with us for their gold. It's a simple matter of supply and demand, really.

What is going to make this project difficult is the abysmal state of Gaia's community, not her economy. I do fear that we simply won't be able to get enough people who actually care about the community enough to where they would be willing to put in the very real and hard work necessary to pull this off. Because it will be work. I'm willing to do my part of it but I know I can't do it alone. Hopefully y'all can help.

Ebania

 

[Ebania]

I completely agree that the community focus has to shift in order for there to be any change whatsoever at Headquarters. Gaia has made many a bad decision in the past year or so, but out of ignorance, apathy, selfishness, or all three combined, the community has responded with a resounding "yes" to these bad decisions, one of which being the re-re-release of gold generators.

That being said, I'm 200% in love with your idea. It would definitely take a lot of work and a lot of planning on the part of myself and my Crew. I think that it would, however, be worth it, if it were to work, and truly be a method of supporting and training our members, new or old. wink

Let me send you an invite to the Crewmember Assistance Program guild so that we can start discussing logistics and such. I'm a full-time college student who's preparing for the LSAT, so I'm going to need both your help and the help of others to get something of this size off the ground.

umbraja

 

[SoulRIZer]

Hey guys, I found this link on the site. What caught my eye was the method that they were implying for Gaian's to use. To me this is one of the most effective way to express what we users need. I'm not entirely sure if this was already posted on NSTG but if it has, I'm sorry for double posting sweatdrop . I'm not from the US or anywhere close to that, but I really want to make a change and hopefully the effort does make an IMPACT on the Gaia staff. Thanks for your time. Here is the Link

 

[Artistic Wizard]

I do support you in this my friends, you can add me to this pledge. As for now, the best thing we can do is to be pro-active in getting things to change in how Gaia is being run. Let's all work together for change! <3

 

[umbraja]

Oh goodness yes. I think I could write a better mobile app (though that really does depend on how poorly Gaia's databases are written).

But. . . really, the site doesn't work too bad in a mobile browser. The Flash games are the only low point and you can even play them if you have the right browser (it's called Puffin and runs Flash on an iPhone). Sure the text is friggin tiny but you can zoom in and that doesn't seem to bother young people like it does old farts such as myself. I actually use my phone to check Gaia quite a lot and if I didn't work in front of a computer all day I'd probably use it more.

All that said, Gaia is missing out on a huge market since they're pretty much turning off anyone that does try that crappy mobile app. They should really just make the app a restricted browser that plays Flash so people get the real Gaia experience. Like guilds. You can't even get to guilds on the app, like they don't even exist. I fully believe that's got a lot to do with why guilds have all but died off.

But what can we do to fix this problem?

Maybe a petition for a better app?

Teach newbies how to use Gaia in a mobile browser?

Give members something worth sitting in front of a computer for?

maui boy no ka oi