ATG // January 6, 2014

[Pegasaurus Rex]

Hello and welcome to our first ever ATG! Pop in for a second or stick around, just be sure to leave us with your opinions and ideas. I'm excited to see how this turns out!

Here's a re-cap of last week:

o Happy new year! Admin Goals for 2014
o Flynn's Booty and Chest were re-released yet again.
o We got an EI report containing a new item called "Josie's Journey".

I'm of the mind that the increased NPC activity will be in the form of EI's, much like Moira's Flashback. While I didn't expect them to go this way, I'd rather have a new item pertaining to Gaia and NPCs rather than just a re-color. Hopefully this isn't all the interaction they were talking about, because I got super excited for manga updates and would love to see if they plan on making some ever again.

On a different note, I'd like to ask you all about something guild-related. I want to see how many people would be interested and participate in:

o Future ATGs
o Avatar Arena related things
o Flash Space events
o A Day of Silence (not logging on to Gaia on a particular day/week)
o Site Feedback related things
o Sending physical letters to Gaia HQ

Let us know what you think and please don't be afraid to say if you like/don't like a particular idea. Share your reasons on how it could be improved, how it's a great idea, or how it would absolutely fail. Please remember to be respectful to everyone and have fun with this!  

[rhuem]

Hiiii, I am Rhuem you can just Call me Rhu :3

My question is will their ever be a party in towns or something?  

[shamantra]

This is great, it's such a shame that gaia stopped the ATA, even though most of my questions were ignored, since they pertained to gaia aquarium community, it still was important for staff and the community. Apparantly dead set on increasing their cash, and not wanting to see the overwhelming disapproval of most of us, they bypassed it by closing. Sad!

I would just like ANYTHING related to giving us fish back in gaia aquarium, this is my priority request. I'd be happy with ONE more fish. I'll expand later on other issues too. Just wanted to check in and say thanks for this heart  

[Javier Cross]

For Site Feedback, how come finding artists is getting harder with each new release of Cash-only gold generators?  

[Hexamoth]

I'm not really sure what to say here, but according to the admin goals the loyalty shop is on it's way. biggrin I am really looking forward to seeing the loyalty shop! >u< I hope they will have alot of updates with items that are cash quality. =u= Because let's face it, the current gold shops have rare updates, and the items aren't that great. Is it really so bad to let one or two awesome items be sold for only gold?

Also, I don't know about avatar arena entries, I think gaia already got the message, so we need to be more specific about what we don't like and how to change it? I think at this point sending letters and giving feedback is better. :3 Ah, the day of silence is a good idea too.  

[HyphyMexican XIII SSC]

for those who want a place to hang out in the near future:

i volunteer my house and the island where my house is, right now there is only one other house and both as far as i know are open to the public  

[xx I met my fate xx]

Also if you have any questions about the guild, future plans, or anything you want the staff here to answer go ahead and post them up. We'll be happy to answer all questions.  

[MistyMary24]

I understand the day of silence but will never do another one again.

Reasons
1. After the Day of Silence the amount of people that are on gaia dropped and people were not active in the guilds. I found a few of them in another online game I play and they said that the day of silence was all the encouragement they needed to leave gaia. They are never coming back here.

2. The activity in the guilds I belong to and own even dropped.

3. Right after the day of silence the gaia staff immediately responded with removing Ask the Admin - Which is the result of the Day of Silence last time.

To me the day of silence is not worth the heart ache of seeing other friends and people I know stop from being on here.

*EDIT FROM THE CAPTAIN

The Day of Silence and ATA removal are in no way connected. Everyone is free to state their opinion, but please do not provide it as fact.  

[Hawkeyesgun]

I love the physical letter writing idea. I have learned that it is hard to be ignored when you constantly get in someone's ear about you being present. People got so sick of seeing my name on job applications (I sent a new one in every week) that they gave me an interview. So, If we write a lot of letters about one or two things we REALLY want to see changed, it'll be hard to dispute that they aren't getting A LOT of concern about them. (Too many letters on too many different topics solves nothing this has to be a group effort and decision.) How likely are you to change something that five people have written about when you got one hundred letters? Not likely. If you have eighty people out of one hundred write about the same issue, you know you have a problem.  

[xx I met my fate xx]

Just a note to dispel any confusion here. The Day of Silence protest had nothing to do with Gaia's removal of ATA. It was a decision that they made weeks prior and simply happened to enact that day.

Gaia did not punish us for the Day of Silence.  

[edamomme]

One day of silence had more impact than I knew, wow! I don't understand why it would make people leave, it seems to me that solidarity should help to bond a group. I would happily do another, write a letter as part of an en masse action, whatever gets Gaia management's attention, they need to understand their actions have consequences.
It's a shame about ask the admin closing, but I'm not surprised -- in general there hasn't been any response to BG issues or the broken avi arena, issues of deep disfunction which have driven away more Gaians over the years than I can count. I used to love Gaia, nowdays it mostly makes me sad.