I am pro-bundles since it drives down the GG prices of certain items that I have been questing (Kandi kitten for example!).
BUUUUT.... They just came out with another bundle of bundles. It's 2,499 for 4 of the Random bundles (which is selling for 999 each just yesterday).
I don't know about you guys, but I think that's such a douche move. I haven't bought any of these bundles, but I feel like if I had bought a Random Dream yesterday, I may not be so happy.
And in most companies (who actually value their customers), they'll offer a refund of the difference. But, oh, wait. This is Gaia. The company of all companies; they don't need to satisfy their customers.
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:10 pm
Umioko
Yay, this week's ATG! I have to tell you, I've honestly been waiting for this all week. c': Thank you again for hosting this! ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ »
Time to start off with the recent events going on in Gaia.
» Bundles Galore :: I feel these are getting too repetitive and a bit annoying. It would be nice if they released them every once in a while I suppose, but definitely not so many at once. There's just so many to keep track of, and because of this they lose more anticipated excitement. It's sort of like the recolors, they might have been neat at first, but now because there are so many of them, they are a bit of a bore now. I wish they would release anything cash shop related in moderation. We really are getting spammed with this stuff most, if not, everyday. If it is to combat inflation or gain more money...hmm. I think it's to gain more money in the end-run. I am happy this is helping reduce the inflation of those released items a bit, but all of that is negated once they release Flynn again. It would be nice to see a proper gold sink that did not require spending money on. o: Edit: Guess what was just released? Yep, another bundle! You better hurry before it's gone! Mwahaha! >:{D ─ ─ ─ ─ » Flynn Again :: Nooo! D': Every time Gaia's economy looks to be headed for some stabilization, Flynn seems to be released again. I can tell you this, every time she is re-re-re-re-re-released, I get so disappointed and saddened. It's really frustrating seeing her. It tells me that despite the hundreds of threads in the Site Feedback forum advising Gaia to quit releasing Flynn, Gaia just does not listen. Among those threads, some give very great reasons and data proving that Flynn destroys Gaia's economy and will not survive like this for a long-term plan. Do they really just not care? What happened to listening to the users? If they really do care about the business aspect, then it should not be difficult to figure out that this cannot and will not succeed for a long-term plan. So many questions, and no answers given. Although, their actions do say something. They say something I wish wasn't so hurtful and greedy. ─ ─ ─ ─ » This Month's RIG :: A much brighter subject compared to Flynn, haha. Thank you for including this! Honestly, I really like this RIG, but I suppose that is because it's the first RIG I've ever played! C: The twinkling blue and yellow eyes are adorable, and I'm glad to see some new color shades and tints! ─ » Male Directed Items :: I do have a bit of a concern of it though. There are only two male avatars in the RIG picture, and I see that most of the items are meant for the female avatar. This has been a bit of a popular subject lately in the Site Feedback forum too; how most of the late items and such have been for females and hardly any meant for the male avatar. Mostly blue and pink recolors of frilly items, mostly girly new items. I haven't been paying much attention to it honestly, but I believe it is a good point. In any case, I hope to see more male directed items in future new items and such. c: ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ »
Time to see what's new in the guild! > u<
» Avatar Arena :: Oh my gosh, yes! Thank you so much for hosting another one of these! I'm definitely going to participate in this one for sure with you all! I've looked over the thread, and I love the ideas going on. Only gold shop avatars, avatars entered for Gaia's arena contests that haven't been updated in years - great stuff! I guess if anyone needs help coming up with an avatar for this, I'd be happy to help! I started a sort of collection of avatars that only use gold shop items just recently. It only has female avatars currently and all of their outfits should be less than 10k. I still haven't double checked to see if every item is purchasable from the gold shops, but here it is if anyone is curious. Please feel free to use or get inspiration from them! I plan to create male avatars and others that are below 20k, 30k, and so on. ─ ─ ─ ─ » Video Response :: Wow, neat! I've checked out the thread already and saw many great responses and reviews. I'll be sure to stop by and add something to hopefully help out. It's a great approach and an exciting idea! ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ »
Lastly I'll address how I feel about Gaia overall.
GaiaOnline is my favorite website and still is. I remember when my friend introduced me to it once I got a computer and Internet. I was so happy when she gifted me a Red Octopus too. Haha, I wore that thing on my head like it was a trophy to show off. I remember looking forward to logging on each day too. Fighting off the gnomes and fluffs in zOMG, discovering Booty Grab, hanging out in rallies. It was really great and fun. I loved Gaia; it was my escape from the stress of real life and still plays that part. I miss the AtA dearly. I loved getting my questions answered directly, no matter how long it took - it was worth it. I loved giving them compliments on how well they were doing and receiving their heartfelt thanks. I could continue with how much I missed the true connection I had with Gaia and the staff, but I want to say how I feel about the current Gaia.
Currently I feel 'Goldemort / he who must not be named' isn't doing a great job. Sure, he is raising the money he must, and even much more than he needs, but he is continuing to disappoint and lose Gaia's loyal users. There is no human connection made, it is a cold and greedy want for money. Ah, but I do not mean to blame him. I'm sure there are other factors and complications I do not know of and such.
My feelings and attitude have been rocking back and forth lately. I am greatly disappointed in Gaia, that much is true. Some days I feel optimistic about getting Gaia back on track. With the last AtG, I felt very happy that I was contributing something, and I feel that way now. But still, sometimes I feel apathetic as more and more other users are feeling. It's sad, and sometimes I feel that all I try to do is for nothing. I feel no one who has the power to change it will care what we all have to say, and that is beyond frustrating.
It's like, if they really cared, shouldn't they have changed something already? Nothing major has changed. Oh wait, there is a change. More recolors, more Flynn, more incredibly ridiculous prices for cash shop items. It's like youtube when users wanted them to change the whole Google+ hook up thing. They changed the color of the like bar to blue as if to say, "Yes we hear you and we aren't going to be changing our partnership or whatever with Google+. To prove this, we'll change the like bar to blue. We can do whatever we want." It seems like every time Gaia re-releases Flynn, they are saying that they don't care and can do whatever they want.
Seeing more and more people who say they are only here until the site goes down or are completely quitting because of the current Gaia is hard to take in. It drains and lessens a more proactive and positive attitude. It's difficult to maintain that optimistic outlook, you know?
Sorry, now I've become a bit of a downer. Ah, this post started off so cheery too, haha. Let's move on to something else.
Hm...I forgot what I was going to talk about. :l I don't want to end this on a depressing note... Well, I tried to put up a funny gif, but they weren't working - sorry. :c
Welcome back! biggrin As usual, your comment was well put together. Thanks for your pearls of wisdom, haha. xd
But yeah, Gaia had its better days in the past. Your post also remembers me from other posts of veteran gaians in "Occupy Gaia" and even in our guild. It saddens me that Gaia cares more nowadays about their precious recolors and gold generators rather than their usersmembers cash cows. neutral
Talking about YouTube, this is one of the reasons I left that site and literally abandoned my account (which has the same name of my Gaia username). After the original owners sold their souls to the Devil Google, the site just went down the toilet: several videos being taken down due to stupid copyright BS which limited the creativity of the users, comment sections becoming more and more messy along the time, lots of ads and other stupid stuff.
Anyway, let's reply by parts, ho,ho:
Bundles Galore: I agree with you. And guess what the last two announcements were about ? smile
Will they ever learn ? emotion_facepalm ─ ─ ─ ─ Flynn: As someone once wrote, Flynn came to stay, sadly. emotion_donotwant Also, they closed AtA for good. This alone shows how much they're eager to listen to the userbase. emotion_facepalm ─ ─ ─ ─ RIG: RIGs and EIs are the only good stuff worth buying nowadays. Remember Verdant Grove ? That was one amazing RIG. heart Other than this, you have nothing but a bunch of recolors and gold generators. ─ ─ ─ ─ Male Directed Items: Yeah, I've noticed that too. Nowadays, male avatars have very few choices compared. I wonder why Gaia is so now (excuse my expression) "biased" toward female avatars ?
Is this to reflect RL, where women have more options of clothing and accessories than men ? Or they figured out that the site have more female users than male users ? Either way, hope they put down their bias someday.
The bundles are simply re releases of some items. Slender and Dark Conductor are examples. I broke down and bought the nightmare bundleburning_eyes
but i too have seen the decrease in activity. I was barely active until i realized that my new browser can bypass the video ad on flash spaces after a minute or so. Buuuuuut now im back to stay for a while. I'll be happier if a new generation of role players were to go to the Barton town forum though. This generation has no decency or originality.
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 5:42 pm
kewie16
i have been in this group for quiet some time now an i do not know a thing about it. what is this group all about? sweatdrop what does being here offer to me? neutral what will i be benefiting from being here? confused who are/is the owner of this group? question please reply to me so i don't feel like i'm a non-factor sad
Hi there! I think CourageNFaith answered your questions pretty well, but I'd like to answer them as well!
1. This is a group of people who are upset with the way Gaia is doing things and are hoping to bring about a positive change.
2. Being here allows you to be a part of group efforts to get Gaia to listen. You are not required to participate or course, but you are given the option.
3. What will you benefit? Mostly, I believe this guild is a safe place for members to talk about what's going on around Gaia without having to worry about being trolled.
4. Technically our mule is captain and the owner of this guild, but all the crew members work together to fill the "captain" position. We chose to do things this way because this guild is about the members--not just who is in charge. This also makes things easier if a crew member decides to leave or take a break. It's less disruptive this way and we don't have to move from captain to captain.
Thank you for asking! You definitely aren't a "non-factor" and I hope this helps clear a few things up.
Pegasaurus Rex
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 5:46 pm
RockerWolfie1616
I'm surprised no one has spoken about the whole coupon fiasco. > > I was one of the lucky few who got 10 private messages at once offering COUPONS for discounted GC. Seriously? I already have to look at giant banners about new bundle releases and GC..gaia now sends out tons of announcements each week filled with GC junk. Getting real tired of it. Not everyone can afford the gaia cash. They should make it optional to see all the cash related things..if there was such an option I'd definitely click the 'Do not want to see'
Oh, I totally forgot about that! I'll add it to the OP. Thanks for reminding me.
Yeah, that was ridiculous. I'm glad it was a glitch because that's a pretty underhanded way to try to get people to buy GC, if you ask me. It made me real mad when they PMed people who never bought GC with a super discount on Flynn's booty. If anything, it strengthened my resolve to never buy GC ever, never, forever, no matter what. emotion_donotwant
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:05 pm
CourageNFaith
And we're back to our amusing event. smile I'll check out the AA thread.
Anyway, I'll answers by parts:
What do you think of Gaia's mass bundle release? Is it to combat inflation or simply to gain more money?
The latter, which reflects on the lack of proper updates and also this. As usual, they see us as cash flippin' cows and act like little brats: "Give me money, pls!". scream
As for the MP, I've noticed that the prices suddenly are going down, despite the red haired b1tch and her "minions"(Santa Sack and Rosamund) coming back from the "black hole" so many times. And it has been a long time that the site has been losing more and more users. I once read that Gaia used to have more than 20,000+ people onlineeveryday in the "old days". eek
Due to all the mess that the site has become and people wanting nothing but picking up fights with each other in SF and GCD, people are indeed becoming "downhearted" in all aspects, and saying things along the lines of "This isn't the Gaia that wasn't used to be". Not to mention the slowdowns, lags and the time(s) the site went offline - www.isitdownrightnow.com/gaiaonline.com.html
I seriously wish that Gaia have better days and that 2014 be the year where this MMOG rises from the ashes like the legendary Phoenix avian being. heart
I agree, so many features on this site are neglected. It's amazing to me that they're still sponsoring a contest in the Arenas that ended 5 YEARS AGO!
Yeah, many prices in the MP have dropped dramatically. While this can be considered a good thing by some, the fact of the matter is it's an unhealthy fluctuation. The items are kind of like stock. First they super inflated it - bad. Now they're super deflating it - bad. It's not good for prices to increase or decrease so dramatically. It should be done slowly, and while I do appreciate that more people can afford these items it irks me that members have to pay to fix that artificial inflation.
Gaia was once thriving. Now it is dying. I can't help but think they're about to milk users for all they're worth and the sell the site. Of course, we have no way of knowing what's going on or what's going to happen because member-staff communication is practically non-existent. :/
I would love to see it rise from the ashes! If it did so in the form of a phoenix, I know one member in particular who would be very happy. whee
Hello everyone! I hope Gaia hasn't raised your blood pressure too badly this week. sweatdrop
Bundle and re-releases are for pure profit only. They probably were to combat inflation originally, but not anymore. The prices lowering is just a side effect of the re release. We'll see a gold generator or two later this week.
That said, I don't mind bundles and re-releases. I almost don't mind any CS updates anymore. Only thing I can afford these days are low level RIG items. sweatdrop
However, I do mind how these CS updates are done. Is it so hard to throw some actually new items in there? Make a re-release bundle and throw in a completely new item alongside within the bundle. Also, they know item re-releases are a sensitive subject, and that the only reason Gaia prices the items so high is because of it's gold worth. Therefore, why would they negate that high price/value by releasing the same item over and over again in less than six months? If you're gonna do that, just drop the price of the item, and enjoy the crazy amounts of extra profit you'll get, while further annoying the users pissed off about rereleases. It does the same exact thing.
I'm not surprised that Gaia has slowed down.
I'm still so very peeved that they raised the price of the birthstone items by 100%. That to me metaphorically killed me. There goes my questing for them through GC offers. That hard strapped for cash or greed that you had to double the price of a 25 cent item? Holy shiat. emo
I'm also getting tired of Gaia saying "There's nothing we can do about such and such issue. That's handled by our partner." Like...seriously? I get that yes, that's true, but don't you communicate with your partners? Perform background checks? Actually make sure that they're reputable? Poor UK. He must feel silly having that as the only response to such issues. Every single time. @_@
There's no reason for the captcha issue to last as long as it has. Going through the fishing forum, it's been here since like november LAST year. The hell?
What's with the steep decline in GC offers and vids and their malfunctions? That's been going on since middle of last year!
What's going on with the advertisements? I swear there should definitely be no problems with ads. They want us to not use adblock, right? I assume they would also want you to do the GC offers too. There's no sense for all the money involved in that to go to waste. With that said, you'd think they'd at least bother to make sure their ads don't annoy the crap out of you or give u malware or something.
I personally can't bring myself to quit, so I'm here until it crashes and burns. Lately I've found myself trying to ignore all the crap. Gaia makes it quite hard. Coupon spam anyone? I don't even use GC.
I just wish that they'd stop rereleasing Gold Generators. I can take everything else bad they do, if they'd just stop rereleasing Gold Generators. I mean, they've been pulling all this crap since 2008-2009. I can deal with that. I can't compete with the effects of Gold Generators. It's crazy. emo
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:27 pm
Cat Sapphire
I have to admit, I was pretty excited about the first bundles. They did include a bunch of nice items at a good price.I've also noticed that the price for those particular items has gone down in the MP...but only on those items. Maybe it's a start? I don't know. The fact that they keep throwing more bundles at us has lessened the excitement a bit. Too many, too quickly. I'm getting bored with the recolors, every item comes in about any color...nothing special about it now. At first I didn't buy any mostly because I couldn't decide (with limited funds) which bundle I wanted...now I don't care enough and if I want an item I'll buy it with gold in the MP. Flynn's booty? I don't even bother to read through the announcements any more. Couldn't care less what body part she is auctioning off now.
Yeah, the prices for those items have dropped very far in the MP. It's a good thing for questers, but I bet a lot of people feel ripped of for having bought the item at the inflated price. I think they should release items in less of a quantity to make the price drop less severe.
And I agree, whenever they have a hit with something they over-kill it. No item feels special or impressive anymore--not even the angelic halo. Everything feels commonplace and while I used to be proud of my item collection, I just look at it all and feel nothing. :/
I always wondered why they never made one huge end of the month bundle with ALL of the CS items available for that particular month. They could probably easily slap a $100 price tag on that item and sell it. Back when I was buying GC I would have saved up for it. I certainly wouldn't have stopped me from buying a RIG or two more and I always bought several superchargers anyway. They could call it "Shelf Clearing Bundle" rofl
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:40 pm
GadreeI
I kinda liked how they just shoved the old ei's out there into the world again..Really brought down prices..(at least for those individual items) But the strange thing is them shoving ol' Flynn back into our faces..Not that it inflated the ei's.
Yeah, I have to admit it is nice to have more circulation--especially since so many people quit and probably took all their items to the grave.
I feel like they think it's okay to release Flynn's Booty again if some item prices go down. That's the only justification I can think of and that could be why they released it during the Halloween and Christmas gold sinks.
That's just poppycock. emotion_donotwant
Pegasaurus Rex
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:42 pm
Pwnder
I always wondered why they never made one huge end of the month bundle with ALL of the CS items available for that particular month. They could probably easily slap a $100 price tag on that item and sell it. Back when I was buying GC I would have saved up for it. I certainly wouldn't have stopped me from buying a RIG or two more and I always bought several superchargers anyway. They could call it "Shelf Clearing Bundle" rofl
gonk Don't give them ideas on how to sell out even more... They'll probably end up doing it sooner or later. I'm still holding out on the '03 bundle idea. lol
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:48 pm
piggyzhou
BUUUUT.... They just came out with another bundle of bundles. It's 2,499 for 4 of the Random bundles (which is selling for 999 each just yesterday).
I don't know about you guys, but I think that's such a douche move. I haven't bought any of these bundles, but I feel like if I had bought a Random Dream yesterday, I may not be so happy.
And in most companies (who actually value their customers), they'll offer a refund of the difference. But, oh, wait. This is Gaia. The company of all companies; they don't need to satisfy their customers.
I completely agree! I think they only agreed to refund the difference once, when they did the first flash sale or something.
That's another reason why Gaia doesn't get my money. A business that doesn't act like one can't use that argument against us. Someone needs to make one of those Willy Wonka memes about it. "Oh, you're a business and need money? Tell me all about your great customer service and sales tactics." lol
I always wondered why they never made one huge end of the month bundle with ALL of the CS items available for that particular month. They could probably easily slap a $100 price tag on that item and sell it. Back when I was buying GC I would have saved up for it. I certainly wouldn't have stopped me from buying a RIG or two more and I always bought several superchargers anyway. They could call it "Shelf Clearing Bundle" rofl
gonk Don't give them ideas on how to sell out even more... They'll probably end up doing it sooner or later. I'm still holding out on the '03 bundle idea. lol
