Seeing Gaia Change Before your Eyes

[Stri Dizzle]

Nemariel

I joined in 2003 and I remember when the server used to crash at peak hours every night. rofl We used to have to hop servers by changing the names in the url. I also remember when the avatar builder was restricted to the "one item per slot" rule, and you could only have one head item, one leg item, one item for your ankles/feet area, and so forth.

The weird thing is? I.. also remember this. I joined in the 2003 as well and am I the only one to recall once upon a time Gaia had a place to go to solely for finding and dating other gaians? I swear that little blip came and went almost like it wasn't meant to happen. I've seen the rise and fall where once upon a time you didn't need real money to get fake money. At the same time, now that a lot of the sites which once rivaled Gaia have all but since bit the dust [rip club penguin] it's no wonder they had to expand and go beyond the idea of being a simple hang out spot.

[AutumnWyvern]

I joined in 03/23/2007 (aw my 10 year gaiaversary was just over a week ago and I didnt even notice) I stopped playing regularly in 2009-2010 (the last event I remember participating in with Gusto was Halloween 2k9) and then started becoming active again oh a few months ago... Last September? On one hand it was a little disheartening to pull items from a kindred drop rig that I bought with real money (or well, begged my parents to buy me) from Way Back When but honestly making RIGs more accessible to non-paying users has really helped maintain my interest, especially alongside runway which gives me daily themes to put all my new goodies to work in! And also I was surprised to come back and find there were animal avatars and no one told me!! I'd probably have hopped back on in 2013 if I knew paws were a thing smh...

But man in the few short months I've been back I've seen quite a turnaround. zOMG is back, crackdowns on cheaters in runway, and all the other wonderful things Lanzer has been pushing since his return. It truly is amazing what a change in staff can do with both the "downfall" of Gaia and the possible rebirth!

As for is it better or worse than it was a decade ago... That's hard to say. The items are better (though paws need to be shown a bit more love now and then it seems like a miracle whenever paws are given 2 or 3 items in a RIG) and I feel like there are more things to DO than just post on the forums or camp out in those old minigames, and I'm very optimistic for the future... But the old days of gaia were a lot more active (for better or for worse heheh) and gold actually was worth something... It was a great achievement to save up and get that elusive OMG hat... Also the manga/storyline seemed to actually mean something to the world of Gaia. Its still there, I've gotten all caught up even! But, it just doesn't seem like as much of a big deal as it used to be. ho hum....

[Chu-Lip Jam]

I joined back in 2004. Was way more into anime back then and was like "My own anime avi? Hell yeah!" I still remember how hard it was to finally save up for a 1,000 gold item.

So much has changed since back then. Like almost everything excluding the basics of the site (there's still a marketplace, can change clothes, forums to post in, etc). Out of the changes what do I like the most, I like how the items look now over how they looked then, and that there's items for body mods now. I liked when we had Gaia Theatre to just go and chill in and throw stuff at the screen and at other users. I also really liked when they first introduced Towns on the site. It was fun to find a plot of land for your house and decorate it up. I even got to be part of the people that got to test out the beta of Towns. Though I don't really care much about Towns now.
I also like the addition of achievements, though I don't like the addition of custom achievements.

I dislike seeing what happened to the economy. It's gotten so out of control. And I hated the era of the 50 million gold gens that happened. I think we can even stand to have a bit less GC items in favor of a few more gold items being created in their place.

For the economy Gaia was better back then in its original few years. But when it comes to what all you can do on the site, and all the ways you can dress up your avi, that part is better now.

There was a long period of time when I only got on Gaia like once a month, or every other month, just to see what was new, but what made me start coming back on regularly was when they started doing the whole achievements thing. Would come on daily to see if there was any new achievements out. Still annoyed there's some beta and first achievements I missed out on because I was a few months late to find out about them.

[Musuu]

June 2003. heart

I was just thinking about Gaia because of the April Fool's Imgur event with the zombies and it reminded me of the Halloween zombie events here for the first couple of years. Amazing.

[Magician Arcana]

I believe I joined in 05-06. This isn't my original account, tho.

There are some things from old gaia that I miss, but the way things are going right now, it feels similar? Better? I am enjoying the toying updates from the new npcs and the constant feedback and conversation between staff/admin/owner to everyone. It's so nice, really.

[amsayy]

I joined initially in 2006 I think. My original account is long gone now, I was 13 and a little jerk who trolled and probably deleted it or something once I transferred all the stuff I had to this account that was named Penultimate Lachrymosity. Which is still in my profile xD If I remember right, originally I came here from Neopets because roleplaying was impossible on there. Then I became a t**t and just trolled in the GC for a bit before coming to the GCD and being "cool" which I say lightly. I'd say my hey-day was in 2008, specifically during the Summer Olympic event. That was some good, quality times. My 14/15 year old self was very pleased.

That was honestly the last real playtime I had here. I moved over to Solia Online and got me a gold halo there then stupidly sold it because I'm an idiot. Then tumblr became a thing in 2009, but I was also then running my own RP forums and in high school so I didn't come on much.

But when I've logged on? Nothing's really changed, at least aesthetically. Which is honestly my biggest issue with the site. I've got a fairly nice PC, and the god damned thing lags to all hell, the dropdown menus have a serious delay. The amount of stupid crap in the header needs some serious condensing. The amount of announcements is obscene. The little animations for stuff to buy more stuff with real money are tacky. I'm complaining a lot because honestly, the only thing that I've seen really change since my last real run at it here? Money.

The inflation, the gaia cash, that's the big changes. And honestly, they're not positive ones. And if I could see the money going to some form of site updating, maybe I'd be less salty about it.

[Ashachuu]

I joined around 2007 on a different account and I've seen a ton of changes.
I remember long ago, before gaia had gc, even before the brief period of time when you could buy gaia gift cards. You had to mail in your 5 bucks or whatever to get the monthly items. I remember doing it a couple times during my freshman year of college. lol.

For those who don't know it:


So reading thru some of the posts on here made me go back to the very beginning of my photobucket and found some old images of past avatars and dream avatars I had. Oh, I had also been hacked thru the trade system on my original account. lolll. That stuff was like literally all my gold and all my valuable items..





Some old avatars (I loved bucked teeth)



I remember saving up for the Elegant Black Satin Coat back when 58k was a crapton of gold. I remember cash being brought in. I remember being a beta tester for ZOMG.
Ohh I also remember one of the summer events where we got to have the B.O.O skin and my team lost and if you changed your avatar your skin would change to a potato from the really pretty skin we had on the team and a bunch of us got together and decided to not change our avatars and I had the same avatar for like a year. lol.
I also loved tektek. It was my favorite part of being on gaia. I loved designing avatars and tektek was so easy to use and when that got taken down several years ago that was what drove me away. Not having it makes being back soso hard and gaia's answer to taking the site down with the avatar builder is garbage. You can't even sort by color? like come on gaia get your s**t together. The interface is so slow and cluttered and it's stupid and emotion_donotwant

This site might be going down the tubes in my opinion, but I have way too many memories here that I just can't leave entirely...

[Ashachuu]

amsayy

I joined initially in 2006 I think. My original account is long gone now, I was 13 and a little jerk who trolled and probably deleted it or something once I transferred all the stuff I had to this account that was named Penultimate Lachrymosity. Which is still in my profile xD If I remember right, originally I came here from Neopets because roleplaying was impossible on there. Then I became a t**t and just trolled in the GC for a bit before coming to the GCD and being "cool" which I say lightly. I'd say my hey-day was in 2008, specifically during the Summer Olympic event. That was some good, quality times. My 14/15 year old self was very pleased.

That was honestly the last real playtime I had here. I moved over to Solia Online and got me a gold halo there then stupidly sold it because I'm an idiot. Then tumblr became a thing in 2009, but I was also then running my own RP forums and in high school so I didn't come on much.

But when I've logged on? Nothing's really changed, at least aesthetically. Which is honestly my biggest issue with the site. I've got a fairly nice PC, and the god damned thing lags to all hell, the dropdown menus have a serious delay. The amount of stupid crap in the header needs some serious condensing. The amount of announcements is obscene. The little animations for stuff to buy more stuff with real money are tacky. I'm complaining a lot because honestly, the only thing that I've seen really change since my last real run at it here? Money.

The inflation, the gaia cash, that's the big changes. And honestly, they're not positive ones. And if I could see the money going to some form of site updating, maybe I'd be less salty about it.

I feel the same way about the money. Like they are raking it in for sure and the actually site, the meat and potatoes, feels the same. They added a few new games here and there, took what...5 years to get ZOMG back up? WTF?
I haven't played jigsaw since i've been back, which has only been about a week, but i'd love to see some new art for that. Also, I'd like to have a functioning app. I'm assuming the app is still as crappy as it was before as nothing else in that area here has changed...

[Bellecoso]

February 2004. Not long after the first anniversary when I noticed some friends playing on it. Looked pretty neat.

It's been an interesting ride. A lot of changes happened, and somehow I find myself returning.

I watched the forums evolve, the removal of Personals, the addition of games like Fishing and Towns. Ah, the days at school spending our lunch period looking desperately for a Demon Dragonfly and being salty at each other when someone ACTUALLY found one.

The introduction of much more regular Manga updates to expand on the entire world of Gaia an the characters...

Introduction of more and more races within the Gaian Universe.

The hype of zOMG that lasted while I was still in school, and being finally released in Zeta Testing when I had moved out.

The change of hands bringing forth a rather bitter environment as Facebook Games and Gamification of cash items became a thing over the last 6 years...

And now the return of Lanzer and a long road to returning Gaia to its former self being a bit more community based than a money printer.

It's been a long as ******** ride.

And despite everything, I'm happy to still be here. Even after a bit of a ragequit for a year, this is still very much home to me.

I love the styles, the characters, the world building, the games...

I get a lot more inspiration from this site than I'd like to admit! It's amazing to think that this place started out as just a simple little forum for anime nerds with the whole dress up avatar aspect being a neat little unique add on.

There's definitely a few things that could be worked on with the site. Some of the UI is horribly outdated, and I'd love some sort of Lexicon on the creatures and characters of Gaia rather than having to dig around through ancient archives of the forum for fanthreads. Some of the games could stand an update, such as fishing. Maybe a bit more integration on certain items, like a use for the flowers, trash, and dyes.

But one step at a time as more focus is being put towards community than gamification.

Nowadays, I find it very hard to describe to people WHAT Gaia even is!

[Starlight Necromancer]

I remade this account last year but I first joined back in 2009, I mostly lurked and stayed over in the games part of the website. If I wasn't in pinball you never saw me, that is until zOMG was really a thing and then i started becoming more active on the forums but still mostly lurked.

I don't actually remember much other than me playing pinball for hours on end while questing for items that I fully intended to get though it until I started playing zOMG and made some friends there.

I remember the Save zOMG Event where they were selling special summonable pets for GaiaCash and that's how I got my OMG, I remember this because the way I got my gcash got me grounded sweatdrop my folks probably don't even remember me running up the phone bill over Gaia

I also remember the Frontier Skies event, I still have the medals I earned from that game. It was so fun and I really loved it. I had hoped it was going to stay after the event but no dice.

Once a lurker always a lurker I guess.

[Bellecoso]

VexedFallen

I remember the Save zOMG Event where they were selling special summonable pets for GaiaCash and that's how I got my OMG, I remember this because the way I got my gcash got me grounded sweatdrop my folks probably don't even remember me running up the phone bill over Gaia

GG man!! XD

Oh god, I hope the punishment wasn't too awful!!

I remember saving up bits of lunch money at a time to send to Gaia in a freakin envelope once in a while to get my monthly collectables, because I didn't know of any other way, and my parents refused to let me buy stuff online at the time.

I am amazed that never one time was there an instance I didn't get my MCs for the 5 loose dollars I sent in an unsecure as all hell envelope containing only a paper with my username and a thank you attached.

[Starlight Necromancer]

Bellecoso

GG man!! XD

Oh god, I hope the punishment wasn't too awful!!

I remember saving up bits of lunch money at a time to send to Gaia in a freakin envelope once in a while to get my monthly collectables, because I didn't know of any other way, and my parents refused to let me buy stuff online at the time.

I am amazed that never one time was there an instance I didn't get my MCs for the 5 loose dollars I sent in an unsecure as all hell envelope containing only a paper with my username and a thank you attached.

It wasn't! Just had to go the rest of the school year with no video game or computer privileges, and my phone was taken away since I didn't exactly go anywhere. As far as punishments went it wasn't as bad as it couldof been.

And god yea, I never had the actual money to get mcs so I didn't ever look into how to get them but that sounds like some Risky Business. It's honestly amazing that nothing ever happened.

[le Eloise]

yum_tea

I've never discovered this site 'till late September, 2016.

And I must say reading all your posts has really been gratifying to be a part of Gaia's story, although I have seen old players have returned after the announcement of their returned and beloved MMO; zOMG!

This is indeed a wonderful community, it has its best moments and (in times out of the low-balled air), it has its worse.

I am glad that this thread (and perhaps many others) existed! I've enjoyed reading all your messages, taking the time off to look back and reflect the growth of this site - it's very humbling to me.

Although I understand that both previous and current management did what they had to in order to keep this site running. (despite the collisions of having a business tactics over than what the community wants.. fun and enjoyment)

At the end of the day, it all boils down to experiences and journey, a story to tell to those who are yet to come.

And this is what I hope to live for in Gaia.

Here's to the old memories this site had encountered many years back..

And above all -

Cheers to new and upcoming ideas that the staff has to offer in the future!

[clarion]

I've been here since a month after it opened and have remained active in some capacity pretty much the entire time so I've seen aaaaalllll the changes. I probably had the most fun on Gaia earlier on when there were tons of people active and I was modding and it seemed like there was some new event or activity to do all the time but even then there were a lot of halfassed unsupported projects and management ******** so tbh I don't have much nostalgia for the "good old days"

I think the items we have now are way nicer, I'm glad Lanzer is back and the site isn't spiralling around the toilet bowl on its way out anymore, I have a ton of fun with Runway and dressing my av so I'm not going anywhere any time soon but for the most part I have always looked forward rather than backwards at Gaia's past and am more interested in where the site will go in the future rather than hoping for a return to the past that wasn't really as rosy as people like to pretend it was.

[Ashachuu]

Bellecoso

VexedFallen

I remember the Save zOMG Event where they were selling special summonable pets for GaiaCash and that's how I got my OMG, I remember this because the way I got my gcash got me grounded sweatdrop my folks probably don't even remember me running up the phone bill over Gaia

GG man!! XD

Oh god, I hope the punishment wasn't too awful!!

I remember saving up bits of lunch money at a time to send to Gaia in a freakin envelope once in a while to get my monthly collectables, because I didn't know of any other way, and my parents refused to let me buy stuff online at the time.

I am amazed that never one time was there an instance I didn't get my MCs for the 5 loose dollars I sent in an unsecure as all hell envelope containing only a paper with my username and a thank you attached.

YESSS! I remember doing this as well! I would send my 5 bucks in with just my username and a thanks in a little envelope and always got my items for that month. I think it was even late once and because it was post marked for the previous month (the month I wanted the items for) i still got the right monthly items.

Man do I miss old gaia. I'm so excited for this next ride as Lanzer gets gaia back where it should be! <3 <3 <3