Is Gaia improving ?

[Kawaii_BubblyKitten]

Well, you know what I mean :/ ...
All these updates about making the community improve,
and the daily chance having charms, raising the gold,
and they even added gcash at the daily chance !
But then they removed it cause of an error ?
(So close Q _ Q ...)


And I got about 7 announcements today, which is tot weird .___.
Few months ago I got like 10 announcements in a day.
(Does that make sense ... For me yes, less clicking in the notif - 3 - ...)


Wuht do you think
Is Gaia actually improving for the better ?

 

[Vishkah]

Yes and no. I think that there are a few things that have improved - like the Inventory Arranger that users have been hounding the staff about for close to a decade (I joined close to a decade ago, and even back then there were complaints about the Inventory Arranger), and they have raised the payouts to many of the games, but personally, I don't think that they would have needed to do it if it weren't for them creating the issue in the first place (That is, by releasing gold generators and creating extreme hyperinflation) - actually, I know they wouldn't need to if it weren't for the gold generators, as before they arrived the site-wide games (and even posting and polls!) were viable sources of gold. Even with a raise in payouts, I don't think the games are keeping up with the inflation. This is a band aid approach, raising our incomes in an attempt to ameliorate a staff-induced problem.

If you judge the standard of our game by the main things that Gaia promises it's users (Join, meet friends, buy items and express yourself with your avatar), generally, I think it has still gone downhill - our one multi-player game that we can team up together and chat with each other with is gone (zOMG!), the economy is still at a world war level of inflation (which impacts all users and the most central aspect of the game), and it takes cash to properly participate in site-wide events without waiting where once we all participated for free.

So basically, I think that while certain areas have improved a bit recently, yes, it's more of a band aid than it is a cure. 95% of users or something similar don't want gold generators, and yet they keep releasing them. Our inboxes are only capable of holding up to 10 Announcements and years ago, we averaged at perhaps 4 Announcements a week (if that - when I first joined we'd get less than 10 Announcements per month). If we get fewer announcements now it's a surprise because we're so used to being spammed, but despite cries for an opt-out function, they have continued pushing Gaia Cash.

In the past eleven months we have had over 3000 Cash Shop-related announcements, which is 30x than all of the Gaia Cash-related announcements we received in an entire year years ago (Source), so if we're only getting three or four in a day (when years ago we would get perhaps that many in a week or month), that's only an improvement when compared to the 14 we got the same day last week. (In recent months, there have been days where we have received over fourteen announcements)

Don't get me wrong, I still love Gaia and I care about this site. I don't want our economy to be this way, which is why I'm forever trying to explain to people the source of the hyperinflation. I just think that until they fix some very central issues (remove gold generators and therefore make prices more approachable to users, start listening to the loyal, long-term user base, etc), it won't be anywhere near it's former self. Gaia is still fun, but it's not nearly the spirited site it used to be.