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 Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:24 am
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:33 am
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:34 am
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► Overview
What is Platinum?
Platinum (or "plat" in short) is an alternate Gaian currency introduced in mid-August 2017.
It is alternate as you can still use gold as your currency and are not forced to switch to plat. There is also no downside for "jumping" between those 2 currencies. This can be done in your Account Settings in the General section (the one on the left which start with your birthday). Check whichever one you want to use and save your settings on the bottom.
New accounts which were created after the plat introduction are always in plat mode by default while older accounts would have to change to plat manually. No one was forced to change the currency by the system.
However, the currency output is vastly different; something I will look into further down the line.
Now, what is the difference between gold and plat? Short version: there is none except that plat is lacking some of gold's 0s. Have a look at this:
(Graphic and rights by PkRs, thanks for letting me use it)
Basically, plat is removing 7 zeros in your Gaian bank account.
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Why was it introduced?
Let's go back in time -> I created this account back in 2009. Man, nice items were not easily affordable then. For example one item I wanted really badly was Vampire Hunter Hat and it costed a whooping ~50k gold back then. That's right, 50.000 gold! Can you imagine that? And even more, that I had to work hard for months to get enough money? HILARIOUS!
What happened since then that our items nowadays are so much much more expensive? (The Hat had a lowest buy price of 3.000p as I wrote this thread. That's 3.000.000.000gold which is a price increase of 60.000% in total!)
So along the way some events must have happened which caused the system to be flooded by currency.
In 2013 a new kind of item was introduced: Gold Generators (or short: GG). When opened one of them you got a random amount of gold, sometimes "just" 1 million (which was already a lot by that time) or, as a main prize, 1 trillion gold. That's right, 1.000.000.000.000 gold. 12 zeroes!
To drain some of that huge pile of gold, Flinn's Plunder (a marketplace auction house) was introduced as well as certain other events where you could just throw money in and got achievements and items according to your spending tier. Which was hilarious when one considers that users found out the devs/artists were flooding the economy further via mule accounts. Drama warning for this link; 133TGATE
In 2015 Lake Kindred (LK) was introduced and once the second "world" Kindred Wilds was open, everyone could grind themselves up to never imagined heights but more about how to make money in Lake Kindred later on.
Fast forward 2 years and it was commonplace to farm money in LK. Need some fast billions? Go to LK. A dedicated farmer could make between 30 and 60 per hour. BILLION, that is. Now compare that again to the 50.000 in 2009. That are 2 very different worlds. If you are humbled, angry and/or sad...we are of one mind.
(If you want to read more about major events on Gaia, check out The Hiatus Recovery thread )
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Why is inflation bad?
Wikipedia In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange and unit of account within the economy. A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index, over time. The opposite of inflation is deflation. Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. The negative effects of inflation include an increase in the opportunity cost of holding money, uncertainty over future inflation which may discourage investment and savings, and if inflation were rapid enough, shortages of goods as consumers begin hoarding out of concern that prices will increase in the future. Positive effects include reducing the real burden of public and private debt, keeping nominal interest rates above zero so that central banks can adjust interest rates to stabilize the economy, and reducing unemployment due to nominal wage rigidity. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by an excessive growth of the money supply. Wiki Page
Inflation erodes the consumer's/citizen's trust in their currency, it discourages investors to stay into said currency.
While the wikipedia page shows "some" positive effects being the reduction of private debt but this is only favorable for those who have nothing but debts, especially if we are dealing with a hyperinflation. (Which we have on Gaia in my opinion)
Imagine our gold system in the real world, imagine paying millions and billions for items. You don't want to pay a few millions just for 3 slices of bread? Oh, boi, you better not read into this list.
Inflation has never been a good sign in history and I personally do not see any positive effects in countries like Venezuela or Zimbabwe right now. On the contrary, people live miserable lifes there. Having a 10 million currency note in hand might be funny or cool...until you realize that said note can buy you barely 1 meal.
I pray that these people can soon find a way to turn around their economies and get back to a more normal life. |
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:35 am
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:36 am
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► Normal Gaian functions
► Posting
Can be found in: Forums, Guilds
How to use: you either create a new topic or post a response to an existing one. I think this is, as Gaia is a forum community, the most basic function. rolleyes
Differences in currency output: after each posting you get currency. You always get at least 1 plat in plat mode which is 10 million gold...and in gold mode you dont get that much in turn. HEAVILY FAVORS PLAT.
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► Polls
Can be found in: threads, a "[Poll]" before the thread title indicates that said thread has a poll section. Also: Look at the top of this thread, now back to me, now back to the top...and back again to me. Sadly, this OLD meme has died long ago and is SPICEy no more.
How to use: simply chose an option and submit your vote.
Differences in currency output: after each voting you get currency. 1 plat each time for plat mode and A LOT less in gold mode. HEAVILY FAVORS PLAT.
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► Voting
Can be found in: Gaia Runway
How to use: pick one of the 3 upper themes (VOTE & EARN). You will see 2 avis, pick the one you think fits more to the given theme and click the plus sign. You also get a reward for voting consecutive days.
Differences in currency output: you get currency for each vote and the first time each day another special reward. Again, 1 plat is all you can get each time but gold mode gives significant fewer. Also, one could disregard the theme factor and just smash the plus sign 50 times. It does say "slow down" but you will get 50* voting reward, which is VERY NICE of you want some quick bucks. HEAVILY FAVORS PLAT.
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► Browsing
Can be found in: naturally occurs at random if you load a new Gaia tab. i.e. switching back and forth between the "Shops" and "Forums" section.
Differences in currency output: while they upped the gold amount steadily over the last years, the gold amount is nowhere near 10 million. 1~5 plat is what I got in plat mode. HEAVILY FAVORS PLAT.
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► Daily Rewards
Can be found in: the upper right of each of the following tabs, once per day. Resets each day on 5am PST. Main Page My Gaia Cash Shops GoFusion Forums World Games & the Hidden One <- the last is from, AFAIK, the Gaia app/mobile
How to use: simply click the red (and later orange/yellow) twitchy machine in the upper right of each of those pages. You will either get an item or some currency.
Differences in currency output: again, they steadily upped the gold amount over the last years. I rarely get 100k or even 1 million gold. But again, plat mode delivers with 1 or 5 plats, so this function HEAVILY FAVORS PLAT.
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► Selling/Vending
Can be found in: Selling is when you sell your items back to the system, this can be done in your inventory; Vending is selling your items to other people either by using a vending thread in a forum or via the marketplace
How to use: Selling - go to your inventory, click an unwanted item and pick "sell item". Note that if the system sell back value is below 10 million gold, it will state that you get 0 plat. However, you will get some unseen gold value equivalent. i.e. if the sell back is 100k gold it will show "0 plat" but if you sell 10 of those you WILL get 1 plat. It's strange and confusing but necessary as otherwise people would just go and buy 5 gold items in shops, switch to plat mode and sell it back for 1-2 plat each time. If you don't see the problem in that, you should read the Overview section again. wink
Vending - now this is the real deal and sadly my help here is limited. I was never a successful seller in the marketplace and I never had my own mini shop in a forum. That aside, if you want to sell on the marketplace choose sell an item, pick one from your inventory you want to sell and select the parameters (just selling, just bidding or both? how long? what is the price? what is the starting bid? how many?) and proceed with next. NOTE: THE IS A BOX PRE-SELECTED WITH "Gcash Purchasable", UNSELECT IT EVERY TIME! This is to reduce the inflation effect. You will not get GC if someone purchases your item with it but a gold (or plat) equivalent. 1GC = 50 million gold. So it just generates more currency from GC, which is IMO bad.
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► Shopping
Can be found in: Shops, browse the directory and "enter" a shop
How to use: I think there is a tutorial for that from the Welcoming Fairy so I won't cover that one lol
Differences in currencies: a majority of gold shop items is rather old and as such, their prices are so too. Which means more than 90% of those items cost WAY below 10 million. If you want to buy something which costs 1 plat, switch to gold mode and look up how much it "really" costs. A starter with 10 plat could get a lot of outfits with older items when he/she switches to gold mode but maximal 10 items when staying in platinum mode. SHOPPING HEAVILY FAVORS GOLD. |
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:38 am
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► Games
► Lake Kindred (LK)
Can be found here: Normal OR you can use the Light version which starts without music + has a more minimalistic gaming tab
How to use: Use your kins to defeat other (wild) kins. If you have played Pokemon, this will be a piece of cake for you. If you have not played Pokemon, consider reading into some Guides or Q&As. (Kudos to Lady Doge, you set me up for LK so I could farm there)
Basically you get stuff by defeating wild kins; this can be potions used to further your cause in LK, new kins (possibly more powerful ones if you are new), RIGs (random item generators, also very nice for making money or getting more items), Charge Orbs/Orb Aggregates (bit of zOMG!/Alchemy help here) or plain currency.
Differences in currency output: In plat mode you get 1 plat each time you would get currency. In gold mode, you wont get 10 million gold in MOST stages. Here's the big BUT: there are some stages (like Kindred Wilds S4&5, Zen Gardens S5&6, Milky Way S5) where you can get 100 million gold a fight...and more. Of course, those kins are not easy to defeat and on Lv 25+. You will need a specific farming set up to defeat those, which is simply a kin strong enough to roflstomp them.
If you are in for some RIGs, go into plat mode as the areas with nice ones (i.e. Zen Temple, Fafnir's Peak, Milky Way) tend to have more kins who dont drop these high numbers of gold or -in case of Zen Temple and Milky Way- there are just 2-3 kins who are able to drop the high amount but those kins are rare/hard to kill.
Now to the real deal: Sycamorte farming ("tree killing"). How does plat mode tree farming compare to gold mode tree farming? ...Not really. You see, besides the dud item rewards you can get 100 million, 1 billion or 2 billion gold from S5 trees. Which would be 10, 100 and 200 plats. However, I have never gotten any plat drop higher than 50 and the higher plat drops I only got on my first fight on plat mode each day. The other drops were around 23~30ish plats. Other members of the LK community has, AFAIK, the same experiences. So if you go TREE KILLING, BETTER USE GOLD MODE.
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► zOMG!
Can be found here: zOMG! launcher
How to use: while LK is "Gaia Pokemon", zOMG! is Gaia's MMO. You have your character with 8 ring slots (4 rings for each hand, you know?). There are 41 (?) different rings, each with a different effect. Some do damage, some are for buffs/debuffs, crowd control, healing. Those rings can be dropped by "animated" (mobs, the NPC enemy basically) or you can get sometimes a ring from a quest.
The Ring's level determine your own level and stats. There are ring sets which give a bonus once you equip all of them ON ONE HAND.
But these are just basics, it's a lot more complicated.
It's a MMO!
To properly make money here you have to farm animated, which can be done easily in groups. If you want to use this method, which has a lot more social interaction than LK, I strongly recommend reading into the 2 links I provided above.
Differences in currency output: first off - the amount of currency you earned ingame is ALWAYS screwed up visually (it always shows an amount in gold and the number is not accurate most of the time; disregard the number and keep playing -> you will get the coins at the end), doesn't matter which mode you use. That said...zOMG! suffers as most other functions I already listed do: in plat mode you get 1 plat as the minimum drop, in gold mode you do not get nearly as much as in plat mode. Maybe this changes in high level instances (Shallow Seas, Sea Lab, Dead Man's Shadow) but I haven't been able to run one of these successfully.
If you want to farm money here I recommend PLAT MODE IN VILLAGE GREENS. This is the first area and the mobs can be one shot quite easily on CL 1.5 (you start at 1). Both doing solo runs 2 screens left of the daily reward screen (the one with Commander Leon) or killing Sand Fluffs in a group can net you a few hundred plats in less than 1 hour.
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► Booty Grab (BG)
Can be found in: forum users who have their aquarium in their signature
How to use it: Once in a while an aquarium with happy fish in there will start to glow. If you click a glowing aquarium you can play Booty Grab. Basically you have a shell and the fish let money rain. You have to catch it with your shell. We have a guide for Booty Grab in the NSTG too! (Darkerdemons did a really good job on that one so please check it out.)
Quick note: since the plat update I have not been able to play BG neither in gold nor in plat mode. My experiences are quite limited that way. I also have never been a big fan of BG and used it only rarely. I do know that back in 2009 and some years thereafter BG was a big thing as you could gather a lot of coins in relatively short time given someone had the right aquarium set up.
If you are a Booty Grabber (the Gaian function, what were you thinking? o_0) please list your experiences in this thread so we can complete this section.
JoyRose I played Booty Grab and got 1 plat no matter what was glowing. I hear some tanks are worth more but have not seen it myself.
Darkerdemons My experience for booty grab these days: If I grab while using platinum currency, I get 0 platinum. I've checked with tank owners and they also receive 0 platinum (or 0 gold if using gold currency). If I grab while using gold currency I still get gold. Interestingly, tank owners receive gold or platinum - whichever currency they use. Regardless which currency is used, the screen gets stuck after the game, such that I don't see the gold/platinum granted screen that usually appears. Some users I've talked to claim they still get platinum after playing games, but the majority don't seem to be getting any.
Thank you all very much for helping out, I really appreciate this! emotion_hug
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► Other Games
Can be found in: The Games tab
To make this short: no other games come even close to the money output provided by basic functions or LK/zOMG! when one considers how much time it takes to finish 1 cycle (finish 1 game to get currency reward).
Most games havent been updated since they were introduced and as such the gold gain is ABYSSAL LOW. Seriously, if you want to know how things looked like 8 years ago play some Pinball and cry at the amounts of money you make in gold mode. emotion_facepalm
That said, plat mode is always the better option in these games but as you need a lot of time to get to the point where you are rewarded -> play other games IF you want to play. |
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:39 am
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► Summary
So at the end, has platinum decreased our Gaian hyperinflation or helped in any way?
Well, it reduced the amount of zeros which is nice so you can better read how much currency you have. ...and that's it.
Now, in money making/earning words, plat is GREAT. You get a lot more currency out of the different functions and games on Gaia. It's not good for the economy but hey, we are aware of that now and hopefully will try to be more sensitive towards that in the future / keep our eyes open. The developers and admins are people like you and me, too, and thus prone to make mistakes. But if we, as the Gaian society, work together...it is my firm believe that we can get out of this inflated system one day. 3nodding
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► What would you recommend, Marc?
Well, quite easy. Switch to plat mode and stay that way.
Only switch back to gold mode when...
- you want to buy gold shop items
- you go on a Syca hunting spree
► How do I get some quick bucks?
That depends on how much time you want to invest.
If you have less than 30 minutes but need more than 20 plats -> go vote spam in the Runway
If you have more than 30 minutes -> consider playing zOMG! or RIG hunting in LK |
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:41 am
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:43 am
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:44 am
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:41 am
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Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 6:33 am
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