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Development Update 1/28 Apologies Wow! It's been a while. For that I have to apologize profusely. A long vacation, combined with the craziness that is 2008 planning, combined with a wonderful distraction that rocked my world topsy-turvy, has resulted in a lack of journal entries, and that's bad, because there is tons of stuff going on. (And, if that's not good enough, I can go into the stuff that happened over Christmas vacation, but really, how much can be said about hungry Bengal tigers and dwarves with a penchant for quoting existentialist philosophers and clever strategems with peanut butter sandwiches that hasn't been said before?) But thank you to everyone who wrote an e-mail or sent a gift, it is appreciated, and we are back to our multiple-times-per-week schedule. As always, your comments and questions are appreciated. Hacking and Bots Some of the changes that we're doing aren't visible from the outside world. For example, over the past few months we've been doing a concentrated effort to reduce the hacking and scamming queue. The backlog was incredibly long not three months ago, but a combination of more moderators and some new tools and a huge effort by a bunch of people has resulted in the hacking and scamming queue being reduced by a huge portion. Dealing with the hacks and scams is a complicated issue. They take a lot of time to resolve, and they are so labor intensive that most companies don't even deal with them at all, but our team really did an amazing job with reducing the queue. Another change that might not be obvious (unless you created a mule lately) is that fact that we added a CAPTCHA to registration. This is to stop the botters that were adding new accounts and using them to generate gold. This is in conjunction with a host of other anti-bot stuff that we've done in the past couple of months, and we can see the beneficial effect in the economy. Stuff Coming Soon - we're re-enabling the gold granting for a popular game. We hope to have that out this week. - we're adding some new options to the alerts feature; basically you'll be able to get notification of announcements, and be able to see the first line or so of the messages when you get the alert - we're making the registration process a lot nicer and easier to use - a big update of arenas is planned in the next month or so. Basically we're adding a whole bunch of contests -- there will be writing arenas, multiple different types of art arenas, so on and so forth. I'll post some screenshots later this week.

Posted by: Panagrammic Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 04:50am

Read my journal!

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Esdella Vie
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 04:52am


	Yay! surprised

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 04:53am


	Can hardly wait!!!

PandaPandie
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dBEf-GAEc-18E-BBAf
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 05:10am


	EDIT: YES!!! A WRITING ARENA!!! biggrin I've been waiting for one of these for a looong time. I was willing to spend my OWN GOLD to hold my own arena, because I thought it was just that necessary that we have one. You guys rock. So hard!

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 05:14am


	Welcome back we Missed you ^_^

Kid Jak
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Spirrow
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 05:57am


	Well, you have my interest peaked! It was worth the wait, keep up the good works.

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 06:35am


	keep up the great work Panagrammic and thanks for the info

dawn_99
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Cid High-Wind
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 08:05am


	New arenas! Yeay!

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 08:12am


	Yes! Writing Arena. Finally. <3

Edible Substance
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Lady Hazuki
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 08:26am


	I'm happy about the writing arena hopefully it will keep people from entering stories in the arena and focus on actually making good avi's. <- A wishful thinker. heart Can't wait to see the game. Hopefully something my Sega Genesis brain can understand. I'm old school like that. lol

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 08:33am


	That's a lot of goodies. heart

muhaymin
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LokiLB
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 11:55am


	word bump is getting gold granting abilities back? surprised unless i read that wrong. xd writing arena? to enter or not to enter, that is the question...because i'm not sure how good my writing actually is (and am hesitant to find out sweatdrop ).

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 02:36pm


	Can't wait to see the new arena and art arenas.. But really what made me squeal (out loud, quite loudly as well) was your comment about a popular game with gold granting enabled. Is that Word Bump? Please say it's word bump!! I can't wait! As for the CAPTCHA, I am so exceptionally thrilled to hear that was enabled!! I love Gaia and it just makes me sad to see bots scamming people and abusing the system! Can't wait to see the screenshots. This is, by far, the most exciting journal entry that I've read in a long while! Thank you for posting!!! <3

Lady Kayura
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Makoto_Gin
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 02:38pm


	[♥] [♠] [♥] ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ You wonderful,wonderful developer man you blaugh heart !! Heard about the CAPTCHA thing for a few days now,but I'm glad to hear the arenas are getting overhauled as well,especially the art arena ^.^. ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ [♠] [♥] [♠]

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 02:43pm


	Wordbump! Yes! Finally.

Inti Castro
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mercy_no_koibito_zutto1
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 04:07pm


	great to see the hacking queue coming down slowly....however any chance you could hint at what the current queue time actually is, as people dont appreciate the current response from us Q&A'ers that its 6-18 months (ish)...it would help us a lot its great that youve finally got a CAPTCHA system in place....that should help a lot.....even though bots are getting cleverer and some are even able to read the CAPTCHA panel, its a good start.....we know bots will never be completely stopped...technology is getting too sophisticated nowadays, but at least it will stem the flow nice to finally see a writing arena......it will be interesting to say the least....will keep my eyes pealed for that one....cant wait to see the other ones FINALLY.....golds coming back to wordbump (im guessing thats what you meant, as it is the only game with gold granting actually disabled)....as a Q&A'er, and occasional SF'er....in all honesty, i was starting to get really narced with all the "fix wordbump" threads popping up MANY times a day...its at the point where i wont even bother to answer them as it was getting really annoying....knowing its being brought back is one hell of a relief for us......however could you tell us if the credit exchange is coming back at the same time......Lanzer did state in one of the ATA threads that the gold granting AND the credit exchange will be both back up & running at the same time......any confirmation of that would be great (although if it doesnt, i can already see the 5 times a day minimum for threads saying "you lied to us"....but then, thats normal for SF) i personally (and quite a few others) would have preferred if you had completely REMOVED gold granting from wordbump....and just had the credits/items system with the credit exchange running.......we already have way too much gold coming into the economy (as Lanzer & others have stated, hence the creation of more goldsinks), gold granting for everything is not needed....gold granting for wordbump would not be missed at all (after the initial month or so) however the exchange IS missed.......why create yet another way for gold to enter the economy when you KNOW theres NOT enough ways to remove it yet...it sort of defeats the object of the exercise in my opinion apologies for the wall of text....i dont often post in journals, but when i do....i sorta get carried away

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 04:50pm


	New arenas? Excitealicious! Welcome back! To the world of journal entries, anyway.

Gamine
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Yen Quest
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 04:58pm


	Captcha will slow down the bots somewhat, but it was said that there are ways around it. At least it was put into effect, since it was suggested often. Hopefully, it slows down most of the botting issues. -Yay, I know many will be happy, and the repeated thread about the problem can finally rest (unless another problem is found). -Interesting, many had wanted to divide up the announcements in a way, this is a good step. -I might check it out once it happens, but I don't think I'll be needing another mule. xD -Yay for writing arenas, there will be a process to wipe out copycats and such right? Art arenas, sound great, I can't wait to see what kinds there are. Lots of stuff going on this week, thankyou for the hard work. This is great for the beginning of 2008. ^_^

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 07:02pm


	well i have a question i have been hacked a few years ago send in a report but nothing happened with the new system is it allright to send a new report ??

XDmaster4
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JadeDragonSoul
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 07:32pm


	Sweet! Thanks for sharing! :]

Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 08:22pm


	Awesome I Hope it's Word Bump :3 It was a really good idea you guys put the CAPTCHA Codes! I Thank all Gaia workers. You guys make this website the most awesome website for the Interwebs. :3

LabTech David
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123jimmy321
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Commented on: Tue Jan 29, 2008 @ 08:31pm


	o wow i cant wait to see it looks like this year is going to be bigger than last year already lol

Commented on: Wed Jan 30, 2008 @ 12:14am


	I have to say, I am excited beyond belief about Word Bump getting the gold granting ability re-enabled.

infinite for a moment
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Smaddy
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Commented on: Wed Jan 30, 2008 @ 04:06am


	All very good news. It's good to hear that bots are being contained, if even a little bit. It's also good to hear that the Report queue is down by a lot, too. Good to hear that Word Bump will be back in action; will the Credit Exchange be back then, too? If the registration process is being fixed up, I thought it might be worth mentioning that when you create your avatar for the first time (or anytime you delete and re-create your avatar from scratch), the image of the avatar is really small... so small you sometimes can't tell what color eyes you're choosing. I don't know if this issue falls under your responsibility, but I thought it was worth mentioning because it's been an issue for a long time.

Commented on: Wed Jan 30, 2008 @ 04:53am


	A writing arena sounds awesome 3nodding

setsunaeternal
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Indoras
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Commented on: Wed Jan 30, 2008 @ 04:07pm


	Looking forward to the re-enabling of game gold. Yay! ninja

Commented on: Wed Jan 30, 2008 @ 10:47pm


	At last some news! Nice to her there is quite a bit planned. A writing arena sounds like the perfect idea and should be a lot of fun. Also, it's nice to hear anti-hacking and spamming devices are going into effect especially since I've been getting some slow, but annoying spam. As for anti-hacking stuff, seriously, why isn't forums that as us to enter our ID (ie login and marketplace) a secure connection? And don't try and tell me it is because there are some pretty obvious clues it isn't. For example: 1) Popups alerting information is about to be sent over an insecure connection. 2) The address does not include https:// in pages requesting account information. 3) I personally use Safari and never see a lock denoting secure connect ever appear in the upper right hand corner of my browser. Just something I think is serious that should really be considered.

France Hopper
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Masco
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Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 02:54am


	Sounds like you've been doing a lot xp Good thing I've been hoping for this, hehe.

Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 03:24am


	yay

AtypicalGiraffe
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Lazy Brandon
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Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 03:35am


	» Welcome back, it's nice to see my Subscribed Journals page updated, and with someone who posts so much content to run my eyes over. smile As for the Art Arenas, will we, possibly, be getting Digital Art Arenas? I got my work rejected, quite a while back, after weeks of waiting for it to be accepted. sweatdrop I would be so grateful! smile

Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 10:59am


	Unless I've missed a new game recently that also happens to be invisible, yay for getting gold granting back in word bump! xd However, what about the school credits? Are those coming back, as well? And what about the exchange for them, seeing as that's been broken for a year and a half now and was promoted as being one of the big features of word bump?

Endrael
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Cleocatra
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Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 04:31pm


	Huzzah! I was wondering when word bump would give money again. And when CAPTCHA would be implemented =3

Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 07:27pm


	@XDMaster4: we sent out an PM/email to everyone, asking them to resubmit their request if they still had an issue. If you resubmitted after that e-mail, you're fine. @All: Credit Exchange is on the fix list. Will try to get more information on this. @Smaddy: oddly, that bug is hard to fix, but we want to take care of it after we do the new registration.

Panagrammic
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Previously Kagome_Kitsune
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Commented on: Thu Jan 31, 2008 @ 09:28pm


	Wow, more arenas and contests.. That's awesome; thanks. : )

Commented on: Fri Feb 01, 2008 @ 03:29am


	I must say, I'm amused <33

joseybird
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Chocobo Princess
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Commented on: Fri Feb 01, 2008 @ 10:12am


	Gaia has always been amazing and fun, but I want to say a special Thank You to those who fixed the Word Bump gold-granting and Credit Exchange. You have made one Gaian (who's a nerd in real life, needless to say) very, very happy. crying Thanks again! This is gonna be the best year ever on Gaia, I can tell already. blaugh Keep up the great work! domokun

Commented on: Fri Feb 01, 2008 @ 02:28pm


	Hurray for the arena update. Thanks for all your hard work. smile

Miss_Kitty_Kat
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