I admit, although it doesn't sound nice, I'm kind of fed up with the way things are handled here. It's just my opinion, but a lot of people have voiced the same concerns. While the admins have done many things right, it still seems that they care less about the community and more about profiles, games, new members and many other things we don't need. Gaia never needed so many games before. Remember when it was "Fishing, then Towns, then Battle System!"? Why not just focus on those only? It seems to me like making a bunch of small games has pushed back the development of the bigger, more important features of this site. You could focus all that in one area instead of spreading your programmers/designers around on small projects.
Gaia may have been at one time a close knit community, but now it just seems to be focused on growing and getting donations. And you know what? I've seen a dozen other sites go through donation drives, run out of money, close down, beg for the community's help and all sorts of things. But Gaia tops them all of becoming less about the people and more about its own growth. (Trust me, I was there when sites lost tens of thousands of dollars, and even huge ones like MP3.com shut down for a while. I've seen why a lot of crazy stuff happens on the net). -edit- That sort of sounded like I was saying Gaia is evil, so I should point out that I've seen many greedy and uncaring sites (MP3.com's changes come to mind) but I was referring mainly to the gaming aspects and keeping peace among its members. I hate to say it so bluntly, but Gaia fails at that compared to every other site I know.
If you need more money to keep up with the growth, of course, donations are necessary. That's pretty obvious. So just release the quest system and stop working on mini games. Stop focusing on money making and how "donation items are worth more as time goes on!" Come on, that's a real cheap shot, if you go ahead and say that poll guilds are "bad" and cause "inflation." Of course they do, but only in a small way compared to other things you allow. And they were a feature that people used without malicious intent of screwing over other people on the market.
Among many other complaints I have, I have many suggestions for them as well. As I said, I've seen sites come and go over the years and I know the recipe for popularity, and the recipe for failure. I don't have time to be a mod or anything, and I can't really help the admins in any other way than by the Site Feedback forum, so I tried to offer my ideas there. A lot of other (more experienced) people than I did too. I saw a bunch of people who have successfully run their own entire communities offer their suggestions.
For all the effort you guys do put into the site, you could have created a wonderful, huge community of fans that weren't in each other's hair all the time. But instead Gaia is more flash than heart.
I feel sad to say that about a site that started out as someone's dream. And, please don't get me wrong. I've seen many many things the admins have done right to make Gaia better. And I know how you put your hearts into this site and work very hard. But to this day I'm still unclear as to what you want Gaia to become.
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You read all that? Wow, heh okay, leave a message here if you like since I won't be logging in very often. And feel free to ignore my rant above. I don't want to sound like a complainer and annoy anyone, but I guess that's what I sound like when I'm not putting in my two cents about how to improve things.
Ah well, what can ya do.
Community Member