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Development Update -- 6/26 Non-work-related, but: - This looks like the coolest game! I will confess to being a Ghibli fan -- I have a totoro and a catbus in my cube. - Went to the midnight showing of Toy Story 3 and was surprised by all the TS3 cosplayers. Highly recommended movie -- definitely the best Toy Story and maybe one of the best Pixar movies. - the Nintendo 3DS sounds incredible. Despite the lack of flying cars, jetpacks, and underwater cities, it nonetheless feels sometimes like we're living in the future. Spring Cleaning A subject near and dear to my heart, so I'll lead with this. The user response in the Spring Cleaning forum was great -- not only did we get over 60K votes and 8000 posts in the main forum, but we also got over 10000 posts and 14 pages of topics in the Spring Cleaning Proposals forum. Very cool! We need to slice the data a couple of ways to determine final winners, but using a simple formula for ranking: results in the following top threads, such as: - New Puzzles for Jigsaw - Fix Signature Length Calculation - Allow Users To Report Profile Comments - Fix/Possibly Revamp Fishing - Option for Linked Accounts and Alternates (mules) - Add Inventory Search There were also a lot of cool proposals made by users, and we ended up moving 5 or 6 of the most popular to the main forum. So, starting this Monday, the immensely talented team of Gaia developers will start working through the bug lists, seeing what we can fix and improve. Some of the fixes will be visible to the users (such as the stuff in the SC forum), while some will be completely invisible -- for example, we have some devs that want to speed up the header / footer generation, and some devs are going to work on cleaning up the markup for some features. Payment Problems All card redemptions went down starting at 5am on Friday for a few hours. So what happened? (Elide long description of DNS here -- I wrote three paragraphs and then realized it was boring as heck) Basically, the link between us and our third party provider went down due to an accidental misconfiguration on the vendor side, and it meant that all the pin redemption requests weren't going through. People started retrying their pin redemptions, and then got the message "duplicate PIN," and then probably had all sorts of dire feelings for Gaia and Walmart / Target / 7-11 / whoever. The cool thing about this, though, is that as soon as we fixed the link, everyone got their pending payments -- the payment system automatically resubmits pin redemption requests until they go through. Achievements The achievements team has been pushing out bug fixes all week for the achievements (Cart Raider, in particular), and will be looking at others. They'll actually be spending the next month or so adding achievments, making sure everything runs smoothly, and helping the site become more fun. Booty Grab It's been updated: mentioned by various devs and will be announced tomorrow that we're fixing a number of the most egregious BG bugs (immortal fish, for one, and the fact that your tank could glow even if you hadn't touched it for months). So why are we dealing with BG? Basically, the gold payout for it is currently way too high. We rate features on a "gold per minute" scale -- the feeling being that if you play different games, you should get about the same amount of gold. We also give gold for things that benefit the site -- for example, when you post a message, you're helping to contribute the to the rich tapestry of intercommunication on Gaia, so you should be rewarded for that. The purpose of BG was to encourage people to browse the forums; the theory was that the more you browse, the more likely you are to interact. There are two problems with Booty Grab -- a) the gold per minute is much, much higher than any other feature, and b) with the aggregation sites, people are entirely bypassing the forums and not engaging at all. So, something has to be done -- it was dumping entirely too much gold into the economy -- but the reason that everyone is so cautious about changes is that there are people that invested real money into their fish tanks, and we need to make sure that they are not impacted unfairly. Updated: Interesting discussion in the comments about BG.

Posted by: Panagrammic Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 07:58pm

Read my journal!

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Galvatron
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Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 08:07pm


	Have you guys considered adding the "spoiler" code into the system? It might be especially helpful for the Hot Topics forums so that no one ruins a season finale or movie ending.

Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 08:27pm


	That Ghibli game looks amazing!! ^o^ it'd be awesome to play a Ghibli movie!! heart Thanks for all the future bug fixes based on the polls, and posts!

Sand Dancer Shaka
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Captain-Ryan
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Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 08:39pm


	Sounds fair enough to me. Keep up the good work, Panagrammic.

Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 10:58pm


	THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Hopefully, Cards and Slots make the list as well next time but for now I am very happy to see so many features get the attention they direly needed. Thank you very much for posting this and have a wonderful weekend. heart

Miss-dark8607
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Eirika
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Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 11:09pm


	I look forward to the progress. Good luck!

Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 11:13pm


	♥ Something old Something new... I expected the trade system update request to be in that list as well, because so many people want it updated o: And I also thought you only considered bugfixes of existing games and features. Linking Gaia accounts is not an existing feature so in my opinion it shouldn't be in that list. ...Something borrowed Something blue ♥

Sahri
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Anguished
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Commented on: Sat Jun 26, 2010 @ 11:40pm


	It's great that you're going to get rid of immortal fish. I have a few fish that just won't die. Well, it says they won't die 'til 2013, I think. DO NOT WANT. gonk When it comes to earning gold, I do two things: Booty Grab and zOMG. I don't even play the other games anymore, because I think they barely pay out. It's not worth the time. Pinball is a good example. I'll play, thinking I did great, but barely get anything to show for it. If you guys were to make BG pay out about the same as all the other games, it would take me ages to get anything on my wishlist, which keeps growing. Things are so damn expensive, I can barely keep up. [/rant] T^T It would be awesome, if you updated some of the older games and/or upped the payout. ._.; <3 If you read, thanks. Keep up the great work! > 3<

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 12:00am


	gonk My poor immortal kitties... T___T ahem Other than the fact that the game looks awesome amazing and I will be waiting for it... ~<3 I have to say that if the main focus of BG was to provide interactions, woah, we managed to make that fail miserably. I didn't even think about it as a way to interact... just a... well, rain of gold. I'm glad you're trying to balance it now, but I'm not sure how the "balance" is actually going to work sweatdrop Anyway, thanks for keeping us informed!

Akabi Yoru
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dreamsk
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 01:46am


	Booty grab is extremely laggy for people to browse the forums with though. The game lags, the pages with all the tanks lag, loading the tank lags. The reason for the off site BG pages was that it took out some of the lag from having to load all those pages and just put all the tanks together. If you can eliminate some lag from BG, I'm sure everyone would be happier.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 02:21am


	While I'm happy that Gaia is actively trying to figure out what to do with Booty Grab, some think more attention should also be paid to the payout of the old games as well as the payout to any future games. The times, they are a-changin', and regardless of how much BG/zOMG may have accelerated it, inflation would have happened regardless. That being said, while I have fun doing puzzles and playing word bump and pinball, the payout is pretty pathetic given the amount of time and effort you have to put it to those games to do well. I don't argue so much with the gold payouts for zOMG being so high simply because it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to earn that gold; more so than you ever needed to earn 10k+ from Booty Grab (err, well, since the mermaids were introduced that is).

QuiRKy-Wormy
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Rinn Ue
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 03:05am


	Thank you for letting us know what you are doing about the unbalanced system in Gaia regarding Booty Grab. I know many users who have long been dreading inflation and have been frustrated with the site because of this imbalance.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 03:25am


	Totoro was my first anime. I would run away singing neko bus neko bus all the time. The game looks amazing - another game I would play on the PS3. (The other is TM Nuke.) Please tell me you've played Okami.

pirhan
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Shadey Kitty
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 03:26am


	Quote: -- but the reason that everyone is so cautious about changes is that there are people that invested real money into their fish tanks, and we need to make sure that they are not impacted unfairly. I'd like to know what the solution is that insures tank owners won't be "impacted" unfairly. The History of Bootygrab Taps Please?

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 03:30am


	Wait just a minute. Yes I paid a lot of money to get my tank the way it is. Why would you change the inmortal aspects of my fish when I paid real money on them. You will lose a lot of customers doing this. What you can do is leave the tanks a long that buy with real money. Make it fun for the people that pays you, your salary. Don't make it harder. Think about it.

Caffeinated McKayla
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Kai-Shan Valandria
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 03:38am


	Agreed with Shadey Kitty, as every other change that has been made previously has done nothing but kick tank owners in the nads. I also wait with bated breath to see how the "immortal fish" glitch is handled - I'm wondering if a whole bunch of fish will suddenly all die off, leaving the BG community bereft or what. Anyway, I didn't see that many people crying about the inflation issue in the first place, and even so, even if the prices rose, everyone who was willing to work for it had the extra gold to make up for it anyway. So anyhow, exceedingly disappointed with Gaia and probably whatever will be done with BG/aquariums, with the sheer crap which got voted in to be fixed (all but reporting profile comments and fishing is pretty useless IMO), and I'm mortally offended by this: Quote: b) with the aggregation sites, people are entirely bypassing the forums and not engaging at all. ....I bump any glow thread on any tank I see going without exception. Having links to said threads so that we can kick them is one of the crowning glories of DM. It's comments like that and especially the sort that Lanzer has said previously that make me think you guys have never even visited DM at all.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 04:25am


	It's been announced that we're fixing a number of the most egregious BG bugs (immortal fish, for one, and the fact that your tank could glow even if you hadn't touched it for months). all for the ghost fish fix but how are you going to fix the immortal glitch while accurately killing fish that has been in barrets tank... unless u hit a reset switch i don't see how this can be done properly. We also give gold for things that benefit the site -- for example, when you post a message, you're helping to contribute the to the rich tapestry of intercommunication on Gaia, so you should be rewarded for that. The purpose of BG was to encourage people to browse the forums; the theory was that the more you browse, the more likely you are to interact. maybe its just me but i see no shortage of interaction. There are two problems with Booty Grab -- a) the gold per minute is much, much higher than any other feature, and b) with the aggregation sites, people are entirely bypassing the forums and not engaging at all. u mean aggregation sites like dolphinmania? u guys got that shut down (as of the 28th) so i fail to see the logic in blaming them anymore. So, something has to be done -- it was dumping entirely too much gold into the economy -- but the reason that everyone is so cautious about changes is that there are people that invested real money into their fish tanks, and we need to make sure that they are not impacted unfairly. i invested real money in my tank and it seems gaia has done nothing positive for tank owners with all the secret nerfing that goes on entirely unannounced... i don't have too much faith in you guys when it comes to being fair... prove me wrong. Glowing? Please bump my thread by clicking Here!

Lord Uesugi Kenshin
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Aldo Simoncini
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 05:25am


	No matter what you do to lower the gold payout, it won't help much with inflation as long as Gaia keeps supporting AI by releasing popular, long requested items in RIGs with lousy drop rates. The prices of those items won't drop. I mean, I wouldn't mind i.e. super rare cats with I am pose if Gaia would release at least one common cat with that pose. Lucky is the only decent looking normal (it walks and doesn't fly) cat with I am pose and even if you play booty grab 24/7 it's hard to quest. I know this will never happen, since those cats are Gaia's cash cow. Anyways, keeping rare super items but restricting the gold payout won't make me post more. When my dolphins are gone I simply won't have the time to lurk/post at the forums, since time is money for my quest. I wouldn't participate in any goldsink, since I need to hoard gold for my quest. I would have to learn to become an AIer myself to get enough gold to buy the item I really want. As for the fish, I think I will let my tank die out except of one free fish to get the overseer reward. There is no point for me to spend cash or gold for a Zoey or a nice tank, since I can have it on Ocean Party for free. Sadly I lost more and more interest in Gaia during the last months, because this site appears more and more unfriendly, unfair and unpersonal to me. Meanwhile I found another community that is much more fun, interesting and worth to spend my time (and some cash). I'm not even upset anymore, just resigned and disappointed.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 06:22am


	I definitely have seen inflation in the Marketplace, i.e. prices much higher than before. However, most users simply counter this by, for example, playing more Booty Grab. Immortal fish are a problem, but as far as "fixing" the gold payout for Booty Grab, I do not think that will accomplish much besides angering a good number of tank owners (and players) who have invested real money into those tanks. As long as the game exists, people will find a way to exploit it. For many users who can't afford to pay real money on Gaia, Booty Grab is the only decent way to earn gold (the other games barely payout anything, and commenting/posting hardly earns much more). I think we need to remember that there are many users who have not done anything wrong, and they should not be punished for it - I personally had no clue such sites existed, and I've been on Gaia for quite some time. Perhaps a more proactive solution would be to crack down on the people creating these sites such as Dolphinmania, not on the game itself. Punishing users who have done nothing wrong in order to counter users who are exploiting the game is not a fair or effective solution. If Booty Grab is going to be "fixed," then other ways to earn gold need to be created to compensate for it.

Kaoru Asano
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Panagrammic
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 06:38am


	Quote: Caffeinated McKayla: Wait just a minute. Yes I paid a lot of money to get my tank the way it is. Why would you change the inmortal aspects of my fish when I paid real money on them. You will lose a lot of customers doing this. But the fish were never intended to be immortal -- on the contrary, we were up front about the fact that they would die out. The whole point of fish lifespans was to set an upper bound on the total amount of gold injected into the economy -- immortal fish provide infinite gold. Quote: AloysiusWeasley: Agreed with Shadey Kitty, as every other change that has been made previously has done nothing but kick tank owners in the nads. I also wait with bated breath to see how the "immortal fish" glitch is handled - I'm wondering if a whole bunch of fish will suddenly all die off, leaving the BG community bereft or what. My understanding is that they are setting the lifespan of immortal fish to the maximum time -- so, all currently immortal fish will be treated as if they were newly purchased today. Quote: AloysiusWeasley: ....I bump any glow thread on any tank I see going without exception. Having links to said threads so that we can kick them is one of the crowning glories of DM. It's comments like that and especially the sort that Lanzer has said previously that make me think you guys have never even visited DM at all. I think that's great, but I suspect you are in the minority. As usage of aggregation sites grew, we saw a distinct drop in posts / page views by users that used aggregation sites. Quote: Lord Uesugi Kenshin: i invested real money in my tank and it seems gaia has done nothing positive for tank owners with all the secret nerfing that goes on entirely unannounced... i don't have too much faith in you guys when it comes to being fair... prove me wrong. Agree that nerfs are no fun, especially if people have invested real money, and the message has definitely been heard that there needs to be more communication. That's why Lanzer + BG team is trying to be much more up front about these changes.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 06:53am


	There's no interaction between the grabber and tank owner. Unless the two already know each other. If fish are gonna stop dropping colored gold, well the fish should all cost the same no matter how long they live. I won't be paying $7 for a fish that drops regular gold. No matter how long of a life it has. It'd be a waste of money and a bad investment. Not to mention those who would quit over something like this. Gaia has already drove a wedge between tank owners and itself. This could end up being the final straw. I understand about getting rid of ghost fish, but Barret's glitch is the devs' screw-up. I didn't even know anything about it til I put my fish in there while I took a break from Gaia. Mine aren't scheduled to live another 3 years anyway. Sure it's a little unfair especially to those who knowingly glitched their fish, however it's also unfair to kill those fish off because the person could have not had any prior knowledge about this glitch beforehand. I'd rather just have Barret's glitch fixed so it can't add anymore life to fish again.

Starlight Surprise
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The stepfather of lies
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 07:16am


	Tlking of fixing the comunication with the users; everytime a nerf or change comes also does the comparation between the aquariums and zOMG forums, the main point is: why do the zOMG forum can have an updates sticky and fluid communication with their users while the aquariums don't? The Ocean Party forum started nicelly but then again, few communication; and being new is to be supposed that the team would like some feedback about glitches , bugs etc... The changes sometimes appears but there is never a note saying : we are working on this and those troubles, we saw your complains, etc... For example the xp for gold exchange is still working, posts containing the link to the exchange have been reported as the problem too but still no answer from the teams, is to be expected that becomes a glitch like the inmortal fishes? Regarding booty grab balance and changes, both fixes are needed but a further evaluation about the overall balance of the rewards must be done carefully; afterall everybody is pointing that the influx of gold causes inflation but less seems to point how booty grab actually helps to get over that same inflation by giving a chance to quest for what you want if you put effort on it; i started with nothing and thanks to BG could build a tank and buy a lot of items that couldn´t get by any other means before. thnk you for reading this.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 07:27am


	That game totally has me all excited dammit! And at my age? HA! Who cares! I still wanna play it! I have 'The Darkest Fairie' for PS2 from Neopets and I just love that game! This game you mention here looks like a game I can play too! About BG... You have to remember there are a lot of people who place dolphins or other fish exclusively into tanks and there were complaints then about the economy. But I believe you guys are correct in thinking those aggregation sites made it much too easy and made the situation worse. Part of the reason people used them is because of the lag issues. I can imagine how bad it is on dial-up or slow/old computer. Anyway, you guys keep up the great work!

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TaylorGS
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 09:08am


	Quote: My understanding is that they are setting the lifespan of immortal fish to the maximum time -- so, all currently immortal fish will be treated as if they were newly purchased today. I think all tank owners knew that the immortal fish glitch was going to be addressed "eventually." The only solutions I could think of was to either nuke all of the glitched fish, or to reset their lifespans... like what sounds like will probably happen. Which seems fair enough. The only concrete thing promised to us about our fish was their lifespans, so it's hard to complain [without sounding like an idiot] about your fish being able to live their full lifespan before dying. The level of communication between BG players and the devs feels like it's gotten a bit better than before... because before, it would've been, "We fixed the immortal fish glitch and didn't give the tank owners a heads up because we think it's more fun to let them figure out our changes on their own. ;D" But because all of the changes have been nerfy, hurting tank owners (more than the players), tank owners still aren't happy... naturally. But it is a step-up from before, even if only slightly, seeing as I had to come across this news through word of mouth in a journal than say, a sticky thread. So anyways, thank you, messenger, for being messenger. =D

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 10:00am


	panagrammic Option for Linked Accounts and Alternates (mules) This interested me a lot. But i'll bring up a few problems for it anyway: ~Annual item grants are abused already by mule acc users, including myself. But to make it harder annual item grants should be one between a series of linked accounts, (one per inventory) not one per account. ~The profile system will have to be modified so that multiple accounts get the same profile (or even better, just use the same profile) and that comment notifications are recieved by all accounts. The best way I can think of to completely avoid all of this is to take the angle of an "Avi Switch" function. For people who have a male and a female avi for roleplay reasons this is all they'd require, the ability to switch to the other avi (in the way it was dressed up last - not wearing the same clothes as the other avi) whilst logged in, without any need for the creation of another account. ______________________________________________________________ panagrammic (Elide long description of DNS here -- I wrote three paragraphs and then realized it was boring as heck) Really? I might have enjoyed reading that. There was a lot of dirt on you's for a while for the mess with the "Winged Hankerchief" not being granted to them. And on top of that, it didn't exsist for a few days on the MP even after that Announcement was broadcast. Big big f%$^ up.

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Hexibell
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 02:54pm


	THANK YOU. I don't want immortal fish D; I remember seeing that on the analyzing page, and WTH? was pretty much my reaction. lol. But thank you guys so much for addressing this old issue, it really needs a fix! <3 I can't wait to get my drops, and I agree with Taylor. How can people complain when they'll get the full lifespan back? It's basically like a gift from the devs if you think about it. ;3

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 02:58pm


	Okay wow there's a lot of discussion on BG here and it's making my head spin. gonk So I'll just put in what I think, and it can be taken or left. xD I really don't like the idea of reducing the amount of gold Booty Grab is putting into the system, and I think you'll end up with a lot of unhappy users. As has been mentioned, people have put a lot of their real money into their tanks under the assumption that they'll be getting the payout that they get. (It's a gamble, of course - will people play the maximum games when they see the glow, will all the glows be caught, will my thread be bumped - but it's a calculated gamble.) And a little bit further removed, people have been putting real money into fish that they think will sell on the market place for a certain price because other users are expecting to get that payout, but don't spend real money themselves. Either way, for a full tank of, say, Watermeats - somebody somewhere gave Gaia over $125 for that, and that kind of money honestly needs to be respected. Please don't reduce the payouts in Booty Grab, for players or for tank owners. Now, should Booty Grab have such a better payout because it requires somebody uses cash to play it? I don't think that, either - at least, there shouldn't be such a big difference in the payout between BG and other games. The gold is already there in the economy. Prices have already risen because most of Gaia can get gold at a rate of 1k+ per minute playing Booty Grab - I know of people who've gotten 10mil items in a week and a few days only playing BG. Try doing that with any other game on Gaia. It'd take you more than a week and a half, I'll tell you that. Which brings me to the point of this mostly coherent ramble: Increase the payouts of other games. Maybe not to a 1k/min. average, but they definitely need to be made better. I don't even bother with games like Word Bump anymore, or Jigsaw. Why should I when I could spend the same time looking for games of Booty Grab, playing them, and getting so much more gold? Is anything going to inflate more with a bigger payout from Gaia's other games? I seriously doubt it. It's not like individual users would suddenly be making more gold - you can only play one game at a time. The most it could do is open up a new income source to the users who can't support Booty Grab. And anyway, you guys can do one better for those users who can't play any of the flash games, and the rest of the site besides: Increase the payouts for site participation. Give more gold for the first few posts or votes on the forums, increase the daily limit for gold you can achieve that way. I have to admit, I don't know what the current system is for gold granting in the forums.. the last I checked, you'd get the most gold for your first few posts, it would decrease and then after x amount you'd stop getting rewarded altogether. Maybe it's a little different now, but whatever system you have in place, increasing the rewards potential would be excellent. Are things going to still cost millions of gold? Heck yeah. But the amount of gold things cost isn't the problem with inflation. It's the amount if gold the individual user can make. I'd go so far as to suggest that two hours' worth of trying to make gold three years ago would bring you just as close to, say, purchasing a Monthly Collectible on the marketplace as two hours' worth of trying to make gold today would. The more money people have, the more things can cost. I don't think there's really a way that Gaia can influence that; it's all completely up to us. p.s.: I'm not one of those users that has a tank full of watermeats or dolphins. In fact, I have 0 fish right now. I miss filling my tank because fish were cute and not because they farted out gold. xD But I do go to the Aquarium forum every few days and play Booty Grab for a while. I almost never post unless I see someone glowing and their thread hasn't been bumped yet. I don't really consider this contributing to Gaia's rich tapestry or anything - in fact, I almost never post out in the regular forums, sticking to guilds. But I have to admit that it seems unfair to "nerf" Booty Grab, especially since a lot of the damage (read: too-expensive rare items) has already been done. Pale Marionettes are probably not going to come down in price just because people can't buy them as quickly - there aren't enough for sale. So I think it's unfair to everyone to take away potential gold. If anything, I think you should be adding it in other places that you want to bring the focus back to, like on the forums, to more evenly balance the virtual playing field. And argh this ended up way too tl;dr. gonk I wasn't going to post it because it's so long, but then I thought, what harm could it do? So here I go. xD

the shine inside you
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Shadey Kitty
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 04:19pm


	Quote: Panagrammic It's been announced that we're fixing a number of the most egregious BG bugs... I never saw an announcement about this (or even a sticky in the Aquarium forum) I don't seem to have any problems receiving announcements concerning the cash shop though! Quote: Panagrammic Agree that nerfs are no fun, especially if people have invested real money, and the message has definitely been heard that there needs to be more communication. That's why Lanzer + BG team is trying to be much more up front about these changes. Again, I never saw an announcement about this (or even a sticky in the Aquarium forum) Ghost fish/life span issue Fixing the ghost fish/life span issue is one thing. It is true that fish were never meant to be immortal and that fact was never a secret and resetting the lifespan clock back to day one is wonderful. DM I checked out DM but didn't use it but for a time or 2, just to see what it was like. I prefer to actually see the tank that's glowing before I play it. While lag hasn't been too much of an issue for me, I understand that it is for many others so the creator of DM tried to come up with something to help address that. A few others evidently found a way to abuse it and Gaia's response was to kick the tank owners in the crotch with yet another sneaky, quiet nerf. Personal Result due to Gaia's Sneaky Nerfings That was the last straw for me. I had already decided that once whatever fish I currently have die, I won't be bothering with my tank anymore so the next sneaky round of nerfings - this time around involving airsharks and gwees (which again, were NEVER communicated - I certainly never saw an announcement / sticky concerning it) only served to strengthen my decision and Gaia has only itself to blame for that. Even if there had been an announcement/sticky about it, it wouldn't have made ripping off the tank owners any more palatable. That means once my fish die off - I won't have a reason to be posting near as much as I do now because I won't have a tank full of fish to try and get it to pay out. So if your reasoning is to try to get people to post more in the forums, at least in my case, fails.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 05:03pm


	Quote: fact that your tank could glow even if you hadn't touched it for months market place prices appear to be based on this sadly As for the gpm issue if the players winnings were used to pay the tank owner their 25% share that would reduce the BG gold input by 20% Quote: aggregation sites any idea one something that can be displayed to made them more site interactive wonders if it is possible to made a css drop down menu in a table would be nice for displaying links (profile,send pm,send comment,view post,view topics,etc) Quote: The purpose of BG was to encourage people to browse the forums; the theory was that the more you browse, the more likely you are to interact. as if seen ads had nothing to do with it ninja BTW happen to have an ajax for the current logged users subscribed threads would be nice to use in this

Absol - Ruler of Chaos
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Miles To Go
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 05:04pm


	Thank you! Spring cleaning = Awesome. Fixing booty grab = awesomer. It had been apparent for quite some time that booty grab was unbalanced, especially via the offsite quickmode version of it. Sure there will be people who are upset, but that's what happens when people find a way to make it rain gold. xD And I hope that people who encountered lag issues will find other resources of gold on Gaia - god knows there's so many available! Starting around November of last year there was a huge increase of inflation rates on collectible items. It's been going on even to this day, most items have already tripled in price since then. Ofcourse I never linked that to booty grab, I just figured the site had hit a cap where supply was so limited and gold flow was so constant that prices had finally become a total sellers market. But I've been hearing that prices have just recently started stabilizing, supposedly deflating a little bit, due to people preparing for booty grab to leave. If this really does end up making a huge impact on the market, it would be a godsend I think. Though I'm kind of on hiatus right now, so I'll have to wait until mid-july to find out how the market is really doing, first hand.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 07:07pm


	Quote: Lord Uesugi Kenshin: i invested real money in my tank and it seems gaia has done nothing positive for tank owners with all the secret nerfing that goes on entirely unannounced... i don't have too much faith in you guys when it comes to being fair... prove me wrong. Agree that nerfs are no fun, especially if people have invested real money, and the message has definitely been heard that there needs to be more communication. That's why Lanzer + BG team is trying to be much more up front about these changes i have yet to see any announcement since the glow frequency "glitch" so i fail to see how gaia is trying to be up front about these nerfings. i understand you guys feel u need to do certain things but an announcement of some sort would ease the community backlash somewhat... some might be angry but some will just be glad that you communicated the changes to them. interaction between BG devs and users can fix alot of issues within the aqua community but there has been no effort on gaia's behalf.

Lord Uesugi Kenshin
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Panagrammic
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 08:14pm


	Quote: Lord Uesugi Kenshin: i have yet to see any announcement since the glow frequency "glitch" so i fail to see how gaia is trying to be up front about these nerfings. i understand you guys feel u need to do certain things but an announcement of some sort would ease the community backlash somewhat... some might be angry but some will just be glad that you communicated the changes to them. interaction between BG devs and users can fix alot of issues within the aqua community but there has been no effort on gaia's behalf. The information has been kind of spread around, but there will be announcement by tomorrow, if all goes as planned. Journal entry has been updated to correct confusing wording.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 10:12pm


	I just hope that if they do equalize the amount of gold from various activities and games, they do not lower it to the current average of a few hundred gold a day. That would make it impossible to afford most items in the market place. Booty grab is all that makes it possible now. Better to raise the amount of gold gotten from all sources to about 5,000 gold per activity per hour. You'd find people participating in more areas that way which is your goal.

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Sapphire_God
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Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 10:15pm


	I like the fact that there's going to be a report feature for profiles because that way, it'd save so much more time to report those annoying botters, chain-letter spammers, and what-not. At the same time, it may also be the same un-doing for me as well~ xd I'm surprised to see that Animated Items were not mentioned in this update at all.~ Are they just not that important anymore that the Gaia staff aren't even going to think about them? Actually, I'm rather fine with the most recent updates, it's just that I think Gaia is starting to care less about the user's opinions and feedbacks. Oh well, maybe Gaia will start caring when they notice that their sales are plumetting due to the fact that everyone's disastisfied with Gaia's decisions.

Commented on: Sun Jun 27, 2010 @ 11:21pm


	I noticed this morning that my Cart Raider finally went through. Yay! ^.^ I'm also glad to hear that the Spring Cleaning forum was a success. I hadn't heard of the aggregation sites before this most recent "controversy" (for lack of a better term), but I have to admit, if I had known about them, I'd probably have been using them. Booty Grab threads (even the short-page threads) lag me like nothing else on this site. gonk Is there any way to decrease the lag on your end, so that it'll be easier to play BG "legally", through the forums?

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Spirrow
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 12:41am


	I'll read what has been said about BG after I give my 2 cents. I was one of the first 10 or so people to have an all watermeat tank, and I made about 10,000,000 gold off of it (before my meats died) by posting it all over the aquarium forums. That sort of gold earning encouraged users to buy $135 of fish and invest in a tank. I refilled my tank once, and didn't get nearly the same result, due to BG changes, of course...and I have since abandoned BG entirely. Now that I'm living in a post-BG inflated economy, and have nothing invested in it, I'm all for nerfing it. BUT- I think you should nerf the user experience over the tank owner experience. This will undoubtedly disenfranchise thousands, but still encourage healthy spending by users. How you all decide to pull that off is your own business, but keep in mind how the inflation caused by Booty Grab will negatively impact earning from Booty Grab. Back when I started my first tank, it cost me about 1.8 million gold, and in 24 weeks or so, I made 10 million. Not only is that profit unheard of, but the cost of buying those fish off the market now would cost me 5 million gold, and I would need to log onto my account like EVERY day to see less than a 10 million return, I'm sure. ALSO- Back in May 2009, I could get a $7.50 evolving item off the market before it evolved for 100-200k. Now, It'd be likely around 300-600k. So BG earning has gone down and item prices are going up...Even If the payout for tank owners stays the same, if inflation continues, the payout is still technically losing value. I guess what I'm saying is: Gaia's economy is going to cannibalize itself out of money without balancing this issue, which clearly shows you need to increase the value for the paying customer over the free user. The free users enjoy this site due to the paying users, so minority or not, I don't see the trouble making that choice. This problem is also reflected in Gaia's inability to update gaia-cash value for store items. Gaia currently has it set so 5,000 gold is worthy of 83 Gaia Cash...these numbers were pretty much on target in 2007...but then again, in 2003 $1 = 1,000 gold for a gift credit was right on, too...and that was removed in 2007. Ergo, I think it's obvious why we can't buy Dernier Cri items with Gaia Cash, because Cresento's Coat would cost $1369.50 at the current rate. So in closing, I guess I have a question: Is Gaia aware of this issue which is glaringly obvious to me?

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 12:45am


	I love how this journal entry is made entirely to help appease users, and all we get is people bawwwwing over spilled fish. Honestly, people need to learn that trying to guilt trip gaia that they are getting "ripped off" is only going to make it worse when they find out that Gaia's going to be balancing BG, whether or not they cry into their blogs. People shouldn't be upset that their 900year old fish are going to die. As a matter of fact, the complaint that BG users won't be able to turn a profit (due to having to replace dead fish) is entirely irrelevant when they realize *when the massive goldperminute ratio is dropped on BrokenGrab, fish will stop costing 700k*. @Sheered Immortal: I currently use this to hide aquariums for lag reasons on my slower computer(s).

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Civia
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 01:23am


	I'm kind of worried how people will react to BG changes, but I'm happy about all the other changes that are being made. I hope people don't overreact about the situation. I understand they used their real money and all but it makes it hard to enjoy the site for awhile.. sweatdrop Oh well I guess we'll see what happens. I'm happy that announcement is being made to make people aware of what is going on. I think that is honestly a great thing. People who spend money on this site deserve to know what is going in some kind of way.

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 01:41am


	On the subject you replied to about the immortal fish.... I have the Lila the mermaid who has yet to die and even though my math is not all that great I know the it is way beyond the life expectancy rate and I was wondering if that could be fixed for me because I would like my drop. Simply I love my fish but to everything a time and a purpose and an end to things as well . If you can assist with this would make me very happy and I thank You for taking the time to look at this. heart heart heart heart heart

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Absol - Ruler of Chaos
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 01:46am


	and the fact that your tank could glow even if you hadn't touched it for months I think that should be based on a fish's DOD if($fish_DOD>time()){$fish_glow=false;} So why are we dealing with BG? the gold pirate edit: just noticed your avi looks like a Soul Reaper

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 01:48am


	Panagrammic "Agree that nerfs are no fun, especially if people have invested real money, and the message has definitely been heard that there needs to be more communication. That's why Lanzer + BG team is trying to be much more up front about these changes." I could hug you for this. Thank you, thank you thank you!! Please - more and more open communication for everything but especially whent it comes to aquarium stuff. As others have said - have not seen any announcements on most of this stuff. If not for your journal updates I would not know most of this. I really appreciate your journal updates but would love to see Gaia have a dedicated update forum where more users would see these types of postings. Booty Grab - I'm one of those users who spent real money (about $200). Thank you for keeping that in mind. Ghost Fish and Freezer glitches - That's fine. I've been warning people for ages not to depend on those because they are going to be fixed. The 'new fish' option seems like a more than fair way to reset things. Please consider the suggestions by many to adjust the total gold from BG by decreasing the amount the player gets and increasing (relatively) the amount the tank owner gets. This will decrease overal gold into the economy while still making it worth buying fish. If you continue to screw over the tank owners you won't sell very many $5 and $7.50 fish. It just won't be worth it. Ghibli - Thanks for the link to the game. I LOVE Ghibli stuff. I like them personally and my grandkids love the movies. Spring Cleaning - Not everything I wanted but very glad for a step in the right direction. I would rather see users choose some things that were not my top priorities than see it done without user input. I am buying green Lake Kindred amulets. Any shape / any stats. 10 plat each / full trades of 50 for 500 plat. Message me or just send a labeled trade.

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Lord Uesugi Kenshin
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 02:50am


	The information has been kind of spread around, but there will be announcement by tomorrow, if all goes as planned. Journal entry has been updated to correct confusing wording. the information needs to be centralized in one place.... the GA forum xd i hope to see you guys take a step in the right direction regarding that. wink thanks for taking the time to communicate with me. smile

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 03:24am


	Not work-related stuff: - I too am following the development on Ghibli and Level5's game. Very much hoping for a US port. - I have yet to see TS3. Thank you for no spoilers wink - I think with the 3DS it's safe to say the old Nintendo is back. They won E3 by far this year. Spring cleaning: I'm glad to see it will be starting up soon. It looks like you guys will have a fair bit of work to do. Hopefully the community will appreciate the work the Devs put in durring the event. Payment system: Ah the joys of DNS. I support your decision to cut that three paragraph decision. I think you would've put a good number of readers to sleep wink Anyhoo, sounds like you guys have a smart system setup with FastCard with the system auto-retying to contact Gaia. However, I think a more helpful error than Duplicate PIN would also be appreciated, perhaps something like "Your PIN has been accepted, however we cannot process your transaction at this time. Please check back later. Your credit will automatically be added to your account when the problem is fixed. Someone probably just tripped over a wire." Booty grab: I still post my aquarium to my sig, however, to be honest I don't play BG anymore for the reason it feels like I'm cheating. It's way too easy to play and pays out a buttload of gold if you get a really good tank. The aquarium forum has become a bank that just constantly puts out money, without taking enough back in. Raising a good aquarium is indeed costly, but I do not think BG should be the solution to that. For that reason, I support Gaia's decision to overhaul it. Former zETA. "Ugh. Your interface is worse than DOS." <- Help this cat on his quest for World Domination!

France Hopper
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Fashionable Auctions Inc
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 03:49am


	~The profile system will have to be modified so that multiple accounts get the same profile (or even better, just use the same profile) and that comment notifications are recieved by all accounts Never, ever do this. There are a lot of users like myself that have mules for various reasons, from a specific mule to share for an art auction or art shop, to a mule to test profile layouts on, etc. I will quit right then and there if the profile system is ever altered to connect accounts. I like my ability to have a mule. I like having an organized group for various things I do on this site. My mule is a different person, and its profile should not at all be linked to my main. On BG I am a heavy forum person. Since I joined in '04, I have lived in the forums. I play booty grab when I quest because it helps, but I rarely do it, because I am an artist and can make a sizable amount of gold from just that. But I have to agree with what someone else posted as a solution. Increase the Forum Gold I am extremely dedicated to the forums, because I make friends and meet lots of people there. You screw me over by giving me about 100g in the morning and dropping it to 1g if I decide to actually talk to people. It actually HURTS my profits to talk to people, because I could be making money via BG. My solution would be to START at a small gold amount per post, and INCREASE over the day as people post more. And have a cap at how much you can earn per post so it isn't ridiculous. This way people are more likely to stay and chat more.

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 04:19am


	I just don't even know what to say anymore. I am SO sick of hearing how BOOTY GRAB is the SOLE RESPONSIBLE party to INFLATION when it is NOT! When I joined I remember the long days of playing the insane puzzles until I could cry and barley making ANY gold at all. It would take FOREVER to earn any gold to do anything with. I could not buy any of the things that I wanted. There was always more and more cash shop items and RIGs that I would have LOVED to buy but would have taken me YEARS to earn that kind of gold, then came along BOOTY GRAB. Which I think was the BEST EQUALIZER between the users who COULD afford Gaia Cash and those who COULD NOT afford Gaia Cash. So if Gaia does anything to decrease the amount of gold that BOOTY GRAB puts out that will only ONCE AGAIN put a HUGE wedge between the Gaia Cash users and the Non-Gaia Cash users. Making the rich RICHER and the poor POORER and making more and more things UNATTAINABLE. Thus causing more users to just give up and QUIT the game all together INCLUDING me! You don't see the users who buy from the Cash Shop playing a whole lot of BOOTY GRAB because they are making their gold off the users WHO are playing BOOTY GRAB by selling their Cash Shop items for gold to those that can not buy from the Cash Shop. So if you are going to DECREASE the Gold from BOOTY GRAB you need to DECREASE the amount of EIs and other CASH SHOP items you PUMP out every week and INCREASE the RARE items from RIGs so that prices of things are not so OUTRAGEOUS! That is simple SUPPLY and DEMAND theory. If you INCREASE the SUPPLY of POPULAR items to MEET the DEMAND then the prices would not be so CRAZY! I guess I have done enough venting now. I do PREDICT that I will be using this site less and less as these NEW CHANGES take place. Once I have spent the Gaia Cash that I have left I will not be investing anymore REAL MONEY into Gaia. I guess I will just have to wait and see how it goes and how Gaia chooses to handle the problems at hand. But since everyone is so quick to point the finger at BOOTY GRAB I do not see a FAIR way of fixing it.

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natedawg5592
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 04:31am


	New puzzles .....That's cool for those that like to do puzzles,but i really don't like doing them for gold it's to aggravating and takes to long to be doing it for gold. And these Achievements are also good for getting people to interact with others in the forums. they'll have to do more of those that make people post.Because when bootygrab gets cut back however ever it happens,the bumping posts will go down for a lot of people. speaking of bootygrab redoing the glitches is grate but when the cutback happens the life expectancy should also be longer so those that have invested a lot of gold or real money for that fact will get there money's worth. If not there will surly be a drop in sales for those fish. Also for those that think cutting the payout in booty grab is going to affect the prices in the MP, well remember this, the only things that are going to change will be the stuff people put in there tanks ie. fish and mini monsters.that other stuff for avatars and cars or even houses that stuff will not come down if it does it wont be much of a difference . And what about the towns you can push trees for hours but finding 1 gold under a rock is not even funny. just for this reason alone i have no use for towns

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 06:38am


	I'm pleased to see that aquarium glitches are going to be fixed. I feel that a fair way of resetting the fish would be for ALL fish to be reset to their just bought status. If only the life extended fish and maybe ghost fish are reset that would in effect be punishing users that have fish about to die that aren't glitched. After all why should the extended lifers get their lives reset, after already having more glow time than they were supposed to. While non-glitched fish only get their lives with no extention. Also I would like to see the glitch were you play a booty grab game and at the end it doesn't save, but instead gets stuck on the "getting game results" screen get fixed.

Deb_Sapphire
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GreenCatHat
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 07:45am


	Quote: By Dave: Booty Grab - I'm one of those users who spent real money (about $200). Thank you for keeping that in mind. Ghost Fish and Freezer glitches - That's fine. I've been warning people for ages not to depend on those because they are going to be fixed. The 'new fish' option seems like a more than fair way to reset things. Please consider the suggestions by many to adjust the total gold from BG by decreasing the amount the player gets and increasing (relatively) the amount the tank owner gets. This will decrease overal gold into the economy while still making it worth buying fish. If you continue to screw over the tank owners you won't sell very many $5 and $7.50 fish. It just won't be worth it. I have to agree with this I spend $20 - $50 EVERY MONTH on gaia and 90% of that is on the fish for MY TANKS. Now I don't want to spend any money on my fish at all anymore and for gold I'll just invest and hold onto unplayed rigs. Why? Because all my fish have been nerfed now and I will not make any gold off them. Right now you can't even buy a full new tank out of the MP and break even. Everyone complains of inflation but no one has pointed out that the items MOST inflated are aquarium items esp when you don't know what will get nerfed next. Not to mention how sick I am of tank owners getting the crap end of the stick for providing others with a good tank. Someone makes 2k on our tank and we only get 500g you drop both gold grants and the tank owner still makes 1/4th of what the player does and then you nerf that more then I speak for myself and MANY others that gaia will no longer be getting my hard earned cash on a bi-weekly basis.

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 07:53am


	I don't see why everyone's bitching about immortal fish. The fish are given WITH expected life frames. They're SUPPOSED to die after a certain amount of time. It's EXPLOITING A GLITCH to keep them in your tank for longer than they're supposed to be. Get. Over. It. Gaia fixing it was inevitable, and it's NOT SUPPOSED to be that way to begin with. Sure, I'm exploiting it right now. I spent hard earned money on my tank. But am I pissed that Gaia's fixing it? Not really. : Because it's a glitch. An exploit. In all basic senses of the word a cheat. So, seriously. Fix it, Gaia. Please.

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Gabriel Faust
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Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 08:01am


	Dede's mule: Your ignorance of the situation shows in your post. When developers say "booty grab is the largest payout per minute service and its detrimental to the site" and they have statistics that shows their statements to be true, it is. When dolphins were released, the price of elastic goods shot up 120-300%. CIs went from 40k to 120k. You can't say with any assurance that BrokenGrab is unequivocally not responsible for the situation at hand, especially when you blindly ignore the evidence surmounting the situation.

Commented on: Mon Jun 28, 2010 @ 08:12am


	Quote: Starlight Surprise said: There's no interaction between the grabber and tank owner. Unless the two already know each other. If fish are gonna stop dropping colored gold, well the fish should all cost the same no matter how long they live. I won't be paying $7 for a fish that drops regular gold. No matter how long of a life it has. It'd be a waste of money and a bad investment. Not to mention those who would quit over something like this. Gaia has already drove a wedge between tank owners and itself. This could end up being the final straw. I understand about getting rid of ghost fish, but Barret's glitch is the devs' screw-up. I didn't even know anything about it til I put my fish in there while I took a break from Gaia. Mine aren't scheduled to live another 3 years anyway. Sure it's a little unfair especially to those who knowingly glitched their fish, however it's also unfair to kill those fish off because the person could have not had any prior knowledge about this glitch beforehand. I'd rather just have Barret's glitch fixed so it can't add anymore life to fish again." As for fixing immortal fish no one would even know they had immortal fish with long lifespans if they would have never left the analyzer active after they took off the ability to let it tell you hours in advance when a tank would glow. So now that Dolphinmania ends tomorrow you have to get rid of the analyzer also. Because the analyzer is the only way to find out when your fish die. Before the analyzer you didn't even know if you had immortal fish you would just go to the tank every day and feed the fish and if they were dead they would flush automatically. The analyzer made people aware faster that there was a problem when you put a fish into Barretts tank that something happens and it extends their life. What about the gift box glitch of October 2009? If you grab more than one gift box you won't receive anything - no gift boxes and no gold either. That glitch has been reported THOUSANDS of times and still no fix, no response to the glitch reports - nothing. And Gaia is the one that's always saying to report a glitch. Why when people are made to feel they're being ignored? Now since there's no more Dolphinmania after tomorrow I won't be able to booty grab at all and my wife won't be able to either because of all the massive lag crashing my computer. Oh well...time to find another game site to play and to spend our money. One where the owners and devs actually listen and communicate with their users - not take their money, do what they want and ignore you.

bronxbigred6
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