First off, when you buy the Pet, it does NOT cost 26 dollars for a Husky Package. That package is only about 12-14 dollars, I can’t quite recall. It also comes with the Item Pouch and Meso Magnet, which actualy aids in the game, by collecting your items as you kill, increasing training speed, with no lag.

Since the items all last for three months thats four dollars for an aiding item. Also the Pet last forever, all you need to do is buy a Water of Life every three months. Which is only about three dollars.

The most basic Shop Permit is only $1.80 and you can have up to 16 Items in it. It last for 90 days, not 14. This is also not the ONLY way to sell items, as you potrayed it. You don’t NEED a permit to sell items.

And no I havent bought any of these things, but you should give Maple Story a fair shake.

There are obviously many different perspectives with regard to these gaming sites, but I would say, from the above responses, Gaia would be very well loved.

I appreciate Gaia Online or Go Gaia which it was once called when I first joined it. And I joined it in April 2004. I have obviously bought nothing - for it would be a waste of money, and seriously, the smarter people wait for the less sensible ones to buy such envelopes, to ’sell’ the extras they don’t need (you can imagine how much they [make their parents] fork out), and then buy them using Gaian gold in bulk for cheaper. True, one can save up, but the problem is: inflation. With all that moneywasting, people wish to sell their envelopes as high as they can, so there you go.

With regard to “all the storylines from the very beginning of Gaia up to the present”, Ketira, I contend that. Because the whole storyline business started way after the ‘beginning of Gaia’. Everything has changed - from the outlay to the present ‘Towns’, which never quite existed some 3 years ago.

I’m sure the UFO flying is indeed a marketing ploy, but perhaps to say it was employed to boost the sales.. well, I don’t know the stats, so I’ll leave it at that.

If you talk about smart Marketplace buying, look at me: I got my Kikis and Cocos when they were but a fraction of their current prices, went off Gaia to do a bit of University for some months, and Lo! They’ve shot up to some delectable prices. But why would I, or anyone sell it? With inflation, greed and demand, Im sure in 2 years, my investments would be superb.

Essentially, Gaia Online, or Go Gaia, as I fondly know it, was a brilliant site. But with so the excessive shower of many new, younger users, old ones have fled, for the content, especially in Extended Discussion, has become a shadow of what it once was. I would say it is inevitable, as I believe that Gaia had always started out with a moneymaking objective, from the first Donation Letter (priceless Halo, anybody?) to those 3-in-1 valuable letters today. It’s a pity, really. All the people hoarding stuff happily welcome the ones who actually buy the virtual stuff.

And oh, did I forget to mention Gift Credits?

The Storylines are part of what make people stay with the site. If you missed anything, go look in the “plot” thread in the Gaia Community Forum. It shows you all the storylines from the very beginning of Gaia up to the present.

NOWHERE does it say that you have to pay *anything* to get onto the site or do anything…. yet. Gaia, in general, is in the *alpha* stage, and like Winamp, may stay at that stage forever –all because of the OPTION of buying Collectibles or any of the real items in the GStore. And even then, you don’t have to use cash to get the Collectibles; you can always save up gold to buy the current “sealed” envelopes in the Marketplace.

Yes, some Gaians have more than others, but that’s because they got smart and either (a) offered a *service* for gold (such as the artists who do avi arts or draw pictures of one’s avatar) or else, like me, saw a good thing and saved the Item for at least six months before selling it. Sure, there are sites who offer cheap prices for getting Gaia gold — and every single one is operating AGAINST THE TOS OF GAIA. Use one of those, and you’ll carry a high risk of getting banned for good, losing everything in the process.

As for myself –I’m going to play fair. And I hope that articles like this who spin online FREE sites like Gaia are in the minority.

I hear you about it being unfair… I don’t get why people who have more money get to do better in a game than people who work hard and become good at it. It takes away some of the fun… it’s kind of like how rich kids do better on thier SATs because their parents can afford classes. Gaming was the one place where the only thing that mattered is how good you are… and now that’s starting to not matter as much anymore either.

The problem is that, in Gaiaonline and other games which right now are beginning to introduce their “pay system” like Neopets, is that players who pay have an advantage over players who don’t.

This is unfair because some people are underage and cannot pay for these things or they just think it isn’t worthy, meanwhile, those who do can sell their donation items at high prices which aren’t controlled by the gaia staff (the reason is that the Gaia staff want more people to donate for their items knowing that, if they don’t do, the items they want will rise incredibly).

Also, in other games like Ogame or monstersgame, what you get for paying are advantages over the normal players, like, in the case of the first one, many tactical stuff which would take me a while to explain. In the case of the second one, you get access to different “pets” which help you fight other users (whose pets are, of course, significantly weaker than the ones you can get by paying).

The thing is, the gaia staff won’t do anything to stop that. Something happened during november, which was that people didn’t like the items, and they were beginning to sell them at the marketplace for low prices, so they introduced the UFO’s flying feature and the price of the UFO for those who hadn’t bought it via paypal or with gaian gold before the flying feat, rised incredibly. If something like this happens again, the Gaia staff will do something so people think they MUST buy those items and I won’t be surprised if, in January, every previous collectible costs 20k gaian gold more.

Actually it costs sites like that much more for hosting and upkeep… not to mention to pay for all of the artists/writers/programers/etc… but they make plenty of money to upkeep that stuff from advertisers and sharing information. (Statistics, not stuff like your credit card)

And I agree that the prices should be lower, but as long as people pay that much for intangibles, they will remain the same.

No, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with sites like that… I just think that some companies are profiting a great deal on items that at first glace are extremely cheap… but when you think about it have outrageously high profit margins… so I just want to remind people that they don’t have to buy every little thing because it’s new and the only way to controll the prices of stuff like this is to not pay for things that are too expensive or really worth it.