Gaia Online
Gaia Online is an Anime-based roleplaying site founded on February 18, 2003 by Derek Liu (known on the site as 'Lanzer') and the XD Studio. It is the largest forum on the Internet by stored posts, according to Big-Boards.com. The board has over 200 billion posts and over 191 billion in storage. 1.41 million registered users, and usually 17000 or more people online at any time during the day, as of January 22, 2005. The most users ever online were 24,861 on Jan 26, 2005.
On Gaia Online, a user can create their own character by customizing their own personal avatar to look however they choose. The customizations start with choosing gender, skin tone, eyes, mouth, and hair style and color. From there, the user tries to earn "Gaia gold" by doing everything from chatting on the plethora of forums to choose from, rating art in the art gallery, answering polls, and more. In fact, almost everything you do on the site can earn you gold. Once gold is earned, the user can buy clothing and accessory items from the site-run shops as well as from individual users. With these items, the avatar becomes further customized, reflecting the personality of the user.
Some of the newest features on Gaia include
- Gaia Journal, a type of weblog.
- Creation of a 'friends list'
- Poseable Avatars (v.2.0)
- Gaia Fishing, a flash-based minigame.
- Subscribed Threads
- A new reporting system
Gaia Online is free to play and is currently in the Alpha Testing stage. The release date of the Beta stage is currently unknown, but was previously planned for November 2004.
Gaia gold
Gaia gold is the currency of Gaia Online forums site. It is earned in several different ways.
- Making new threads
- Replying to current threads
- Voting on polls
- Clicking around the site, also known as "lurking"
- Submitting your art to the Art Arena
- Voting or commenting on art in the Arena
- Referrals
- Selling art or services in the "Mini-Shops" forum
In addition, one can get random events. One example is the "Pinklink". This is when a specific thread in the forums glows neon pink. When it is clicked, the user gets one thousand bonus gold. Other examples include the Enchanted Trunk, which holds a random uncommon item, a Pink Giftbox, which contains a random rare item, and the Blue Giftbox, which can give you anything of the other events. (1000 gold, a rare, or uncommon.) As well, Blue Giftboxes hold a few of their own unique treasures, not obtainable in the other rare event boxes.
Once a user has earned gold, they can use it to buy items to dress up their avatar. The items range from "normal" clothing like gloves or socks, to fantastic accessories such as tails, fairy wings, or halos. New hairstyles can be purchased at the Salon. As expected, the "better" or "rarer" items cost more gold.
The option of donating to Gaia is also available. For every $2.50 you donate, you receive a "donation letter". At the end of every month the letter will open, revealing new items available only to those who donated. Users can sell these "donation items" for gold to other players.