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Gaia Life

A catalog of my experiences as an employee and citizen of Gaia.

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Week Eighteen: Surfing With the Alien . NEW JOURNAL ENTRY: The Journal Spotlight is mis-linked to last-week's entry. To see the new entry, click the link below: Click here to read the new journal entry >> Click here to read the new journal entry >> Halloween week! Zurg! Red Bino! Record numbers! WAAAAAHHH!!! It's been a crazy, crazy week that set records and has been a load of fun for Gaians everywhere. Here's what happened... Invasion! The Halloween event started slightly after noon (Pacific Time) on Tuesday, October 31st. Two energy drink competitors opened up shop across from each other: Johnny Gambino, the sales of whose "Red Bino Energy Drink" afforded him the ability to rebuild him demolished mansion. The other, Mother of the Zurg people - who have been visiting and scanning Gaia for the past several weeks. She was selling "Zurg Energy Drink", which when consumed, turned Gaians (like myself) into green skinned, giant-headed aliens! Trick or Treating was happening in the shops AND in Towns, with the MASSIVE Jack tromping around town centers, and roaming randomly around the world map. In exchange for collecting candy, users got special Jack-gear. In the event forum, Zurg were able to probe Gaians and cows, and Gaians were able to zap Zurg and tip cows. Doing enough of either would also win you some special event items. Stuff went wrong, as with any event. More than any prior year, our developer team worked hard to open up any bottlenecks that might break the site during the event. While the event was going on (and all throughout the night) they were on hand to tackle problems, speed things up, and disable some features (like Towns) temporarily so that users could use the rest of the site. I raise a glass to those devs who gave up hours of their personally time to make this one of the most successful Halloween events yet! Yeah, I knew all that. Tell me something I don't know! Okay. Here are a few things you didn't know or may not have noticed. 1. All abducted admins have been returned to the Gaia World with no memory of what transpired on the UFOs. 2. There has been no word on the much beloved UFO 09. Maybe we'll hear from him again? 3. I flew one of the UFOs. But which one, I'm not telling! 4. Apparently, the cows appearing in the forums are mooing in some kind of code 5. This has been the biggest Towns event ever. Bandwidth used up by the 2500+ users using Towns accounted for a large percentage of the bandwidth usage that led to event problems eek 6. Overall user participation is up roughly over 125% of last year's Halloween event! (That's not last year's + 25%, it's really 125% more than last year eek ) 7. The User's Online record was broken by a whole 19% in the last 2 days alone (from roughly 57,000 to today's roughly 68,000!) NEW FEATURE ALERT OKAY! So my feature was being tested all week. It's pretty stable now, but we're still doing some minor testing. NO PROMISES, BUT: I hope to release it next week. Now, I know I've built up a lot of hype, but now a word of warning and a hint. It's something users have waited a while for, so you'll be excited to hear that it was made. However - because of the scope of the project, we are releasing Phase One of the project now, and then as time passes, releasing increasingly robust versions of it. Long story short: It's going to be cool - but it will get cooler with time blaugh We've already had a ton of in-house Quality Assurance done on the project. Because it affects so many aspects of the site, I had to alter and fix bugs in other parts of the site in order to pass the QA process. The feature itself has graced the hands of numerous programmers, at least one in-house writer, our UI designer (Brunosmad), and has undergone several code audits to ensure that it is done well. I'm very happy with it, but we're going to continue to test and refine it until its release. Gaia: Y&T The way Gaia operates has changed a LOT in the last 6 months alone. Here's a brief glimpse into a lot of the improvements going on in this crazy entertainment-factory: Yesterday: Before, whenever a feature on Gaia was made, each developer was kind of responsible for figuring out how it looked, worked, and what everything said. Today: Now, Gaia has a User Interface team that deals with graphics, layout, and text. So developers can focus on writing great code without having to spend time creating a look and feel for the project. And with a single team focusing on keeping the site having a unified feel and appearance, all new features (and old revamped features) will follow the same theme and be much more polished. Yesterday: Testing a new feature was limited to the devs and mods. The actual process was sketchy at best, and while the features were fun and mostly functional, we're still getting burnt by really old bugs to this day. Today: Every feature undergoes a rigorous Quality Assurance process which ensures not only that new features are bug-free, but that they're intuitive, not confusing to new users, and actually enhance the site. All code undergoes a peer-reviewed code audit, wherein the code is checked for best-practices, security, and stability. Bugs are much less likely to sneak in when the application is well designed. We also check to make sure that it won't slow down the site, and that the processes and data processing are speedy and smart. Finally, each feature has to meet a set of guidelines which ensures that it gives users options (like turning off Daily Chance or Gold Notification) and that it can be quickly disabled if it runs into some major problems (like how we could just switch off Daily Chance when it broke the economy!), along with numerous other criteria to ensure that it is ready to be in the Gaia World. Yesterday: The site would go down frequently, major instabilities were prominent (can anyone say "Sushi Error"?), and the site couldn't handle a large user load (e.g., event crashes). Today: Today Gaia has a very smart team dedicated to site stability and scalability - ensuring not only that the site can handle a large user load, but that it can handle rapid growth (which we've been noticing!). If you've been on the site for more than a few months, you'll notice that site crashes and MAJOR site glitches are down significantly. Yesterday: The Battle System would have been promised but lack of resources would mean it wasn't getting built. Today: I saw a working demo of the Battle System. Yesterday: Devs would run around like chickens with their heads cut off developing whatever they felt was cool or fun, even if it wasn't necessarily what users wanted most or if there were old broken features. Today: Goals are set as a group and teams are set to tasks that we all decided will help improve the company. We're spending a couple of months almost exclusively fixing bugs and upgrading features on the site. Hopefully, by the end of that project cycle, the site will be significantly more bug free and enjoyable! SUMMARY: Basically, Gaia's better in every way. We're growing faster, we're improving the user experience, and most importantly we're listening! We have a team here large enough now that we can fix bugs, finish new features, and then do things you guys have been asking for forever! Close Encounters of the Fleep Kind I drank me some Zurg and turned into an alien! Don't worry though, my avi's long, luxurious hair will return when the event is over rofl (Though I will always keep a can of Zurg Energy Drink close to my heart...)

Posted by: Fleep Fri Nov 03, 2006 @ 09:06am

Gaia Isn't Being Money Hungry

User Comments: [492] Viewing page 2 of 10 · Goto Page: « 1 2 3 4 5 ... 8 9 10 » [add]

Alleira
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Commented on: Sat Nov 04, 2006 @ 09:26pm


	Thanks for the Halloween event - I think it was very well put together, with lots of interesting things to do and to see. I like the transforming drinks - hope we can keep these to use in the future as well, it's fun! Cool items, manga update, lots of users involved - and in the threads I was zapping/tipping/probing in, it was all very friendly, which was great. Your overview of Gaia "then and now" is very encouraging. Looking forward to your new feature being released finally... good luck in the final stages... xd

Commented on: Sat Nov 04, 2006 @ 10:55pm


	I think I might have an idea of what your feature is XD Not gonna say anything, though. Yeah, Gaia has definitely improved. Things are being fixed much faster nowdays. Imagine my surprise when Jiggy was released before Lanzer's assumed date O_O and imagine my even more surprise when I was able to surf Gaia alright during the event minus some hiccups. WTG guys XD The event was fun, even though I didn't participate much. I loved Cow tipping XD (I could only think of Barnyard when I did that XD) Alien looks bad on teh Garny, but Fleep looks super cool as an alien, totally ^^

Garnet Star
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Spazn
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Commented on: Sun Nov 05, 2006 @ 05:28am


	Any hints on what kinda code the cows are mooing in? Computer programming code? Morse??

Commented on: Sun Nov 05, 2006 @ 06:10am


	I'm putting my money on tats wink

[Coffee]
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fgidhfgihedgfuyr746726578
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Commented on: Mon Nov 06, 2006 @ 05:43am


	Alien Fleep! Your all bald! XD (1st reaction) I bet you were...that one who kept mentioning meat. haha, no reason I hope I like the BSystem when it finally comes out. Wouldn't it be silly if we finally had it and all we did was complain? haha

Commented on: Tue Nov 07, 2006 @ 01:38am


	-Hmmm... -Yes, you do have a point! smile Gaia just keeps getting stronger and stronger! -Any Zurg or Red Bino in Snacktopia? domokun

Dignity of Wrath
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Xya
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Commented on: Tue Nov 07, 2006 @ 05:01am


	It is very good to know you guys are listening to everyone. That does make a big difference heart

Commented on: Tue Nov 07, 2006 @ 08:09am


	Keep on truckin', kid.

Wolfram Ysud
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catwoman~2.0
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Commented on: Tue Nov 07, 2006 @ 03:02pm


	=3 interesting

Commented on: Wed Nov 08, 2006 @ 01:10am


	Dunno if you'll get this, but you asked a question in one of my threads. HOTs - Hang Out Threads

CrazyAlien8
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Sexbotz
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Commented on: Wed Nov 08, 2006 @ 04:31am


	I knew that cow was talking to me. I speak Cow. smile

Commented on: Wed Nov 08, 2006 @ 08:57am


	Now all you need is an Economist to go with that fancy new UI and QA team. 3nodding Thanks for the halloween event, too.

[Q]
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[Mochi]
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Commented on: Thu Nov 09, 2006 @ 05:01am


	Code... If its Javascript, then I'm screwed. I'll just froce a friend to help me decode it. Mooing.. code. Thats a bit disturbing. Your human again! Thanks for hte ahlloween event. It was awesome. Reply to your comment on my profile, since this is the only place you'll find it safely without having it bumped off the comments or something: I don't want to talk about the amount of modded versions of Halo on campus. >.< People complain that its too easy to mod. That's what happens when your at a school full of computer nerds. I can't wait to your next guide Make it about javascript.. xD I'm gonna be stuck learning that next semester.

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 12:03am


	Hawt. heart

v.3
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Kai Kururugi
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 12:13am


	wOw!!!! AWSOME. i LIKED IT

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 12:15am


	Keep up the good work!

Kyoushi_Harahara
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Shavonda
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 12:25am


	<3

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 12:27am


	GO GAIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOHOOOOO

Rinkaan
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v3nom0us
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 12:55am


	And you acually record that stuff? Lol. Isn't there something called newsletters? 0: Yes it must of taken a lot of work so I applaud you.

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:00am


	sweatdrop

Xx^joe^xX
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Juicy Angel
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:11am


	sounds fun! blaugh

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:14am


	awesome

Archangel Huro
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Ricatto
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:22am


	Snort Your features was getting your journal featured, was it?! xd

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:46am


	Fleep as everyone already knows... you rock! >: D and everyone that doesnt know that should know that now! thanks for keeping us always informed as usual blaugh love the battle system 4laugh

Mr_Anime_guy
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Gungnier
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:57am


	Fleep!

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 02:14am


	awsemest journal EVER.

Zephrine.
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[Lo]
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 02:18am


	Even though I'm not a lesbian, this journal entry rocks~!

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 02:37am


	very impressed, well done fellow gaian im proud to say that you one of the few people on gaia who would care for all the updates and all the know hows of gaia. ;D

Le_Tomato
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Wyf
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 02:48am


	Fleep? more like BEEP HAHA GET IT

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 02:56am


	Wow!!!! Amazing!!!! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!!

Helena12
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RebeccaTheKitsune
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 03:06am


	Cool! Thanks, your full of information! Nice look.Pleas keep us updated =^-^=

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 03:16am


	Ah! That is why the chocolote, pesto, sushi and many other interesting food thing databases are no longer relevent. Honestly, after those errors, I never wanted to eat again.

Persuis
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hazel_3
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 03:32am


	i like pie domokun

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 04:33am


	la di dah.......de dum! blaugh

sw33thawaiian
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DtKnight
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 05:53am


	Wow. Awesome journal. Very creative.

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 06:28am


	I'm ready for your new feature, Fleep. wearing a diaper ninja So release it already!

keiiii
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[en p see] Ron Bruise
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 06:34am


	Hmmm...COool!Nice Journal. domokun domokun -Ron Bruise's worst imposter! neutral

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 07:15am


	In Flanders Fields the poppies blow That's pretty awsome! Keep up the good work, you and the rest of the team! biggrin (btw, PERSONAL time, NOT personalLY time.) Between the crosses row on row

Ziaheart
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Cherryblossomkunoichi
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 07:22am


	Congrats! biggrin

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 08:27am


	LUCKY!! You saw a working demo of the Battlesystem! I can't wait till we get to play it!

SlasherGT
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kjaydeck3
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 08:30am


	Very exciting. I appreciate all the hard work even more.

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 08:36am


	cough

Darkness_lover_567
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Lokis II
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 01:31pm


	New feature?? I can't wait!

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 02:40pm


	sweet forbidden love <3

Wyf
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Cherry Springer
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 05:23pm


	Hmm, looking around the comment box I see alot of familiar faces. o.o Anyways, the Alien Event was awesome. cool Please tell me they're still going to come. D: And I can't wait for the battle system! That screenie looked so cool. I wonder what the new feature is. D: I'm not expecting the battle system.

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 07:15pm


	Ooooooo a new feature!?! I can't wait! biggrin

Cavallo100
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Jenca Wishwind
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 07:51pm


	This is very informative. I like it. 10/10!

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 09:17pm


	strokes Fleep's hair It's always ace to read your information @_@ You're like a Male, better version of Cindy! 'Cause she only knows what's happened. You know what's happening =D Congrats on the featured journal =D I can't wait to see what you've worked so hard on @_@ What tacos spaceship were you?

Cleocatra
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LOL UR MOM.
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Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 10:23pm


	awesomenessss

Commented on: Fri Nov 10, 2006 @ 10:26pm


	i cant wait until the battle system comes out blaugh and cule cule journal! xd edit: i think im the 100th post! yay for me! blaugh

PandaEnlightenment
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