Gaia Online (also known informally as Go-Gaia, or simply "Gaia") is an Anime-based roleplaying site founded on February 18, 2003 by Derek Liu (known on the site as Lanzer) and a team of Studio XD artists and web designers. The board has over 250 million posts (plus over 191 million in storage), 1.6 million registered users, and usually has 17,000 or more people online at any given time during the day. The most users ever online numbered a little over 32,499 on March 27, 2005, during the Easter event on Gaia. The exact number of users during that night is unknown, however, as Gaia was taken down during the celebration due to maintenance needs.
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 one does on the site can earn a user 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 the use of these items, the user's avatar can be 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'
- Gaia Guild Network
- Poseable Avatars (v.2.0)
- Gaia Fishing, a Flash-based minigame. (v. 1.5)
- Subscribed Threads
- A new reporting system
- Gaia Hangouts
- Gaia Housing, using Shockwave to allow for Sims-like house designing
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 one's art to the Art Arena
- Voting or commenting on art in the Arena
- Referrals
- Selling art or services in the "Mini-Shops" forum
- Donations from other users
- Selling fish caught in the Fishing mini-game to other users or the fishing store
- Selling unwanted items to other users or back to the stores
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 a user anything of the other events (1000 gold, a rare itme, or an uncommonitem). Blue Giftboxes also hold a few of their own unique treasures, which are 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. The "better" or "rarer" items cost more gold.
The option of donating to Gaia is also available. For every $2.50 one donates, one receives a "donation letter". At the end of every month the letter will open, revealing a choice of two new items available only to those who donated. Users can sell these "donation items" for gold to other players or keep them for wearing if they prefer. Some rare donation items that have been released in the past include a Halo, DJ/portable headphones, a devil tail/angelic sash (a white scarf that defies gravity and floats around one's avatar), and the OMG/AFK hats (fuzzy little hats that look like creatures).
In addition, Gaia also holds events for Easter, April Fool's Day, Halloween and Christmas. Sometimes an item is won, and these items have become super-rare a few years later, and players can choose to sell these items for gold or keep them. These items, as well as the rare donation items, have become somewhat of a status symbol in recent years.
Gaia NPCs (Non-Player Characters)
- Johnny K. Gambino
- Gino Gambino
- The Von Helson Sisters
- Ian
- Rufus
- Leon
- Rina
- Meredith
- Sasha
- Ruby
- Peyo
- Agatha
- Edmund
- Moira
- Vanessa
- Cindy Donovinh
- Logan
- Liam
- Josie
- Bildeau
- Bloudeau
- Ribateau
- The LabTechs
- Grunny
- LabTechX
- Jack
- The Easter Bunny
- Crono725, Who, if he's good, may get to be a Sexified Ninja-God in Aislinn's story...