ZOMG!

Gaia's zOMG! is a fully-functional battle system designed to allow users to engage in interactive battles against monsters, and later on other users. It has been stated that once the zOMG! is released Gaia Online will change from the Alpha to Beta stages.

Storyline
The world of Gaia is under attack. The Animated – normally inanimate objects like Gnomes or the OMG hat – have turned to life, and begun attacking the citizens of Gaia. When The Animated came, there was also something else that was discovered; Rings. Not just any old rings, but rings containing special powers. These rings become part of the player, the attach themselves to the player and taps into their emotional state. They feed off of the energy, and give the player the power to create phenomenal attacks. At the moment, no one truly understands these rings, or The Animated. No one really knows what is going on. But it's your duty to help defend your cities and towns, and get to the bottom of this all...

The Release
Previously said to be released in 2004 but cancelled due to it's complexity. On May 14, 2008, Beta testing forums were released for the public to fill out, and on July 24, 2008 some select users were allowed into the zOMG! Beta User Focus Guild. They were dubbed Zeta Testers ( zOMG! Beta Testers). There were several waves of users who were let in for the Closed Beta Testing.

On Oct 23, 2008 Open Beta Testing was released. The first users who were let in were those who had the zOMG! Head Start Ticket item. Next was 4-year veterans, then 3-year, 2-year, and etcetera.

It has been stated that once the zOMG! is released Gaia Online will change from the Alpha to Beta stages.

While many users have been eagerly anticipating the release of zOMG!, just as many others are worried about the influx of new users that this will bring to the site, causing inflation of item prices. Many users are also worried about the server issues that both the new feature and the aforementioned increase in new users will probably bring. However, at the moment, there are 29 known servers for zOMG!.

Users have often used "When the Battle System is realized" as a site specific version of "When hell freezes over" due to the length of development time the system had.

zOMG! Basics
zOMG! takes place in an area similar to Gaia Towns, however it is a whole new environment. The user starts in a train, which leads them to the sewers under Barton Town, which is a training area that explains the basics to the user. Instead of actual weapons, the player equips special rings which create an offensive or defensive skill. In a question and answer session during the panel, Jakobo mentioned various uses of the rings, which he confirmed later were an adaptation of a flexible customization model as seen in Final Fantasy's Materia system or the Exspheres used in Tales of Symphonia. According to the details given at the panel, the rings will not simply add statistics and benefits, interact with other equipped rings in a synergistic manner, yielding greater increases for certain ring combinations. While in the zOMG! world, the player can only equip, unequip, and/or upgrade their rings in an area called the Null Chamber.

Rings
Not much is known about where the rings have come from, or why they have the power they do. What they do know is that these rings tap into your emotions and, in a sense, feed off of them. The more emotional you are – good or bad – the more powerful your attack becomes. They are some how connected to the Null Chamber. While you're in the main world of Gaia, you cannot Change or Upgrade the rings. You can only do so when you are in the Null Chamber.

The Animated
The Animated are objects that were once lifeless, such as garlic, or boots, are somehow being given life. They are given enough power to move around and attack citizens on Gaia However, not every inanimate object have become The Animated, but are yet still animated. They seem to be neutral, or even on the players side at times. No one yet understands where either have come from, or what exactly they want. At the moment, there are 50 known Animated.

Null Chamber
This is a special area, where rings can be changed and upgraded. It is similar to a safe-haven, where there are no threats of The Animated, and no other user can enter whom is not in your Crew There are several Null Chamber entrances throughout the world of Gaia, and that being said, the Null Chamber can be used as a transport area. The player can enter from the Barton Null Chamber, but leave and arrive at Bill's Ranch. Not much is known about where the Null Chamber came from yet.

G'hi
G'hi is a special power within the player that shows itself when the player has been around other members. If the player spends a lot of time in a Clan or Crew, or even just in a town or city, then their G'hi abilities may increase. G'hi is also connected to the player's rings. The longer the player uses the rings, and the more connected they become to the player, the more G'hi can increase.

Ring Sets
Equipping 4 rings on one hand that belong to 1 ring set will give synergistic bonuses. The known ring sets include:

Pirate (Slash, Hack, Shark Attack, Keen Aye) Provides the wearer with an agility boost

Ninja (Mantis, Ghost, Shuriken, Dervish) Provides the wearer with a dodge boost

Chef (Meat, Teflon Spray, Knife Sharpen, Pot Lid) Provides the wearer with an armor boost

Medic (Diagnose, Defibrillate, Bandage, Adrenaline) Provides the wearer with a health regeneration boost

Space Trooper (Guns Guns Guns, Solar Ray, Turtle, My Density) Provides the wearer with a weight boost

Demon (Hot Foot, Fire Rain, Iron Will, Scaredy Cat) Provides the wearer with a stamina regeneration boost

Angel (Divinity, Healing Halo, Wish, Hunter's Bow) Provides the wearer with a luck boost

Prankster (Heavy Water Balloon, Gumshoe, Improbability Sphere, Duct Tape) Provides the wearer with minor dodge and accuracy boosts

Shaman (Coyote Spirit, Rock Armor, Quicksand, Hornet's Nest) Provides the wearer with a willpower boost

Athlete (Fitness, Fleet Feet, Bump, Taunt) Provides the wearer with a maximum health boost

Clans and Crews
Clans are a system similar to Gaia's Guilds system. They have their own forum, just like guilds, however zOMG! recognizes who is in your Clan, and who isn't, so that when you log onto Gaia you already have who is in your clan in sort of a large scale party. At the moment, a user can only be a part of one Clan at a time. They can leave and join another clan, but they will then have no connection to the original clan.

In-game players can "recrewt" others into a crew. This is a one-time party and expires after the player leaves the game. Unlike a clan, which are more permanent, a crew has no forum or standing outside of the game.

zOMG! Credits
'''zOMG! Development Team'''

Producer & Creative Director

David Georgeson (Qixter)

Mission Design

Garrett Fern (bronstahd)

Lead Programmer

Ryan Cox (swarf)

Programming Team

Ben Halsted (halzy)

Frederic Lajeunesse (flajeu) Jon Slenk (aiagreat)

Josh Sylvester (kaia9)

Darren Stefan Freckleton (Fanpy)

Art Director

John Kim ([ JK ])

Art Team

Alex Ahad (o_8)

Bret Denslow (Mavdoc)

Andre Mina (Your-Fathers-Belt)

Tabitha Reed (pepper-tea)

Justin Wong (fulltimefailure)

Jennifer Zee (jenzee)

Theresa Zysk (reapersun)

Quality Assurance QA Manager

Marina Leitman (Naxash)

QA Team

Kevin Basso (WastedAmmo)

Veronica Carrillo (Loie)

Madhavi Ghanta (coolangel08)

Richard Fleming (zShadowDragonz)

Mark Los (mlos)

Jonathan Ruiz (mouth kick ouch)

Stan Sultanov (stansult)

Ring Artwork

John Su (Bietol)

All Other Contributors Music (Artistry Entertainment)

Jeremy Soule

Julian Soule

Sound Effects (dSonic)

Kemal Amarasingham (Dsonicka)

Simon Amarasingham (Imur Ismon)

Liz Bailey

Michael Carter

Luke Gilbert

External Programming (Symblaze)

Jirka Petvaldsky

Petr Pravda

Stanislav Zorjan - Stasha

External Art Assets

Vykarian Studios

Additional Flash Engineering

Mark Rubin (Mr_Ubin) (Thanks, Mark, for all the help as we approached launch!)

Other Gaia Engineers

Tim Lopez (pangrammic)

Vince Rubino (smokeytheb)

Ernie Chan (Eazzy)

Nick Esquerra (ramoneguru)

Kathryn Koehler (8elly8eans)

Ania Kurek (ania1899)

Tom Lang (excitom)

Lawrence Lee (vryhngry) John Loehrer ([72])

Rich Martin (ariesboy571)

Filipe Medeiros (Fleep)

Edy Moreno (edy)

Jon New (Newtang) Charles Packer (chuckp2)

Dan Quinlivan (DARKNRGY)

Mark Ruiz (FFFFEEF)

Martial Tipsey (Narumi Misuhara)

Jennifer Tsai (fieryange1)

Xiaoming (stats god)

Operations

Rob Starkey

Matt Stancliff

Marketing

Rie Hirabaru

John Deyto

Chris Castagnetto

Kate Pietrelli (TriplePoint)

Melissa Rische

Executive Team

Derek Liu (lanzer)

Scott Kinzie

Prakash Ramamurthy

Craig Sherman

Special Thanks

A huge thank you to our fantastic zETA team, for being willing to be endlessly abandoned on the train with Frank, and for suffering through the dreaded 104 monsters. This game is better because of their patience. Also thank you to [ Peobody ] who was trapped in the Sewers for over a week, racking up 1147 gramster kills, 574 peelunger kills, and 54 trash can defeats...all while REFUSING to quit...before we finally had time to go help him get unstuck. Major perseverance! Adobe SmartFox Yuriy Abramov All of you that play zOMG!