Gaia Online

Gaia Online (formerly known as Go-Gaia) is a online forum and games site founded on February 18, 2003 by Derek Liu (Gaia username Lanzer), Josh Gainsbrugh (username L0cke), Long Vo (username VO) Ling and a team of their friends, Studio XD artists, and programmers/web designers. The site currently revolves around its forum, avatars, and in-game currency, but is expanding to include features such as games (slots, cards, and fishing), Gaia towns and homes, and the Marketplace. Note that Gaia Online is a heavily modified PhpBB software.

Gaia's forum is the largest forum-based community on the internet, with over 440 million posts (plus over 350 million in storage), over 3 million registered users, and an average of 20,000 or more people online at any given time during the day. The most users ever online numbered 49,162 on Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:44 pm.

On Gaia Online, each user can create their own virtual character (or avatar) and customize it through clothing and accessories located in virtual shops throughout the site. The customizations begin 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 in the galleries (there are three galleries: art, avatar, and homes), answering polls, and more. Almost everything done on the site can earn a user gold, which can be used to buy clothing and accessories, which a user can in turn use to customize their avatar.

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, Random Events, and Items
Gaia gold is the currency of Gaia Online forums site. It can be earned by posting on the forums. 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 and butterfly wings, or halos. New hairstyles unavalible to starting users can be purchased at the Salon. The "better" or "rarer" items cost more gold. Many new items such as different plushies, instruments, and weapons are rumored to be in planning.

The option of donating to Gaia is also available. For every $2.50 one donates, one receives a "Sealed Envelope". Around the 25th of every month the letter will open, revealing a "Thank You Letter" for that month. This letter, when opened, allows choice of two new items available only to those who donated. Users can sell the "sealed letters, "Thank You Letters," or "donation items" for gold to other players or keep them if they prefer. Some rare donation items that have been released in the past include a Halo (the first donation item), DJ/portable headphones, a devil tail, an angelic sash, an angelic/nightmare scarf, and the OMG and AFK hats . Due to the limited amount of them and the increase in users, these items tend to rise in value rather quickly. The administrators of the site have promised that these items will never be mass re-released on Gaia. However, through recent conventions, administrators give users who show up a chance to spin a wheel which offers a small chance of receiving an old donation, rares, uncommons or a store item.

In the forums, a user has a slim chance of randomly receiving a rare event such as a pink link, pink box, blue box, or trunk. These give the user either gold or rare/uncommon items, such as the face veil or gas mask. In addition, Gaia also holds events for Easter, April Fool's Day, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. Sometimes, an "event item" is given, which becomes rare over time, and increases in value. These items, as well as the rare donation items, have become a status symbol. Other user-run events are often run during the year, such as a Summer carnival that was held on June 19 and a ball held in October. Events like these have no administrator interaction, and are completely run by a user.

Gaian NPC Characters' Storyline
The Gaia storyline, revolving characters created by (and roleplayed by) Gaia's staff members, has progressed already to some extent. Characters include the shopkeepers of Gaia's item stores, a reporter who covers plot "news" as it develops, and figures who only appear on holidays (such as the Easter bunny).
 * The First Gaian Anniversary Ball - Johnny K. Gambino was first introduced as the 'most powerful man on Gaia', alongside his son Gino Gambino. The two hosted a celebration of the site's first anniversary. Attendees got a first-look at the inside of Gambino's Mansion. Several shopkeepers from around Gaia were present as well, including Ian & Rufus, Ruby, and Sasha. Guests that ran into Gambino while at the ball were given gold in incriments of 1,000 pieces each time! (February 18 2004)
 * The Second Annual Gaian Ball - At this user-organized event, Gino appeared and introduced G-Pins by giving them out to users who attended the ball. These items play a significant part in the future. Gino warns the receivers of the pins to be quiet about the gifts, as he was not supposed to be giving them out. (March 5 2004)
 * Gaia Olympics 2004 - Johnny K. Gambino hosted the first annual Gaia Olympics. From each town, two NPC's were chosen to participate in the competition, which was a race from Isle De Gambino to Durem, and back again.
 * Introduction of G CORP - The mysterious organization known as G CORP, the world's largest manufacturer of biological medicines and advanced technology.
 * Halloween 2004 - Before Halloween, a strange individual known only as 'Labtech X' appeared in the Marketplace selling strange vials of a green, unknown liquid. Users, noting the strangeness of this, rushed to purchase the vials from the NPC. Users were left in suspense until Halloween, when Gambino opened up his mansion to host the event.
 * Christmas 2004 - This is when Gambino was first seen after the explosion of the mansion (see above). During this time, his journal was showing his adventures around Gaia looking for his lost son, Gino. On the map, you could go and click on Gambino, and wish him good luck. For this he would thank you. In the end, Gino saved his father when Gambino was about to throw himself into Durem's reclamation facility, but it turned out that Gino did not remember who his father was. Also, before Christmas, users could sing carols to nine NPCs in their various shops in order to earn presents from them. The presents could not be opened until Christmas.
 * The Second Gaian Anniversary Ball - The Von Helson Sisters, Anna Corinne and Marie, made their first appearance. The "Two Most Powerful Women in Gaia" hosted the party at their Durem mansion. Various NPCs showed up, and Gaia Anniversary Balloons and Hats were handed out. The sisters also handed out two-part V Pins, but rarely.
 * Gambino VS Von Helsons - Gambino appeared at the base of his blown-up mansion, asking for donations to bring it back. Then the "mansion" became a tower.
 * Easter 2005 - The Von Helson sisters hosted the Easter party at their mansion. Inside the mansion were hidden Easter Eggs, eight of which could be traded in for a basket from a cybernetic Easter Bunny (called the Easter Rab-BOT by some) holding either a Bunny Mask or a Chick Mask.
 * April Fools 2005 - As Gambino continued his maniacal power trip on top of his tower, Gino connected the crazed evil exhibited by Gambino with the father he had known, regaining his memory.
 * Gino Returns - Part 1 - Sasha and Ian's store speechbubbles changed to include references to each other a short while before the event, and a manga was released in sections that detailed the beginning stages of this plot update.
 * Gino Returns - Part 2 - Recent story events included a manga with it, this happened again on October 11. The story takes place immediatally after the last manga on August 5, just as Ian walks in where Gino is sleeping, holding a kitchen knife.
 * Halloween Bash 2k5 - The halloween event essently brought the site to its knees with to many users accessing it at once. Bucho invited everybody to the mansion for a halloween party. The event was ended 6 hours early so the Trick-or-Treating event could be fixed to handle the high number of users that would be on Gaia.
 * Gino's Sacrifice - The Grunnies escaped from the laboratory in the basement of the infamous Gambino mansion... Is this yet again the work of the mysterious and dangerous G-corp? They began to run and wreck havoc throughout the mansion. By infecting people and turning them into one of the 4 stages of the Grunny zombie. Here we go again...
 * Jack VS Santa Claus - Part 1 - Shortly after the events of what would be known as Halloween Santa Claus made an announcement. He expressed his anger towards the season of Halloween.
 * Introduction of S Corp - A mysterious new guild popped up in the GGN, run by NPCs. It is a similar to G Corp, led by Mrs. Claus and populated by the journals of ElfTechs.
 * Jack VS Santa Claus - Part 2 - While S CORP was blowing up, Jack came back to Barton's Fountain to announce his plans for next year's Halloween. He was inturrupted by Santa, who apparantly was fused to the Gift Transport Mech Suit (GTMS), an upgraded version of the mecha Jack had destroyed.
 * The Masque Interview - In a surprise announcement, the masked hero known as The Masque agreed to a quick interview with Cindy from GAIA 9 Action News.
 * New Years Ball - In this event we seen Sasha meet The Masque who then revealed his identity as the previously thought dead Gino. Ian was arrested for burning down Gino's Mansion by the never before seen Gaia Police. This was the first manga update to place real users in the background with several GCD'ers featured.
 * The Trial of Ian - Is Ian really responsible for the event that almost killed Gino Gambino? After weeks of arguments and theories, the real trial was started. You are invited to witness Ian's trial. Should Ian stay as one of the original NPC's of Gaia? Or should he rot in jail as Gino steals Sasha's heart away? Was left up to the users in a poll.
 * Valentine's Festivites 2006 - Why not send a hug or a kiss to someone today? This is the first Valentines Day event happen at Gaia.
 * The Gaia Anniversary Ball 2k6 - An event to celebrate Gaia Online's three years. NPCs dished out pink, yellow and blue G Shades to the guests and the G Buckle. Gino Gambino frequently searches for Sasha the whole time and Logan tells fish stories. There were many threads in which people could bump and dance chat, and several users gave away items like Coco and Kiki Kitties, Fairy Wings, and gold in celebration of Gaia's birthday. It was a day of glitches, in which some users' avatars were switched around, such as the body being enlarged and certain parts cut off, or an avatar with items and hairstyles the user did not have.

More info on the Events, see GCD.

Controversy and Criticisms
Main Article: Criticisms of Gaia Online

Events such as "naked avatar glitches" and a third party survey have caused some controversy over the respectability of the administrators with the Gaian public. The removal of the Flash option for browsingthe site caused a another controversy since not every browser supports all the HTML features used.