Site-wide Events
Gaia holds various special events throughout the year - some are yearly, regular holiday events, while some are and Gaia-specific events which may or may not be run yearly. In the past, these have included: April Fools, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day, GaiaOnline's Site Anniversary, yearly Summer festivities, and the Gaian Prom. During the majority of events, users take part in site-wide mini-games and tasks, such as carol-singing during Christmas events by visiting NPC-owned stores to eventually collect commemorative Christmas items. The 2009 Halloween event saw the introduction of the Aquarium Overseer in his human form along with his nemesis, Sentinel. During the event, users were to ally themselves with either The Overseer or Sentinel, and perform certain tasks in order combat the opposing side. Events such as these can determine storyline outcomes.
Guilds
Users can form guilds, which are clubs specially devoted to certain topics. These include hangout guilds, role playing guilds and guilds for various discussion topics. In previous years, guilds were simply run using a thread in the Guilds forum, however Gaia later expanded on this, allowing users to create private forums for guilds. Joining a guild can depend on the guidelines set by a guild leader and their crew - some may require a payment to join, others are completely free, while some may be invitation-only. The guild leader and crew are also responsible for moderating threads within their guild. Guilds cost 20,000 gold to create, and additional sub-forums may be purchased.
Gaia Houses
Users are able to own their own Gaia House situated in Gaia Towns. Houses are available in 3 different styles: Round, Square, or Long. To purchase a house is free, however future changes to the style of the house costs 500 gold. Users are also able to relocate their home to a different Town postcode at a cost of 1000 gold. A range of decorative furniture items can be bought from the NPC-run store, "The Faktori", such as include floor and wall tiles, tables, chairs, lamps, among others. Rare housing items can be found in Enchanted Wooden Trunks and Enchanted Golden Trunks randomly found floating across site pages.
Gaia Cars
On June 18, 2007,[16] Gaia Online and Scion announced a partnership that allowed users to create a virtual Scion with customizable wheels, decals, fog lights, tail lights, and spoilers.[17][18] Other car choices available were the fictional Possum and Musculero. The Scion tC, Scion xD, UFO and Kiki Car (which is available only with Cash)[19] were later released, bringing the total to seven possible cars to choose from. Users can own up to 3 cars, which are stored in their Garage. Parts and decals for cars (such as paint color and antenna ornaments), as well as car bases, can be purchased from the NPC-run store, "Sam's Body and Parts". Cars are used as part of the Rally game available on the website.
Gaia Aquarium
Users can maintain fish and other creatures in Gaia Aquariums. Fish and tank accessories can be purchased only with Gaia Cash from the NPC-run store, "Phin Phang". At certain times, the fish inside a tank will "glow", enabling the Booty Grab mini-game. Aquarium item bundles (which include various fish and tank items) can be purchased from the main Cash shop, "La Victoire".
Arenas
There are four main arenas on Gaia Online: Housing, Art, Avatar and Writing - with some of these arenas have subcategories. Members can vote in the arenas and comment on art, avatars, houses or written works which have been submitted by other users. Entering the Avatar Arena costs 1,000 Gold and rewards up to 50,000 gold for winners. Entries to the Writing Arena costs 100 Gold. Entering the Art and Housing Arena is free, and no prizes are awarded.
Sponsor Quests
The Gaia Quest system grants users items for performing certain tasks. Although previously quests for doing tasks around the website (similar to Gaia's current Achievement system), quests on the site are now for promotional purposes, granting items related to a featured movie, video game, or series for watching trailers or advertisements. Movies, video games, and other products that are promoted by the Gaia Quest system include Gracie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Golden Compass, Nancy Drew,[18] The Last Mimzy,[20] The Spiderwick Chronicles, Kung Fu Panda, Bee Movie, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, You Don't Mess With The Zohan, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, The Sims 3, Sonic and the Black Knight, Harry Potter, August Underground's Mordum, PopStar Guitar, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, among many others. Anime series and TV shows have also been promoted, such as Naruto, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, and The Hills. There are a few for games such as "Dragon Quest Swords" and the "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja". There are also some quests for advertisement such as the new Crazy Cores Skittles.
Achievements
Achievements are tasks that can be performed around the site. Completion of Achievements grants users Achievement Points, some which additionally grant users gold. There are a variety of different Achievements that can be obtained - tasks to gain these can include posting in a thread, changing one's equipped avatar items (or equipping specific items), selling an item in Marketplace, among many others.
Games
Gaia Online currently offers a number of Flash games, and users can win different items or gold from these games. These games comprise of 10% to 15% of total site activity.[4]
zOMG!!
zOMG!! is a browser-based MMORPG on Gaia where users are able to battle monsters and participate in RPG-style quests. The game utilizes special rings to activate abilities, such as throwing fireballs or conjuring up a defense. zOMG! was made public and open to beta testing in November 2008, and since then a number of updates have been made to the rings and flow of the game.[21][22]
Monster Galaxy
Monster Galaxy is a Facebook application located in the Game category created by Gaia Online. Appearing November 13th 2010, the app is inspired by the popular franchise Pokémon and various other creature catching series. The creatures in the game are Gaia World related, seen from various item releases such as Chance Items, Evolving Items, and creatures original to the game or have yet not seen on Gaia Online. As of now its in the Beta, and is free to test by anyone willing to give it a try.
Mini-Games
There are various mini games which can be played to earn gold and items. Gold is the most common pay out for playing these games, but occasionally, players can earn an item by reaching a high score or completing a special condition. Puzzles have at times yielded items, but very rarely. Other games offer tickets with can be used to purchase items in the shop called Prize & Joy. The items purchased in Prize & Joy can only be bought with tickets, though the same items can be found in the market place for a significantly higher gold price. Tickets are often sold on the market place for a low to high gold price making the cost with tickets for ticket only items almost the same as for gold.
Gold Lotto
Gold Lotto, like the name suggests is a lottery ran on Gaia that offers players the change to win a gold jackpot by purchasing lottery tickets with gold. Tickets cost 100 Gold each and require the selection of 5 numbers. Matching all of the numbers gives players the majority of the jackpot where matching 3 or 4 will give players a smaller payout. Players can purchase Power Picks with Gaia Cash from the Cash Shop. Power Picks guarantee two winning numbers for each ticket. If the numbers are not guessed the Jackpot rolls over to the next day.
Gaia Fishing
In Gaia Fishing, users fish on the banks of various lakes in the Gaian world and may catch anything from different species of fish to garbage. The fish and trash can be sold on the Marketplace or back to the fishing store, or alternatively be exchanged for fish-shaped hats and other accessories. The gold received is based on the rarity of the fish or item.
Rally
Users are able to create their own Gaia Cars which can be used to race with other users in Gaia Rally. When racing, users are able to "drive" their cars on a simple track in which numerous obstacles appear.
Cards & Slots
Gaia Cards and Gaia Slots are two Casino-themed games. In essence, Cards is a game of Blackjack while Slots is simply a slot machine game. To play these games, users must first purchase Tokens from the Ticket Booth at Gold Mountain Casino. Tokens are also a regular prize from the Daily Chance, and can also be bought and sold on Marketplace. Users receive Tickets from playing Cards or Slots, which can be traded for exclusive prizes at the Ticket store, "Prize and Joy".
Booty Grab
Booty Grab is a mini-game available when a user's Aquarium fish are "glowing". In the game, the glowing fish swim around at the top of the screen dropping coins, while the user holds a Overseer shell at the bottom of the screen and moves left and right to catch as many coins as possible. Various power-ups and power-downs can be collected during the game, such as time extension/deduction, increase/decrease speed, increase/decrease coin value (coin multiplier), and increase/decrease shell size. The value of coins dropped vary depending on the fish, as some fish drop coins that are worth more than normal coins. Coins of a higher value appear with a red, green, or blue glowing outline.
Tiles
Tiles is a mini game in which players must clear out a board of tiles by making tile chains, clearing out tiles yields a payout of tickets. In order to make a chain players much connect card that have a similar background or foreground character, tiles can be mixed in various ways as long as at either the foreground or background match. The in game side bar will show how long the chains must be in order to count as a completed chain, as well as how many chains are needed to complete the level. If the chain is too short a fire tile will be dropped, for every move after that the fire card will burn through another card until the burning card reaches the bottom, at which point the game is over. Once players have completed the level, the players will have the option to continue to the next level by putting their tickets won on the line or they can leave, keeping their current winnings.
Word Bump
In Word Bump players win gold by matching various tiles. The tiles have letters in them and can be chained together to make words. The object is to get the golden tiles to the top of the board, before the reach the bottom and disappear. If the tiles fall too low the game will end. Besides the main gold tiles that spell the object word, the other tiles are red, blue and yellow. The game is won by successfully “bumping” the golden tiles to the top of the board. Another row of tiles is added after a small amount of time, giving players only a few seconds to make words. By completing words in yellow, red or blue, players are awarded with power for the power up gauge. The power up gauge consists of 3 clear orbs which fill with color as a word is completed in either red, blue, or yellow. If players successfully fill an orb, they are given on of the following power ups:
Jigsaw
Players choose from various Gaia related images, once an image has been selected it is broken up into various pieces. The number of pieces the images is broken up into is dependent upon which difficulty has been selected (Easy has 30, Normal 70, Hard 120 and insane has 300 tiny pieces). The harder difficulties yield more gold and a higher chance of obtaining items. Other factors in the reward ammout are the number of times played in a day and the longer the time to complete a puzzle.
Electric Love Faktori
The object of the game is to connect similar colored ends to complete circuit section, the circuit sections have to connect to circuit ends (which look like blue volts in random placement at the edges of the circuit board). In order to gain power ups from within the game players must complete a circuit with the at least part of the complete circuit passing through a “?” (Power ups can also be obtained via the market place). Power ups can be any one of the following:
* Removing red volts that obstruct the path.
* Freezing the power meter for several seconds.
* Doubling the score of the next completed circuit.
The game has three difficulty options: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Depending on the difficulty chosen red volts appear more often and make the completion of circuits more difficult. Also added to other difficulties is a more mixed up color selection for the colored ends making connections much more difficult to make. It is important to note that higher difficulties yield more gold. There is an option to "reset circuits" if a puzzle is to difficult, doing so removes 10 percent of the power meter. Once the power meter reaches zero the game is over, the power meter can be replenished by small amounts upon completion of circuits. Bigger circuit completion yields a bigger replenishment to the meter.
Pinball
In this game players play pinball that is themed after various events and characters in the Gaia world. Barton town is the main focus of the game, but many other areas and characters are present. Among the items on the pinball table are:
Grunnies: hit these to increase the field multiplier. Players must knock all three Grunnies out in order to move the multiplier up.
Gambino’s Mansion: destroying and rebuilding the mansion gives players gold to spend in the Barton Boutique. The gold can only be used to buy power ups from within the game.
Von Helson Mansion: every time players rebuild the Gambino Mansion they will see that one of the letters to the word “GAIA”, in the center of the pinball machine, will turn green. When all letters are green the Von Helson Mansion will appear. Players must hit the ball into the form door of the Von Helson Mansion to play with in the mansion. Once inside the mansion players will need to try to spell the words VON HELSON, in order to spell the words, players must strike the individual letters with the pinball. Completing this task yields a high point pay out.
Gaia holds various special events throughout the year - some are yearly, regular holiday events, while some are and Gaia-specific events which may or may not be run yearly. In the past, these have included: April Fools, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day, GaiaOnline's Site Anniversary, yearly Summer festivities, and the Gaian Prom. During the majority of events, users take part in site-wide mini-games and tasks, such as carol-singing during Christmas events by visiting NPC-owned stores to eventually collect commemorative Christmas items. The 2009 Halloween event saw the introduction of the Aquarium Overseer in his human form along with his nemesis, Sentinel. During the event, users were to ally themselves with either The Overseer or Sentinel, and perform certain tasks in order combat the opposing side. Events such as these can determine storyline outcomes.
Guilds
Users can form guilds, which are clubs specially devoted to certain topics. These include hangout guilds, role playing guilds and guilds for various discussion topics. In previous years, guilds were simply run using a thread in the Guilds forum, however Gaia later expanded on this, allowing users to create private forums for guilds. Joining a guild can depend on the guidelines set by a guild leader and their crew - some may require a payment to join, others are completely free, while some may be invitation-only. The guild leader and crew are also responsible for moderating threads within their guild. Guilds cost 20,000 gold to create, and additional sub-forums may be purchased.
Gaia Houses
Users are able to own their own Gaia House situated in Gaia Towns. Houses are available in 3 different styles: Round, Square, or Long. To purchase a house is free, however future changes to the style of the house costs 500 gold. Users are also able to relocate their home to a different Town postcode at a cost of 1000 gold. A range of decorative furniture items can be bought from the NPC-run store, "The Faktori", such as include floor and wall tiles, tables, chairs, lamps, among others. Rare housing items can be found in Enchanted Wooden Trunks and Enchanted Golden Trunks randomly found floating across site pages.
Gaia Cars
On June 18, 2007,[16] Gaia Online and Scion announced a partnership that allowed users to create a virtual Scion with customizable wheels, decals, fog lights, tail lights, and spoilers.[17][18] Other car choices available were the fictional Possum and Musculero. The Scion tC, Scion xD, UFO and Kiki Car (which is available only with Cash)[19] were later released, bringing the total to seven possible cars to choose from. Users can own up to 3 cars, which are stored in their Garage. Parts and decals for cars (such as paint color and antenna ornaments), as well as car bases, can be purchased from the NPC-run store, "Sam's Body and Parts". Cars are used as part of the Rally game available on the website.
Gaia Aquarium
Users can maintain fish and other creatures in Gaia Aquariums. Fish and tank accessories can be purchased only with Gaia Cash from the NPC-run store, "Phin Phang". At certain times, the fish inside a tank will "glow", enabling the Booty Grab mini-game. Aquarium item bundles (which include various fish and tank items) can be purchased from the main Cash shop, "La Victoire".
Arenas
There are four main arenas on Gaia Online: Housing, Art, Avatar and Writing - with some of these arenas have subcategories. Members can vote in the arenas and comment on art, avatars, houses or written works which have been submitted by other users. Entering the Avatar Arena costs 1,000 Gold and rewards up to 50,000 gold for winners. Entries to the Writing Arena costs 100 Gold. Entering the Art and Housing Arena is free, and no prizes are awarded.
Sponsor Quests
The Gaia Quest system grants users items for performing certain tasks. Although previously quests for doing tasks around the website (similar to Gaia's current Achievement system), quests on the site are now for promotional purposes, granting items related to a featured movie, video game, or series for watching trailers or advertisements. Movies, video games, and other products that are promoted by the Gaia Quest system include Gracie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Golden Compass, Nancy Drew,[18] The Last Mimzy,[20] The Spiderwick Chronicles, Kung Fu Panda, Bee Movie, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, You Don't Mess With The Zohan, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, The Sims 3, Sonic and the Black Knight, Harry Potter, August Underground's Mordum, PopStar Guitar, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, among many others. Anime series and TV shows have also been promoted, such as Naruto, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, and The Hills. There are a few for games such as "Dragon Quest Swords" and the "Naruto: Ultimate Ninja". There are also some quests for advertisement such as the new Crazy Cores Skittles.
Achievements
Achievements are tasks that can be performed around the site. Completion of Achievements grants users Achievement Points, some which additionally grant users gold. There are a variety of different Achievements that can be obtained - tasks to gain these can include posting in a thread, changing one's equipped avatar items (or equipping specific items), selling an item in Marketplace, among many others.
Games
Gaia Online currently offers a number of Flash games, and users can win different items or gold from these games. These games comprise of 10% to 15% of total site activity.[4]
zOMG!!
zOMG!! is a browser-based MMORPG on Gaia where users are able to battle monsters and participate in RPG-style quests. The game utilizes special rings to activate abilities, such as throwing fireballs or conjuring up a defense. zOMG! was made public and open to beta testing in November 2008, and since then a number of updates have been made to the rings and flow of the game.[21][22]
Monster Galaxy
Monster Galaxy is a Facebook application located in the Game category created by Gaia Online. Appearing November 13th 2010, the app is inspired by the popular franchise Pokémon and various other creature catching series. The creatures in the game are Gaia World related, seen from various item releases such as Chance Items, Evolving Items, and creatures original to the game or have yet not seen on Gaia Online. As of now its in the Beta, and is free to test by anyone willing to give it a try.
Mini-Games
There are various mini games which can be played to earn gold and items. Gold is the most common pay out for playing these games, but occasionally, players can earn an item by reaching a high score or completing a special condition. Puzzles have at times yielded items, but very rarely. Other games offer tickets with can be used to purchase items in the shop called Prize & Joy. The items purchased in Prize & Joy can only be bought with tickets, though the same items can be found in the market place for a significantly higher gold price. Tickets are often sold on the market place for a low to high gold price making the cost with tickets for ticket only items almost the same as for gold.
Gold Lotto
Gold Lotto, like the name suggests is a lottery ran on Gaia that offers players the change to win a gold jackpot by purchasing lottery tickets with gold. Tickets cost 100 Gold each and require the selection of 5 numbers. Matching all of the numbers gives players the majority of the jackpot where matching 3 or 4 will give players a smaller payout. Players can purchase Power Picks with Gaia Cash from the Cash Shop. Power Picks guarantee two winning numbers for each ticket. If the numbers are not guessed the Jackpot rolls over to the next day.
Gaia Fishing
In Gaia Fishing, users fish on the banks of various lakes in the Gaian world and may catch anything from different species of fish to garbage. The fish and trash can be sold on the Marketplace or back to the fishing store, or alternatively be exchanged for fish-shaped hats and other accessories. The gold received is based on the rarity of the fish or item.
Rally
Users are able to create their own Gaia Cars which can be used to race with other users in Gaia Rally. When racing, users are able to "drive" their cars on a simple track in which numerous obstacles appear.
Cards & Slots
Gaia Cards and Gaia Slots are two Casino-themed games. In essence, Cards is a game of Blackjack while Slots is simply a slot machine game. To play these games, users must first purchase Tokens from the Ticket Booth at Gold Mountain Casino. Tokens are also a regular prize from the Daily Chance, and can also be bought and sold on Marketplace. Users receive Tickets from playing Cards or Slots, which can be traded for exclusive prizes at the Ticket store, "Prize and Joy".
Booty Grab
Booty Grab is a mini-game available when a user's Aquarium fish are "glowing". In the game, the glowing fish swim around at the top of the screen dropping coins, while the user holds a Overseer shell at the bottom of the screen and moves left and right to catch as many coins as possible. Various power-ups and power-downs can be collected during the game, such as time extension/deduction, increase/decrease speed, increase/decrease coin value (coin multiplier), and increase/decrease shell size. The value of coins dropped vary depending on the fish, as some fish drop coins that are worth more than normal coins. Coins of a higher value appear with a red, green, or blue glowing outline.
Tiles
Tiles is a mini game in which players must clear out a board of tiles by making tile chains, clearing out tiles yields a payout of tickets. In order to make a chain players much connect card that have a similar background or foreground character, tiles can be mixed in various ways as long as at either the foreground or background match. The in game side bar will show how long the chains must be in order to count as a completed chain, as well as how many chains are needed to complete the level. If the chain is too short a fire tile will be dropped, for every move after that the fire card will burn through another card until the burning card reaches the bottom, at which point the game is over. Once players have completed the level, the players will have the option to continue to the next level by putting their tickets won on the line or they can leave, keeping their current winnings.
Word Bump
In Word Bump players win gold by matching various tiles. The tiles have letters in them and can be chained together to make words. The object is to get the golden tiles to the top of the board, before the reach the bottom and disappear. If the tiles fall too low the game will end. Besides the main gold tiles that spell the object word, the other tiles are red, blue and yellow. The game is won by successfully “bumping” the golden tiles to the top of the board. Another row of tiles is added after a small amount of time, giving players only a few seconds to make words. By completing words in yellow, red or blue, players are awarded with power for the power up gauge. The power up gauge consists of 3 clear orbs which fill with color as a word is completed in either red, blue, or yellow. If players successfully fill an orb, they are given on of the following power ups:
Jigsaw
Players choose from various Gaia related images, once an image has been selected it is broken up into various pieces. The number of pieces the images is broken up into is dependent upon which difficulty has been selected (Easy has 30, Normal 70, Hard 120 and insane has 300 tiny pieces). The harder difficulties yield more gold and a higher chance of obtaining items. Other factors in the reward ammout are the number of times played in a day and the longer the time to complete a puzzle.
Electric Love Faktori
The object of the game is to connect similar colored ends to complete circuit section, the circuit sections have to connect to circuit ends (which look like blue volts in random placement at the edges of the circuit board). In order to gain power ups from within the game players must complete a circuit with the at least part of the complete circuit passing through a “?” (Power ups can also be obtained via the market place). Power ups can be any one of the following:
* Removing red volts that obstruct the path.
* Freezing the power meter for several seconds.
* Doubling the score of the next completed circuit.
The game has three difficulty options: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Depending on the difficulty chosen red volts appear more often and make the completion of circuits more difficult. Also added to other difficulties is a more mixed up color selection for the colored ends making connections much more difficult to make. It is important to note that higher difficulties yield more gold. There is an option to "reset circuits" if a puzzle is to difficult, doing so removes 10 percent of the power meter. Once the power meter reaches zero the game is over, the power meter can be replenished by small amounts upon completion of circuits. Bigger circuit completion yields a bigger replenishment to the meter.
Pinball
In this game players play pinball that is themed after various events and characters in the Gaia world. Barton town is the main focus of the game, but many other areas and characters are present. Among the items on the pinball table are:
Grunnies: hit these to increase the field multiplier. Players must knock all three Grunnies out in order to move the multiplier up.
Gambino’s Mansion: destroying and rebuilding the mansion gives players gold to spend in the Barton Boutique. The gold can only be used to buy power ups from within the game.
Von Helson Mansion: every time players rebuild the Gambino Mansion they will see that one of the letters to the word “GAIA”, in the center of the pinball machine, will turn green. When all letters are green the Von Helson Mansion will appear. Players must hit the ball into the form door of the Von Helson Mansion to play with in the mansion. Once inside the mansion players will need to try to spell the words VON HELSON, in order to spell the words, players must strike the individual letters with the pinball. Completing this task yields a high point pay out.
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