Gaia Online

If you like anime, digital illustration/art, video games, and/or dolls but have never visited Gaia Online, I would suggest you to explore it. This networking site is designed as an RPG, without the leveling or the monster killing. Instead, it focuses on dressing up your avatar. Plus, it’s free! I’ll give a quick rundown of this cute site so you get a feeling of how it works.

1. Create Your Avatar

Create your name. Be aware that once you create your character’s appearance, you cannot alter the eyes or the hair without additional gold. Your character’s mouth can be adjusted accordingly to your mood. Here’s my avatar (after being here for over a year):

2. Earn Gold

You can earn gold several ways on this site:

• Exploring - everytime you click to explore the site, you will get a small amount of gold. Note - gold distribution is based on the server’s time, so you can only get 1-4 gold every one or two minutes.
• Posting - this is an incentive to get you to be active and participate in their forums or art arena (which will be explained below)

3. Activities

So what is there to do at this site?

• Network - Users can send messages to each other. Forums exist for community participation. Instant chat is available, but players must be in Towns (explained below) in order to use it.
• Games - there are an assortment of mini-games (not tied directly to the site) such as Word Bump, Jigsaw, Rally, etc. There are also gambling games like Slots and Cards, although I’ve never played them to know how they work.
• Fishing - This is a cute game because it’s dependent on the type of fishing pole you have, the grade of your bait, and where and when you fish. The rewards are fish-themed apparel such as:
  
  The catch (ha ha) is that you need a large amount of combinations of fish, so this is surely a time sink. But it’s a cute way to spend your time. Since fishing opens its own browser window, you can still click around the links of the main site every couple of minutes to earn some money, might as well.
• Towns - A more interactive way of communicating with other players. You can run around, see other people who are also in town, chat with them, enter houses, etc. Here, you can utilize the emoticons to add a level of anime cuteness and flavor. Some examples:
  
  
  Towns is also the location of 3 mini-games, Trash, Bugs, and Flowers.
  • Trash is a collection quest where you walk around town looking for paper trash to pick up. I know it sounds silly, but the point is to collect hundreds of assorted types of crumpled paper that you can later exchange for head wear, depending on the color. Here are some examples:
    
  • Bugs is another questing game where you walk around town looking for bugs to catch. In the end, you exchange the bugs for colored inks which can then be used to dye stuff you own or make tattoos for your avatar.
  • Flowers, collect flowers in town. Might as well collect trash and bugs while you’re at it. In the end, the flowers can be used to create bouquets but for a lot of gold. The rewards for this are not as straightforward.

Also, when you’re wandering in town, you can click on trees and shrubbery and sometimes they will drop money. You can earn money in Towns in conjunction to surfing the main site on the side.

• Art Arena - if you draw, you can upload your work here and have people vote on how much they like it on a scale of 1-10. It’s an easy way to interact with the artist community for feedback. Top 10 artists and drawings are displayed in a separate section on the page.
• Questing - Often, certain companies will work with Gaia Online to customize a quest relating to what they’re advertising. As an example, some movies will have quests where you go to the Gaia Cinema to watch a preview in exchange for a movie-related accessory as a reward. Or, some anime companies may exhibit their site and reward you with the anime-related accessory if you fill out the quiz correctly (as proof that you’ve read the site). The quests themselves provide an interesting way of marketing in the Gaia Online world.
• Cinema movies - You can watch old streaming movies here such as House on Haunted Hill (from the 50s), Shaolin Temple, Night of the Living Dead, etc. The charming factor here is that your avatar can sit in the movie seats, point lazers at the screen, throw popcorn or tomatoes or fireballs, etc. If your crowd is being disruptive with their visual goodies, you can turn off the effects and watch the movies in peace.
  

4. Daily Chance

Every night at midnight PST, the Daily Chance is reset, and everybody can have their daily surprises. It looks like this in the upper left corner:

Gifts can include a random amount of gold, tokens, accessories, clothing, quest items (such as crumpled paper, bugs, and flowers), etc. It’s fun to log in after midnight just to see what items you can get. I’ve gotten a mantis head, chicken head, nurse’s cap, doctor’s stethoscope, some shirts, dresses, shoes, etc. and immediately play dress-up doll depending on how I feel.

5. Special Items

• Monthly collectibles - offered once a month and never repeats. You buy this with real money, and due to its rarity, is expected to resell for a lot of gold as more time passes by. These collectibles make your avatar stand out in unique ways. Here are some examples:
  
• Holiday goodies - When there’s a holiday, most likely there are holiday accessories you can get through questing, such as a Santa hat, or chick/bunny hat for Easter. It depends on the holiday, and on the day of, they will explain to you how to obtain these festive rewards.

6. Shops & Market

You can spend the gold that you’ve earned at several of the NPC-run stores on the site. As long as you have the gold, the shops can give you new hair styles, clothes, household items, and other entertaining goodies. There is the preview ability, so you can try it on your avatar before you buy.

The Marketplace is where you can sell/auction/buy items for your avatar. Before you buy an item from an NPC, you should visit this place to see if someone else is selling it for cheaper than the store. When you buy an item from a user, it will tell you how much it costs in the store, so be careful lest someone try to rip you off. You can also try to sell your items here.

7. Invite your friends

The more the merrier! Plus you get gold for spreading the word. Gaia Online is free, so you should check it out yourself.