Gaia Online: A Different Way to Role Play on the Internet

Anyone who frequents the internet has heard of a little (or not so little) thing called World of Warcraft. While this popular massive-multiplayer online role-playing game has millions of people addicted to an interactive fantasy world, many others are seeking a more simplistic approach to the digital world. Gaia online is a role-playing website that allows its users to customize their own personal avatars. Although not quite a game, this site still has many aspects that make it similar to a game: buying different clothes and items for avatars, buying a house and designing it, guilds, and a forum. Many people consider Gaia different things, but my personal take on it is that it's a forum-based role-playing site. By posting in the forums, personal blogs (each user has his or her own), voting on avatars, and playing some of the mini games, users are able to earn gold. In a sense, Gaia has a little of everything, and can almost be thought of as a comparable to MySpace, because it allows its users to network with one another. Friends aren't too hard to find as long as people are friendly with one another and somewhat conversational. It's not too hard to find people with similar interests, or who live in a nearby location, since Gaia has actually spread to many parts of the United States, and parts of other countries as well.

Guilds allow users to find others with similar interests. Entering into an already flourishing guild can be a little bit intimidating, since users are already familiar with one another and sometimes even refer to each other by their first names. To really get acquainted with a guild, the best way is to fully immerse yourself in the guild, and just start posting as though you were there from the beginning. Obviously, if you don't know the topic of discussion, it's a little bit harder, but in an active guild, there are often many topics to post in. There are even games within guilds. They're not the games that people typically think of when they hear of online games. They're all in text, which means no flash. Many guilds have a little section for various word games, featuring games like Word Association (where users just list off the first word that comes to mind upon reading the previous poster's word) and True or False (where users answer the previous poster's question with "true" or "false" and then asking the next poster a question.)

Since Gaia has such a large crowd, one would expect them to ask for donations to help support their site. Nope! Gaia offers certain items each month in the form of a Monthly Collectible. The items first appear as letters, and on the 15th of each month, the contents of the letter are revealed, and users can choose between two items. Surprisingly, the cost of these collectibles is only $2.50 in U.S. Dollars, and often, to make gold, users will buy an abundance of these collectibles and sell them in the Marketplace. Since the items are sold exclusively for the month they are released, certain items have inflation, because they are still desired by much of the Gaian community. Many of the items can be purchased with less than 100,000 Gaia gold. However, there are some items that have reached insanely high prices, such as the items from 2003, when Gaia first started. These items range anywhere from almost 3,000,000 gold to 350,000,000 gold. Although it's not too hard to make money on Gaia, it definitely takes a lot of work to save up for any of these items.

I do not think that Gaia can completely be compared to a game like World of Warcraft, but in the world wide web, this site certainly provides hours of entertainment and can become addicting for those who wish to socialize or reach their quest goals.

The site can be accessed at www.gaiaonline.com