Website Review: GaiaOnline.com

Gaia Online is an anime themed web community with many features, including the ability to create your own chibi alter ego. Like other communities, Gaia contains a few annoying and frustrating quirks that hinder the overall experience. The question is does the good outweigh the bad? You will just have to read on if you want to find out.

Layout
Since Gaia Online has an anime theme, its overall layout looks very cartoony/childish. Upon visiting the site you are bombarded by pastel colors with Chibi characters abound. In certain areas the presentation seems somewhat excessive, due to the amount of content to be discovered with in the site.

The main section of the site contains 151 forums, not counting the community run Guild section which may contain more. With such a large and active community, Gaia does a good job with satisfying ones needs when it comes to subject matter. Whether would want to talk about sports, Technology, politics or anything else, Gaia Online has a section for it.

Content
Gaia Online provides its users with an assortment of activity in and out of the forum area.

• The Avatar System lets you dress up a chibi anime character with many different items. To buy items you can earn gold by posting in the forum, or just exploring the community. You can either buy said items from one of the many shops, trade them in the forums or buy them from other users in the market place. Avatar Arena is a place for others to judge your toon alter egos fashion sense.

• Barton Town is the Role Playing section in the forum. You can participate in Original text based adventures thought up by members of the community. Content ranges from romance, S&M(must not exceed PG-13), combat and exploration.

• Art Arena allows you to display your creative side. You receive ratings based on the quality of your work. often tips and encouragement are given from other users.

• Gaia towns is a essentially a virtual chat room. You navigate your avatar around the vast Gaia Online neighborhood, interacting with other members in the process. What is interesting about this feature is the housing system. After you buy and furnish a home, users can then explore it via Gaia Towns or you can submit it to the House Arena.

• The Games Section of Gaia Online contains a good selection of flash content. Gaia Cards and Gaia Slots are basic casino style games, Only the gold you win is transferred to your account to buy items. Gaia fishing provides a good challenge with an assortment of rods to master and different fishing locations. There are currently a total of five games, four of which allow you to chat with users while playing.

Atmosphere
Gaia Online's Community contains is a mixed bag of people. Like other Online communities, you will come in contact with jerks as well as the helpful. It seems he good out number the bad as there are friendly discussions in every section. On occasion I have seen threads with questionable content(porn for example). The staff usually does a good job with deleting such things with in minutes

The Question and Answer forum is a wealth of information. It should be considered the Gaia handbook for members old and new. Experienced users are always around to help fellow forum goers. Need help with image code for your signature, or you are not sure which forum to post a specific topic? There are people willing to provide you with help.

Server
During special themed events the Site often slows to a crawl. Due to excessive high traffic the site receives, It becomes difficult to do anything during an event. This is really the only time things are at all sluggish on Gaia. The simplest tasks become time consuming for a three day period(or however long the event may last).

Conclusion
Amongst the pastel colors and cheery layout, lies an assortment of different activities to be discovered. While very active, This community sometimes decreases in speed because of its success. Gaia Online is an entertaining web community with many activities to keep you from boredom.