lensblog » Webcomics http://blog.lensbox.za.net a geek’s mark on the wired world while exploring media and gaming metaverses Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:46:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Sites to waste time on… Part 1 http://blog.lensbox.za.net/2007/11/01/sites-to-waste-time-on-part-1/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://blog.lensbox.za.net/2007/11/01/sites-to-waste-time-on-part-1/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:19:58 +0000 Tim http://www.lensbox.za.net/2007/11/01/sites-to-waste-time-on-part-1/ It seems that some sites are made simply as time-sinks. You wonder onto them by chance, sign up and before you know it, you’ve lost hours if not days of your life clicking through the site. This series will feature some of those time-sinks I’ve found over the years.

Gaia Online (Main Site)

Gaia Online Wikipedia Entry

How to best describe Gaia Online?

I think I can sum it up as an anime-themed forum turned web-based MMO.

Why an MMO?

  • You have a fairly customizable avatar (even from starting) and can continually kit this paper doll out as you play. You can initially customize the following:
    • Hair style and color
    • Eye style and color
    • Mouth style and size
    • Skin tone
    • Gender
  • You accept quests and receive rewards for completing them.
  • It has a virtual economy and marketplace.
  • It has events “in-game” and it’s own timeline.

Over and above that, it has, what has been called the web’s largest forum, with over a million posts made daily, over a billion posts in total and 2.5 million unique users per month (stats from Wikipedia).

It’s annoyingly cute at times but fun for those times when you just cannot be bothered to log into World of Warcraft or browse your usual websites (whatever those may be…)

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