TinierMe VS Gaia

[-Elie-]

Mizuno Aoi

I'd like a little more understanding. As you may know mxI talked at TM's staff a fair bit. Sometimes they would talk back. rofl

But if I were to name, say, Alice Devries, Emma Persson, or Helen Clark, do you know who they are?

I can't honestly name ANY Gaia mods that I've interacted with. I didn't have the same disconnect with the TM staff that you all seem to of had.

i cant give you any names but i have sent in a few tickets... the replies were always prompt and very civil tho brief.

Please understand im not saying they were BAD. I'm saying they werent 'visible'. There was no face to the names besides Selfy. Of course if you chatted to them behind the scenes, sent in tickets and feedback then all the more power to you. But TM had no visible mods. There was no one to MM if you had problems. You had to send in a ticket like everyone else.  

[Mizuno Aoi]

-Elie-

i cant give you any names but i have sent in a few tickets... the replies were always prompt and very civil tho brief.

Please understand im not saying they were BAD. I'm saying they werent 'visible'. There was no face to the names besides Selfy. Of course if you chatted to them behind the scenes, sent in tickets and feedback then all the more power to you. But TM had no visible mods. There was no one to MM if you had problems. You had to send in a ticket like everyone else.

I take it you never saw Ylfa or Piyokko in the forums then? They were staff as well.  

[Elise Grimwald]

Staff/Management: Gaia seems to have the advantage when it comes to staff. They do listen to their users, tell their users what's going on (nowadays), and do reply to threads. They also address issues fairly quickly, and glitches don't last very long. Whereas I feel TinierMe had LOUSY staff. Well.. as of the last three months, anyway. They never told us anything, and stopped replying to us. sad . I know they used to post on the forums all the time, and were in towns.

Currencies:
They're really the same IMO. While Gaia does have the advantage of being able to buy cash items through the marketplace, the only way to get said gold is to either get lucky and win some rare item from a RIG or play the same game over and OVER again. D:. On TM, the same aforementioned 'rare' items are the tickets to getting anything worthwhile. Like they are here. Though at least the 'desirable' items were actually obtainable on TM. People didn't always set high prices for the same item (depending on how they felt about the item), whereas they do on Gaia. Prices are pretty much set in stone on Gaia, whereas on TM it depended on how the user valued it above all.

NPCs: Gaia definitely has better NPCs. The NPCs here have personalities, and stories. The TM ones were amusing, but not very interesting.

Events: I liked TM's events more, but only because they appeared a lot more often. They were also more fun to do. Gaia has nice events, but they can get tedious. I never felt that way about TM.

Items: I REALLY feel TM had better items. The items on TM were a lot cuter, and were better detailed. They also had a lot more items that were my style than Gaia does. Gaia does have SOME nice items (Old EI items fall into this category), but not nearly as many as TM. As for moots, I actually feel that Gaia has better items. A lot of TM's moots were(to me) pointless, and weren't really all that special. Gaia's moots are useful for the most part, and because they're released so seldom, they're really special too.

Closet:
Gaia's is a bit better because more items are laid out at once. But I do like how TM allowed folders for items.

Gachas V. RIGs: I prefer gachas, but only because it seemed easier to me to get what I wanted. With TMs gachas, only items from that specific gacha are options. On Gaia, old items are also possibilities. Which lowers the chance of getting what I want even more. At least with TM, I knew I was getting something from the gacha I was playing.

Games: Gaia definitely wins. I hated DokiDoki, I couldn't find time to play Old Maid, and I never got around to playinf Sevens. On Gaia, I can play Tiles, which is fun, ELF, put puzzles together, or play Booty Grab. They're more fun, IMO.

Forums: Gaia has better forums by FAR. We're allowed signatures here, there are a lot of subforums to post on, and we're not limited to a certain number of characters.

Alchemy: TM had a better alchemy system. I HATE Gaia's system. TM only required two items to merge together. While the result was random, it required a lot less time and money to get an item. While Gaia's resulting item from alchemy is guaranteed, the effort needed to get it makes the gamble seem more appealing. It probably still costs less money to fuse items than to get just one Gaia alchemy item. >_<;.

Diaries/Journals: They're the same to me.

Towns: I prefered Selfy Town. It was a lot easier to navigate, and expressions were easier to convey. Additionally, Selfies actually walk, and don't have their backgrounds trailing after them. The avatars here have awkward feet movements, and honestly, nice looking backgrounds look silly in towns. I don't know why those aren't removed in towns.

Guilds/Groups: Gaia has better groups. Extra forums are a possibility, moderaters can officially be appointed, and posts actually have a post count here. Pictures are also visible here, whereas they're not on TM.  

[-Elie-]

Mizuno Aoi

I take it you never saw Ylfa or Piyokko in the forums then? They were staff as well.

i'm sure i did but i never chatted with them personally. did they actually advertise that they were staff?

When I say "visible" on Gaia I meant like this:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/moderators/2/the-gd/
or
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-community-discussion//t.83258551/
And if you saw a mod in the forum you'd know immediately cuz of the colored names.

So on TM unless you were in on the secret or behind knew the scenes info... you sent in a ticket. I guess this system worked for some but it always irked me on TM. sweatdrop  

[Vyli]

Just to put in some input, no I never saw any TM staff in the forums, mostly because I lurked in the normal forums only recently (past year). I normally stayed within group forums tbh.

And when I said about tickets, I know they put their real name at the end of the ticket. I do recognize the names Alice, Emma and Helen (funny because I've only sent in 3 tickets ever, they each replied to 1 of the 3). But some of the messages didn't even answer my question and I knew were just an automated message. And I still have no idea which staff member (if they're actual members of the site, ex: Ylfa) are replying.

It seems a bit impersonal to me, Gaia staff at least have a face on the site and their own accounts and will interact both in professional and casual replies depending on circumstances. Maybe I'm not giving a fair chance to TM staff, since I've been on TM almost 3 years and Gaia 5 years. But I feel thats enough time to see both sides.  

[icabanana]

i rarely ever played on tinier me, but when i did i always loved putting together an outfit in the shops, even if there weren't as many items as on gaia. and from there, i would just play sevens and old maid for 2-3 hours to earn money and give up cuz i kept losing lol.
as someone stated before, i also like gaia more because you get to layer items and the npcs are interesting.
one thing i really didn't like about tinier me was, in the towns, although the art was really good, i just hated how slow the avatars walked =_=; and how laggy i got cuz of it >_>;  

[badtzmaru]

Il Corvo di Verona

I also think the ability to pose avatars or turn them around make them a little more versatile; I really like the "Scenic" avatars, like the ones you can see here (eheh, but you have to scroll down through the post a bit), though I've never tried to make one myself.

Oh my gosh, yeah!! I love the creative possibilities you can make with your avis! Existential Existence (I think that's his/her name?) makes the best scenic avis!! whee

-Elie-

Whereas TM won't even let users help moderate forums or groups. In fact users are explicitly told NOT to go around repeating rules, advice, or quote ticket replies in case other users mistakenly think those are real moderators. IMHO that is absolutely silly. If you cannot harness the free workforce of your users and encourage a positive and visible relationship with your members... you are missing out on a lot of free help.

Whoa, I didn't know that was a rule. xd But yeah, I always wondered how TM managed to moderate the whole site with such a small staff. I guess most of the people behind the scenes didn't have selfies themselves? confused And this is a specific complaint, but it really bothered me that we couldn't add mods to groups or change the admin. >n<

Vyli

I agree with pretty much everything badtzmaru and a lot of what everyone else said. On whole, Gaia feels a bit more friendly and nicer site.

Items: The items and animateds were so pretty on TM, that's one of the things I will miss a lot but Gaia also has a wider variety, I mean I couldn't dress up as a demonic sheep on TM now could I? (at least I don't think I could, not quite like this)

Gacha/RIGs: The only good thing about TM closing is that I will no longer be spending a crazy amount on the site. The Gacha system was kinda bad, but I still played it frequently. Compared to Gaia where I spend about $0-20 a month on. Much better imo. And I don't think Gaia is as money hungry as TM.

Staff/Management: I hated TMs non-existent staff (well especially now, I could ignore it before). They were pretty much just cardboard cut outs on their staff page, you wouldn't know who was responding to you in tickets and they were almost always a copy and pasted reply. I like Gaia's staff seem more like people, not robots.

Earning currencies: I feel like on Gaia everyone has a chance at nice items if they work for them on here. You never have to spend a dime on this site, but if you wanted nice things on TM prepare to spend money or be lucky, overpay, and/or trade hardcore.

Site Layout: I don't really know which I prefer, TMs is organized nicely, but Gaia switches theres quite often and are somewhat customizable (in labs), the header backgrounds are always cool. I wish we had the option to keeping a previous header. Maybe someday.

Games: I loved Sevens and DokiDoki HS. I got addicted to Sevens way back when. But TM is still very limited. Gaia is somewhat limited and they tend to give up on new features rather fast, but there's variety, and although not everyone likes it, I like zOMG when it was more populated. It's a hard game. Monster Galaxy is nice too.

Forums: Gaia wins hands down, customizable, more active, many topics, etc. Of course some topics are less populated. But overall the only thing TM had that was good was a community that pulled it's horrible forum system together.


I feel like I'm repeating some of what everyone else has said so I'll stop here for now.

I agree 100% with everything you say, too! xd We think very alike. eek

LadyEpita

Ok I am a newbie to both sites. So this is going to be interesting comparing the two.

I have to say it's easier to start in TM than Gaia. In TM the format of the site is easy to see and understand. They even show you a guide on how to do things on the site. Gaia has none of that! I had to poke around each page on Gaia to try to understand what to do.

Function has to go to TM as well. Everything is clean there are no glitches on that site. Gaia things are popping up and everything is cluttered. TM only seldomly has things pop up at you. Also there are lots of ideas Gaia implimented that never got finished like quests, daily reward (that thing is so messed up I don't use it), and item crafting in zOMG.

Ok one things I will admit I will miss the chat room system in TM. That was the best thing ever and I will miss my chibi pet! I had such fun with him!

Its nice to hear from someone who's new to both sites! surprised

Yeah, I just checked out the new Beginner's Guide in TM and it looks awesome. gonk Too bad all the effort was for nothing... Gaia should definitely make one of those, too! And yeah, I can see how Gaia seems cluttered because they have so many little features compared to TM and it's harder to organize everything into a simple layout. But I'm sure Gaia will improve on this with time--I hope soon since it bothers me a little, too! And the daily chance is getting a revamp! And it's coincidental how it's a gacha machine. emotion_awesome

I will miss my poor dirty Bochakin, too!! crying I don't know if I should bring him to life just to let him witness the end of SelfyWorld.

Mizuno Aoi

I'd like a little more understanding. As you may know I talked at TM's staff a fair bit. Sometimes they would talk back. rofl

But if I were to name, say, Alice Devries, Emma Persson, or Helen Clark, do you know who they are?

I can't honestly name ANY Gaia mods that I've interacted with. I didn't have the same disconnect with the TM staff that you all seem to of had.

Just like Vyli xd , I've only sent in tickets a few times because every time I did their replies were copy and paste text that didn't help or even answer my question. So I didn't even bother to read their names. xd I think if you initiated contact with staff at either site, the Gaia staff would be more prone to reply back and be more friendly and/or helpful.

For example, siskataya is an admin here who is super helpful and friendly--she's helped me out once before and chatted with me! 3nodding It seems like she's the one behind Gaia trying to reach out to the users for feedback, so I really like her! And though it's hard to get the admins to answer your questions in the Ask the Admin thread every week, I appreciate that they at least have it.

Elise Grimwald

Staff/Management: Gaia seems to have the advantage when it comes to staff. They do listen to their users, tell their users what's going on (nowadays), and do reply to threads. They also address issues fairly quickly, and glitches don't last very long. Whereas I feel TinierMe had LOUSY staff. Well.. as of the last three months, anyway. They never told us anything, and stopped replying to us. sad . I know they used to post on the forums all the time, and were in towns.

Towns: I prefered Selfy Town. It was a lot easier to navigate, and expressions were easier to convey. Additionally, Selfies actually walk, and don't have their backgrounds trailing after them. The avatars here have awkward feet movements, and honestly, nice looking backgrounds look silly in towns. I don't know why those aren't removed in towns.

Guilds/Groups: Gaia has better groups. Extra forums are a possibility, moderaters can officially be appointed, and posts actually have a post count here. Pictures are also visible here, whereas they're not on TM.

I didn't know the TM staff posted in the forums! surprised And I never got to catch a sponsor in SelfyTown, but I've seen screencaps. sad But yeah, I was really annoyed with the closing because their notice was so brief and I felt like they owed us an explanation. The fact that we have to hear about the reason for the closing through a sponsor just really says it all about their relationship with their users. I know the reason was money, but if they had explained with a little more detail I would've been more understanding. But oh well, what's done is done.

Yeah, it would be nice if Gaia removed backgrounds on avis in Towns. I kind of like our cartoon running animated feet in Gaia Towns, though. xd And it was really cool how we could animate our Selfy to express emotions. sad

I'm soo glad TM allowed HTML (however sucky it is) in the group threads. If they didn't, I wouldn't even have bothered with groups as I didn't with the forums. TM's forums were just so impractical that I didn't bother wasting time on there.

icabanana

one thing i really didn't like about tinier me was, in the towns, although the art was really good, i just hated how slow the avatars walked =_=; and how laggy i got cuz of it >_>;

Yess, I hated events that took place in SelfyTown because it was soo laggy. Like, sometimes before I had to go out somewhere I would try to claim my hourly event item in SelfyTown right before I headed out and I would literally be waiting like 5 minutes for the stupid NPC to gimme the item and then I'd be like... wtf am I doing, I'm late. classified_fu Seriously, those incidents were my biggest tests of patience. xd  

[LadyEpita]

badtzmaru

Don't bring him to life. I would hate to see my Pororo suffer the end. He is going to die before the end and I am going to let him. I don't want him to die alone in cyberspace. If your pet has already died by your side let him/her remember that moment and not the moment of the site being killed off.  

[Miss Hate]

Both have their goods and bads, to be honest