Lina's posts

@FUZZY: Mostly I stream the Sims and Stardew Valley. I did Sun Haven for a while, but it's a little too similar to Stardew I think, so I'm taking a break while I focus on Stardew because it had a big update. I've done Dreamlight Valley and Animal Crossing, but I kind of fizzled out on those and lost interest. >.<
Mostly I play 'cozy' games, but I do want to get Skyrim maybe. I loved playing Morrowind with my sister. Although I tend towards cozy, I have an insatiable hunger for violence. >:D

I love coloring! I have a million coloring books. Also, I made my own and sell it on Amazon because they have the self publishing, print to order thing. It's mandalas, and I'm pretty proud of myself for actually completing a project. I have another one but I'm stuck like 1/4 of the way through because I wanted it to be 50 pages.

I have items I want to trade! Maybe I should make a list and we can try to get a thread going and see if anyone else is interested. I don't have anything from like the last 2 years though, because that was my hiatus. >.<

Amazing art as always!

@Qiqi Agatha: I went to gaia just to see if any of my old friends were there. Then I started posting.
I'm posting a lot now, I really miss being on ana active forum, I just didn't realize it.
I'm also drawing again, which I didn't do for like a year or 2.

One of my favorite things it the monthly and orb items are already colored, and you have to be creative to mix and match items. And use commons. Syndrone had a dyeing system that allowed you to change any item's colors instantly; but I felt so much less creative then.

@FUZZY: When I was younger I was so into pixeling. I did pixel art for years and years, transitioning to other digital art was so weird. And now I haven't done pixel shading in so long I don't think I even remember how. XD

@Qiqi Agatha: I didn't get along with my dad growing up, but some years after moving out I started visiting for lunch every Friday and he was a lonely retired man who really loved having someone to talk to every week. So I pretty much won best child after that. Also I don't disagree with him when he says something political, I just nod along and ignore it.

Thank you! I started an art shop on Gaia. I've been hanging there hoping to run into old friends. None yet though.

@Qiqi Agatha: So glad she's doing a little better!
I'm moving back in with my parents actually. My mom is only like 65, but my dad is nearing 80 and has some trouble around the house. SO when I said I wanted to move back, they invited me to join them. I'll be back in my old bedroom, but we've become friends over the years so I'm actually pretty excited.

I would love to see another shade of gray.

However, I'm not sure how doable adding a new color at this point is. They're have to recolor every common that's in every shop, which is a lot of items at this point.

And every monthly item and orb item that's been released over the years will be kinda obviously missing that color. Like, they could add the color to the common shops, but hundreds of the limited items will be missing that color forever and it might be weird. If only they'd added it in the first year or so... maybe if there's a resurgence on the site and they can hire an extra artist to do all the work..

I believe Caedon has been closed for a while now...
CV01 made a post fairly recently and we were discussing which sites are closed and open still.
Voltra has slowed down, but is still open. I think the newer one that's mostly pets is still going.. dapervolk? something like that... Looks like Windlyn Online is open but slow. I think that's it

@Dubstep: It's been a bit dead around here lately. If you go to the forum main page you can see "Active Topics" and I definitely recommend just jumping into anything that's had a post in like the last week and trying to get a conversation started. Sometimes it just takes 2 or 3 people to get it started and then suddenly it's 20.

I used to want to make my own site too! But I can't do coding or art really, so I'm not sure what I would even offer, lol. I think it would be fun to design though! I loved the early Voltra days brainstorming lore and stuff!

I'm constantly sad that so many of them have closed.

When Kasheena (Caedon original owner) left and was going to start a new website, I remember being so excited because it was going to be like dark Wonderland themed and I was hopeful it would be like Syn, But that was like 10 years ago... so I feel like it's not happening... lol

I would love to join a new one.
I'm not sure they're popular with young people these days though. I think a lot of the audience is older now. I'm not sure if that means they need to change styles to fit a younger audience, or instead lean into the older theme.

I logged onto gaia to see if any old friends are still there, and noticed they have a lot of ads. And at first I was annoyed, but they haven't closed yet.. So I feel like if having ads helps a site stay open, I wouldn't mind them. If they had other ways to get revenue to stay open (aside from selling items) like video ads or whatever for site currency that would be good to help them hopefully stay alive and help get users who can't spend money on the site to make real money currency still. Stuff like that I think is good to engage younger people who don't have spending money.

I do think the style of the website has some affect on how popular it is. The good ones have a lot of lore/world building with npcs and a general theme. And I feel like some themes are more successful than others. Like Ernya was sort of soft/cute fantasy and did really well until the ownership fell apart. Syndrone was dark and cyber punk kinda themed, and again was really successful until ownership fell apart. Where as, Caedon was more futuristic/steampunk themed and kinda fizzled out over time. It needs to have a general theme that attracts people without narrowing the items down too much.

Having a solid set of item colors is pretty important too. Gaia is endlessly annoying because every item just makes up a new color or shade, so nothing really matches. And it's so frustrating! So a specific set of palettes for the artists is super important.

There was also at once point 3 sister sites that were technically all different owners and everything, but they agreed to promote each other and had a few events that crossed together. (I think they decided they were alternate realities of each other) as a way to get members onto all the sites. I really liked that because often avatar people are on multiple sites. I think overall it helps more than it hurts, even through you might have some people divide their budget between sites.

If anyone is actually considering starting an avatar forum, please make sure you write up legal documents!! For the owners and any staff, even volunteers. There are too many instances of the owners starting as friends and things fall apart and the site goes under. Put it in writing!! Also, if anyone is planning to start one and has more specific questions, I was staff here, Caedon, Syndrone and briefly at Virtual Popstar.. and I might be able to answer some things. (not coding tho) Best of luck!

Bubblegum is one of my favorites on here. But honestly, it's a great collection of colors in general. There's a part of me that wants like 200 colors, but It's lot easier to have commons and design items with just a solid color set. And I don't feel like we're missing anything, so I think they did really well.

@Qiqi Agatha: Don't apologize for taking time replying. I'm moving soon and I've been spending my free time packing lately, so I've also been slow. Plus, life always comes first. I hope your grandmother feels better!

There's way too much AI lately. There's a new google ai that tries to answer what I google, and it's so far off what I'm even searching. I'm like, please no...