pirula
Next update: Shop outsides ..... coming NOW!
The idea for this feature initially came out of some of your feedback:
- the icon navigation within the shop page is too small and easily missed
- the shops feel too much like a web page and not enough like a shop
We hit the drawing board to come up with a great way to show the shop in the world, and also make a really easy and clear navigation between the different shops.
The result is we are updating the Shop landing page (this page) to show the 'street view' of the shop and have a big directory of all the shops.
Notes & responses:
- this is not a flash page, it is all images. you will not be able to move around or chat in front of the stores, but on the flip side, everyone should be able to load the page and use it!
- the people will be random people who have recently shopped at that store (not showing what you bought, or even your name, to protect privacy)
- Payment history & Order history are now in your Account Settings under MyGaia
- The only thing we changed about Marketplace is to standardize the CSS with the rest of the site (this means something to technical folks). Some colors and fonts changed, and the buttons changed to tabs. This was less work than trying to make it look like its old self on the new page.
- New users only see avatar clothing shops. They do not see the car shop until they have a car, not see the house shop until they have a house, etc. This is to help them understand that the main reason you shop is to dress up your avatar; everything else is bonus features. Its not about creating exclusivity, just not overwhelming people until they have a chance to explore the site a bit. more details here
feedback on this feature starts here
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previous updates:
- Background colors + NPC art & dialogue *user-suggested working on others (Barton Jewelers & Skin tyte will be next). probably wont be as extensively changed as any of the initial shops.
- organizing shop items *user-suggested
- link to sell on the market from your inventory *user-suggested
- transparent png images (so the NPCs will look less pixeley) *user-suggested
- show tickets instead of gold when you are in Prize & Joy thanks for pointing out this bug!
- be able to sell back famestar 'you lost' item thanks for pointing out this bug!
- trash button to get rid of the stuff you can't sell back! *user-suggested
Top User Sugggestions We will try to do 1-2 of these things in each release. no guarantees that we will be able to do all of them, even though they are good ideas.
- for shop feel: have shelves, NPC's have expressions/moods, Show your avatar in the shop (in the header instead of having a town background), show NPC avatar, have more decorations and border on the page that reflect the shop personality
- have larger shop icons for navigation, larger nav bar
- for preview: unequip other items, preview skin, preview different poses, reverse view, kneel, try on more than one item at a time, different backgrounds for different shops
- put cash shop in the same template as other shops (probably can't do this until we have previews for multi-pose items in the current shops)
- sell back/trash more than one item at a time
- shopping cart (buy more than one item at a time)
- sort by color
- search
- sell male & female items (do not limit to avatar gender - include strong warnings though)
- some kind of inventory security feature to protect from hacking (export item list?)
- update tabs: teal in Salon
- have the sort option stay once you choose it (if you choose 'show newest' then it will always show newest until you change it)
These are the recent changes Gaia made and "maybe" plan to make. For most users, this is a hassle because the drop downs no longer provide all the options they had before they made this update. Making navigation around the site even slower.
For me, I've already noticed things not working correctly. The "Shop Directory" isn't outside the shops. You have to go in to see a list of the stores.
The trades shortcut in the drop downs is gone and can only be accessed through the shops/marketplace pages in the top right corner. Which means you have to take a detour and it will be confusing for new users. The list of shops under the drop down is gone, meaning you have to go to two extra pages, just to get to the shop you want. (until they fix the directory, then it will only be one).
Post here and discuss about these changes and how they are affecting you. Also please post anything else I've missed with this change.
