Virtual World- GaiaOnline =)

Alright, so this is the virtual world I've decided to write about. GaiaOnline, which started up in 2003 is one of the largest forum based communities out there and a new member can get eaisly overwhelmed. Ha ha. I myself joined in March of 2004 so as you can see I've been a member for awhile. The art of gaia is based on manga and anime but you don't need to be a fan to enjoy the site, in fact I've ran into a few people who don't even like anime.
When you first join Gaia you make an avatar with whatever items they have available for newbies, if you don't like your avatar you can pay gold to change it's hair, clothes, race, and now even it's skin color. I have to admit a lot of the newbie items do suck, but it's not that hard to earn gold.
Gold is earned by a number of activties: posting in the forums, voting on polls in the forms, visting the arenas, browsing, posting comments on peoples' profiles and games. You might be able to get donations but don't beg to people because it's highly frowned upon. If you're fairly active your gold will build as long as you don't blow it all quickly like I do. Do you have any skills? If you can draw, or use CSS code your at an advantadge when it comes to earing gold. Gaia members will pay a lot of gold for art and profiles if you're skilled enough. The market place, where you buy and sell different items also allows you to make gold.
As I mentioned previously having skills in CSS code can benifit you. Besides providing you a way to earn gold you can make a cool profile for yourself that stands out from the rest. Don't worry though if you don't know CSS, you can go to TekTek to get a nice profile for yourself, just don't be suprised if you see someone else with the same profile.
On Gaia you can also join guilds, which is basically a mini-forum that units those of a common interest. Most Guilds are free but some do you require a gold fee, this is up to the owner's disgression. If you want to you can even make your own guild, this costs 20,000 gold though. If you do join and are interested in art check out AIG(Art Institute of Gaia) , which I'm a member and Co-Captian of. That's about it. =)