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Immortal Fish - Barrett's Freezer

Q: In the aquarium analyzer I see some fish that will live for a very long time. How do they do that?

A: It's a glitch with Barrett's freezer.
When fish are stored in Barrett's freezer their date of death is SUPPOSED to be extended day for day for the amount of time they are in the freezer. So if a fish is supposed to die on May 5th and you put it in the freezer for 10 days when you take it out it should have a date of death of May 15th. (Original date of death plus the 10 days in suspended animation.)

There is currently a glitch that causes at least several kinds of fish to get hugely extended dates of death for relatively short stays in the freezer.

If you look at the date of death of my fish here:
http://absol.site88.net/gtools/glowTime.php?id=4072873
you will see some of my dolphins are not scheduled to die for about five years.

Many folks who know about this don't want to talk about it too much because they don't want Gaia admin to know about it. Gaia DOES know about it. People are asking Lanzr to fix it in the weekly 'Ask the Admin' (ADA) thread as well as posts about it in varous threads.

My point in telling you this is not to encourage you to take advantage of the glitch.
It is to caution against relying on it. When figuring out how to make your fish tank pay for itself plan on your fish dying near their orginal dates of death. If Gaia lets you keep some extra time that's a bonus but don't plan on it. That glitch will get fixed sooner or later.
(And yes, with good exposure you can make a tank of dolphins pay for itself in less than four months.)

Thanks for that information. It's useful to know!

It WAS a full moon not long ago but many of the glitches have been going on for months. I think it is closer to the mark to say Gaia is tight on cash and can not afford enough programmer hours to do all of the fixes and improvements they would like. As such they have to pick and choose and 'put out fires' and some glitches that are not as pressing get left for another day.

im sorry but can u tell me exactly how i can take advantage of this glitch plz. i loove my fishes and the longer they last the happier i will be .. ty

Evil Cookies,
I want to be very clear that I am NOT encouraging you to 'take advantage of this glitch'. That is against Gaia TOS. In fact the reason I wrote this article was to encourage people to not rely on it when figuring out how to make their fish pay for themselves. The extra life is something Gaia could take away at any time even to fish already affected by it.

Basically it just happens to some fish when they are stored in Barrett's freezer for a while (as noted in post 1). According to wyvere it also happens some times without the fish being in the freezer but I have not personally seen that or heard of it before today.

Well, Lanzr has said as much himself in at least one of the ask the admin Q&A's when referring to not having enough programmer time to fix everything and having to prioritize. I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of it.

Then there was the announcement that due to the economy Gaia was having to cancel most (all?) of its convention tours. I know there is another thread going on in the forums about what towns you would like to see them come to so I'm not sure where all that stands.

Personally I prefer people to back up stated facts with references. I looked for you but I apologize I am not finding the posts I am referring to and got tired of looking. I did find the following post by Lanzer referring to the tough economy in the Ask the Admin archive thread.

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-community-projects/asked-the-admin-answer-compilation/t.30840637_436/
We had a number of intern positions open in the past, though not right now. Later on next year we might have ones open. The tough economy does have an effect on hiring.


Even without those kind of public comments you can just look around Gaia and see signs of a company tightening its belt. It has been obvious for a while that art and programming projects that either directly generate cash (e.g. cash shop items, new fish) have taken priority over fixing many other glitches. I could list quite a few of them here for you but it would start sounding like a rant.

Yes, it would be nice to have an option to
Kill this fish?
Are you sure?
Are you REALLY sure? smile

They would have to fail safe it or stupid and/or unattentive people would kill their fish on accident then whine to admin for free replacements.

Something I would like to see even more is the ability to GIFT (not sell) used fish to other users. I have a number of fish in my freezer that I will probably never put back in but would really help out some newer Gaian trying to get his/her tank established. I know some folks would try to ask for a 'gift' in return but they could make that against the TOS. Also, since the fish could only be gifted - not trade or MP - it would make it obvious it is used.

A short update on my comments yesterday regarding Gaia canceling convention tours. They did cancel tours in 2009 due to budge constraints but 2010 is sounding encouraging. Here is a quote from DJ Helmsing from the 3/1 Ask The Admin thread:

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/Gaia Community Discussion/ask-the-admin-03-01-10/t.59109091_89/#89
DJ Helsing Developer
"were working hard here at gaia to get the convention tour finalized.
Were working on attending 14 different conventions this year which were all really excited about!
We'll be announcing the conventions and other associated information within the next few weeks. "