Errrggghhh....
That story left me far more disturbed than most horror books/stories/movies/games.

Umm, Toho, Transhumanism?

(Shapeshifting is a cool goal :D)

I'd be miffed too. This universe should comply with our desires (as long as they comply with this universe's desires). You can only go so off-kilter with your desires or the universe seems at times to balk.

Shapeshifting would be cool. :D Although that was mostly a joke statement.

Transhumanism is an interesting concept. I'd be competely okay with being like Megaman. (Or Zero, like the gif in my sig.) :P

There are +'s and -'s to the whole thing.

And there are +s & -s to NOT doing that thing. :P As is the case with everything. Whether the tradeoff is worthwhile, however, is definitely a matter for debate.

I never said there wasn't

The reason why I don't support many such things (Movements, Philosophies, etc.) is primarily because people tend to ignore the minuses completely.

I personally don't think "tradeoff" (a packaged deal) is a good thing in many occasions. Rather than tradeoff, I'd say compromise and correct.

I just got back onto Gaia, and have to say... items are amazing, the prices? not so much.

Theres so much I'd like to have, but now being in the mils with gold is the new poor. I'm just... like... whut? ><

Batty your avatar makes me think of strawberry chocolate and I want some so bad right now -sadly noms on swiss roll-

What's amazing though is I distinctly remember an annoucement where they stated hiring people to help them moderate and plan for inflation on the market. It coincided with the cash shop. Probably immediate after or as it was started those couple years ago.

Gaia definitely didn't do a good job combating inflation.

Out of curiosity, I logged in to gaia, and clicked through my inventory some... I've got, like... hundreds of millions of gold worth of items, now. o.o Madness.

In pure gold, I have all of...what, 35k? I wasn't really active there anyhow, and quit about seven years ago. Though I do have a couple million gold in items.

O.o
How much time have you guys spent there?

I spent very little time on Gaia and even less time using Gaia as intended.

...then where did the "several million gold" in items come from?

Old items and inflation, Law.

That kind of inflation...
*Now wants to model Gaia inflation rate and compare it to actual countries*