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Hello!
I just wanted to touch base with everyone about this year's Ghoulish Gala!
As some of you may have noticed last year, I struggled quite a bit to get the old Trick or Treat system up and running. This was largely due to suddenly finding myself as the site's coder (as outlined in a later news post). At the time, I was trying to untangle years of old code and get it working without the understanding of the site's structure that I have now. That meant I was debugging, fixing, and overhauling the system on the fly just to get the event functional.
It definitely wasn't the ideal way to approach things, but my priority was making sure everyone still had a event to enjoy. In the process, I ended up rebuilding much of the Trick or Treat system behind the scenes while keeping the overall concept and feel of the event the same.
Now that things have settled down, I have a much better understanding of how the site works and is structured. That leaves me with a choice for this year's event, and rather than decide on my own, I'd like your input.
I still have the original Trick or Treat system, and with what I've learned over the past year, I could restore it to work much as it did before.
At the same time, I know the newer system introduced several improvements that many users enjoyed.
Rather than assume which version everyone prefers, I'd like to ask now while there's still plenty of time before October. That gives me enough time to repair, polish, and test whichever direction the community would like to see, instead of trying to make major changes at the last minute.
So, what would you like to see this year?
Vote in the poll below, and if you have ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them in the comments!
If you vote for a merge of the two systems, please let me know which features you liked from each version so I can work toward combining the best parts of both.
Thank you, and I look forward to hearing what everyone thinks!
Posted by Kandria
(#111) on Fri Jul 17, 2026 4:51pm
- Sandy
(#50007)
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Posted on: Fri Jul 17, 2026 6:00pm
I don't really have a preference, since I spend most of my ToTing time with the NPCs. It's just easier for me not to have to worry about having my candy taken :P
I think it would be ok either way. You ALWAYS work so hard to make things fun for us, and I really appreciate your efforts!
- csgardener
(#12852)
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Posted on: Fri Jul 17, 2026 6:04pm
While the start of last year was rough, once you got it to behave I liked the new system.
- Tae
(#66637)
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Posted on: Fri Jul 17, 2026 6:59pm
I always liked the old system better myself
- LaLa
(#565)
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Posted on: Fri Jul 17, 2026 7:23pm
Honestly, last Ghoulish Gala I spent most of my time in the red. I could never get that dialed in I was playing catch up the whole time and when karma was red the NPC characters weren't very generous with candy so i'm going to say Id prefer the old system, if im going to be red, I want it because I was tricking people not because an npc made me that way which was done so many times to me last year.
- AkainuHathen
(#64712)
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Posted on: Fri Jul 17, 2026 10:48pm
I had no idea it was even messing up I was just trying to get pets that dropped and as much candy as possible. In my opinion I'd say whichever is easier on you, after all as long as we even have an event I won't complain lol. Working beside developers/coders you get to see how hard making a game and events even work is.
- Sunny
(#41814)
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Posted on: Sat Jul 18, 2026 2:02am
I chose "other" because I actually have no clue of the differences of the old system vs the new system, to be honest.
- I do know that I disliked gathering the herbs in either of the two systems.
- I love using the NPCs for getting candy.
- I don't enjoy the karma thing on either system because I do not understand how to maintain the positive karma and when it goes negative, it makes me feel bad because that's not who I am.
- Adventuring for the other currency sucked on both systems because the drop rate was so... odd. If I'm going to be grinding Adventure locations, then I'd like to feel like I'm making progress which I never feel happens. I realize gotta keep it rare enough to not make the seasonal shop items and pets be super easy to get, but at the same time... I think it could be tweaked a bit.
- My favorite event of the Ghoulish Gala is definitely the Cauldron one, but it saddens me that there's barely any to offer in, unlike the years when I first began playing. (This one is for artists, not for the coding stuff, tho).
- Finally, the Pumpkin Event... Fantastic way to delight in "catching" something cool if people feel super generous. I bet there's several collectors who are looking forward to this event to nab all the stuff that most of us don't want nor need!!! Like - one person's trash is another person's treasure! :D I feel, tho, that something could be tweaked here, but I have no idea what or how, tho.
Uh, if I come up wtih more thoughts, I will make another comment! :) Maybe one of the later comments will spark thoughts.
All in all, I think you did a wonderful job last year, given that you basically were thrown into the deepest part of the ocean and forced to swim through wild obstacles to find land again. I enjoyed last year's event big time. I also enjoyed 2024's, too. So I think it's safe to say that whatever you come up wtih or do, or whatever - for this year's Ghoulish Gala - I'm gonna love it. :)
- smokeykit
(#32113)
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Posted on: Sat Jul 18, 2026 10:04am
No matter the system, I never understood the Karma part of the game. Everything else did make sense to me to a point - in real life you had people stealing others' candy even though it was wrong. Other than that, I had fun on both systems. I also don't know what the "new" parts were compared to the "old" parts so I can't help there. Whichever works the best, even if you finally merge some of the old parts into the new system, I'm game. Thank you for the update! =^-^=
- Ahn Woon
(#47)
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Posted on: Sat Jul 18, 2026 11:27am
Trick or treating stresses me out because I'll be adventuring, not know people are at my door since it doesn't update on that page, but I appear active in the "Who's Online" and I just don't get back to them in time. I prefer Love Letters since that can be done whenever I check in. I do think there is plenty going on during Halloween, so whatever is easiest for you, do that!
- Sunny
(#41814)
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Posted on: Sat Jul 18, 2026 4:12pm
What smokeykit said: never understood the karma system - same here - I never could figure out what made it go either way.
What Ahn Woon said: ToT stressing out cos don't really get back in time - thank you for putting that in words - that's exactly how I feel, too. It gets so frustrating because I am either adventuring or I have other things going on and cant' be on Aywas 24/7, basically. I'd love a fix to that aspect somehow...
Posted on: Fri Jul 17, 2026 5:17pm
I'm going to be entirely honest, I was not a fan of how things worked last year
I understand it was a bit of a hassle for reasons already mentioned, but the new system felt like a complete mess to me. It kept breaking, I didn't understand the point of how Ghost Poops were supposed to function, and the reworking of karma was aggravating. TOTing the NPCs was just as bad, if not worse because everyone functioned strangely in ways I still can't figure out, and combined with how confusing the new system was just for TOTing other users, it all made for one very bad experience. It just was not fun to interact with -- and in my opinion, not worth interacting with either
Safe to say I'd very much prefer the old system be brought back. I don't think I could bother with TOT if the new system is used, it's just awful and not fun at all
- Eddie