So i've been enjoying the ToT. I honestly look forward to it coming back each year. It is a change of pace. Something to do that isn't just more battling. It allows me to see everyone's avatars, have small interactions with players I either recognize or do not know. Send newbies who look like they don't have anything duplicate avatar items to help them get started. Get potential ideas of new ways to combine avatar items that go together well. Do something nice for other players that doesn't have to cost me anything, something the rest of the game rather lacks.

Back in the beginning, Winterfest had it's own version of this. It was called Caroling, based upon the old timey tradition of going door to door to carol at peoples houses who would give you small treats as a show of good will. I really liked this feature, and that feature for some unknown reason went away, without really anything to replace it.

Now I know the reply is going to be that Winterfest has it's own 'thing' now, which is Snow Wars, added a year or two after Caroling was axed. However, Snow Wars is honestly not that fun.

It was really clearly slanted towards needing the bonus cards at higher levels, with the better drops being stashed there. It is repetitive. It had poor drop rates of anything that wasn't just play even more Snow Wars stuff. It also will forever be 'That feature we lost anything to do for an entire fest, just so it could be worked on'. To me. It leaves a permanent bad taste in my mouth from it's beginnings, because of that, because we waited an entire Winterfest with no new themes, items, etc in the zone, where we were told hey farm up Snow Wars items, it is going to be great, going to be great. And then it honestly was not great.

Given all the time that went into Snow Wars, I know it will be coming back. Not looking forward to it any, but it is what it is. But! Just because Snow Wars is coming back, doesn't really mean Caroling has to stay gone. Caroling could serve as a lovely alternative to being stuck playing Snow Wars. I don't even care if they both share the same drop pool (Actually that would be preferable since it would give us an alternative source of those items! People who like one can play one, and people who would rather the other, can do that.) Just please, I want something interesting to do for Winter that isn't Snow Wars. I could barely even stomach using up all my Snow Wars stuff the first year. I don't want to be stuck doing it again. =/

(I also want to note: I wasn't terrible at Snow Wars. This isn't an I didn't understand how to strategy post. This is an I found it intensely boring and the novelty wore off a lot faster than my tokens did post.)

Honestly. I am not sure what the status of Snow Wars is for the Festival. I am currently working on getting all of that figured out. I would like Snow Wars to stay - but it definitely had its share of issues and I will want to correct them prior to the start of the festival.

Carolling was actually 'replaced' with Stocking Stuffing, or supplemented with - but that is not as interactive of a feature as Trick or Treating and is not available for the full duration of the festival.

I don't really want to just clone Trick or Treating and change its name to "Holiday Carolling" - especially with both festivals basically back to back. We have actually been trying really hard over the past 2 years to make each festival unique with its own unique features so that players can get equally excited for that festival's specific feature to come back. Some festivals are definitely better than others and we are obviously still heavily working on finding niches for each one. The Fall Festival is by far the most flushed out. Spring is a good second. Summer actually worked pretty well with what we did this year but obviously still needs some work for next year. Winter is still looking for its identity lol.

All that said, I will try to think of ways to keep the community tightly knit and keep players interacting with each other throughout the festival through the available features.

Just wanted to respond to this b/c I'm sure by the time I'd naturally respond - it'd be too late for it to have any effect for the upcoming festival.

I understand wanting to make each fest have it's own identity on the long term, and I imagined that was why the removal of Caroling happened. (Though I had no idea Stocking Stuffing was supposed to replace it. I honestly hate Stocking Stuffing with a passion, lol. It makes Winterfest stressful to me because I can see there are gifts sitting there from who knows who, and then I feel bad knowing I don't know who that is, and can't gift them back because I don't know who they are because I cannot open it to see name tags or anything, and then I end up just feeling like a terrible person for Winter.)

But on the short term, I feel like Winter is really lacking for interactive activities, too. It has the Advent, but that is great and fun but also very quick to do, you just click and done. The suggestion for Caroling to return would definitely be more of a temporary suggestion rather than a long term solution. I would like to see Winter get its own things going that make it feel more like its own, but right now yeah, I look forward to Fall fest all year, and Spring is a good second with the egg maze. Winter just doesn't have that feel yet and I don't think it hurts to borrow some of Falls polished-ness til it can get up on it's own feet. ;)

I would love to see a community geared game for Winter. Maybe something like building up blocks of ice towards making ice castles or something together. And you can form teams and everyone who participates gets some credit, some form of RNG goodies, and then there is a prize of some sort when you finish a castle. But I don't think you have time to really put something new into this Winterfest probably.

(Time being of the essence is why I Ping'd the suggestion as well.)