Lights On Lights Off Fanclub

[Stargazingwithbees]

Well technically it would be doable though. Because it's not like you have to respond on the exact day that you get it.
Example you have Tuesdays with lights on only, you have a full 7 days to do your treats.
Imo if you have time to send out your trick or treater, you have time to answer them.. Its not fair to be treated without treating..

[musicgurl333]

Well technically it would be doable though. Because it's not like you have to respond on the exact day that you get it.
Example you have Tuesdays with lights on only, you have a full 7 days to do your treats.
Imo if you have time to send out your trick or treater, you have time to answer them.. Its not fair to be treated without treating..

Yeah, but some people aren’t able to play that much, and even once a week might be too much for them. That’s especially true early in the month when things are most active.

I agree that some people definitely don’t play fair, and get lots of gifts without ever turning on their lights. But I’ve played many years, and they seem to be a small minority. I think that any new rules to combat this would end up discouraging players because of the additional hassle. The player list is already way smaller than in past years. I think the best solution is to just trick those you see who appear to be gaming the system.

[Celozon]

You all bring up good points, and really just the way I see it is, LOLO is just supposed to be fun game that you play if and when you have the time. And if you only have time to turn your lights on once or twice the whole time thats fine! I don't want to set expectations for users, its for fun and if its fun for you, you're welcome to play. I suppose the best way to put it is it runs on the honor system, and we expect users to take it upon themselves to make sure they turn their lights on sometimes if they are also sending out ToTs. I just don't want the punishment of those people to end up interfering with honest players.

I'll def continue to think it over and consider any suggestions of course.

[LissaJo]

games that require people to gift are against the rules - we are lucky that we are allowed LOLO & SS (it is a minor issue in SS as well - there are always a few who do not gift but usually they are ones who go inactive so the giver can cancel and gift to someone else)

ultimately, there is no way to enforce people gifting if we want to be allowed to play

i was late to join this year, but in years past, the funness stops when you realize there are people being greedy - i used to allow daily visits and stopped because of the people who visited me 31 times but i NEVER caught them with their lights on

edit: I had a total of 103 people i did NOT visit (I only joined/played Oct 30/31)
I sent a total of 123 trick or treats (idk how many responses ive gotten, some were repeat visits)
I had 50 trick or treaters & sent out 50 treats (my lights were on always from the minute i got accepted/so 36-ish hours?)

[Keir;]

I have to agree that requiring and enforcing that people turn on their lights is just not feasible.

If we required everyone to turn in sheets of who they visited as well as who visited them, that would add a lot of extra work for both the players and the mods. Along with what others have mentioned about some people not wanting to keep track of who visits them due to the extra time that takes, people keeping their lists in places that are no easily sharable, etc. There's also the issue that the sheets would mostly rely on an honor system, unless we were to actually cross check all of them to make sure they match up (and that is really just not doable.) And.. I just don't really see much of a reason to even bother with making people fill out sheets, and then collect them at the end, if it's still just gonna be an honor system like we already have. It would just be a lot of extra work for everyone with no real results.

And the suggestion of making people pick a specific day or two of the week to leave their lights on all day is overall just not a good idea imo. If something like that were to be implemented I would simply stop playing altogether, because I know I wouldn't be able to do that both due of my schedule (or lack thereof) as well as my own (unpredictable at best) mental health. What works for someone one week might not work the next, not everyone has "normal" work schedules where they have the same days off each week. Plus, there's just the general unpredictableness of real life to take into account. (I personally wasn't able to have my lights on very much this year due to two completely unpredictable and unrelated family emergencies, both of which ended with close family members in the ER - one at the very beginning of the month, and another just last week.)

LOLO is meant to be fun, not stressful. Allowing people to turn their lights on whenever they have both the time and mental energy to receive and reply to messages, and turn them off when they're busy or just not feeling up to it, is a big part in making sure the game stays fun for people rather than becoming another stressor. At the beginning of the game especially, you can get absolutely flooded with messages if you leave your lights on (especially for those of us toward the top of the player list lol). Getting that many messages all at once, on top of the proposition of not being allowed to turn your lights off for an entire day (even if that's not the very first day), would be extremely stressful to a lot of people.

I actually make the conscious choice every year to leave my lights off for the first few days for that exact reason. And I personally only turn my lights on when I'm currently online and able to reply to messages right away, because coming back to a pile of messages would just upset me and stress me out. I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm not the only one who feels that way. Also, while this obviously isn't an issue for most people - with me being a thread mod for LOLO, if I were to get a pile up of messages it would greatly increase the chance of me overlooking an important message (questions, rule breakers, people fixing their forms, etc.) because it was mixed in with a bunch of regular trick-or-treat ones.

Yeah, it sucks that some people take advantage of the game to just take without ever giving anything. But I've yet to see a suggestion that would allow us to easily and realistically prevent it, that doesn't come at the expense of the regular, honest players (and mods). It's also worth noting that it is only a small minority that do that, the vast majority of players do play fairly. That being said, if we could figure out a way to ensure everyone's playing fair that also wouldn't cause problems for everyone else, I would of course be all for that. I've just yet to see such a suggestion.

I think it's also important to note that even if we did require people to turn their lights on... there's still no way to make sure that actually give out treats. They could just trick everyone who visits them, if they felt inclined to do so. And as per CS rules, we can't require people to give out gifts.

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tl;dr - Enforcing a rule requiring people to turn on their lights is just not feasible. Having people keep track of both who they visit and who visits them, and then collecting those at the end, would be a lot of extra work players and mods alike. There would also be no way to realistically cross check all the sheets, so they would work on an honor system as well ... which is what we already have, so there's no point imo. And making people pick a specific day to leave their lights on all day would just cause a whole lot of stress for a lot of people. Letting people turn their lights on and off whenever they have (or don't have) the time and energy to do so is a big part of what keeps the game fun rather than stressful. I'm all for ensuring that everyone plays fair, but not if it comes at the expense of everyone else. Also, even if we could enforce a rule for everyone to turn on their lights - as per CS rules, we can't enforce that they give out treats (they could just trick everyone who visits).

[Iwein]

yeah, I think that's the most glaring problem: you can't force any player to give treats. requiring to accept ToT pms would make for more effort, but in the end it' would still up to each player whether they give a trick or treat. Would this added effort stop some of the "problem players"? maybe, though if they treat LOLO like a glorified adoption center, I wouldn't be so sure.
as frustrating as it is, honor system seems like the best way under CS rules (Celozon mentioned how it would be spam for people to post whenever they have their lights on) without adding stress or undue effort for everyone. you can trick for any reason, so that's a tool to utilize. especially if you play for multiple years, you can see who plays how and take that into account. at least that's what I did, since it's my 2nd year (of many, hopefully)

with all that said, and since I haven't actually said it yet lol
I had a lot of fun playing LOLO this year c: Halloween isn't really celebrated where I live, most stores skip straight to Christmas. If you're lucky, you may find one (1) bag of Halloween candy, but that's it. so LOLO is my way to get into the Halloween cheer, and I'm consistently positively surprised by costumes and stories. I had someone with an entire short story that was a couple thousand words; someone else had rewritten a song to be about LOLO. it's really cool!! I was glad to see some familiar faces as well <3
also, there are some really, really generous players and I'm very thankful for the treats i got. no matter how big or small. some people don't have a lot to give, so that they do anyway is generous in my eyes.
I'm definitely looking forward to next year!

[cswolf.]

I ended with 94 trick or treaters c: Sent out some lingering ones today as I had been busy for a little bit.
Side note: I know a lot of people may have not gotten to trick or treat a lot so I am going to keep my lights on for a few more days so any lingering trick or treaters can come and scoop up a final trick or treat c: I've got a bunch of treats left c:

[lotusmoon9]

just wanted to drop by and say i really enjoyed the event a lot!
I loved all the costumes of the ppl who knocked on my door, there were many creative, beautiful, spooky and cool dressups and interesting stories!
Also there were so many super generous gifters and i got a lot of gorgeous pets and items!
I do think it became super hard to keep track of the fortune snippets so that i avoid repeating any part of the fortune to anybody lol i dont know if i was able to do that lol so maybe next year ill choose a more simple story...perhaps....i dunno lol we shall see...
So thank you to the game admins and to all the ppl who took part!

[sumashira]

I do think it became super hard to keep track of the fortune snippets so that i avoid repeating any part of the fortune to anybody lol i dont know if i was able to do that lol so maybe next year ill choose a more simple story...perhaps....i dunno lol we shall see...

Your little fortune snippets were SUCH a delight to me. It was really interesting that they actually lined up with things I was doing or going to do that day. 😁

[lotusmoon9]

Your little fortune snippets were SUCH a delight to me. It was really interesting that they actually lined up with things I was doing or going to do that day. 😁

thank you so much sumashira!!! I really did enjoy myself with those and im so glad you liked them!!! hehe
maybe next year ill go with something mystical too maybe an oracle or a mystic mirror or something or some better idea by the time next halloween rolls by
this time i usually sent ToTers the snippet via pm....and the thank you fortunes via both trade acceptance and pm....i did think of simplifying and only sending fortunes via the trade requests/acceptances but then at the start i didnt know you could embed images to it lol and then later i thought some ppl would be swamped with trade notifications and might miss the trade acceptance msgs...
so i dunno lol maybe next time i can edit the trade requests with images directly lol for the ToTers, but for trade acceptances to ppl who gave me treats maybe still send a pm along too.....