Hogwarts Live Blog

So, there was an idea. What if monsters in the forest affected alignment...?

We understand that it could make it a bit harder on those with phoenixes and after batting some ideas back and forth, we were able to come up with a way that should still be fair.

There are now members of the Order of the Phoenix/Dumbledore's Army that will give you evil points when you kill them in the forest. And now there are Deatheaters who will give you good points when you kill them.

The evil-giving creatures do not start until level 5 which will allow you to gain some good points and not have to worry too much right after a VE. Also, as you can see in the list (with the exception of Molly) they only take away 1 alignment point so that should be easy to gain back if you do happen to kill one.

Some of the creatures already existed and were edited and/or moved to a different level and some are brand new. Here is the list so you know who's who:

GOOD (will give bad points when you kill them)

George Weasley, level 5 (-1)
Fred Weasley, level 6 (-1)
Ron Weasley, level 10 (-1)
Hermione Granger, level 11 (-1)
Ginny Weasley, level 12 (-1)
Harry Potter, level 13 (-1)
Molly Weasley, level 15 (-3 points)

EVIL (will give good points when you kill them)

Barty Crouch Junior, level 2 (+1)
Fenrir Greyback, level 3 (+1)
Lucius Malfoy, level 5 (+1)
Augustus Rookwood, level 10 (+1)
Alecto, level 11 (+1)
Amycus, level 11 (+1)
Bellatrix Lestrange, level 6 (+3 points)

So there you have it! Have fun!

Hogwarts Live is back after its first unplanned outage in over a year. There's still some work to be done so if the site runs slower than usual or something to that effect don't worry as it'll only be temporary.

Everyone, thanks for your patience!

Update: We had to roll back the database half a day so some of you may have lost some stats. If you lost any donator points or items acquired with those points, please petition for help. We apologize for the inconvenience. Again, thanks for your patience.

People have been neglecting rules lately, and its not just new players, so here is a summary of the rules:

No Cheating: This is pretty straight forward, don't try to hack the site, crack peoples passwords, or do anything that may harm HL. Don't use your own scripts. If you find a bug or think you did REPORT IT, don't try and test it yourself. You'll be banned for abusing bugs, or any of the other things mentioned.

Evading the Filter: When words show up as symbols, LEAVE THEM THAT WAY. Don't add letters, symbols, etc. to them to get around the filter. Using slang terms and foreign languages is also filter evasion. We no longer filter slang terms and foreign language insults, so using these will result in a mute after a few warnings.

No Cyber Bullying: Do not harass people, especially for their spelling and grammar, some people cannot help it, we don't care if spell check exists and they could use it. Be polite and don't ruin the game for other players who are trying to have fun. All teasing needs to stay site related, bringing someones real life into it is an personal attack and is not allowed in chat. This also results in a mute if you ignore warnings.

Drugs, Alcohol, and other Bannable Subjects: Reference to illegal drugs, extreme alcohol (ab)use, cutting, suicide or other forms of self-mutilation will not be tolerated. No sexual content. You will receive warnings and if you continue a mute. ANY REFERENCE TO RAPE OR USE OF THE WORD IN ANY CONTEXT IS AN INSTANT BAN. People have been having issues lately following that.
Along with this, avoid topics like politics, religion, abortion, etc. If any subject causes disruption in chat, staff will stop it and anyone who continues will be muted.

CYBERING IS NOT ALLOWED. Any cases of cybering will earn you a 1 week ban, if you are caught cybering with a minor, you will receive a perm ban. We ban when we have PROOF. Word of mouth is not proof. Don't go off in chat on someone attacking them for this.

Spam and Advertising: This one is probably the biggest rule neglected by players, and wrongly warned for by players also.
We define spam as useless and repetitive posting. Unless you keep doing it over and over, you won't be muted for it. For repetitive numbers, letters, symbols etc we use a general guideline of 3. WE DO NOT WARN FOR 4-5. So you as a player shouldn't harass people about it either for having only 4-5. Even 6-7 when it comes to periods isn't bad.

Examples of spam:
Kdhfblagagkjlgdhasgd
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!
"*love**love**love**love**love**love*"
"hahahahahahahahahaha"
"pppllleeeaaassseee"


All caps in 1-2 posts is OK. Using it excessively in more posts is not.

Advertising: Do not advertise any sites in chat OR through owls. This will result in a ban. If you want to talk about a site, or something that happened on another site, go to that site and talk about it, don't do it in HL chat. Discussing other RPG websites in chat is NOT allowed. Talking about sites like Facebook and Youtube is fine.

Chatspeak/Textspeak: We usually do not mute for this, staff members will probably warn you, and a lot of players will get on your case in chats over it.

Alternate characters: Please read this blog post - http://hogwartslive.wizards.pro/blog/post/463/alternative-charactersalternative-characters

Personal Information: Do not give out your contact info in chats, if you want to give someone your info please do so through owls, remember who you are giving this info to is a stranger over the internet who could be a not-so-good of a person. Giving out this info puts you at risk.
If you give your password out, be warned, if someone messed up your account, we're not going to fix it, if they change your password, you're out of luck.

Respecting staff, players, and yourself: If you have a issue with someone, ignore them.
If you think a staff member is not doing their job properly, you can owl them and tell them why, or petition and other staff members will handle it. Don't report a staffer because you just don't like them. If you make a claim against one, make sure you have proof. If you think a staff member is abusing their power, also petition them. Please don't petition them over some small issue that doesn't affect anything. Disrespecting a staff member in chat will result in one or NO WARNING before a mute.

Don't RP indecent, vulgar, graphic or possible offensive scenarios. RPing substance abuse, sexual acts, sadistic and harmful acts will get you perm muted after only one warning. Again any reference to Rape will get you instantly banned.

Staff usually only give out 2 warnings before muting.

Listen to staff, do not argue with them. As mentioned, petition if you have an issue with a staff member and their warning and another staff member will handle it. Arguing and lashing out on them will result in a mute.

Staff CAN decide to instant mute, if this happens to you and you feel it was inappropriate, petition. If you see a staff member breaking a rule, petition it. When staff are enforcing the rules, don't throw in your two cents, we don't need comments from the peanut gallery.

CAN and WILL enforce things that are not mentioned here in the rules if they feel it is necessary.

It has come to our attention that the more hard-core roleplayers (RPers) are getting frustrated with interruptions and regular conversations by the non-RPers in the chats, so in order to try to alleviate the situation, we are making Godric's Hollow a ROLEPLAYING ONLY village. Since it is already the "family" village, most non-RPers stay out of it so there shouldn't be as many interruptions.

For Secondyears and above, Barnabas Tapestry (Room of Requirement) is now a designated RP Only area and for Thirdyears and above, the Shrieking Shack and Chapel in Hogsmeade are as well.

This means that if you chat in any of those four areas, you should be "in-character." No lengthy RL posts or conversations, please. Some new players who are not familiar with RPGs may ask questions or make comments- please show some tolerance for those that are trying to understand or learn what's going on.

For the remaining villages, it's business as usual. The site IS a roleplaying site and RP can occur anywhere on it. We are not trying to limit where players can RP, but trying to provide areas where they can do so without too much interruption.

Thanks!

For a limited time you can now get the Bald Eagle pet in the pet shop.


All Easter pets have been removed from the shop, they WILL still appear as you having them though.

First trailer for Part 2!!!




Or watch here.

A Baby Chick and Bunny are available in the pet shop until April 30th.

e; Also the Killer Bunny of DOOM is available again, I forgot to activate that one yesterday.

We have reactivated the Charm Display module for your convenience(and ours). Go to your Preferences click "Charm Display Preferences" to turn it on, it will display in your stats on the right.

This is only informational. Charm does not do anything in the game.

Being tomorrow/today's date(4/20, depending on your time zone) is significant to certain groups, I'd like to remind everyone ALL DRUG TALK IS AGAINST THE SITE RULES. Reference to what this date stands for that breaks that rule, talking about drugs and getting high, will result in a instant mute.

One of my favorite fantasy novels has been adapted to an HBO series: check out Game of Thrones tomorrow, April 17th at 9 PM on HBO. Click here for international air dates.

Click here to watch the Game of Thrones trailer.

If you haven't read A Game of Thrones, which is the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin you're seriously missing out.

If you like HBO's True Blood adaptation of The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris give this a shot!

Check out the cast on IMDB.

WARNING: All the shows and books mentioned in this post are not meant to be consumed by children.