Hogwarts Live Blog

So legally we can't put the word "Hogwarts" on a T-shirt (at least not ones we sell). So my idea was we could just use HL. And if someone asks you can tell them what it stands for (if you want to).

Please note that these are just the slogans, design ideas haven't even crossed my mind yet (basically each T-shirt will say HL on it somewhere, most likely the back). So here are the Hogwarts Live T-shirt slogans that have been spread around the site over the years:

Front: Reality Bites
Variants: Reality Sucks, Bored?, Bored with reality?

Firsties
So much tastier than Wheaties
Varient: Newbies

The Prescription Drug Cure
Warning!
Not for the feint of heart.
HL may be addictive.

The Teenager's Playground

In real life I play HL

I'm Happily Married

Sleep? Who needs it?

Wonder what the kid who sits alone during lunch does in his spare time?

Don't have a life?
That's alright neither do I...

The Dark Lord is waiting...

Homework? What's that?

Kill em' while they sleep

Gotta kill em' all

God?
You're looking at him.

When life is getting me down I kill firstyears.

Got HL?

HL
It puts the awesome in awesome.

HL
Its one #@#$% up RPG.

And my all-time favorite T-shirt idea:
Headmaster Danilo Fangirl For LifeTM

UPDATE: I've posted some of the designs up on the Hogwarts Live Custom Merchandise Store.

So what do you all think any suggestions?

You now have the ability to edit your profiles! Just click on your character name on the top right hand corner of the blog (next to Logout and Owl Post). Then click on (Edit Profile) next to your name. If you don't already have a profile one will be automagically created for you and prepopulated with your current Hogwarts Live bio.

You can see a working example of a completely filled out bio here: http://hogwartslive.com/u/danilo

Right now you can add the following data to your profile:
Real Name/Alias
Avatar URL/Profile Image (if you have or want to use Gravatar just leave this blank)
Birthday
Blood Purity/Race
Wand (there are special woods and cores for people with 5,000+ points)
Current Location
Favorite Harry Potter Book
Favorite Harry Potter Character
About/Autobiography

What other kinds of information would you like to be able to add to your Hogwarts Live profiles?

Here are some ideas:
Quidditch Position
Favorite Harry Potter Spell
Favorite Harry Potter Shipping (in fanfiction shipping is short for "relationshipping" - i.e. Harry/Ginny, Harry/Hermione, etc.)
Favorite Quotes
Favorite Actors/Movies
Heroes/Heroines
Favorite Foods/Desert
Interests
Religion
Politics
Marital Status
Sexual Orientation
Education
Favorite Color
Ethnicity
Occupation
Buddy List (Friends)

UPDATE (some new ideas for profiles):
Likes
Dislikes
Social Networking Profiles: Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, MySpace
Instant Messengers: Skype, YIM, AIM, MSN/Windows Live

Please share your ideas and let me know which of the ones above you like! I think it would be best to keep this as Harry Potter-themed as possible.

TODO: Your clean/short URLs work now just go to http://hogwartslive.com/u/danilo and replace "danilo" with your user/login name all lowercase. I'll add a section to the profile editor so you can just copy the link to share your profile with friends.

What you once knew as the Daily Prophet and before that the MoTD has now become the Hogwarts Live Blog.

Please note that the Hogwarts Live Blog is currently in Alpha (meaning it's missing a lot of features it should have) so please be sure to petition any bugs you may find. Edit: We know that the blog keeps popping up, please stop with the petitions. UPDATE: This has been fixed.

If you have any other suggestions or comments please post them below. Yes, you can now comment on individual blog posts!

Here are some bugs you might notice right away:
1. If you click view more books/staff picks it takes you to the same page.
2. You can't change/edit our profile. The link goes nowhere or there's no link to do so.
3. The layout doesn't quite look right in Internet Explorer (MSIE).
4. The bold/highlighted link to the blog doesn't change after you've read it.

Anything that's not on this list please report right away. If you report something potentially hazardous to the site you'll be rewarded with donator points. And even if what you report is not such a big deal I'll probably choose to reward you anyway. The seriousness of the bug will determine the reward.

Please test away!

Over 1 million children have been affected by Typhoon Ketsana, and UNICEF is working around the clock to meet their needs. You can help.

If you'd like to make a donation to this cause I will give you donator points in exchange for doing so. Either make a donation on UNICEF's secure online form by clicking here. Please note you will need to provide me with a receipt of your donation to receive donator points.

Alternatively, you may owl or email me, , your PayPal transaction number after making a donation via the "PayPal Site Admin" button and I'll add your funds to my next donation to UNICEF at the end of the month. Keep in mind this method is not tax deductible as is the case when you use UNICEF's official form.

There are also other ways to support UNICEF aside from donating, please visit: UNICEF's Other Ways to Give Page.

Some of you may have noticed that referrals weren't working properly.

They should function perfectly fine now.

Don't know what referrals are?

Under the --Other-- section in the left-hand navigation click on "Refer a Friend." This will give you a referral link (URL/web address) that looks something like: http://www.hogwartslive.com/r/Username

Give this link to your friends or post it on forums, blogs, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and when people sign up for HL using your referral link they will show up under "Accounts which you referred:" on the "Refer a Friend" page you got the link from.

Once any player you refer reaches level 10 you get 50 free referral/donator points, which can be used inside the Prefect's Lounge to get cool stuff like a custom title.

Awesome right? I thought so, now go get some free points and maybe make some new friends!

So, I'm sure you've noticed the site crashes a lot. Alchemist Edmund has had a solution to this problem for a while now. Guess what? I finally decided to implement it. This solution is likely to cost a lot more than our current setup. Because of this we'll be testing it to see if this price is within reason (i.e. can be covered by our average monthly donations). If so you'll all get to experience a relatively stable (meaning little to no downtime) Hogwarts Live. I know I've promised no downtime before but considering the nature of this solution and its ability to scale it should effectively eliminate prolonged periods of time where you can't access your favorite game! I should warn you though it's possible that we'll be trading speed for stability. With that said I think we'll all prefer a slower HL as long as we can get on whenever we want. ^_^

The podcast of our own session at Azkatraz (Wizarding Physics: Gamp and Beyond) will be up in a few days (I just got my copy of the recording of it), but in the mean time, you can hear the Wizards.FM panel in another podcast recording at Azkatraz which went up last night.

While at Azkatraz all 3 primary members of the Wizards.FM panel, myself, my wife Barbara (SerenityRose) and Mike Johnson (MikeCrim) auditioned for parts in the SpellCast Podcast Play.

I was cast as the role of Hagrid, Barbara was one of the Narrators, and Mike was a Love Sick Dementor... and he was playing the role of... a Love Sick Dementor.

Anyway it was a lot of fun, and I hope you like it.

Check out Summer: Live from Azkatraz on the SpellCast podcast, and if you like fanfiction and radio drama, give SpellCast a listen in general, they do dramatic readings of Harry Potter Fanfiction, and more Podcast Plays, it's a lot of fun, you can find them at SpellcastPodcast.com.

Stay Tuned for Wizards.FM Live from Azkatraz, later this weekend.

As you can see by our Countdown to HP's Birthday, the day is drawing near. In celebration of this, we are having not one, but two raffles!

To enter, simply click on Candy Raffle on the left and use all those Bertie Bott's Beans you've been saving to buy your tickets!

As always, it only takes 1 ticket to win! Good luck!

It's Harry's Birthday, but you get the present, Real Bertie Botts Beans
Beans per Ticket: 5
Trade in your fake Bertie Botts Beans for a chance to win a bag of real Bertie Botts beans! 4 Winners will be announced at 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Harry Potter's Birthday (July 31st)
Raffle Runs From 1969-12-31 to 2009-07-31
There are 4 days, 20 hours, 38 minutes and 39 seconds left to purchase tickets in this raffle.


Ride in Style, a custom mount!
Beans per Ticket: 15
1 Lucky Winner will win a custom mount, don't like the brooms and dragons we have available, always wanted something a little special? Enter this raffle for a one-of-a-kind mount available just to you! Winner will be announced on Harry Potter's Birthday, July 31st at 7 p.m. Pacific Time.
Raffle Runs From 1969-12-31 to 2009-07-31
There are 4 days, 20 hours, 38 minutes and 39 seconds left to purchase tickets in this raffle.

The live new day timer which counts down until the new game day is not working right now. The game days are still set to be 1h 30m and that IS functioning correctly- just the time displayed is off.

Each village has an in-game clock however and so when that reads 12:00am (midnight) the new day will start.

Just a reminder, please don't talk about the new movie in open chat for a week or so, "OMG The Movie was Awesome" is ok, but please don't spoil anything. Yes the book has been available for 4 years, but there are people here who only watch the movies and haven't seen it yet, not to mention there are definite spoilers for the movie that are not in the book or different from the book.

Let's be kind for a week or so and not spoil in open chat.

That said, we'll work up a place you can talk about the movie, perhaps I'll bring back the Quibbler office.