Hogwarts Live Blog

I guess there has been some confusion about some things regarding the HP in the game. First off I had asked Edmund to reset the HP, we're trying to balance the game here. This means that I approved all these changes, and I think they are good ideas, they make the game more balance and give weaker players a better chance of moving up.

Here's what was done:
We took out the ability to buy permanent HP.
We reset everybody's HP.
We forced you to reallocate VE points.
We removed the gem vault along with the vitality option.

This means you now have to use VE points for perm HP. This makes it so you have to balance your stats, no more people with 50K HP who can't be touched, which makes using VE points for HP actually worth doing. Also, there are many other places for you to store your gems, the gem vault was one of the aspects of the site that was slowing it down. I do realize this also makes it more difficult for high VE players to move up in the world as they can't just go to the Dueling Club and kill everyone with lower stats than them anymore; they'll actually have to work at leveling up. But what about all those weaker players you were picking on who got discouraged by constantly losing? It's still likely the more experienced player will win but it's not as definite as it was before, meaning PvP is now more fair. I understand this makes the game a bit more difficult to play for these higher ranked players, but this is the best way to level the playing field, plus as the veteran players you should welcome a challenge, nothing in life worth having is easily earned.

If you have any suggestions or complaints please post them in the Suggestions Forum.

Using this forum helps me better organize your concerns. Do not petition for help if you're going to voice a complaint or a suggestion. The site above is checked more regularly by me than the petitions. It's difficult to login here when I get a torrent of owls each time I just want to check up on what's going on and no I don't check my owls whenever I login so please be patient if I haven't replied to you yet.

Again, if you have any suggestions or complaints regarding changes made to the game do not owl or petition them post them in the Suggestions Forum, which is the easiest way for me to organize and keep record of your input. Thanks.

I posted up the some choice petitions and owls I received in 2006 over at the Hogwarts Live Hate Mail Page.

If you guys think it's funny please do us a favor and Digg It.

EDIT: I fixed the Hate Mail page so you can access it even while you're logged in.

Here is a reminder of the site rules so no one has any excuse to not follow them. This is the version used by all Staff so please do not question if it is not in another part of the site. And please be sure to read through them even if you think you already know what they are; something might have changed. And for those that do not know, Staff is anyone with a yellow symbol in front of their name.

Reasons for muting:

1. Fighting: I do not mean RP fighting, I mean verbal assaults. Violence is NOT muteable unless it is a REAL threat. Roleplaying fighting is not a threat.
2. Sex and PDA: Use your common sense- we are a PG 13 site, half of the things done here should not be done and this WILL be enforced.
3. Evading the Filter: If a word shows up as !@#$ when it posts, do NOT change it so others can read it. Using foreign languages in open chat is also considered evading. Don't do it.
4. Drugs, alcohol and other bannable subjects. Any reference to drug use, alcohol use other than site-related, cutting, suicide or other forms of self-mutilation will not be tolerated. There is no need for any of that on this site.
5. Rape: This will NOT happen on this site. This includes any references to rape.
6. SPAM: Ok here is the tuffy. We have said before that anything more then 3 characters is SPAM. But in all reality we do NOT mute for this. Only if the person is taking it to extremes such as:.
!Dementor AuroraBorealis says, "dfkjlsdhgkjfkjghfmnvcm,vnfkghrouityerioutyjkgvnmc,vnfdj"
Get the point? Good.. However, please try to keep extra letters/symbols to a minimum. It CAN mess the page up for some players. Smilies are included in the no more than 3 guideline.
7. Link SPAM and Messenger addresses and emails: This includes other personal info such as phone numbers, addresses, myspace profiles, etc. Some people post these things in open chats. They are not to be there. If you want to give it to a friend that ASKS for it, OWL it. And no random owling of players to advertise other sites. We ban for that. This is why we have a link exchange. Please use it.
8. Advertising your clan in open chat: This is ok in the clan waiting place. But it has no place in Diagon or Hogwarts.
9. Personal Attacks: This is the offense that makes me angry, bringing someones personal life onto this site to attack them. Leave outside information outside.
10. Cheating and exploitation of glitches: If you find a glitch or bug in the game, please petition it. If you are caught telling other players of the glitch, you may be muted and/or banned.

In the end, listen to the admins and other staff, do not argue with them. If you have an issue with a staffer please Petition for Help so another Staffer can handle/look into it. If instead you decide to lash out at them, disregard their authority or otherwise disrespect them you will be punished.

These rules are made so everyone can enjoy their time here on HL. Please abide by them so all players can have fun.

Just to clarify what IS and what is NOT allowed as far as content... NO sexual comments and NO innuendo. NONE. Doing either will get you a warning and depending on severity, a mute. No private body part naming. No kicking, pinching, hitting, licking, poking, tapping, touching, or ANY other verb you can think of to said body parts. Balls and nuts have been refiltered. No using these two words or any other regular word in a way that could be deemed inappropriate by staff. Staff STILL has the final say on what is suitable for chat and what is not, so if you are warned, please do not argue in chat. Any other words that have been recently removed from the filtered list WILL go back on if they are abused. Please use common sense. You may petiton if you feel you were wrongly warned.

Everyone needs to stop contacting Hailey regarding the problems with hp and attack/defense. As much as she would like to, she CANNOT fix it. EDMUND has to fix it. As I said before, he is aware of the problem and is handling it. I'm sorry if it's not fast enough for you all, but he DOES have a real job and an outside life. BE PATIENT.

HP has been removed from Cedrik and you can no longer buy or have extra hp. Have a nice day!

HOWEVER, Edmund has reset everyone's hp and reset everyone's ve points so they can be reallocated. He has also done this really neat mathematical equation so everyone actually has better stats than what they had before. Leveling really should not be affected anymore so feel free to play as you were before. (I have tested both the forest and pvp and had no trouble whatsoever.)

EDIT: We are aware that there is a problem with the formula and have let Edmund know. Please do not send in any more petitions as we are working on correcting it.

As Edmund explained in his last MotD, the user_preferences tables are the reason for the site slowness/crashes. He has decided to reset these more frequently to help prevent this from happening.

As Gringott's gem vaults and friend lists are part of the user preferences, it has also been decided to remove these from the system for now. By removing these extras, we may be able to prevent having to reset other things that are affected, such as pets and alignment. Since pets and alignment can affect game play, we believe this is the best solution at this time.

Thanks again to Edmund for all his hard work :)

Before we get a bunch of petitions complaining, we have partially reset the module_userprefs table again, this time on purpose and with some exceptions.

Your alignment, fairydragons, horcruxes, phoenixes, and bertie botts beans should be intact, other settings that use the module_userprefs table will have reset. As you can see this results in a significant increase in site speed, so we may be doing resets like this every month or two to keep the site fast until the new version is ready.

On the note of the new version of HogwartsLive, due to several problems with LoGD both in it's highly restrictive license, and it's (so-extensible-that-it-is-very-inefficient codebase), we have decided to write the new game from scratch, using no LoGD code whatsoever. This will allow a much more Potter Universe oriented game, and it will (since we don't need support for 3rd party modules as everything is going to be written ourselves), be far more efficient in it's code. The hope is that this will lead to a much more scalable game then LoGD has allowed. More information and the early alpha version to come.

Also, I posted a MoTD last night asking for reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it doesn't need to be much, just a few sentences, or as detailed as you want (a few paragraphs) but you have just 3 more hours (extending the deadline another hour) to get those reviews in.

Everyone who submits a review will receive a special Edmund's Alchemy prize that will never be available for everyone else, so hurry up and join this exclusive club.

Tomorrow the Wizards.FM panel will sit down and record a discussion about Deathly Hallows, what we liked, what we didn't like, what we are still confused about, a general conversation about Deathly Hallows and we want your help!

Email your opinions and reviews of Deathly Hallows to wizardcast@wizards.fm, or Owl them to me, or to SerenityRose, and we may read your review or opinion on the air tomorrow, or if you want to really be heard call us toll free in the USA at 1-866-486-4716 and leave your review in a minute and a half or less.

You can also record your review on your computer and email them to us at the address above, however you can get your review to us, get it to us before 6 p.m. Pacific time tomorrow night and we will incorporate as many of your reviews of Deathly Hallows in with our reviews as possible.

As an aside, but related note, you may have noticed that the Alchemy Lab has once again vanished from HogwartsLive, be on the look out for the innagural episode of "The Common Room Fire" on Wizards.FM, the Wizard's Webcast Network and another chance at a new fabulous prize from Edmund's Alchemy Lab soon!

Congratulations to everyone who earned the Alchemy Lab prizes for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

When you give us your review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, be sure to let us know either in the voicemail or email or owl or whatever what your HogwartsLive name is. Every reviewer selected to be a part of the show will win a special exclusive prize here on HogwartsLive. This prize will only be available to those who give us a review of the show and ONLY available for this show, so if you want the prize, get those reviews in by tomorrow. Tell us why you loved it, tell us why you hated it, ask your questions that you wish Rowling would have answered in the book, tell us your favorite parts, whatever you wish, we just want this next show to be all about you!

You guys must really spend a lot of time on HL, at least that's what the statistics show. I hope you're doing that cause you really love the site and not just because you have nothing better to do! Not that there is anything wrong with being perpetually bored out of your mind (as I always am). Any-who read this post about us being #3:
People Spend A Lot Of Time On Hogwarts Live

Seriously though you all should give up on your real lives entirely so we can be #1 or as they say in Japan, ichiban!