Hogwarts Live Blog

There is no one hacking HL accounts or your IP addresses despite what a player trying to cause panic may be telling you. Their situation was caused by account sharing.

I'd like to take this time to remind you of the risks of sharing accounts with other players.
-When you share your password with another player, they can share it with anyone they want to.
-They can change your password and account information.
-They can access personal information you may have sent to someone else in owls.
-If the person logging into your account has four accounts, and logs into yours making it 5, if yours is the highest VE count on their IP it will be locked.
-If they are muted and get on your account to chat, your account will be muted.
-If they get banned and you are on their IP address, your account will be banned also.
-If they are a banned player, and log into your account to evade their ban, your account will be banned.

We will not help you recover a lost account due to sharing your information. This information should be kept private. I'd advise anyone who has been sharing accounts to change their passwords so they do not end up in the same situation as others before have.

Not everyone online is as trustworthy as you may think, they can tell you anything they want without you knowing if it is true or not. I would not trust anyone with your password.

Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to spare some money for Elijah's family in their time of need!

I'd like to remind everyone, you can refer friends to Hogwarts Live using your referral link in Prefects Lounge.

http://www.hogwartslive.com/r/YourUsername

For everyone you refer who makes it to level 10, you will gain 50 donator points!

Referring your own accounts is not allowed, it is considered cheating and will get your account locked. Any account on your IP is considered your account, it does not matter if it is your cousin's sister-in-law twice removed second aunt, it will be treated as your account. Referring an alternate characters of existing players is also cheating and in bad taste. Both accounts may be locked and punished if this happens.

Hogwarts Live has changed servers. The previous server was old and
recently has been resulting in lag. You may experience weird things
happening while it sorts out. We have reports of people jumping servers
to the old version of the site and back to the new one. As a result
any game process gained on the old server will be lost. Sorry for the
inconvenience.



The direct link to the new server is http://padfoot.wizards.pro

Today we say Happy Birthday to Harry Potter (for those of you who don't live in England it's already July 31st there).

In addition to this wonderful event I'd like to mention that earlier this year was Hogwarts Live's ten year (yes, that's right TEN YEARS!) anniversary.

As a special treat to all of you we are releasing some changes to the site. If that wasn't already enough we're doing a Double Donation Day and multiple candy raffles!

Double Donation Day means you get double the points when you donate to HL and the candy raffles are really great. Go check them out! ^^

I'd like to specifically call out Juan, Pam, all our staff and testers for helping get these changes done and ready for live.

Some of these new changes to the site are:
EIGHT new specialties, all based on the Harry Potter universe.
Knight Bus, which is located under Travel, for a few gems allows you to travel without being getting stopped by pesky waylays, but you might get a negative buff.
Honeydukes, where you can buy a delicious treat, but be careful you might not like what you eat!

Various modules were also fixed.

Please petition any bugs found, anyone caught abusing these will be punished.

Several years ago, our chats were being inundated with "will someone adopt me??????" posts, older players jumping all over new firstyears with questions like, "Do you have a mom or dad yet???" or "Do you want to be adopted????" and pages and pages of players discussing who they were related to, how they were related , when they became related, etc. Most of these discussions would take place multiple times every day with (frequently) the same participants.

When it wasn't a family trying to figure out all the snarls and twists and turns in their family tree, it was a family arguing over some family issue. Not just members of a family RPing together, and not even a real RP to be honest since it was more of a discussion than "acting," but people arguing over why they wouldn't recognize a certain family member or some other sort of drama that was strictly family-related.

These discussions and arguments would disrupt RPs already taking place and/or conversations taking place with players just chatting.

To help keep chats a bit more tidy, we installed Godric's Hollow with the intent of that being the "family village" (see original post here http://www.hogwartslive.com/blog/post/469/godrics-hollow ). All requests for adoptions, whether it be someone looking for a family or someone looking for a new member to their existing one, would take place here, as well as all discussions of family trees, family arguments that were about family-related topics, and anything else that came up within a family.

In the time since installing Godric's, this has worked well as most players have moved their conversation to Godric's or owls or to a dwelling when asked by staff. It has only been recently that players have been ignoring multiple requests and warnings by staff, hence the NOTICE that was posted on every page (until this blog post).

This does not mean that players cannot address a family member in chat by their title, i.e. "Hi mom!" or "WitchyWoman waves to her sister." It does not mean that players cannot refer to being related to another player in cases like, "Oh you know SamSpit? He's my brother." It does not mean that you cannot ask someone if they are related to someone else, as long as you're not asking for that person's entire pedigree. "Hi, SaraSugar. Are you SallyMay's sister?" It does not mean that family members cannot RP together.

All we are asking is that if you are going to start a discussion about who your relatives are or have an issue with your family about your family, please do it either in owls, a dwelling, or in Godric's Hollow. If you are looking to be adopted or see someone that you would like to adopt, post in Godric's or owl them. And if a simple comment about a family member unintentionally turns into a discussion about your family and a staffer asks you to move it out of chat, MOVE it. Simple.

In cases where players ignore a staffer's request to move out of regular chat or players that keep having to be asked (as in multiple instances), staff can and will mute.

Thank you.

Today's candy raffle is very special. If you win it you and your in-game spouse get 10,000 donator points each!

I normally don't raffle off donator points so be sure to jump on this rare opportunity.

To participate just exchange the beans you find in the forest at the Candy Raffle located on the bottom left hand side of the site under Global. As a special treat all raffle tickets cost only 5 beans.

Also, if you'd like to do something extra nice for that special someone you can always donate on their behalf by clicking the PayPal Contribute button on their bio page.

May you all be blessed with hugs, kisses, and yummy chocolates! :)

Click here to vote on "Do you like PvP?" poll »

Once again it's that time of year...Christmas! We know that not everyone celebrates Christmas, but we'd like to wish you all Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Kwanzaa and/or whatever else you may celebrate. If you don't celebrate anything, we hope this winter is your best one yet :)

We've opened another new village for your enjoyment- Polareia Borealis. Here you will find most of our holiday modules, from the Ice Hotel to the Dreidel game at the peanut stall. You can also try to build the best snowman in all the wizarding world! Or maybe you'd just like to visit the Ice Castle!

We also have opened a Holiday Gift shop which can be found in each village. This is the place to go to buy your family, friends, and even rivals presents for the holidays. The gifts can be opened starting on Christmas Day (December 25) at the fireplace in your Common Room. You will have until December 31 to open them all. In the meantime, you can visit the Fireplace inside your Common Room to check to see how many presents are waiting for you! Everyone will receive at least one present so be sure to open yours on Christmas Day! (NOTE: Some of you may see references to Valentine's Day at the Fireplace. Just ignore it and pretend it says Christmas. xD It's just a typo and doesn't affect your presents.)

In the past we have had a few problems with players being nasty to each other with the Holiday Gifts Anonymous Sender feature. This year, we have in place a security measure to ensure that no one is truly anonymous. Although the recipient of a not-so-nice gift will not know who the gift is from, the Staff will know. Those that send nasty messages through the Holiday Gifts will be dealt with in the same way as if it was said in chat. Offensive messages on gifts can be reported by petition, just like offensive owls, through a link in each gift.

For a little friendly House competition, each House has been given a Holiday Tree to decorate. Players can go to their Common Room and help decorate it by using forest fights, gold and/or gems. The House with the best tree at the end of the year will earn the House buff for the entire month of January.

We hope you enjoy these new features and once again, Happy Holidays!

2.5 million people need emergency food assistance in the Philippines. Please help if you can. Any amount you can give will make a difference. If you send your receipt to I will give you the equivalent amount of donator points here on Hogwarts Live.

World Food Program USA is a four star charity with 96.4% of moneys donated going directly to help those in need (source).

Donate to WFP

Up to 4 million children may be affected by the typhoon (called Yolanda locally). These children desperately need shelter, clean water, medicine and nutrition supplies -- the same area is already reeling from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake just three weeks ago. If you want your donation to go to the children please Donate to UNICEF.

Super Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm to ever make landfall, left an estimated 2.5 million people in need of emergency food assistance. That's more people in need of immediate assistance than WFP's food relief in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2010. WFP is racing to respond with emergency food supplies to help hungry children and families in need.

Please help those in greatest need by donating today in support of WFP's emergency response in the Philippines.