Hogwarts Live Blog

Today is Friday the 13th, and would we really be into magic if we didn't celebrate here on HogwartsLive? Today only we are offering an additional raffle that costs only 5 beans per ticket. The winner will receive a Ty Lexie - Fluffy Black Cat and 500 beans to use on other raffles. Hurry, this raffle is available in the Candy Raffles area today only!

Just a friendly reminder folks, the first of the Candy Raffles will end this Sunday, April 15th (Tax day for us in the US). The Donator Points Galore raffle is a pool raffle to win donator points.

Currently 3,428 tickets have been sold, which means that if the raffle ended right now the winner would get 6,856 donator points. This pot will go up as more tickets are purchased, but remember, this raffle ends Sunday, so if you haven't entered the Candy Raffle for Donator Points yet, make your way to the Candy Raffle shop in Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, or Devon.

Also, just 5 days later, the second raffle, for Harry Potter candy and an Alivans wand will end on April 20th. only 148 tickets have been purchased in this raffle so far, so your chances are really good on this one.

Don't have enough Bertie Botts Beans? Don't worry, "The Looking Glass" episode 1 will come out soon, and will include a chance to get some more beans from Edmund's Alchemy Lab!

HogwartsLive would also like to thank you for your generous donations, we are half way to our goal of reimbursing the money Danilo spent on the brand new HogwartsLive server which should be operational this weekend. Keep those donations coming, remember, when we reach the goal another Grand Prize raffle opportunity will open up.

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.

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.

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 as such:
!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.

7. Link SPAM and Messenger addresses and emails: Some people post these things in open chats. They are not to be there. 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 of them or disregard their authority 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.

Well 50 people have now made it into the Alchemy Lab other then the original people who got there before I released the MoTD.

The people who got to my lab before the MoTD got 2000 beans, the first 50 people who got to my lab after the MoTD was released got 1000 beans each. The alchemy lab is still open, but now the prize has gone down to 500 beans. Once 50 more people access the Alchemy Lab the prize will be reduced again to 100 beans.

On a related note, I have now long had the first correct answer to the question I asked in the end of the show. Thank you everyone for playing.

Some of you may have experienced serious lag time during our peak hours of gameplay.

To answer the problems of the current server we use at HogwartsLive, we have pooled together and purchased a fantastic new server which will be up this coming week.

Due to our need for this faster server to accommodate our growing user base and technological needs we'll be holding a $2000 (USD) fund drive.

You'll note that the monthly donation goal for the month of April has been pumped up to the $2000 mark. This is just a temporary increase, after the $2000 is raised the bar will be lowered again back down to reasonable levels.

To help cover the cost for this new server, we are celebrating the donation drive with the launch of a new feature on HogwartsLive, Candy Raffles (located in Hogsmeade, Devon, and Hogwarts)!

For a couple weeks now you've been able to save your Bertie Botts every Flavour Beans, so instead of just eating them you can now trade in your Bertie Botts every Flavour beans for tickets in several raffles for REAL prizes.

To get us started on the raffles, there are 5 raffles, available, the first one will end on April 15th, the next on April 20th, and the final 3 on April 30th.

The first raffle is for "FREE" donator points. Enter this raffle for just 15 beans. The prize will be 2 times the number of tickets entered in donator points. So if 100 tickets are sold, the winner will get 200 donator points. If 1000 tickets are sold, the winner will get 2000 donator points.

The second raffle you will see will be for Real Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans! And an assortment of other Harry Potter candy and a Magic Wand from Alivans. It costs 300 beans to enter this raffle, and only 1 will win.

The last 3 raffles are for 3 tiers of real material prizes, here's an outline of what you can win:

Tier 1 (50 beans per ticket) - 3 Winners wil get their choice of
Hogwarts Live Stickers
Hogwarts Live Magnet
Hogwarts Live Tile Coaster

Tier 2 (250 beans per ticket)- 3 Winners will get their choice of
Hogwarts Live Mousepad
Hogwarts Live T-shirt
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Video Game (PC, PS2, Xbox, GameCube, or GBA)
Harry Potter 2007 Wall Calendar
The Sorcerer's Companion Book
The Psychology of Harry Potter Book
Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? Book
The Hidden Myths in Harry Potter Book
Mapping the World of Harry Potter Book
Fact, Fiction, and Folklore in Harry Potter's World Book
Mugglenet.Com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7 Book

Tier 3 (750 beans per ticket) - 3 Winners will get their choice of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Travel Case with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for PSP
The World of Harry Potter (box set of four Harry Potter PC games)


An additional Grand Prize raffle will begin once the donation goal is met. The winner of the Grand Prize raffle will win his or her choice of
Apple iPod Shuffle
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Deluxe Edition)
Harry Potter 1-4 DVD Box Set (Widescreen Edition)

If you don't have enough beans to enter these raffles you can find them in the forest in random encounters or trade donator points for them in the Prefect's Lounge. Good luck on these raffles, your odds of winning will be based on the number of entries received. You may enter as many times as you like.

Remember all Hogwarts Live merchandise is of limited supply, and will not be made available for purchase at any time in the future, so participating in the raffles is the only way to get any of this cool swag.

Note: We will only pay for shipping of items within the continental United States, for winners outside the States we will cover shipping costs up to $20 (USD). International users who do not wish to pay for shipping may have their prizes exchanged for an amount of donator points equivalent to the value of the prize they have won or an Amazon.com Gift Certificate.

The time has come once again to release WizardCast, and WizardCast Episode 3 is our longest yet (and most likely will be the longest forever. Download Episode 3 today.

Episode 3 has 2 awesome announcements, a good long discussion on theories on what will be in Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows, and your chance to get up to 1000 Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, which you can use to enter our Raffles (mentioned earlier).

Download the episode of WizardCast and and find your way to the Alchemy Lab for your free Bertie Botts Beans.

Just a note, if you had subscribed via iTunes, you would have had this episode for a whole day already, and the people who've already made it to my lab in Devon got 2000 beans instead of just 1000. Congratulations to the 31 of you who have received the bonus beans.

Hurry though, cause once 50 people have received the 1000 bean prize, the prize will go down to 500 beans.

So don't delay, Download Episode 3 of WizardCast Today.

To the four people who called our toll free number today, 866-486-4716, I had made a terrible mistake and your voicemails never came through. There is a log that there were 4 calls coming in, but no voicemails. So please call again, it should be fixed now. Again, I'm very sorry, it should nt break again (I've tested it myself several times)

Happy Easter!! This weekend there is a special surprise for you somewhere around the site. Happy hunting!!

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last of seven installments of the boy wizard's adventures, will be published July 21, author J.K. Rowling said Thursday. Rowling announced the publication date on her Web site. Scholastic Children's Books, the U.S. publisher, said it would offer a hardback edition at a suggested retail price of $34.99, a deluxe edition at $65.00 and a reinforced library edition at $39.99. Amazon.com has it for an amazing 46% off the cover price, $18.89. Click here to pre-order at this price WizardCast has released a special short mini-episode with this news Click Here for Special Episode 2.5 Update: in March, the cover art for these books were released, so be sure to click the links above to see the stunning cover art for the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter Series.

The portkey to get to Devon has been removed from HogwartsLive. Just as with Episode 1, the portkey was located in Trelawney's Orb. This time when you attempted to touch the portkey you were asked a multiple choice question. The question was "What Deli Restuarant was the first segment of this episode Recorded From?" The answer, as anyone who listened to the beginning of Episode 2 of WizardCast knows, is Schlotsky's Deli ("Funny name, serious sandwhich").

Once you entered the town of Devon you could find a blue link to Edmund's Alchemy Lab. Once you entered my lab you were asked what the prize of the episode was. I stated in the closing sequence to WizardCast Episode 2 that the prize for this episode was a sample of the Elixer of Life. Which 182 of you received (Congratulations).

Once you answered that you wanted the Elixer of Life, you were asked a third trivia question, you were asked "In what city did Nick and Barbara meet up with me (Alchemist Mike Crim)?" The answer to this question of course was "Phoenix, AZ" where Episode 2's Alchemy Lab segment was recorded from.

Congratulations to the 182 people who found their way to my lab in Devon. You 182 people will continue to be able to enter my Lab and get to Devon for 2 more days, before Devon will be locked to you as well.

If you didn't get a chance to enter my lab this episode, don't fret, a brand new episode of WizardCast is coming soon, subscribe via iTunes, or visit the official WizardCast website at wizardcast.wizards.pro to find out more about WizardCast and to find out when Episode 3 comes out.