Hogwarts Live Blog

All nominations have been closed, below appear the names that have passed the initial screening in alphabetical order:

1 Andy
2 AnEnglishGem
3 AngrielleAlthore
4 Asgarnia
5 AurorJen
6 BillieJoeIsCool
7 BlackHawk
8 Bugg
9 CanineDrillInstructor
10 Chicacha
11 Chirron
12 Christianna
13 Darkmaster
14 DCloud
15 Doxy
16 EragonShadeslayer
17 Fimblebottom
18 FluerWeasly
19 Gerald
20 Ginny
21 hbprince
22 hermionepotter
23 homedog
24 honetheb
25 JenniPotter
26 Jester
27 Karma
28 Kikiyo
29 MadamMikelle
30 MoonlightMemories
31 NJKGranger
32 Nymphadora Tonks
33 Padfoot
34 PrettyArya
35 RainaFormensul
36 Reebs
37 Rei
38 Revan
39 righteousfury
40 SerenityRose
41 ShadowMasterX
42 Shyone
43 Sweetpea
44 totallyspazzed
45 Vash
46 Witchywoman
47 YuffieKisaragi

Exceptions on the VE rule were made in certain cases for players with special talents. Also, please email if you would like to be removed from this list prior to staff review.

Well, we need more nominations because not enough people are passing the screening, remember the rules:
Email with the subject Nominations to
You may not nominate people with less than 30 VEs, and we now need 14 new staffers.

Which do you prefer the new dwellings system or the old estates system? Mind you we will never allow you to hide from PvP in your houses again, that's just stupid.

Click here to vote on "Dwellings vs. Estates" poll »

We will be holding elections for 13 new staff members; we are looking for a total of 30 active staff members as the site is rapidly growing. Please send in your nominations for players above 30 VEs to with the Subject "Nominations." Nominations will close March 25. People nominated have to have a clean record, meaning they must have never been banned or permanently muted. All nominations will be screened and monitored.

We are getting reports that some posts to the chat areas are being delayed as much as a minute or two before they show up, this is because of the new 2 server system, please don't send in petitions or complain about this, we are aware of it and are working on it as quickly as we can.

I want to let you all know that you can choose whether to display those images in the main location under Village Images in Preferences. This poll is to ask, would you prefer fan art or real photos from the movie?

Click here to vote on "Village/City Images" poll »

Vote on the method that will be used to choose your house for the first seven years (6 VEs) of the game.

Click here to vote on "Houses" poll »

Ok everyone, the old house module is being replaced with a new module "Dwellings" The new module has a lot more options and is a lot more robust of a system for homes and places to live. The Dwellings module has been loaded and is active so you can buy your new homes now and enjoy them. The old houses are still in place for now, but will be removed this coming week. There will be no automatic reimbursements for the houses that will go away. If you have a house, it is recommended you sell it now and build yourself a dwelling.

I repeat the houses will be destroyed in the very near future, if you wait till after the houses are destroyed you will get absolutely no reimbursements for your lost house. SELL YOUR HOUSE NOW!!!

Ok, by now I'm sure a lot of you are wondering why I've pretty much spent the last 24 hours straight coding for HogwartsLive. I felt that in honor of the DVD Release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this week, I felt it was time to put some grunt work in on HogwartsLive for some game enhancements. I was going to wait till I was done with all I had planned before posting this MoTD, but it's been slowing me down answering the same questions over..and over..and over..and over..and over.

Ok, here's what I've done so far.

I started by introducing new areas to the game:

The first new area I introduced to the game was the Ministry of Magic. the Ministry is available to all people who have reached at least the Witch/Wizard Level. The Bluerock Chapel (where you get married) has been relocated here. This means that you cannot get married until you have at least a Witch or Wizard.

Next I introduced Mount Olympus. A place for all those who have reached God/Goddess status. So far nothing special is there, but there will be special items located there in the near future.

Third I introduced Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. A lot of the shops have been relocated to one of these 2 places. These are accessible from the beginning of the game, and Diagon Alley is now the starting point up until Witch/Wizard.

Third years and above are allowed to visit Hogsmeade Village and the shops there. Maddam Puddlefoots (where you go to flirt) has been moved where it belongs here. If you would like to Flirt in this game you will have to get up to 3rd year status before you can start. The Farm, Mill and Textile Mill are now located here as well, so if you have a job this is where you go.

I've also introduced Spinner's End, a place where only people of Witch/Wizard or higher who are of the Evil alignment can go, and Number 12 Grimmauld Place, a place where only people of Witch/Wizard or higher who are of the Good alignment can go.

Then I made modifications to the Race System. You may only go to the common room of the hogwarts house you are sorted in. This means if you are a Ravenclaw you can only go to Ravenclaw, no travelling to Gryffindor or Slytherin. All shops that were in the common rooms have been moved to other areas, I encourage you to look around as it would take far too long for me to tell you where each and every shop is, but just FYI (the evil shops are either in Spinner's End or in Knockturn Alley).

All shops that were in one of the hogwarts houses have been moved as follows. If you had a house in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, you can find your house in Hogsmeade. If you had a house in Slytherin you can find your house in Knockturn Alley. If you had a house in Ravenclaw, you can find it in Diagon Alley. For the moment, the houses that were in the Great Hall are located in Hogwarts.

Also on the race system, on First Year when you are asked to choose which house you would like to be on, this choice is now lasting, no longer will you be switching houses each VE. You will not be asked what house you want to be in again until you reach Witch/Wizard. Once you reach Witch/Wizard there will be new loyalties you can select. The only one that is working right now is "Death Eater." Becoming a Death Eater will make you Evil (even if you are really really really good).

Other new loyalties to come include "Auror in Training (you will have to be an AIT for 3 consecutive VE's before the option for Auror will be given to you)", "Unspeakable in Training (you will have to be a UIT for 15 consecutive VEs before the option for Unspeakable will be given to you)", "Gringotts Spell-Breaker", and other new races that we haven't completely ironed out the details for yet. Each will have it's own advantages and disadvantages.

In the forest you can now find a special called a Phoenix. In order to get a Phoenix you will have to be of Good alignment, and in order to keep the Phoenix you will have to keep getting more good points, 15 additional good points per VE.

I am working on some new specials for Evil people to counterballance the Phoenix. One I am working on is the possibility of creating a horcrux when you kill someone in the PvP areas. The Horcrux could be used to stop you from going to the underworld, but you will get something like 200 evil points for creating one.

This isn't quite ALL the enhancements I've made, but as you can tell this has already made our longest MOTD entry pretty much ever, and I have a lot more enhancements to make, but one more thing.

There was a glitch this morning unrelated to what I was working on that caused everyone who had a pet from the pet shop to not be able to do anything on the site (it was quite annoying), the only way I could fix it was to purge all pets. There were over 800 people with Falcons in the game before the purge so please... stop sending in petitions asking for your Falcons back, they aren't coming back. You can buy a Snowy Owl, which has the same stat effects as the Falcon, from Diagon Alley.

The new server is now operational, welcome to the new and improved server. It should be a considerable speed increase, although perhaps not quite as good as is yet to come. Keep your eyes peeled, the best is yet to come!