Hogwarts Live Blog

May T-Shirt Winners

The winner of our May Top Contributor Prize was Nimue.

The winner of our May T-Shirt Raffle was Salazar.

The winners will receive their choice of designs available on http://hogwartslive.spreadshirt.com/

The Top Contributor Prize and T-Shirt Raffle will continue again for the month of June so be sure to check out the Candy Raffle on the lefthand side of the main site under the -Global- section.

We have just brought back our Ministry of Magic, Spinner's End, and No. 12 Grimmauld Place!

The Ministry is open to any Witch/Wizard and higher, regardless of alignment. No. 12 Grimmauld Place is only open to those Witches and Wizards who are of good alignment, and Spinner's End is only open to Witches and Wizards who are evil. To make it a bit clearer, good players can't get to Spinner's and evil players can't get to No. 12 Grimmauld Place.

In addition to these villages, we have added one new race: Death Eaters.

As the name implies, this is for players who are or who wish to be EVIL. If you are good and you choose this race, you will become evil INSTANTLY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Also, to follow along with the books, this race is only open once you have attained 7 VEs. In other words, only to Witches and Wizards and higher.

Have fun and thanks for playing!

April T-Shirt Winners

The winner of our April Top Contributor Prize was AnakinFinnegan.

The winner of our April T-Shirt Raffle was DonovanReno.

The winners will receive their choice of designs available on http://hogwartslive.spreadshirt.com/

The Top Contributor Prize and T-Shirt Raffle will continue again for the month of May so be sure to check out the Candy Raffle on the lefthand side of the main site under the -Global- section.

We will be taking suggestions for new staff members until Saturday, May 5th. Please take into consideration the attitude of the player you are suggesting, their ability to follow the rules, how they treat other players, and if you know they have been banned before, do not suggest them.

Please petition your suggestions.

Just to clear something up...we are not asking you to vote for new staffers, we're only asking for SUGGESTIONS. So if you're one of those people that keeps asking other players to "vote" for you, STOP. Getting a bunch of your friends to petition your name does not increase your chances of being considered for staff.

~Witchy

Just noticed today was Friday the 13th. Well, what better day to start a new Hogwarts Live tradition? Or even better, how about two?

So what are they?

Monthly Top Contributor Prize
If you're the top contributor for the month you'll get to pick out your very own, custom, Hogwarts Live T-shirt from hogwartslive.spreadshirt.com. If you live outside the US we'll cover shipping up to $15 (USD). Check out this page for a list of countries we can ship to.

Monthly T-shirt Candy Raffle
Same deal as above except you have to win a contest. Just head on over to the Candy Raffle page under the Global section on the left side of the site and exchange your every flavor beans for raffle tickets. Beans can be won through special events or acquired through the Prefect's Lounge under Buy Candy.

The prize winners for each month will be announced after that month has ended.

Check out some of our T-shirt designs:

Happy Easter to those who celebrate the holiday! The Killer Bunny of DOOM and a Baby Chick are available for a limited time only in the pet shop. :)

It's a tie! After multiple times counting(by multiple people), the votes were correctly counted as 35 for Option 1 and 35 for Option 2.

Option 1 - SmartWitchSarah


Option 2 - Hera


Thank you again to everyone who participated! Winners will be contacted shortly by staff.

Yes, this was an april fools day joke, we have not written a blatant rip-off of Angry Birds, and when and if we decide to branch into mobile gaming, you can be sure we won't target platforms like Blackberry or WebOS first. What wasn't a joke? The Bean Raffle of course! Congratulations to AmberWood who wins the Stuffed Pygmy Puff.

Also, it seems that Peeves was in on the April Fools day fun. He broke into the hall of records and somehow made everyone a Hufflepuff. We have unsorted everyone, report to Hogwarts and you can be sorted into your respective houses once again.

We hope you enjoyed our April Fools day fun as much as we did

Over the years we've received the same criticism over and over again "Why isn't HogwartsLive a graphical game? Text is boring!" Well we've been listening, and we've been working for many months now on a brand new graphical game exclusively for the BlackBerry Playbook and HP Touchpad platforms. We are currently seeking Alpha testers for the new HogwartsLive Pygmy Puff Toss!

In our first graphical game, our completely original gameplay consists of using a catapult to toss pygmy puffs from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes at Dudley Dursley, who has inexplicably regained his pig tail. In order to protect himself from the onslaught, Dudley has used household furniture items from Number 4 Privet Drive to construct barricades.

We are sure you've never played any games like this at all and will agree it is very original and engaging.

If you are interested in testing out the HogwartsLive Pygmy Puff Toss, and have a BlackBerry Playbook or HP Touchpad, please leave a message in the comments and we'll get back to you soon. We have a highly limited number of beta test slots available, please post your interest today only.

Please note that the details of the game are highly secret, and if you are approved to be an Alpha Tester, you will be required to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement.

UPDATE: In celebration of the announcement of the Alpha Test of the HogwartsLive Pygmy Puff toss, we are Giving away a stuffed Pygmy Puff just like the one shown above. Head on over to the Candy Raffle and trade in those Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Beans for your raffle tickets. But hurry, this raffle is for today only, ending at Midnight tonight Pacific time!

The Stuffed Pygmy puff comes to you straight from Zonkos at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando Florida (we purchased this, WWoHP and Universal Orlando are not sponsors of this raffle)

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSIONS. VOTING WILL OPEN SOON.


In honor of March Madness here on HL we are putting our own twist on it.

March Meme Madness

If you choose to participate, you need to make a meme about HL. The top 8 entries (selected by staff) will be placed in brackets, two memes going head to head for your votes. There will be three rounds, the first round there were be 4 face-offs, the 4 winners will then move onto round 3 which will work the same as the first round, but with 2 face -offs. The Winners of round 3 will go head to head in the final around.

Submissions should be sent to OR . (Please do not submit them to both of us.)

Guidelines:
1.) It must be appropriate! Not appropriate entries will not make it to the poll.
2.) It must be original, do not copy ones already done.
3.) It needs to be based off Hogwarts Live, NOT Harry Potter.
4.) MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE YOUR HL NAME IN YOUR EMAIL. Make sure the subject of the email is "Meme".
5.) There is a maximum of 3 entries per person, but only ONE of your entries is eligible for one for the 8 spots available.


What is a Meme? Memes, or more specifically internet memes, refer to any concept that spreads across the Internet.
Here is one made by HL Staff member Calypso:



Memes are easy to make, first you will need a picture, there are generators such as http://memegenerator.net/ www.quickmeme.com and many others. (Making your own original picture is encouraged.)

If you are making a meme for the first time, you can find images on memegenerator by clicking on generate an image, you may select one of those meme characters and there is also a bar above with different tiers based on popularity. Once you get more comfortable, you can click on create a new character and be able to google an image, upload an image or enter an image url to use and you are able to better editing tools.
When you generate an image there is going to be a box with the picture and underneath will be two text boxes, one for top text and one for bottom text. Write your text here, select a language and click on generate to create your image, if it didn't come out the way you wanted, you can re-enter the text. Make sure to save the image once you are done. You don't have to use a memegenerator, simply using photoshop or paint works too, just have fun and make it humorous and entertaining.


Submissions will be accepted for the next week.

There's been some buzz about this video on HL so I decided to post it as well as offer some advice.

I'd recommend signing the pledge to condemn these atrocities--public outcry has helped get the US Government involved in human rights violations before and it'll work again. On the other hand I wouldn't recommend giving Invisible Children any money.

If you want to help out in Africa please donate to UNICEF. With UNICEF over 90% of your donation actually goes to help those in need. Other charities aren't nearly as careful or effective with the funds they raise.

I would also suggest writing your representatives concerning this matter.



If you're concerned about the controversy this video and the organization behind it has stirred up read this New York Times editorial: Viral Video, Vicious Warlord

For another view read: Kony 2012: Causing More Harm Than Good