Hogwarts Live Blog

As an extra special Valentine's Day treat I added the ability to donate on behalf of someone else. So show that special someone how much you truly care this Valentine's Day and get them a shiny Amulet of Ru, or a sparkly Chronos Gem, the specialty they've always wanted, or if you really love this person get them something much better than even a Gucci handbag: a custom title.

To donate on behalf of your friends and loved ones click on their name in chat and then click on the PayPal Contribute button that appears on their bio page.

Also, thanks to WitchyWoman and SpinalRemains you can now buy your sweetheart a sweet gift from the Valentine's Gift Shoppe. They'll be able to open these gifts in the Lovers Lounge, which is accessible via everyone's respective Common Rooms.

This is Headmaster Danilo wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day!

A few months ago we posted about Hurricane Irene and the damage it did across the east coast, and how it personally affected a long time player Tom. Another place that was majorly affected by this flood was Schoharie High School, where he graduated from.

Samsung is holding a contest and is donating $1,000,000 worth of technology to the winning school. This will help in the long run to help some of the business, math, and science classes pay for new equipment. School cuts have already reached an all time low and another handful of teachers are being cut including some of the business and science teachers.
Because of the flood, the budget was affected even more because students have to move out of the district and find a new home. All school taxes from that family will be lost and the school will lose money.
All you have to do is click on the link, register really quick, and scroll down to Schoharie Central School, and vote for it.

https://pages.samsung.com/us/sft/video/index.jsp

Thank you to anyone who chooses to vote. :)

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.


https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/


You may notice a lot of players have filtered names, this is in protest of PIPA and SOPA.

If your name has been changed owl me, SpinalRemains, to get it changed back NOT WitchyWoman.

CONGRATS TO TEAM HUFFLEPUFF FOR DOMINATING THE HOUSE TREE CONtEST AND WINNING EVERY WEEK AND NOW THE GRAND PRIZE!!!! THEY WILL ENJOY THE HOUSE BUFF FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JANUARY!!!!

Since it's once again getting to be that time of year, we have started our annual House Christmas Tree Contest!

All Houses have been given a small Christmas Tree in their Common Room which you can help decorate by spending gems, gold, and turns. In return, you will receive a small Holiday Buff.

In the past, the House with the Best Tree on December 31 has been awarded the House Cup for the entire month of January. This is still the Grand Prize, but this year, we are also adding in a weekly prize- the House Cup/Buff for the following week. So instead of going by House Points, the Cup will be determined by Tree Points until Christmas. This weekly contest will be awarded Saturdays at 8 pm, Eastern time (so about this time every week).

The costumes in the Haunter's Lodge are also being switched out for Holiday ones as I'm writing this, and we will be adding some more holiday modules over the next couple days.

Enjoy and good luck!

REMINDER FOR EVERYONE TO GO TO YOUR COMMON ROOM AND SIGN UP FOR YOUR HOUSE MAILING LIST, IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE IT ALREADY. HEADS OF HOUSES USE THIS SYSTEM TO SEND IMPORTANT MESSAGES TO THEIR HOUSE MEMBERS. THANKS!

We have decided to add a little extra to the mix this holiday season and have an Advent calendar of sorts.

Every evening from now until Christmas, we will be choosing, at random, one player to receive 50 gems as we count down the days until the THE BIG DAY.

At 8:30pm Eastern, we will see how many players are online at that time and then use that information to pick a completely random number on random.org. Then we will count down from the top of the list and award the 50 gems to whomever is in that slot.

So, in order to be eligible for each day's drawing, you HAVE TO BE ONLINE AT 8:30PM EASTERN.



MAESTRO BUGSY! (Dec. 1)
BAH HUMBUG HAJI! (Dec. 2)
VALKYRIE VAMPIRESSBABY! (Dec. 3)
GINGERBREAD ARDAREL! (Dec. 4)
BARBARIAN XERAN! (Dec. 5)
GIFT WRAPPED PURPLEANGEL! (Dec. 6)
MAESTRO NOVASKY! (Dec. 7)
MISTLEOTIE ZEUS! (Dec. 8)
FIRSTYEARBOY REDUCTO! (Dec. 9)
SIXTHYEARBOY JULIAPOTTER! (Dec. 10)
MISTLTOE SHERRYSNAPE (Dec. 12)
SUPREME GOD THEQUiBBLERJACK! (Dec. 12)
GLADIATRIX SIDGALAXY! (Dec. 13)
FOURTHYEAR LONGBOW!!! (Dec. 14)
FIRSTYEARBOY DOMINICGLINKA!!!! (Dec. 15)
FIRSTYEARBOY JACKALOFBANE! (Dec. 16)
SEVENTHYEARGIRL JENIRE!!! (Dec. 17)
ULTIMATE GODDESS CBGKITTEN!!! (Dec. 18)
SUPREME ELF GNOME SOULRISER!!! (Dec. 19)
PROFESSOR SILVERROSE!!! (Dec. 20)
SECONDYEARBOY JAKEWRUBEL!!! (Dec. 21)
ICICLE CHELSEABLACK!!! (Dec. 22)
AMAZON AMYPOND!!! (Dec. 23)
OOGIE BOOGIE AMBERWOOD!!! (Dec. 24)
THIRDYEARBOY BLAIKEROYDE!!! (Dec. 25)
UNDERGOD TRENTRADKE!!! (Dec.26)
DEMIGODDESS HALLYPOTTER!!! (Dec. 27)
ITSAWONDERFUL MARLEE!! (Dec. 28)
FOURTHYEARGIRL ETTIEMINTY!!! (Dec. 29)
GODDESS SCARLETTGINGER!!! (Dec. 30)

Congratulations! Your gems have already been awarded to you!

December 31:
The winner is...
PRIESTESS NAVYGIRL!!!
(#33 out of 79)

Congrats, NavyGirl!

The Hogwarts Live staff and I worked very hard to release a new version of HL right before Christmas as it is a special time in the Harry Potter books.

There are some new additions such as the ability to ignore users in chat; and then there are some old features that have been fixed and returned to the game such as the marriage system.

Also please remember to thank each and every one of the staff for their hard work testing the new codebase. They made sure everything was working so you all could continue to enjoy an uninterrupted gaming experience.

If you or anyone else discovers a bug or exploit please report it right away via the Petition for Help link on the top right hand side of the page. The first person to report a vulnerability and not abuse it thereafter or multiple times prior shall receive a reward in the form of donator points.

Wishing you all some very happy holidays!

-Headmaster Danilo


A note on the Ignore Chat Users function...

It's pretty self-explanatory on how to ignore/unignore people (once you click the link on the left) so I'm not going to explain that part. But there have been a lot of questions on how it works, so here's an explanation for that:

When you Ignore a person, you can no longer see any of their posts, but they can still see yours.

No, they do not get notified of it. Yes, you can unignore them.

It does not affect the Owl Post so they can still send you owls. If you want to ignore them there too, then use the Ignore feature in there. Directions are in the FAQ if you do not know how.

If you are ignoring a user in chat, then please actually ignore them. Don't sit there and talk about them or refer to them or otherwise try to instigate anything or cause drama.

Staff cannot ignore anyone, and no one can ignore staff. No matter how much you (or us ;) ) may want to.

~Witchy

Hi All,

I've decided to close the Facebook Hogwarts Live RPG Group on Monday, December 19, 2011.

Instead, from now on please like and use our Facebook Page at:
http://facebook.com/HogwartsLive

It's rather confusing to have both a Facebook Page and a Facebook Group. I figured it was best to consolidate all our fans in one place.

For most pertinent updates please always check this blog (http://hogwartslive.com/blog).

And be sure to follow us on Twitter (@HogwartsLive) as well.

--Headmaster

You voted and the winner is Sectumsempra! Her submission was Choice 1 - Twelve Trollers. She has won 25 new days!

Runners-up

Second: Carlylotti(Choice 3 - Twelve Raunchy Ads)
Third: Roku(Choice 4 - Twelve Free Portkeys)
Fourth: ZackBryant(Choice 2 - Twelve Loving Posts)


Thank you to everyone who participated! The three runners-up can owl WitchyWoman, BlackZephyr, or myself for smaller prizes. You can choose between gems(100), gold(50,000) or new days(5).

Anyone who submitted an entry(that didn't make the final 4) will get 25 gems added to their account.

All of the entries we received for the 12 Days of HLmas contest were really good!! We had a lot of fun reading (and singing) all of them ;)

Now it's YOUR turn to vote on your favorite! We have picked our top 4 choices for you to choose from. You may vote more than once (in case you change your mind), but only the last choice will be counted towards the final result.

To save space (and time reading), we're only posting the last verse for each one. We're leaving the names off each entry in the hopes that the votes will be more honest, so we've numbered and named them (in no particular order) with the 12th day item.

You will have until midnight Eastern time December 13 to cast your vote. You can either post it in the comments here or petition it.

Here are the songs!

Choice 1 - Twelve Trollers
On the twelfth day of Christmas the website gave to me,
Twelve trollers trolling,
Eleven year old players,
Ten pregnant yearlings,
Nine goddamn waylays,
Eight evaded bans,
Seven real life dramas,
Six solo roleplays,
Five PvPs,
Four tortured n00bs,
Three new owls,
Two Deathcap Ducks,
And a broken marriage module.

Choice 2 - Twelve Loving Posts
On the twelfth day of HLmas,
my current spouse sent to me
Twelve loving posts,
Eleven pets playing,
Ten uh-oh owls,
Nice Gems a-glintin',
Eight owls o-death,
Seven n00bs complainin',
Six kids a-cryin',
Five contest cards,
Four house keys,
Three flirty smooches,
Two butterbeers,
And a broom in the bestiary!

Choice 3 - Twelve Raunchy Ads
On the twelfth day of HLmas, my barn owl flew to me:
Twelve raunchy ads
Eleven broken chats
Ten filtered judges
Nine hacked marriages
Eight rabid zombies
Seven crashed weddings
Six disowned children
Five forfeit GAMEs
Four sparkly trees
Three reindeer poops
Two yearlings frenching
And a temp mute behalf of Witchy.

Choice 4 - Twelve Free Portkeys
On the Twelfth day of HLmas, my true love gave to me,
Twelve Free port keys,
Eleven yearlings dying,
Ten PVP kills,
Nine Firstie soups,
Eight spammers spamming,
Seven pouncers pouncing,
Six pregnant firsties,
Five Voldemort kills! (Ya, right!)
Four school houses,
Three Sichael apples,
Two Resurrections,
and a large butter beer in Hogsmeeeaaade!

NOW GO VOTE!!!! xD

LAST DAY TO SUBMIT ENTRIES!

We have a new contest for this week, with the submission deadline being Saturday the 10th. It is short notice, but it is something that we just came up with.

The contest is called "The 12 Days of HLmas", basically you are rewriting the 12 Days of Christmas, Hogwarts Live style. Submission should be sent to OR . Saturday staff will pick their favorites, and then those will be post in the blog as a poll, and you the player gets to vote for the winner.


Guidelines:
1.) It must be appropriate! Not appropriate entries will not make it to the poll.
2.) It must follow the 12 Days of Christmas song format. (It should be able to be sung to the tune and sound right.)
3.) Be creative!
4.) It needs to be based off Hogwarts Live, NOT Harry Potter. We don't want "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, Ra-on We-eeeasly."
5.) We are just looking for lyrics written out, however if you want, and you know how you can make a video to go along with it, if not, do not ask us how.
6.) MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE YOUR HL NAME IN YOUR EMAIL. Make sure the subject of the email is "The 12 Days of HLmas".

The winner will receive 25 new days. Other smaller prizes may be given out at the judge's discretion.