Hogwarts Live Blog

Hi All,

You may have noticed that the site has been a bit slow lately and we even experienced some small outages. Some of our ex-players decided to go script kiddie on us and retaliated their bans via a series of automated attacks that overburdened our server. This made the site inaccessible to all instead of just to those who were banned.

Over the past couple days I have been making a number of security improvements to mitigate the impact of further attacks of this nature. If the safeguards I have put in place should be overcome our data center will block the malicious traffic and notify the proper authorities.

In addition to this I have asked Alchemist Edmund to return to his role of system administrator. This means that if the site should go down again I won't be the only one who can bring it back up.

I appreciate your continued patience and understanding concerning this matter.

Sincerely,
Your Headmaster

The Owl Post is currently down. Although you can write messages and appear to send them, they are not being delivered and all old owls have been deleted.

The Owls should be working again at some point today. I do not know if all old owls will be able to be restored, however.

Please don't petition the problem as we have no way of replying.

Thanks!

UPDATE

The owl post is now working but all old owls have been deleted for database preservation and to help speed things up again. Please be sure to delete old owls from your inboxes to help prevent issues like this in the future.

Sometime over the next 24 hours, Danilo will post an update concerning the recent downtime himself.

Thanks!

Please note I don't expect any downtime but want to make you all aware of the possibility of downtime in advance.

Our hosting provider Peer1 is experiencing a critical situation with their San Antonio datacenter. Half of their computer room air conditioning units (CRAC) are non-functional due to a water main break. Last year Texas had issues with rolling blackouts across the state and while it didn't interrupt service I was worried Peer1's backup generators wouldn't outlast the blackouts.

If temperatures at the San Antonio datacenter threaten to damage equipment Peer1 will have to proactively shut down servers. At this point I'm seriously considering moving to a datacenter in either Toronto, Chicago, or Los Angeles (where I live). Toronto and Chicago seem most likely since they aren't known for their natural disasters.

Again, depending on how Peer1 handles the situation we may not have to move any time soon.

UPDATE: Peer1 has resolved this issue. So no more worries! :)

Back in November, I wrote a blog post on Justia's Law, Technology and Marketing Blog with an overview of the legal and political systems in the Wizarding World.

In celebration of the launch of Pottermore and the release of the final movie in the series, I have written another post to continue where the movie leaves off with a review of what we know about the legal and political system of Harry's world in a Post Voldemort Era. If you are interested, take a look at Wizarding Law in the 21st Century on the Justia Law, Technology and Marketing Blog.

In appreciation of your hard work for reaching God/Goddess status here on HogwartsLive, Danilo has decided to reward your dedication and loyalty by making you Hogwarts Live alumni. What this means for you is that you will never be expelled (i.e. deleted). Once you reach 50 VEs, you do not ever have to worry about losing your account if for some reason you are prevented from logging in regularly.

In addition to the above change, ANYONE who has donated a total of $50 (5000 points) to the site will also be considered Alumni and will never be expelled. As with custom titles (also available with a $50 donation), you may make multiple donations and still be safe, just as long as the TOTAL amount donated is at least $50.

So, to sum up.... Anyone with 50 VEs is now safe from deletion AND anyone who has donated at least $50 is also safe from deletion.

For those with under 50 VEs and who do not meet the donation requirement to be saved from expulsion, the deletion schedule is as follows:

Students that have never shown up for classes (i.e. never logged in) will be expelled after 10 days.

Students that fail to reach second year (i.e. thwart Voldemort) within 30 days will be expelled. Note: This is only if you do not log in for 30 days.

Students that fail to attend classes (i.e. log in) for more than 120 days will be expelled.

As always, thanks for playing here on Hogwarts Live and congrats to all our new alumni!

First, let us say congratulations to our 5 Hogwarts Live T-shirt Winners! They are:

BattleMage Sinful (Ticket 6681)
Supreme Goddess Tyra (Ticket 2277)
Thirdyearboy joserules (Ticket 2874)
Enchantress PhoenixRising (Ticket 7178)
InsideoutSmurf Aisling (Ticket 6832)

Winners: Please OWL the link to the shirt you'd like to DANILO. He will handle getting your prize to you. http://hogwartslive.spreadshirt.com/ is the link to the available shirts.

If you did not win this time, don't be discouraged. We will have more raffles in the coming months and as long as you keep collecting beans, you can have a shot at one of those :)

And now for our SECOND SURPRISE!!! It's gotten off to a late start, but better late than never, right? So, without further ado, in honor of Harry's Birthday, Danilo has made it ...(wait for it)....

One of our dedicated players made up this video for HL players, check it out.

If you go to your common room there is a House Bulletin link on the left menu. A lot of people probably don't know this feature exists, or just haven't signed up because it hasn't really been used.

Head of Houses can use this feature to send important information to their House, including game tips or even contests where you can win prizes.

So please sign up for you House's bulletin list today. :)

"HARDCORE" is defined as INTENSELY LOYAL. It has nothing to do with talent or even understanding. It's about dedication.

Your roleplaying is no more valid than anyone else's. I don't care who you're friends with or what imaginary power you think you have here. Who are you to ruin it for other people? There's a reason why YOU don't make the rules here or have a symbol in front of your name.

Staff may not RP, but that doesn't mean we don't understand it. We don't have RP rules here because hardly ANY of you would be able to follow REAL RP rules. That includes ALL of YOU who THINK you know what you're doing.

This site is so EVERYONE can enjoy themselves, not so they can be judged by others who think they're better than them. If a village is already being used, FIND ANOTHER ONE or PLAY ALONG. Your RP does not take precedence over something ALREADY GOING ON.

The RP villages are for EVERYONE to use for roleplaying. NOT just you.

5 years ago, on July 2nd, 2006, I posted a MoTD (before it was a blog) that I married, in real life, Barbara Moline, who I met here on HogwartsLive.com as LadyofFantasy SerenityRose. Today is our 5th anniversary, and I wanted to share with you that we are still very much in love and very happily married.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled forest fighting.