Hogwarts Live Blog

Some have you may have noticed that on certain parts of the site when you try to search for someone by their character name the search feature is case sensitive.

You can now search without worrying about case sensitivity. =)

I apologize for the prolonged downtime that occurred earlier today/yesterday. For the past three weeks I've been working on a number of things that should both speed up the site and increase stability. This will, hopefully, mean database crashes will occur less often. It will also mean that in the event that the site does crash an automated program will attempt a number of fixes to get the database back up and running.

You should expect these fail-safes to be in place no later than next month. I will post more about this shortly.

Again, sorry for the downtime and thanks for playing! ^^

UPDATE: There was some data loss as of February 17, 2010 2:16 PM (PST). I recovered what I could from various backups. Most of the data I recovered is about 12 hours old. All data is no older than 36 hours.

Everyone's owls have disappeared and no new ones are going through. The Owl Post is still there, it's just not working correctly at the moment.

Thank you to those who have petitioned about this. I have left a message for Danilo so hopefully he can get them up and running again soon. Since we are aware of the problem, we don't need you to petition anymore.

Thanks!

UPDATE:
The owls are back from strike. Turns out they just wanted some new bird feed. Figures.

Owls. Can't live with them. Can't live without them.

--Headmaster

1st Place Webcomic: The Eyebrow Waggle by Veranda




Prize: 2,000 donator points

2nd Place Webcomic: Untitled by FleurDelacourWeasley

Prize: 1,500 donator points

3rd Place Webcomic: Wacky! Witchy! Webcomics! by MasterofDisaster

Prize: 1,000 donator points

Because there were so many good entries I decided to award 500 donator points to the following entries:

4th Place Webcomic: HL Godmodder Meets Real Life by MisguidedGhost


5th Place Webcomic: Story of my HL Life by MisguidedGhost


6th Place Webcomic: Untitled by Kahlan


I provided a descriptions of the winning comics in the comments below for our visually impaired players:

Enough is enough. People seriously need to chill out with your HL family/clan/coven whatever you would like to call it business. This is the internet, half of you are acting like its RL and a life or death matter. Its not. When this stuff first started it was all in good fun for the people involved, now I haven't logged in once in the past few months to not seeing a stupid heated argument spawned by all of it. When it gets to the point people are quitting the site over this stuff its crossed the line. If you know something you say is going to upset someone to that point, don't say it. If you know a comment you plan on saying to one person will start a argument, don't say it in chat, owl them. If someone says something to your HL family member on here you don't like, owl the person if you want to confront them. Leave your family drama that has been taken off HL to IM's out of the chats. You don't have to be everyone's best friend, but fighting in chat everyday because you don't like them/their family it ruins the game for a lot of players. Relax a little and have fun. Fight your own battles for once, see how tough you really are on here. Don't get 10 people to gang up on one person, that is cowardly.

Thank you and have a nice day.
-Spinal

P.S.: Remember you have until February 1st to submit your web comic! Information on that is a few posts down.

I've added the custom Hogwarts Live T-shirts and other custom merchandise branded primarily with the Hogwarts Live crest to three more stores. I did this cause some people complained that the prices at Zazzle were too expensive. The Spreadshirt store is the the cheapest if that's what you're looking for.

Right now the cheapest men's T-shirt currently available is:
$9.99 (USD) - Hogwarts Live Crest Value T-shirt

You can get a women's shirt for as low as $11.40 (USD) at Spreadshirt.

On Spreadshirt both sexes have access to wide array of colors, you can browse by:
Design or Category: Women - Men - Kids - Classic T's - Favorites

There are also a lot of inexpensive items such as stickers and pins within the various stores.

The current stores you can buy custom Hogwarts Live merchandise from are as follows:
Zazzle Hogwarts Live Store - most designs and customization options
Spreadshirt Hogwarts Live Store - lower prices + tons of colors + all designs
CafePress Hogwarts Live Store - limited to HL Crest designs only
Printfection Hogwarts Live Store - another alternative + more colors

UPDATE: 15% OFF T-Shirts and More on Zazzle - Use code: ZAZZLEFORYOU

Remember when looking at shirts what you see is what you get so make sure the images don't look fuzzy on the preview or stretched before you order. All Zazzle and Spreadshirt items should be pretty much perfect as I was able to fine-tune image sizes on each item within those stores.

Please check out each store for a variety of products and prices.

Thanks!

As you may know you can exchange donator points in the Prefect's Lounge for special in-game advantages.

Currently there are things such as custom titles, custom weapons, custom armor, custom mounts, custom specialties, extra forest fights, extra gold, extra gems, etc. that can be traded for donator points.

Basically what I'm asking for everyone who reads this to come up with ideas for things you'd like to be able to get in the Prefect's Lounge in exchange for your donator points.

Thanks. =)

I know in the books you're not allowed to change your Hogwarts House but since a lot of you are unhappy with your current house I re-added the ability for people to switch houses after being in their current house for three real time months. Yes, you have to wait three months to change your house affiliation.

Description:
Simply create a comic strip of a preferably humorous nature related to the goings-on at Hogwarts Live. Use any format you want.

The final image should be submitted as an attachment by February 1st to:

Please include your Hogwarts Live username/character name with your email.

If I particularly like the winning webcomic we may hold another contest on a monthly basis and give the submitted webcomics their own category here on the Hogwarts Live Blog.

Prizes:
1st Place - 2,000 donator points
2nd Place - 1,500 donator points
3rd Place - 1,000 donator points

Rules:
1. You must use art you create yourself or own the rights to. This means you can't use clipart or pre-existing imagery from Flickr, deviantART, Google, etc.
2. You can't make fun of or pick on a specific character unless they give you permission to do so.
3. No pornographic images or uncensored foul language will be allowed in submitted webcomics.

Please check out the Hogwarts Live Custom Merchandise Store.

This store includes t-shirts and other custom merchandise pertaining to Hogwarts Live. Please respond with any suggestions or questions you have below.

Products are organized by categories as listed on the left side navigation. Most white T-shirts are around $20. If a shirt looks unusually expensive it's because it is a brand name like bella, Eden, American Apparel, etc.; made out of an expensive material; or using an expensive dye (e.g. any of the black or non-white shirts).

If you decide to buy something use this code NEWYOUZAZZLE to get 20.10% OFF Binders, T-Shirts, & Mugs!