Need a solid guide to dueling on Pottermore? ElmBlade43 has provided a fairly comprehensive guide in yesterday’s blog post: Dueling 101.
I have more than 5,000 dueling points and average 142-143 potency per duel, but that doesn’t mean there’s not still plenty more to learn. I got some great ideas from ElmBlade’s post and hope to use them to take my game to the next level.
Here’s to a 144 average, baby!
Well, that didn’t take long. Just a week ago, I was posting excitedly that the Great Hall had finally reached 1,000,000 students.
That number has doubled since then. And here is the evidence…
Here is the House breakdown at 2,001,849 sorted students:
Gryffindor: 520,772 members
Hufflepuff: 503,982 members
Slytherin: 501,654 members
Ravenclaw: 475,441 members
Here is the Points breakdown at 2,001,849 sorted students:
Slytherin: 37,003,557 points
Gryffindor: 36,862,963 points
Ravenclaw: 36,285,160 points
Hufflepuff: 31,874,152 points
Gryffindor trails Slytherin by about 150,000 points. But Gryffindor also has about 19,000 more students than Slytherin. Which will prevail? Numbers or skill? ;)
Regardless of who wins the first House Cup, I suspect the site will experience steady growth… but that there will be a big growth spurt when CoS is released and everybody – the PS/SS Beta group and the general public – explores CoS for the first time, at the same time, together.
This afternoon, my husband attempted the practice potion. He had the same difficulties everyone has the first time brewing, but when I asked him if he blew up his cauldron, he said that he didn’t really see anything very dramatic happen to his cauldron.
I attempted to show him what an exploding cauldron looked like. I went to the practice potion, tossed my snake fangs in the mortar and chopped them up, put four measures in my cauldron, and then intentionally overheated the cauldron during the 10 second countdown before waving my wand.
Black specks flew out of the cauldron, and the potion turned a sickly green… but no melted cauldron and no green goo splattered all over my workbench.
I have since searched the Web for a picture of a properly exploded and melted cauldron, but to no avail so far.
So… Did Pottermore eliminate the exploding cauldron to increase bandwidth (and decrease excessive expenditure of galleons)? Will the exploding cauldron become just one of those Beta memories… albeit a rather dramatic one (and a good source of self-deprecating jokes).
Well, whatever the case, while I was looking for photos of exploding cauldrons, I did come across some very helpful Potions videos by StormChestnut89 – one of the Gryffindors on the leaderboard in the Great Hall… and one of my occasional dueling partners.
Enjoy…
Also be sure to check out StormChestnut’s YouTube Channel for some great tutorials showing how to make specific Potions.
ETA: ElmBlade demonstrates in the Comments thread that Cauldrons do indeed still explode on Pottermore… just not in the practice potion.
So… now that Pottermore is open to all, I can show off my Sorting Quiz without Spoiler Tags!
This is the Quiz that put me into Slytherin:
1) Given a choice between The Wise, the Bold, the Good, the Great, I chose The Wise.
2) Given a choice between several different scenes in an enchanted garden, I was most attracted to a luminous pool.
3) If a troll broke loose in the Headmaster’s Study, I would rescue the following items in this order:
4) Given a choice of different supernatural creatures, the one I was most likely to want to study was merpeople.
5) Given a choice of roads, I would have chosen the narrow, dark alley lit by lanterns.
6) Given a choice of dusk or dawn, I would choose dusk.
7) Given a choice of left or right, I would choose left.
Now, here is the Quiz that put my husband into Ravenclaw:
1) Same question, same answer
2) Same question, same answer
3) Same question, same exact order of items
4) Same question. My husband chose centaurs.
5) Given a choice of nightmares, my husband chose heights.
6) Given a choice of Forest or River, my husband chose river.
7) Given a choice of Heads or Tails, my husband chose tails.
Here are some explanations of our answers:
Question 1: “The Wise” is the answer I would have given 100% of the time. I suspect the same is true of my husband.
Question 2: I don’t know the rationale behind my husband’s choice in the Enchanted Garden, but I picked the luminous pool primarily based on aesthetics. I love the interplay of light and water.
Question 3: My husband and I both love Merlin and old books, so I suspect this is behind both our responses on what to save first with a troll on the loose. I personally figured that the Headmaster could concoct his Dragon Pox cure again based on what he remembered from the previous concoction, but something as priceless as Merlin’s book could never be replaced. However, even though the geek in me would have found it fascinating to go through the thousand years of student records and see what sorts of patterns and trends emerged – and how many detentions famous Wizards and Witches received – I would have felt guilty about placing the student records ahead of the Dragon Pox potion. So I thought it would be best to save the Dragon Pox potion before the student records… even though the student records would be more interesting to sort through. Dragon Pox “for the greater good.” LOL. Anyway, that’s the rationale behind my answer.
Question 4: Magical creatures was the toughest question for me, but it doesn’t seem to have caused my husband any hesitation. He chose centaurs because he considers himself a Sagittarius. Me, I tried to answer the question rigorously from within the Potterverse. :) Consequently, I quickly eliminated ghosts and centaurs. Ghosts aren’t scary in the Potterverse. They’re just kind of comical. And while I love the centaurs of myth, I don’t much like the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest. As for vampires and werewolves… I eliminated them because they have fairly strong House associations, and I already know so much about them. Merpeople, on the other hand, are fascinating within the Potterverse. They’re fierce – yet intelligent, mysterious, and musical. I could definitely see myself conducting a deeper study of merpeople.
Question 5: After answering question 4 differently, my husband and I were put on different tracks for the remaining questions. However, I suspect that he would also have chosen the dark, lamplit alley that I did if he had been given a choice of four roads. We both love classic, atmospheric horror movies. And that’s what prompted my response. I also would have loved the forest path I could have chosen, but the woods are three doors down from my house, so I can walk in the forest pretty much any time weather permits. (ETA: He says he may have chosen the forest path).
As for nightmares… I probably would have chosen the eye looking through the keyhole in the door. But I could easily have gone with heights… and probably would have debated the two possibilities in my head rather extensively.
Question 6: No question. I would choose dusk every time. I suspect my husband would too. And I would have chosen River, as he did. Forest is great, but you can often get Forest when you choose to follow a River. :)
Question 7: No question. I would choose left every time. I suspect my husband would too, given that he is left handed. As for Heads/Tails… I would have chosen Heads.
So… does anybody have any thoughts on which elements of these Quizzes gave my husband Ravenclaw and me Slytherin? We obviously have a lot of similarities.
I have a lot of thoughts on what put us into our respective Houses (and “random selection” is not among them!), but this post has gone on long enough, so it’s probably time just to conduct the analysis in the Comments thread. Have fun!
Oh, and feel free to post your own quiz questions and responses – and results.
Well, here’s a little trip down memory lane… a blog draft that I never actually published.
It has, perhaps, some historical value in that it offers a sense of what the wait for Pottermore was like for the Beta testers who had not yet received their welcome emails. All we could think about was… WHEN AM I GONNA GET THAT STUPID EMAIL?!?!? It was really a lot like watching paint dry.
Here’s a little example of how I killed time while waiting (written August 20, 2011)…
Hey, you know the wait for your Pottermore Welcome email is starting to get to you when you start seeing poetry in the gibberish dumped in your spam filter.
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At first, I wondered if it was an honest attempt at communication in a second language. Then I checked the URL the spammer left. Porn site.
So yup, it’s spam alright. But the English is sooooooooo incomprehensible that there’s something wonderfully surreal about it. I mean, “I moldiness say i pioneer this particularised one to generally be top nick”? Could Monty Python be much funnier than that?
Perhaps I really do belong in Ravenclaw!
Why?
Because as the House History tells us… the key quality for being sorted into Ravenclaw House is not merely intelligence but eccentricity. The House prides itself in its independence, intelligence, and eccentricity. After all, it’s the House of Uric the Oddball… and what could be odder than running through the spam filter with comedic intent?
Geez, that Hat had better not sort me into hyper-normal Hufflepuff.
Six days later, the Hat sorted me into Slytherin. And I’ve never looked back!
If you are new to Pottermore and are wondering about what items you can collect, I’m about to give you a list of all the items in my trunk. But I’ll let you figure out where to find them. I don’t want you to miss out on the fun! So just zoom in and out of each scene, and move your cursor around until you find something that lights up in purple… or are sure that there’s nothing there to find.
Since my trunk has a full collection of the trunk items for Book 1, I thought I’d share with you the whole list. I’ve indicated the purchased items with asterisks. The rest were collected… or at least used in some context.
Objects (most of the ones without asterisks will earn you points if you collect them after you get sorted):
Alarm Clock
Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans
Brass Scales***
Brass Telescope***
Candle
Crystal Phials***
Dragon Egg
Golden Snitch (you will have to catch this, like Harry does)
Hammer and Nails
Moon Chart***
Old Cup
Postcard from London
Prefect Badge
Remembrall
Rock Cake
Salt and Pepper Shakers
Sea Shell
Shopping List (you will need to find this before you can shop for your school items and get your wand)
Slimy Seaweed
Vault Key (you will need to use this before you can shop for your school items and get your wand)
Winged Key (you will have to catch this, like Harry does)
Wizard Chest Set
Chocolate Frog Cards (all of these will earn you points)
Albus Dumbledore Card
Circe Card
Cliodna Card
Godric Gryffindor Card
Helga Hufflepuff Card
Hengist of Woodcroft Card
Merlin Card
Morgana Card
Paracelsus Card
Rowena Ravenclaw Card
Salazar Slytherin Card
Books (all of the ones without asterisks will earn you points)
A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration***
A History of Magic***
A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry
Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit
Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them***
From Egg to Inferno, a Dragon Keeper’s Guide
Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century
Hogwarts: A History
Important Modern Magical Discoveries
Magical Theory***
Modern Magical History
Notable Magical Names of Our Time
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi***
Quidditch through the Ages
In addition to the items in the trunk, there are 10 findable Galleons lying around. These will earn you points… AND earn you Galleons.
There are also two findable spell books that do not go in your trunk but that earn you points when you find them… and give you a lot of spells that you can use for dueling: The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection and (everybody’s favorite spell book) Curses and Counter-Curses.
And finally, here is a list of the collectible ingredients sitting on my Potions Shelf. The replenishable items can be collected repeatedly – meaning that you never have to purchase these items for your Potions.
Collectible Potions Ingredients (all of these will earn you points)
Bat Spleens
Bezoar (replenishible)
Dried Billywig Stings (replenishable)
Dried Nettles
Eels’ Eyes
Horned Slug
Infusion of Wormwood
Leaping Toadstool
Mistletoe Berries (replenishable)
Salamander Blood
Unicorn Blood
Wolfsbane (replenishable)
I hope these lists are helpful to those who are new to Pottermore.
For those who are not new, please let me know if I’ve missed anything. :)
As of the moment I started writing this post, there were precisely 1,000,223 students in the Great Hall at Pottermore. These are the students who have been to Diagon Alley, taken the Hogwarts Express, and gone through the Sorting Ceremony.
When I joined the Beta test, there were about 100,000 students in the Great Hall. The number never reached 700,000 during the Beta – probably because so many people got multiple accounts and never used them… or deleted the accounts they got when they didn’t get sorted into the House they wanted.
This afternoon, my husband joined us in the Great Hall after being sorted into Ravenclaw. So we’ve now officially got a Slytherin/Ravenclaw marriage.
Most of his responses to the sorting quiz were similar to mine, but there was definitely a Ravenclaw edge to his… and a Slytherin edge to mine. So I think I can now say with some assurance that Ravenclaw is the next House I would go into after Slytherin.
Oh by the way… in the few minutes that it took me to write this post, the number in the Great Hall jumped to 1,000,904. So approximately 700 students have been sorted in just the last five minutes.
It’s just so great to see Pottermore finally open to the public.
It’s true. After six extra months of Beta testing, Pottermore opened this morning!!! And the response time on the site is great – even in dueling. So it seems the wait was well worth it.
So….
Welcome to Pottermore, Newbies!
(I’ve been waiting to say that for a looooooong time!)
A few brief tips to get you started:
First, take a look at the info from the Pottermore Insider so that you know what to expect once you register. And now, on to exploring the site…
Pottermore consists of a series of “moments” from the various chapters in the first book (PS/SS) – including additional information about characters and contexts.
Within the moments, you can collect items for your trunk and a few items that you’ll need in order to move on. But unless you do need to collect something in order to move on (such as your shopping list for Diagon Alley), it’s best to wait to collect items until after you’ve been sorted. (You get sorted, naturally, in the Sorting Hat chapter).
The reason to wait is that you get personal points and can contribute to House points only after you’ve been sorted, and you can always go back into previous scenes and collect items.
Items that can be collected or clicked on will have a little purple outline around them (just move your cursor around the screen to find them). You also have three levels of zoom that you can achieve by using the forward and back arrows on your keyboard. Items will usually be found at only one level of zoom. So you want to explore each scene from all three levels of zoom.
Another thing you’ll want to do is look in your left “Read About” sidebar to see if any content is highlighted by a feather… and then read all of the content that is. This is the new, exclusive JKR content! I’ll be back later with a list of some of my favorite exclusive content.
Most of the non-exclusive content can be skipped after you have read it over for the first time – particularly the content for minor characters. Most of this content repeats over and over again and doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you have read the books. (How many times do you really need to click on Vincent Crabbe or Gregory Goyle?).
Here’s the post for my first look. At the time, Pottermore was silent. Thanks to many, many Beta comments, Pottermore does now have sound. :)
Well, that’s probably enough to get you started. Have fun exploring Pottermore!
And now… Let us know your Wand and your House!
Use the Comments thread below to let us know your House, your Wand, and (if you wish) your username and registration date. This way, Beta testers can meet newbies and newbies can meet Beta testers.
I’ll have more tips later and some analysis of exclusive Pottermore content. But for now, let’s just get those Comments started. I’ll go first. :)
According to the Pottermore Insider – AND the Pottermore home page – Pottermore will finally be opening to the general public in early April. If they are being as rigorous in their definition of “early April” as I am, that means that Pottermore will be open within a week.
And, of course, the Pottermore Shop has already opened and is now selling Harry Potter ebooks.
Yes, I know. I’m late in reporting the news. And yes, I know. I’ve been absent for a wee bit. That ends with the opening of Pottermore.
Once Pottermore opens to the general public, Expecto Patronum will be discussing Pottermore content more openly. Since we have already done a complete re-read of PS/SS here – and since that book is currently the only book available on the Pottermore site proper – our Pottermore focus will be largely on the additional JKR content (like the new information about certain favorite, and not-so-favorite, characters). Plus, we’ll be offering tips to Pottermore newbies.
When CoS (Chamber of Secrets) is released on Pottermore, Expecto Patronum will do a full-scale re-read of the book, along with side-trips into whatever new JKR content gets released for the second book.
According to the Pottermore Insider, the Pottermore team will also soon be adding additional JKR-exclusive content to the site, presumably for PS/SS! Given the quality of the previous JKR content, this is exciting news.
At any rate, the wait is almost over!
(so… does mean that whoever keeps trying to reset my Pottermore password will finally stop?!?!?)
In one of the polls in the Sidebar, I asked about a month ago: Will the Pottermore site be ready for October launch?
Here are the results:
Of course – It’s a Beta test! Glitches are to be expected! 29.17% (84 votes)
No way – The site is waaaaay too far behind. 17.01% (49 votes)
I’m not inside, so how should I know? 37.85% (109 votes)
I’m inside, and I still have no idea! 15.97% (46 votes)
The correct answer is now officially “No way – The site is waaaaay too far behind.” Or at least, it’s way too far behind for a massive general public launch.
This morning the Pottermore Insider revealed that everybody in the Beta will have about another month to play around with the site. Towards the end of October, the site will open for registration, but activation will be phased in order to maintain site stability – just as it has been phased in the Beta. Here are the salient points from the Pottermore Insider:
Since the launch of the Beta, we’ve seen really high levels of activity, and interaction with the site has been phenomenal. This affects how quickly we can give everyone access. As a result, we’ve decided to extend the Beta period beyond September and take a different approach to the way new users are brought onto the site.
From the end of October, registration will be opened to everyone and we’ll be giving access to registered users in phases. Access may be granted quickly, but please note it could also take some weeks or months, depending on demand.
We are also making a number of enhancements and simplifications to Pottermore, in order to make the site smoother and more enjoyable – so existing Beta users will likely experience some changes when new users begin to join.
Finally, the Pottermore Shop, which will sell the Harry Potter eBooks and digital audio books, will now open in the first half of 2012, in order to allow us to focus on our first priority: opening Pottermore to as many people as possible and making the experience as good as it can be.
Feel free to express your thoughts – and frustrations – below.
