I was thinking, as I was brewing Wideye for about the seventy-second time, that it would be awesome if we could get someone who can do a mean Julia Child impression do voice-over for an instructional video. I mean, I could do this potion in my sleep by now, and there are loads of people who still have trouble with it. We could even have a few missteps on purpose. ("Oh, there goes the standard ingredient all over the counter--well, we'll get Jacques to clean that up for us afterwards.") This thing could be gold, I'm telling you, GOLD!

I think that instructional video idea is fantastic! There could even be ones in the different styles of current food network gurus. You could have Barefoot Contessa trying to find a place for butter in the recipe, Giada flirting with the camera, Emeril blowing up the cauldron to really spice it up. Let me know when you post it on you tube, hehe.

What about, in addition to a Julia Childs impression, we had Alan Rickman himself act out an instructional video!? Talk about GOLD!!

I agree that expectations were too high. Pottermore was not created to be a role-playing game, or to allow you to walk around Hogwarts and Diagon Alley. Many of the comments on each page are asking for more interaction, but that's not what it's for. Pottermore is to enhance and supplement the books, and in that case, it does fantastically. The illustrations, the Sorting, the extra information and the occasional puzzle or game make it the perfect addition to the books, I think. Will I spend a lot of time on it? No. But it is fun to play potions and spells and make the Harry Potter experience just a little more real.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I did notice that potions were a bit glitchy through about Tuesday, but they seemed to have worked themselves mostly out today--for me, at least. I imagine they're about as OK as they're going to be, for those people who were not stuck in any of the potions loops.

First off, don't brew tired. Second, I made the Sleeping Draught twice this morning and twice forgot to add the Standard Ingredient to the cauldron before I heated it. The first time it brewed successfully regardless of my mistake. Then I did it again (DOH!) and it began again just fine and is now happily bubbling and counting down until the next phase. If this is part of the new changes made during maintenance --> I likes! :)

Except that banner isn't the same color as the maintenance screen. I searched and the closest I could find was the overwhelming demand screen, seen here side by side.

If anyone finds a picture of the maintenance screen, btw, and wouldn't mind giving me a URL I'd appreciate it. Then we can test on the real thing.

Using GIMP 2 the banner color (inexact middle, directly over 'challenge') is #770441 as you said. The overwhelming demand screen selected in (inexact middle, over the 'e' in Pottermore) is #8f114e.

It's also visibly quite a bit lighter than the start page banner. What I see when I look at the overwhelming demand screen are several graduations in color with the darker beginning at the edges and radiating in visible circles toward the low center. Somewhere between the word 'seconds' and the dividing graphic the color becomes lightest (to my eye, without checking). Let me check that and see... Yes. Doing a quick and dirty working toward the middle brings up: #5c0a33, #600835, #630b3d, etc., the lightest imo being #931250.

Working with the overwhelming demand screen #931250 gave me 'Disco', which was approximate and also visibly darker.

Using #931250 on Color Name Hue gives me 'Jazzberry Jam', with the closest main hue being red. Therefore the color closest to the maintenance screen message, the overwhelming demand screen, is indeed a shade of red, which makes it closer to fuchsia if maroon is closer to brown.

You mean the opinion of the user who provided that information - L_Miya - who at this time has not been identified as associated with Pottermore or a member of the Pottermore team, but rather lists their occupation as a student of Musicology, thinks this is the color on Pottermore.

Fuchsia is defined on Wikipedia (seen here and here) as several shades each with its own hex #, not only #FF00FF. Which should help explain my original statement "....my screen leans much more toward dark fuchsia than maroon or any other reddish-pink shade."

It is also important to note that while you may have understood "any other reddish-pink shade" as my definition of maroon, it was not intended that way. If I had meant it that way I would've written "....maroon, which is another reddish-pink shade" or something similar.

There you have me. I don't test my graphics and monitor on a regular basis. However my husband is a career IT professional with many years experience in systems administration/software/languages and a couple other areas I don't know the first thing about. Enough so he gets to tack 'Expert' behind his name on his business cards and has not only the experience but diplomas and certificates and whatnot to back it up. He tests them. I tend to trust his judgment in all things related to pc's. But not in purchasing gold, obviously. :D

I had a comment showing Slytherin House pride removed for moderation because someone reported it. All I said was "Look at your house. Now look at Slytherin. Look back at your House. Sadly, it isn't Slytherin."

Now, supposedly "If any content makes you feel threatened, damaged or abused in the Pottermore community" you can report the post or content. I want to know how saying one's house isn't Slytherin (even though it's said in a somewhat snarky way) can possibly threaten, damage or abuse someone else. Maybe they were abused by an Old Spice commercial or something...

Another Slytherin's comment about how Slytherin loves everyone else and wants to hug all the other Houses was also removed for moderation because it was reported. (I wanted to report it, but for other reasons -- Slytherin is NOT "House Fluffy Bunny Snuggiewuggie Kissy Poo" by any means... :evil:

Seems to me the "Report this comment" button is being overused by some rather "sensitive" people... Pottermore needs to fix that.

There's no real way to stop people from reporting things, but you'd hope those reading what was reported would exercise better judgment before removing it.

Over the last few days, brewing potions has been fairly smooth, except that one potion per day, after waiting the intervening hour-and-a-half or so, has sent me back to the beginning of the first page. I've noticed that this one always straddles midnight BST. Has anyone else noticed anything like that?

I finished a wideye about an hour ago, so that would have brewed over midnight in Britain.

I did have one yesterday where that happened to me (having to do page 1 again after the waiting period). It was after I wrote that potions had been working fine that day and after AccioDragon102 thanked us for the input about the potions. Looking back at those posts, I see that the first waiting period ended after 7:30 Eastern time. So that would mesh with the time you are saying. I can't be more sure about the time, but I am sure about it happening. Today I didn't have one brewing at that time.

Guys, I think i've noticed something with Potions.

Before, if I started, say, Sleeping Draught (which takes an hour and 40 minutes to brew) at 6pm, it would finish brewing at 7:40pm, whether my computer was on or not - so if my computer wasn't on at that time, and I didn't go back within the hour and 15 minute waiting period, I would lose it.

However I think that's changed now. When I turn my computer off, with a potion still brewing, the brewing PAUSES until I next switch my computer on. I noticed this the other day but wanted to make sure until I said something.
For instance, last night at 9:00pm, my potion was at 38% when I gave up waiting for it and turned my computer off and went to bed. When I came on this morning, it was still at 38%, and has now progressed to 47% since i've been online.

Sorry if this has been noted before, I don't think it has, but ... I think this is a great improvement if i'm right =].

Was anyone but me slightly let down by the postcard we collect at Privet Drive? I was hoping it would be the postcard from Marge that Harry brings in with his first letter, but instead it is just a postcard from London! I am slightly surprised by this, given the detail with which Pottermore has executed the scenery [e.g. the toilet seat in the closet in the hospital wing]. But perhaps that just means that JKR is telling us the Dursleys received a postcard from London around this time!

I haven't heard this, but I really hope it's true! it could be, I know one way some were cheating was to change the clock on their pcs. If the clock on the pc isn't running, i.e., the pc is turned off, could Pottermore tell?

I wonder if you can speed up the Potions clock by moving the clock on the PC ahead in time...

I too was slightly disappointed with postcard, as well as a lot of the found objects. It seems like they are mostly just random things that are there to make sure you look in detail at the scenes and to fill up your trunk. And the Chocolate frogs! I mean, you only see the backs of them. It seems like they would be another wonderful way of embedding little bits of fresh information on the world. I think it'd be lovely if there were more chances to read plaques and trophies and see portraits and stuff that serve as new content Easter eggs.

Also, I'm right with you on potions, SleepyHead.

Very smart - that's how they were cheating. Pottermore plugged up the hole on pcs.

Great, let us know what happens! It could have just been my computer, or a one off glitch ... :shrug:

Aww thanks! :blush: :blush: LOL :huggles:
Anyway, I don't think the time-turner cheat works anymore ... not that i used it :evil: No honestly, I only used it once to see if it worked. And it did. But then I tried it again the other day and it didn't work.

Right - if you're on a pc, it no longer works. That's why I'm thinking that, if you turn your pc off, when you come back, the timer is exactly where it was when you turn your pc back on, since the clock is turned off as well.

I usually leave my computer (laptop) while a potion is brewing and it goes to sleep. When I return, the brewing page that says "come back later" then has an incorrect percentage brewed that is lower than it should be based on actual time. However, the potions, cauldron, page shows the correct percentage brewing time. And, when I have waited for the "come back later" page to show 100%, when it loads the screen that shows how many minutes you have before you run out of time, it is back to the true time and I have actually failed due to taking too long to return. So I don't go by the time on the "come back later" page, I always check the cauldron page to see the real amount of time left." This has been my experience for quite some time.

Well, I got in on the first day, so I was able to do quite a bit of dueling before they closed it down. If you practice your spells, you've pretty much experienced the action part of it. The dueling center is basically a rendezvous engine. They list a bunch of people who are looking for a duel (you can of course also sign up to look for a duel yourself). If you click on the "duel" button associated with that user, then you get matched up, assuming you're the first person to select a duel with them; if someone else beat you to the punch, you get sent back to the rendezvous center.

Once you get matched up, you execute a spell just as you do when you practice it. So does the other player. Pottermore compares your scores, and the winner earns five house points (or at least did, before they shut it down--who knows what it'll be when it comes back). Ties earn no points for either side. The spell of choice is Petrificus Totalus. A reasonably well-executed instance of PT gives you 140 points; I've gotten as high as 144 points timing it just right.

Really?! Very interesting. I mean, I wouldn't do it for the points, as I've been fairly active brewing potions. But now I'm tempted to try it out.

On the other hand, despite what others have said, I'm convinced that I at least got my individual points for objects I gathered prior to being Sorted. They might not have been applied to my house once I got Sorted (it was pretty hard to tell our individual impact on points, even when there were only a thousand or so students per house), but I'm almost certain I did get points for it that first morning. I was on Pottermore an hour or two after they started sending out the first batch--maybe they changed it soon thereafter?

Here's a question for everyone:
Which do you think is the easiest/best potion to brew?

I constantly do Herbicide now, it may only be 9 points, but I find it much easier and quicker than the rest to do, especially now I have mastered pouring those pesky Lionfish spines.

So a while back, I mentioned my revised notion that house points are basically the total of all the individual points in the house, scaled by the percentage of all students that reside in that house. One incidental side effect of this scaling is that (at least in the short term), the relative placement of houses can be affected by things having nothing at all to do with how hard the students are working to earn house points--specifically, how many students are being Sorted into each of the houses.

Here's some evidence to that effect. For the last 45 minutes or so, I've been gathering relative stats for two of the houses: Ravenclaw (my house) and Slytherin, who for a while now have been trading first and second place back and forth. I've been looking at how many more students Ravenclaw has than Slytherin, and at the same time, how many more points (Ravenclaw is currently in first place in the House Cup competition).

09:39, +1012, +24
09:53, +1006, +27
10:00, +1013, +24
10:11, +1024, +20
10:18, +1031, +19
10:27, +1029, +19

Copy and paste into a spreadsheet, if you like. I might, as I gather more data. At any rate, in each row, the first item is the time, the second item is how many more students Ravenclaw has than Slytherin, and the third and last item is how many more points Ravenclaw has than Slytherin.

What I'm looking at is the relationship between the last two columns--they vary inversely. Whenever the second column goes up, the third column goes down, and vice versa. I've been watching that casually for a few weeks, and I don't think it's just a chance relationship.

What's more, though, the magnitudes of the changes also match, roughly speaking. The range of variation in the student margin is 25, which is just about 2.5 hundredths of a percent of the student bodies of the two houses. The range of variation in the point margin is 8, which is about 1.8 hundredths of a percent of the point totals for the two houses. That's pretty close agreement, on top of the inverse correlation between the two columns. The difference between 1.8 and 2.5 could possibly be made up by Ravenclaw being actually better at earning house points. But let me not grind my own axe here. :)

In the long term, "actual" changes in the points-earning by the house's students will swamp the pattern we're seeing here. That's not too difficult to account for; we could take differentials and probably recover the pattern. I'll be gathering more data in the coming days to see if it pans out.

EDIT: Interestingly, we heard about some users possibly creating accounts to Sort into other houses, in order to melt cauldrons for their "false" house, and boost the ranking for their "true" house. If what we're seeing here is genuine, they may have done the most damage just Sorting into that other house--everything they did after that, melting cauldrons, would be minuscule in comparison!

I believe there is only some extra information about toads, which I think you find out when you click on the toad on Platform 9-3/4. Anyone confirm that? It's been a while.

I do Wideye, because the per-house-point cost is the least. If one never fails (I'm getting pretty good at it), one can make 18 Wideye potions per Galleon, for 162 points.

I agree. Plus, once you wait and then arrive at the second part, that second part is very easy - add 2 of a very easy ingredient to add, and then stir. Waive the wand. And lots of time to do it in.

Don't forget - for that particular potion, you can re-collect two of the three ingredients and only have to purchase one of them. Thought I'd add this for those new to Pottermore.