Pottermore v.10

[ArryGrotter]

I made loads of comments:

Spoiler: show

This is exactly what I wrote

Pottermore is the most fun when you are going through the moments and collecting items. Then you don't really know what the site is meant to be used for after that. Potions become repetitive, and it looks like duelling with never be available.

There needs to be more interactivity within the moments. Some moments don't have anything to do, and I find that ridiculous. Although I love the artwork, if there's no interactivity within a moment, it shouldn't be there.

Potion brewing shouldn't take that long. Even in the books potions is usually an hour to 90 minute long lesson, and you can't tell me that they spent the majority of that just sitting there waiting for their potion to brew? I think 20-30 minutes is more accurate.

All the spells should be available to practise with.

We should be able to read at least extracts from the books we collect, and we should be able to reread the information on chocolate frog cards we collect. Similarly, the other items we collect should have bearing on the rest of the moments. Perhaps you can only advance to the next moment if you have an item from an earlier moment?

Moments shouldn't be so easily to pass through. You should have to do a specific thing (even if it is just finding an item) in order to progress to the next stage.

I understand your policy on child safety, but there should be a way of holding a conversation with your Pottermore friends. Most people that use the site are probably over the age of 18 anyway, and at least over 13. Perhaps accounts that were set up using parents details do not allow a private messaging system?

Gringotts is a button at the top of the screen, but all it does is tells you your bank balance. This is also shown at the top of Diagon Alley, so why is Gringotts even required? A direct link to Wizards Duel would be more beneficial

Moderating of comments and images should not take a month.

You have created a very good database of characters, places, objects and other things, but I think there should be a search function for easy access. Say if I wanted to read the new information about McGonagall again, I would just have to search for her rather than remember what chapter and moment she was included in.

There should be more potions. I assume this might happen later on when we/Harry purchases more books.

You don't need to notify us that we accepted a friend request.

Some people have obviously been cheating at house point scoring. This should be more closely monitored.

I think that's all. I know its a lot of suggestions, but you have a good thing going here that still needs work in order to be at its potential.

[Kathleen Malfoy]

^ I wish potions COULD actually become repetitive for me.

My potion is STILL frozen and has been since 2 days after I gained access to the site on August 25.

I really don't know how much longer I can take this. *sigh*

EDIT:

Okay I filled out the survey. They really need to fix my potion. It's so frustrating because aside from the fact that I am a patient Hufflepuff....it's been so long it's really pushing that....and even though I am a Hufflepuff on the site I am also ambitious like a Slytherin and really want to earn those points! If I don't get to earn more house points I might start to go a little insane.

Also, I see that they posted the process for the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw crest designs....I really wish they would show the ones for Slytherin and Hufflepuff also.

[Hes]

Hufflepuff and Slytherin are going to be up next week or so.

[Silver_Arrow77]

So for some reason, I keep melting my cauldrons. I melted four cauldrons within two days, and the worst part of it is that I have no clue about what I have done wrong to make them melt! There are no warning signs whatsoever. I am really careful to keep the temperature of the potion exactly in the green range, always heating it up and cooling it down again a bit just to make sure it doesn't reach a too high temperature (although maybe that's the problem-the heating up and cooling down-maybe I should just leave it alone and trust it to stabilize, and not reach a too high temperature by itself?). I follow all the instructions really carefully. Thus, I just don't understand why I am making my cauldrons melt! No reasons are ever given in the message, all it says is this:

"Sorry!

Your cauldron has melted and the potion is leaking onto the floor.

As a consequence, your cauldron has been removed from your Potions collection . You have also lost 5 house points. Better luck next time."

It does not say WHY my cauldron melted in the first place. So how am I supposed to avoid that next time? I can't, when I don't know what the problem was in the first place!

This is really ******* me off. I keep having to replace cauldron after cauldron, and lose precious Galleons and house points for nothing! If it continues, I'll consider giving up Potions until all the bugs are fixed...

So, does anyone know what I might be doing wrong, or do you think it's just a glitch, and that I should report it to Pottermore (yes, I know how to, you don't have to tell me)? Thanks in advance.

[MerryLore]

Originally Posted by Silver_Arrow77

So, does anyone know what I might be doing wrong, or do you think it's just a glitch, and that I should report it to Pottermore (yes, I know how to, you don't have to tell me)? Thanks in advance.

When you turn on your cauldron and the temperature turns green, do you keep the temperature between the two lines when you're heating your cauldron? If if goes over that second line, even by a fraction of an inch, the cauldron will explode. And once I'm done heating for the required amount of time, i turn the temperature off.

Hope that helps. If it doesn't, it may be a glitch.

[Hes]

I think cauldrons tend to melt/blow up due to heating issues so you really have to watch during heating. Which you seem to do, so it can't be that. If I were you I would do a few Cure of boils practise rounds and if that goes well do the cure of boils for points.

You definitely can't leave it alone because the heat doesn't stabilize, it either drops or heats to high. Which gets you in trouble. If you do something wrong and think it might lead to cauldron loss eventually, click the back button (not in your browser, but the one on screen) and that should make it possible to start over again.

[Silver_Arrow77]

Originally Posted by MerryLore

When you turn on your cauldron and the temperature turns green, do you keep the temperature between the two lines when you're heating your cauldron? If if goes over that second line, even by a fraction of an inch, the cauldron will explode. And once I'm done heating for the required amount of time, i turn the temperature off.

Hope that helps. If it doesn't, it may be a glitch.

Yes, I always take great care to keep the temperature between the two lines. I always heat up and cool down my cauldron to make sure it is between those lines. Before melting a cauldron, the temperature was definitely never over the second line, maybe barely meeting the line at the most. And the temperature was always still green, not red...

What do you mean by turning the temperature off once you're done heating, though? Do you mean cooling it down? As far as I'm aware, there isn't really a button to turn the temperature off, just cooling down, heating up gradually, and heating up fast?

Thanks, anyway.

Originally Posted by Hes

I think cauldrons tend to melt/blow up due to heating issues so you really have to watch during heating. Which you seem to do, so it can't be that. If I were you I would do a few Cure of boils practise rounds and if that goes well do the cure of boils for points.

You definitely can't leave it alone because the heat doesn't stabilize, it either drops or heats to high. Which gets you in trouble. If you do something wrong and think it might lead to cauldron loss eventually, click the back button (not in your browser, but the one on screen) and that should make it possible to start over again.

Yes, I really try to be careful about heating. However, I almost always brew the Wideye potion, because the ingredients are really slow to run out, and it earns quite a lot of points (Antidote to Common Poisons is too expensive, the others are too hard for me right now).

I guess heating can get quite tricky at the end of the Wideye potion, when you need to add the crushed ingredients, stir and keep the temperature stable in a limited amount of time. I guess running out of time is better than melting your cauldron, though...at least you don't lose anything...So maybe I should keep an even closer watch on the temperature, even if it takes longer as a result. The strange thing, though, is that even just before my cauldrons melted, the temperature was never red, it was always still green!

Thanks for the advice.

[MerryLore]

Originally Posted by Silver_Arrow77

What do you mean by turning the temperature off once you're done heating, though? Do you mean cooling it down? As far as I'm aware, there isn't really a button to turn the temperature off, just cooling down, heating up gradually, and heating up fast?

Right now, Wideye is the only one I'm brewing as well, for the same reasons - the cost and point value.

Once you reach the 30 seconds, try clicking the blue button on the left. It turns the heat off. The thermometer will eventually disappear, and that's fine. It won't affect the potion.

[Taquiq]

Originally Posted by Silver_Arrow77

What do you mean by turning the temperature off once you're done heating, though? Do you mean cooling it down? As far as I'm aware, there isn't really a button to turn the temperature off, just cooling down, heating up gradually, and heating up fast?

For me, once it's done heating, I can leave the heat on and it doesn't effect the potions. I usually turn it off though, by pressing the cool down button.

[Silver_Arrow77]

Originally Posted by MerryLore

Right now, Wideye is the only one I'm brewing as well, for the same reasons - the cost and point value.

Once you reach the 30 seconds, try clicking the blue button on the left. It turns the heat off. The thermometer will eventually disappear, and that's fine. It won't affect the potion.

That is really useful to know, I thought cooling it down too much would spoil the potion (although just spoiling is still better than cauldron melting, I guess). Thanks for the info!

Originally Posted by Taquiq

For me, once it's done heating, I can leave the heat on and it doesn't effect the potions. I usually turn it off though, by pressing the cool down button.

Thanks!

[Nnylarak]

I really liked the Beta survey. I think the questions showed that they have been listening to our feedback and complaints, because they specifically addressed a lot of the things we've talked about here. It was very detailed and I liked that they had a place to leave any other comments we had. I think this will really help them improve the site.

[Taquiq]

Originally Posted by Nnylarak

I really liked the Beta survey. I think the questions showed that they have been listening to our feedback and complaints, because they specifically addressed a lot of the things we've talked about here. It was very detailed and I liked that they had a place to leave any other comments we had. I think this will really help them improve the site.

I hope! This site has so much potential and I think it will become more enjoyable once dueling is back up.

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Guys, I have a question. Will your wand affect the duelling outcome?
Thanks in advance,
S.C.A


EDIT: Why were there so many questions about Sony?

[Kathleen Malfoy]

Originally Posted by Hes

Hufflepuff and Slytherin are going to be up next week or so.

Nice, those are the 2 I'm most interested in seeing.

Anyway, when I filled out my Beta survey I forgot to mention that I think it would be nice if at some point in one of the later books, they let us discover our patronus. I'm not sure how it would happen, perhaps similar to the wand selection and what not. I hope they will include a ton of possibilities though so it can be very individualized like a patronus should be.

Has anyone mentioned it to them? I wish I had in my survey but I forgot.

[S_mackrell]

You can take the survey over and over I did it three times rewording what I said cause I really want those changes

[owlycherries]

I, too, thought the survey was great. I might do it again because there was quite a few things I forgot to mention XD


On another note, does anybody else have problems with the friends page? I can access it alright, but when I attempt to accept or ignore any friends, it completely freezes up and crashes. It's been like this for ages.

[MerryLore]

Originally Posted by owlycherries

On another note, does anybody else have problems with the friends page? I can access it alright, but when I attempt to accept or ignore any friends, it completely freezes up and crashes. It's been like this for ages.

Never had an issue with it. You may want to report it:

Help -> Other -> What's next? -> Need more help?

Originally Posted by ToBeOrNotToBe

Guys, I have a question. Will your wand affect the duelling outcome?

Do you mean the wand that "chose us?" I don't believe it has any effect whatsoever.

EDIT: Why were there so many questions about Sony?

Sony is part of pottermore.

I thought of a commercial, reminding us of how awesomely spectacular Sony is...

[CellarDoor]

I filled out my survey yesterday, and sent it twice for good measure. I had been looking forward to it for ages, given that the feedback system on Pottermore is superficial at best. Well, it turned out to be much longer (and more... heart-felt ) than I had envisioned; I still have lots of problems with Pottermore, apparently.

The fact that I was not alone in writing a novel is consoling, though. Here it is:

Spoiler: show

Firstly, I want to let you know that I waited a month and half to gain access to the site - way too much: a die-hard Harry Potter fan like me can wait, but an occasional fan won't - and even then I couldn't actually use it, since Pottermore "[was] in overwhelming demand". I got purple 'overwhelming demand' screens for a week before I could finally navigate the site - slowly, but at least I could. Seriously, what were you thinking when you told everyone that 1 million people would get access before October? You were - and are not - prepared to handle such big a number of users. Not to mention how it's Harry Potter fans we're talking about, for crying out loud: it's a given that we're gonna crash servers no matter what, if we are promised new content by JK Rowling. And speaking of servers, can't you get more working?

Secondly, I have a feeling you misaimed your target audience. The Harry Potter books were released from 1997 to 2007; do some maths, and you'll find that the core Harry Potter audience ranges from 13 year-olds to 25 year-olds, with the addition of all the people who got into it in their adult years. Now, the site looks and works like it's targeting to pre-teens. While I'm sure there are Harry Potter fans of 13 years or less using the site, I don't think they are the majority of the users. This makes your 'Child Safety Policy' - however noble your intentions might have been, I'm sure - very irritating, and its only use is to alienate the majority of users, who are older than 13. Starting from the random usernames, which really don't make telling users apart easy. Or the comments, which have an annoying and completely useless character limit and whose moderation is de facto censorship: I understand filtering potentially dangerous content, but when the majority of your (harmless!) comments is moderated or rejected you know that something is way off. And if you can only comment with dumb "Well done"'s and "I liked it a lot"'s, you might as well remove comments completely. So yes, this is my piece of advice: revise your 'Child Safety Policy'.

The various Moments could use some music in the background. There are 8 Harry Potter movie soundtracks to choose from: use them!

The 'From the Story' snippets about characters and objects are useless: I already know very well that Harry is the protagonist and a 11 year old wizard, or that Dumbledore is the headmaster of Hogwarts. Want to know how to spice things up? Get NEW background information from JK Rowling for ALL the characters/objects, like you did for Minerva McGonagall. Because, let me tell you, reading the story of her life (or the bakground information on the Dursleys, for that matter) was AMAZING! It bears repeating: READING THE NEW CONTENT BY JK ROWLING WAS AMAZING!!! I was speechless and overwhelmed to get to know those things! And not only the new information, but also the 'behind the scenes' details and thoughts by Jo Rowling on the process of writing Harry Potter! I beg you: more content by Jo Rowling, pretty please!
That's what I expect Pottermore to do: provide NEW information from Jo Rowling as much as it is possible, and then some - everything else (illustrations, games, etc) is of secondary importance.

The whole experience could use more 'true' interaction, like the Sorting or getting your wand. For example, the Quidditch match: only catching the Snitch was boring, I expected to play the whole match, or something like that. The same goes for the chessboard: it would be awesome if you could actually play chess to advance in the storyline. Just clicking around to collect objects gets boring easily.

And now we get to Potions: brewing one takes way too long, you can't expect me to stay more than an hour in front of my computer waiting for a virtual potion to be ready! A brewing time of up to 20 minutes would be fine, though.

Wizarding Duels: FIX IT, for God's sake! I have never played it, not even once! It's been off for two months!

I wasn't happy with the feedback form on Pottermore: there should have been a box where you could type freely, so that people could tell you exactly what they liked and what they didn't like. And without having to spam the comments to the chapters, which is what happened at the end.

The Pottermore Insider is not as informative and transparent as I believe it should be: we want to know what you're up to, what bugs you're having, what you can and can't fix, and we want to be able to COMMENT on your posts. It should also be updated more often (read: DAILY), more transparent and - most importantly - it should PROVIDE ANSWERS TO OUR QUESTIONS! It's our only mean of communication with you (together with the Twitter feed): use it correctly, and don't alienate users by ignoring them!

By the way, speaking of the Twitter feed: hosting the 'House Pride Week' when two thirds of the users still didn't have access to Pottermore was just plain tacky and disrespectful. Your PR team could use some scolding.

And speaking of respecting users: don't forget that there are many Harry Potter fans who couldn't get past the Quill Challenge (or couldn't take part to it because they were on holiday - seriously, hosting it at the beginning of August, what were you thinking?) and who are dying to gain access to Pottermore. Be respectful: don't make them wait a thousand years to gain admittance!

I hope the e-books shop will be opened soon, I'm really looking forward to it. But the thing I'm looking forward to the most is HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS: get your act together and put it up as soon as possible!

Yes, I've just written more than 1000 words just to tell you what you should fix on Pottermore. I told you, Harry Potter fans are die-hard.

And yes, the questions on Sony were awkward. I would have gladly opted out of them.

[BronzeDragon]

I also sent them a very long essay, although I didn't save it after typing it up.

I did think that the long-form essay was the most useful section, and I tried to omit parts I think they already know (the Purple Screen of Death is bad, dueling is still down.)

Spoiler: show

I did point out that I think they're going to run into major problems if they allow Galleon gifting, as people could just create multiple accounts to gift Galleons (I don't believe there's anything in the Terms of Use that forbids multiple account creation after the beta period), and that they'll have the same problem with the gifting system in general if they don't provide people with a way to earn Galleons, particularly the Potion-makers who'll run out of things. I also said I would expect a massive uptick on account activity in November, as people who are unhappy with their current House are likely to attempt to get a new account to re-Sort. I also told them that I think object collection without being able to see a description of it is pointless, and that I don't understand why I'm stealing random items from the Dursleys' home.

I also requested that they do a Pottermore Insider post on the Sorting and explain more about how House Points in the Great Hall are calculated (and asked them to re-order the banners in the Great Hall to match the arrangement of the House tables, although I really, really don't think they'll do it; that's just me being nitpicky.)

I might send them another survey repeating some of your sentiments; if I do, I'll mention my desire for an Insider Sorting post again - I think that if they'd state publicly that current House numbers have nothing to do with individual placement, it would go a long way.

Okay, now the actual reason I made this post: I think there are probably legal issues with gaining access to anything from the films, whether that's the actors' voices (for the person who wanted voice clips) or the film score. Also, look at all the illlustrations: they've tried very hard to avoid showing us a facial close-up of any of the characters. I think that's because they really want readers to be able to picture the characters in their own way instead of having their imagination influenced by either Sony-commissioned illustrations or the movies. (Also, again, there may be issues with the films/WB granting permission to use the actors' likenesses, but I did like the fact that Pottermore leaves the characters' appearances and voices up to our imaginations.)

That said, CellarDoor, I do like your pointing out to the Pottermore team that their target audience is likely significantly older than they believe, and not first-time readers or people who are likely to need reminding that Dumbledore is Headmaster of Hogwarts. (Although I wouldn't want to have to successfully play a game of chess to get to the next book, and I'm at the upper end of what you call the target audience range!)

[RemusLupinFan]

I'm going through the survey now. Some of the answers are a bit inadequate and don't really describe how I feel about the subject. For instance, the Wizard's Duel one - I just want to play it to see what it's like! And I agree the Sony questions were weird. I took the cheap way out and didn't agree or disagree with any of the qualities they listed.