I am pleased to announce that we are closing in on a completed update. Given how long it's taken to even get rolling on this update, we knew when we started that it would be a massive amount of work. Well, we underestimated by a lot. We originally expected about a week of work and it's been over a month now. However the end is absolutely in sight.

We are currently entering data in for year 6 and should have that done within a day or two. Year 7 will be complete shortly afterwards, and then we have "module cleanup" to do, making sure everything is in place to support the curriculum and all the new additions throughout the module. After that we'll need to run some testing, which we expect to take a minimum of two days. And I'm already laughing at myself because it will probably be more than that, because bugs will be found and need fixing.

I am thrilled to say that for the first time in the module's history, there should be actual coherence (and text) in all the in-game books, and the text found in the books will actually reflect Harry Potter and our own server lore. No more will legacy information and quests be plaguing the server. I can't swear that we found absolutely everything, but we have hit almost all, if not all, of the books. Books can now be fully IC. Anything that we happen to have missed will slowly be corrected over the course of several bug-fix updates, because we all know it'll happen.

The curriculum is only a part of the modifications we have made in this update. I can say without a doubt this will be the single biggest update the server has ever seen in its history and the capstone of work that's been put into the server for the last 7 years, pulling it all together into one coherent thought. We'll have a coherent curriculum that is in character, we'll have dark arts, healing arts, herbology, and so many other fields for characters to explore. While we have only added or modified a handful of areas, many areas are gaining a new significance with magic to be explored- and this will only increase with time because adding more later is certainly on the menu.

As this goes in, hopefully in a few days (I know I've been saying that a lot lately, but I think we're actually closing in on it), I'd like to meet with as many of you as possible in-game and have a discussion about all the newness- and what it means to how characters are RPd. We've made every attempt to make things as IC as we possibly can, and since we are so used to saying "Oh that part of the mod isn't really all that IC," it's our hope that will completely change so that everything is as IC as possible.

But there is a down side. With an update this massive and this fundamental to the server, it can't be without some bugs. We are going to test as much as we can, but it's impossible for us to catch everything- we don't have beta testers other than you guys. We'll be asking that people be patient as we iron everything out.

We'll have this in the live server soon! Promise!

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-Calan

Liss Crest, Slytherin
Kalara Crest, Hufflepuff
Elizabeth Finley, The Moon

I'm super-excited, this is going to be so much fun. I just have to second what Calan said about the bugs. We're going to test at minimum the core curriculum required to year up, and as much of the other stuff as we can, but since it will take at minimum two people to manage just the core curriculum(meaning at least one tester and a helping DM, two testers to make it go twice as fast) you can see how quickly resources get eaten up for testing. To give you an idea, as far as spells go you might have 8-12 spells as core curriculum for a year, and then 3-4 times that as extracurricular - it's a lot. It's just not realistic that we'll be able to catch everything, so please, be patient for the first couple of weeks as we iron out the bugs. We'll make a big thread to catch all the bug reports or something, with instructions on how to make the most helpful report("I tried to craft ____ spell and it didn't work." <-- bad report, no info to help us track down the issue, or whether it even is an OOC bug), and hopefully in the coming months we'll have everything functioning smoothly, once we move out of beta.

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Karen Bonoa - Ravenclaw Alumni
Madeline Ingleman - 2nd Year Hufflepuff
Niven McLaren - 1st Year Slytherin
Sam McKinnon - 6th Year Ravenclaw

Jabari Nwosu * Joshua Tannerman * Lenora Hollings * Lillian Stewart * Maria Bonoa

I didn't really want this plastered on Facebook, but we had a slight delay because of something of an emergency at our house. We realized we had a bed bug infestation, which needed to be dealt with immediately. Needless to say, they are all dead now- but anyone who knows about these little Deatheaters knows they are not trivial to get rid of. So it did take a major chunk out of our time, I think we got delayed about 5 days or so from this. But our house has been successfully scourgified.

I think we're back in things once again now though. Here's the status:

*All book data has been reviewed. There was a massive amount, so we -tried- to update it all. We'll likely need to catch a few straggling inaccurate tidbits that slipped by us in future updates.
*Extracurricular projects (including Dark Arts) are about 99% complete. I have two entries left and they are trivial.
*Scripting new stuff is theoretically 100% done. Some scripts need some additions/modifications to support a few things.
*Curricular projects and Potions are 100% done years 1-7, pending testing.
*Herbology still remains to be entered year 1-7, but it's not a major task.
*Spells are entered in through most of year 6. Some ancillary data entry is also in process.
*Module Cleanup (making sure all ingredients and all supporting module script functions and misc database entries are in place, etc) is in process.
*And a whoooooole lot more is 100% complete that you're just going to have to find out about later.

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-Calan

Liss Crest, Slytherin
Kalara Crest, Hufflepuff
Elizabeth Finley, The Moon

It's just occurred to me that my IC bug infestation event took place just before they discovered this. It's an eerie coincidence. I swear I didn't know.

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Karen Bonoa - Ravenclaw Alumni
Madeline Ingleman - 2nd Year Hufflepuff
Niven McLaren - 1st Year Slytherin
Sam McKinnon - 6th Year Ravenclaw

Jabari Nwosu * Joshua Tannerman * Lenora Hollings * Lillian Stewart * Maria Bonoa

Thanks Yendys. Now we know who to blame for the infestation!!!

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Sierra Tillery - Little Lambs Orphanage Manager and Ministry of Magic Education Dept.
Anula Bhaskar - Hufflepuff
Crissy Darby - Gryffindor
"I sense a costume opportunity!"

Keep bantering back and forth about this so everyone keeps checking the curriculum announcement thread only to get their hopes utterly crushed. I like it.

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The Criminal - Sliver Vortec - Expelled
The Brain - Skylar Dune - Seventh Year
The Athlete - Lance Silverston - Seventh Year
The Basket Case - Drathil Vortec - Seventh Year

"Everybody prefers to see a nut - they're more fascinating." - Penn Jillette

Anything to make you happy, Necro! I shall continue to spam here, and if anyone complains, I'll make sure to mention it was a special request from you. <3

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Karen Bonoa - Ravenclaw Alumni
Madeline Ingleman - 2nd Year Hufflepuff
Niven McLaren - 1st Year Slytherin
Sam McKinnon - 6th Year Ravenclaw

Jabari Nwosu * Joshua Tannerman * Lenora Hollings * Lillian Stewart * Maria Bonoa

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If you reply Xander it's not as fitting to the torture. We need to keep this to Calan and Yendys.

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The Criminal - Sliver Vortec - Expelled
The Brain - Skylar Dune - Seventh Year
The Athlete - Lance Silverston - Seventh Year
The Basket Case - Drathil Vortec - Seventh Year

"Everybody prefers to see a nut - they're more fascinating." - Penn Jillette

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I am pleased to announce that this is just a post to say it's not done yet. This is just to get your hopes and dreams up only so they can then be crushed again.

However we're still managing to hack and slash major portions off of the to-do list every day, which is rapidly dwindling. Finally.

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-Calan

Liss Crest, Slytherin
Kalara Crest, Hufflepuff
Elizabeth Finley, The Moon

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Xeph you watch that show too much. All your posts are gifs from Supernatural.

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Local Lurker and Knower of the Unknown and Unknowable. Also a bit full of itself, and an occasional prick.

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I met Jim Beaver from Supernatural at Comicon. For some reason, my friend thought that was really cool. Maybe I should watch the show at some point.

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."(inspired by the words of Edmund Burke)
(Jennie-Bear plays Samantha Hathaway, seventh-year Hufflepuff)