FEBRUARY ANNOUNCEMENT!

[SUZIE]

ALOHOMORA FEBRUARY ANNOUNCEMENT

Hi, everyone! What an amazing first month of the year we've had here at Alohomora. The staff would like to thank you for being a part of the family, and cheers for the year to come! Read below for some business and fun things going on!



Activity Check:

Today our first Activity Check of 2018 begins! This one is a little different; in the past, you had to have 2 posts in 2 threads for a total of 4 posts per character in order to save them. Now, you just need 4 posts in however many threads (it can be 1 it can be 4) to save your character! Posts MUST be between the dates of January 15th and February 15th. You MUST post in the Activity Check thread before ten o’clock Eastern Standard Time on February 15th for your character to be saved. If you post after that time, or forget to post, your unsaved characters WILL BE DELETED. So, remember to post, and have fun!



*Please note, to relieve the stress of the Tech Team, who is running the Activity Check, we advise that you post in the thread AS you save your characters, and not all at once. If you post all of your characters at 9:59pm EST on February 15th, you will face a very grumpy Tech Team (which you do not want).





New Activity Rules!

Activity rules are changing! We know things get busy and our real loves (Rowling bless them) take over our time. We want to accommodate everyone but we also expect activity if you’re going to be here! So, we won’t be doing official ‘Activity Checks’ regularly anymore. The new rule is as follows: consider this your official notice that we will be ‘inactivating’ accounts that haven’t posted in 45 days. This inactivation will be without first warning (consider this your warning). You will lose all your claims and your app will be moved to being inactive. All accounts start at day 1 tomorrow, Feb 1st.



In order to reactivate your accounts we will handle this on a case by case basis. The basics are that you will have to contact the tech team (Suzie, Dee or Lisa) and ask for reactivation. We will discuss your requirements and get back to you on what you need to do! This new activity rule is meant to help the site remain active, while being achievable within our real lives, and to keep us on our toes about how many characters we are taking on. We are a team here, let’s post together!





New Exemptions!

With the new month comes new exemption characters for everyone to make! Starting Feb. 1st,  the male exemption and non cis exemption are no more. See (see staff requests here). For the months of February and March, you can make the following characters with no posting minimum from your previous character:



ANY Ministry Member over 30

ANY fourth year student

ANY professional Quidditch player



There are several want ads (here) that now will have character exemptions in them, so be sure to check those out as well!



These exemptions will be rotating QUARTERLY (so once every three months), and you can use ONE exemption per QUARTER. So if you make a Fourth Year and decide to use the exemption for them, you would have to adhere to the usual 30 post count rule regardless of whether your next character is exempt or not -- so choose wisely! *This exemption will only last til the end of March so that the quarters can even out for next year.*



New rule

All NEW members will be able to have their first 3 characters free of the post count rule. BUT before character 4 can be made, characters 1, 2 AND 3 must be at 30 posts! That's 90 posts to get your fourth character, so use this with caution!



Lumos Awards!

Introducing the first ever Lumos Awards! These awards will be nominated by YOU, the members bimonthly. What do you get if you win? Peer recognition, a trophy in your inventory, and your name in the Awards Section in the top banner!



What we need from YOU is quite simple - send the name of a character or member that you feel deserves some SPECIAL recognition this month for the outstanding job they’ve been doing on Alohomora. While you don’t have to write WHY, feel free to! The judges (aka your lovely Tech Team) will then deliberate and announce the winners at the beginning of every other month. The first Lumos Award winners WILL be announced on March 1st, so please get us your nominations by February 22nd!





Alohomora Mission System

The site has implemented a new mission system to give your characters some more hands on experience and to earn things for your in character team. The Mission System is a system unique to Alohomora that allows members to take the fate of the war between good and evil into their own hands. The lore staff has created a series of missions that allow the different factions to gain bonuses such as secret hideouts or extra staff-requested want ads via a missions system that involves writing short one-shots and the staff rolling a die to determine success. The missions system is still in its infancy, but we hope to expand it so that all factions can have unique, diverse tools at their disposal.



Plot announcement: Order SPLIT! 

Following the retrieval of Harry Potter’s wand in the middle of a forest in ashes, ashes, the Order of the Phoenix held an emergency meeting to discuss what to do next. Members of the Order had extremely different opinions as to how to react to the situation, which ultimately led to them splitting into three factions. The first faction, Heliopath led by Victoire Weasley, believes that vengeance and action should take priority. The second, Ouroboros led by Finn Nottingham, values planning and logical thinking to decide the most effective way to combat threats. The third faction, Order of Statera led by Poet Dmello, believes that the Order needs to present a unified front and is trying to mediate the conflict between the other two factions so they can reunite. For more information on the split, visit the one-shot scylla and charybdis.



We love you guys, thanks for being the reason Alohomora is so great!



-

The Staff