Answer to the common room question: people -think- they want something like using a passcode to enter a forum. you will want that until you cannot access the forum area. we can passcode a forum but the issue with this is that it would either be the same always or you cannot access the place you get your monies and can be free of the other house chatter unless you keep up on what the latest password is.

As for Andrew. I copied your concern to the staff discord channel.

Howler System

A Howler can be bought in Hogsmeade(must be a third year or have fake Hogsmeade Permission Form) at the Post Office, they cost seven Sickles. This is the only item that can be paid for at the Post Office so there it isn't hard to find at all. Howlers can only be bought at the Post Office.

Picture of Howler Could be used for animation purposes when receiving a message from a Howler. This can also replace the letter in the top when you have a message that is from a Howler.

Summary The Reducio below explains all the mechanics that would be possible with his feature INCLUDING cons and fixes as I believe this is a mechanic that really deserves to exist. The summary of this mechanic is basically creating a new special type of message which will add more immersion when reading threads, I also go over a few cons and how to fix them, and detail how they can work in posts, the OWL system, and I believe this feature can change Hogwarts.io in a great way, as well as being positive as well. The Howler is just another basic item in the Post Office, but I believe it has the potential to make an awesome item, which would make Howlers much more worth it to buy, I believe multiple people would agree that a new Howler system would be a welcome feature, because as I mentioned multiple times, it would create immersion, make reading threads and owls a whole lot more interesting, as well as entertaining.

Reducio

I believe a new Howler system would be great for the messaging(owl) system, or potentially even posts, I feel like players would buy Howlers much more with this system plus I believe it will add to the immersion.

• When you buy this, it remains in your inventory until you're ready to send an owl via Howler.
• When the person comes online, the owl UI will be red and shaking more aggressively instead of the usual small shaking, if they click on their owl, the howler will instantly show up with full message which is in all caps.
• A potential use in posts as well, a special button comes up when writing posts(assuming you own a Howler) and it allows you to create a special message in a special font which only a Howler can have, plus they special text box around it.

Yeah, it's a huge change, but I believe this feature can improve the site in some ways, but I believe it is only fair to go over the cons.

• People may get annoyed by this feature, especially if they start receiving multiple of these a day.
• The coding for this might be a little bit hard to do.
• The potential glitches that could come out of this like multiple Howlers getting sent to one person or how it'd look in posts.

Now of course with every problem there has to be a solution, so for the coding and bugs, I don't really know, I guess it depends on the developer, but the part where people get annoyed, there can be a limit on how many times a day you can send a Howler to someone, that way it doesn't become too annoying throughout the day. Finally I want to go over why I believe people will like this feature.

• A new mechanic which adds to the immersion of posts which players would love because of how it adds to the experience.

This also requires back end coding. It is a lot of work for something that would annoy some users. However Zach has access to this channel and does browse.

I want to make a suggestion about the way of acquiring a pet.
I understand that a single place is needed for this so it is possible to moderate this system. But having to always make a thread going to the store buying supplies or the pet I think it takes some creativity to write finding our characters’s best friend.

I know it is not mandatory to buy a pet, we can simply go to the store and RPing buying supplies and explain how we met our pet. But being in a store and actually paying there for a pet it leads in the majority of cases for people RPing buying their pet. The thing is, in my perspective this could be more then this, and buying a pet in a world where we witness so many being abandoned and waiting for a home it doesn’t feel the right way for me.

So my suggestion to acquire a pet would be: RPing in any place the write chose. This would give everyone the choice to buy, to find or adopt their pet and not guiding everyone to buy them. Then, to receive their pet, instead of being at the store, they would have to pay to register their pets (maybe somewhere in the ministry) and sign a term of responsibility. In the registry place they would have to link their post where they write about the way they have found their pet.

The honest truth here. The reason it is the way it is would be because some people use "other" starting areas for getting a pet to describe abusive situations in a detail that is against rating and to a level that makes us uncomfortable. We have had to challenge players who have tried to RP as being abusive to pets and it has adversely effected members of staff. So we often seek a compromise knowing that most users are the competent sort that won't talk about a starved, beaten or mutilated creature, but also providing a relatively well trodden path where creativity is possible but there is a path of least work that would logically preclude abuse since most people that write that sort of thing are not usually (sadly there are exceptions) writing novellas.

That said, I'll bring this up.

Yes, that was not what I had in mind at all! I just thought that would be a lot more educational to not lead everyone to buy a pet but open the possibilities for adoption at least.
I know is very hard to make people read the rules on site and I personally would be also choked in reading something describing any type of violence or abuse. But with rules stated clearly in a "registry thread" wouldn't help avoiding this? Something: "In order for you being able to acquire your pet this are the rule: [insert rules]."
In the same way you can't hurt your's or anyone's pet you can't also RP it in a thread to find your companion.
And thank you for being open in discussing this!

I did copy the hoh team on this to see what changes or middle ground can be met.