Story of a Pottermore Beta Tester

So... I've been ranting about Pottermore, now that I've got my welcome e-mail I have already live my life as a Hogwarts' First Year Student.

If you asked me what Pottermore is, my answer would be: "A site where you can really experience what it feels like to be a witch/wizard who went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly". You can experience reading the Harry Potter book in a whole new way.

If you are interested, you can continue reading about my experience as Pottermore Beta User.

note: 

This post is image heavy and contains spoiler for Pottermore which will be opened to all in October.

Images are belong to Sonny Pottermore and JK. Rowling. I own nothing.

About a month ago, Pottermore announces about The Magic Quill Challenge to give a million early access to the developing site. The lucky one million would be a beta tester who can give their feedback so the site can be opened to all in its best condition. So I joined the challenge, got in on the second day and waited for weeks to access the site.

To activate your account, you'll need the welcome e-mail. Once it arrives you'll be able to explore the site. It will link you to the so-called  magical gateaway. You can see that in the top of the gate there are locked icon. It would be unlocked as you go trough each chapter.

Magical Gateway

After you entered the gate, you'll arrived at the Privet Drive, that's where the Dursley lives. It's where the journey begin, as written in the book. By this, you are experiencing the first chapter of Philosopher's Stone book. You can see the nice artwork of the Privet Drive.  Since the site  is  flash-based, you can explore the picture. You might be surprised what you can find by clicking on objects. You can zoom in and out so you can see things closer. And it's also animated. Some objects can move when you pointed your cursor  on it.

You can also get additional info written by Jo Rowling, which not in the book. It's fun to know some facts about Privet Drive or the Durslyes.

Privet Drive

The next moment is the arrival of Dumbledore. You'll get some additional info here about the magical world. And if you moving on the next moment, you'll see Hagrid arriving on the flying motorbike, carrying baby Harry.

Chapter 1 Preview

If you carry on, you'll be on Privet Drive Number Four, see Harry's room (the cupboard under the stairs), joining Harry's trip in the zoo, running away to the hut on the rock until you meet Hagrid who will give you the welcome mail from Hogwarts.

Chapter 2 and 3 Preview

After reading your Hogwarts welcome letter, your journey as a witch/wizard will begin. Once you get your shopping list you can start getting things you need. For a start you'll be given 500 Galleons. Then. you'll be able to explore Diagon Alley, checking your Galleon balance at Gringotts Bank, buying your school needs; books, cauldrons, potion ingredients, pets (a cat or an owl or a toad) and the most imporant of all: your wand. Some question will be asked before you get your wand. Say, the wand matches your personality, so nobody would have the exact same wood wand and core.

Diagon Alley Preview

Oh, by the way for my wand, I got 14 1/2 inch Quite Bendy Acacia with Unicorn core.

Now that you're a wizard with a wand, you'll be ready to go to Hogwarts by the famous Hogwarts Express. But, you should find the Platform 9 3/4 first. In this chapter there are some objects you could start collecting like Prefect Badges and Chocolate Frog Cards. There are a lot more to find so make sure you explore every corner with your eagle eye.

The Hogwarts Express

Finally you'll arrive at Hogwarts where you'll be sorted into your house by the Sorting Hat. You'll be given some question to decide which house you'd be in. If you ever taken some sorting hat quizzes online, this official Jo Rowling's Soting Hat won't give you those cheesy question like other sorting hat quizzes. The questions are rather explicit, so there's no chance if you want to cheat to be put in your desired house. Plus, everyone would given different sets of question.

I was given 8 question before the Sorting Hay puts me in Ravenclaw. 

Shortly after being sorted, you can read the Welcome Message from your House Prefect which contains some background of your houses. Unfortunately if you're sorted in Gryffindor you wont read much because everything about Gryffindor had all been told in the books.

Sorting Ceremony

You can enter your common room where you can meet your fellow same-house friend, interacting with them through the comment box and spreading the house pride.

The house system works like those we've known in books and movies. There are competitions where you can gain house points. The house with the most house point will win the House Cup. Until now, the only way you can earn house point is by brewing potions and Wizard Duel. You could have your house point taken from you if you lost in a duel or making mistakes while brewing your potion.

Now that you're officially a wizard with a house, you can enter the "real wizarding life". You can go tho the Great Hall and meeting all Hogwarts students, brew potions and cast spells, exploring classes and libraries, joining Harry, Ron and Hermione in the Gryffindor's common room, going to Hagrid's hut, entering the forbidden forrest, catching the snitch, going to the the Christmas Feast, see the Mirror of Erised, going to the Hospital Wing  and so on...

I rated 7 over 10 for Pottermore. I love the artworks, the new information Jo Rowling wrote about the objects and characters, my wand, the Sorting Ceremony, collectible objects, potion brewing and I LOVE MY HOUSE. I finally know that I belong to the Smart Ravenclaws. Haha. Oh, and this House Pride thing, its very intense. Everyone tries their best to make their house get the most house point.

Actually, Pottermore is a bit beyond my expectation. I was expecting some SIMS-y  interactive game. Not every part of Hogwarts can be explored, not every room can be entered. There are a lot of things that can be improved like the communicating system since there's no chat room, forums or messaging system. The comments also not real-time based. It takes a few minutes before your comment published. There is also comments moderation which wont allowed you type names, country (I can't type Indonesia) or numbers. Notifications are sucks because it's not easily deleted. It took 80-100 minutes to brew a potion and it was boring as hell to do so. Although they have cut the brewing period, it still took a quite long time and I still got bored waiting it to brew perfectly.

In the old regulation, the reward point given just seemed to be unfair, like you earn the same house point for each potion you brew. No matter how hard the potion you make or how long it takes to brew, you will only earn 5 points. Now, the point awarded depends on how difficult the potion you have made.

There are many glitches Pottermore developer should fix before it opens to all. Last time, we can even cheat to make the potion brew faster. It can be done by turning your PC time faster. Another trick is by failing your potion because each time you fail you earn 1 house point. Seemingly, losing your potion is a fastest way to gain a lot of house points.Fortunately this glitches had been fixed and you can cheat no more.

But I think that's the point of a Beta User. We are here to see whether something needs to be fixed or not, giving feedbacks so the developers know about the glitches and so on.

I believe by the time Pottermore open for public, it will be a lot more better than now.

For those who still waiting for Pottermore to be publicly open, be patient my fellow non-muggle buddies! We'll soon be united under the Hogwarts' roof. Now if you excuse me, I will continue brewing my potion.