I'm feeling very, very nostalgic tonight. I'm up with Maire and I just felt the urge to google cache a website. Not just any website, but the website I met J on, the website that filled my early teenage years with lots of laughs, friends, and most importantly, memories. A lot of people would be willing to 'poo poo' that, saying...it's just the internet. You never "really" knew those people, anyways. I supposed it would be hard to understand from the outside. We
were close, we were all very close. Most of us were about the same age, and loved Harry Potter. Out of character on the RP site, we all got along and laughed and laughed and supported each other and became like siblings. In fact, I still talk to many, many members of Xauror in real life, 8 years this past week, from when I joined. Typing that brought a tear to my eye. 8 years? What?!? No way....it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like 8 years ago I started the journey which brought me the best friends, the best memories, and the best laughs. But, from the outside, I'm sure it appears like nothing to real life. I'm not asking for approval or validation, but I just feel like I need to write down some of these memories before they are lost forever!
I joined in 2006. I feels like yesterday, and yet forever ago. I was just a girl, just about to turn 12. We got a computer that year, and had just AOL dial up. Boy, does that make me feel old. Ha. But, I was going through a rough time, and didn't have many friends. I was very into Harry Potter, which was my saving grace during those years. It gave me something to immerse myself in, and something to look forward to. After spending a couple of weeks on the internet, I started looking at Harry Potter sites. The first few I joined in early May were just more of news sites. I just didn't seem to "click" with any of them. I kept looking. I stumbled upon Xauror, as it was ranked really high on the site named Alexa, in which members of websites would vote their website up in ranking.
I clicked. I mean, I literally clicked onto the website, and it 'clicked.' I don't know how to explain it. Fate. Intuition. Something, just something....drew me there. It literally felt magical. It stirred something. It felt right. I spent the first night just reading and going through all of the different facets of Xauror. It seemed endless. And fun. The forums in which you roleplayed were the centerpiece of the site, but there were MANY other features.
There were 2,000 "Muggle Games" which were games common of those years, like simple Pong Games, Penguin games, shooter games, board games, card games, most stuff you would find on a 'Gaming' site. In Muggle Games you could earn trophies on games if you earned the third-highest score or more. In addition, you earned money based on your score (measured in Wizarding Currency, if you had an account open at Gringotts Bank, an essential feature to the site.) Once you opened a Gringotts account, you could earn money by posting, playing games, or finding hidden nuggets around the site as well as a variety of other ways. Other members could also donate to your account, or 'pickpocket' small amounts from you if their skills were high in the battle system (more on that later). Each house had points, and at the end of a term, the winning house would get a prize (usually some ingredients and money).
With your money you could buy and furnish a virtual house. This was not a popular site feature anymore by the time I joined. In addition you could buy spells, items to display in your profile, potion ingredients, pets, and more. The potion ingredients could actually be combined. There were treats you could make, or special puzzles you could trigger. There were special badges you could win with these ingredients. You could also buy a pet - canon, of course, and you needed money to buy it food, water, and clean its cage. Doing so leveled up your pet, making it worth more. You could sell your pet for the money it was worth and buy another. Or use it elsewhere. I know Jeff and I both had pet Phoenixes when the site went down. Mine was almost 3 years old, Jeff's was over 4. Our Phoenixes were worth over 200,000,000 each in the money system. But anyways, there were very many ways to earn money.
The special puzzles and nuggets hidden around the site gave you badges for your profile if you completed them. You were given special recognition for each you completed. Sometimes you were given additional rewards for your inventory or bank account. There were badges for other things as well - posting so much, posting here or there, doing this or that. I believe there were over 50 badges you could earn for your profile. You could play virtual Quidditch, earning scores and badges, and money, and buying equipment in the stores to improve your playing. It was a very neat system. There were site stores that were canon, and even a section for member stores where they could sell whatever they wanted from their inventory (not badges etc.) for whatever price to other members who needed the ingredients and items.
There was a 'Chat' window where all members of the site could chat. That wasn't a particularly popular feature though, since you could privately Owl (message) someone, anyone, on the site. You could get 'sorted' into a Harry Potter house and then post in the dorms of your House. You could post basically anywhere that was included in the Potterverse. You could get a randomly generated wand to display on your profile. There was a site 'news' area, called the Daily Prophet after the newspaper of the same name. It was usually canon articles written by members of the site. You could take classes, and get grades to display (and a more organized class system was later added, giving teachers unique site powers, such as the ability to write textbooks, give house points, money, and grades. A very immersive, but easy system).
There were Practical Classes where you had a virtual character (much like the Pokemon battle system, for those unfamiliar) that you leveled up by using spells you bought and clothing or other items, wands, etc; and won money or ingredients with each won battle. It cost you money to heal when your health got low or you died so that you could heal or be revived. When you felt like retiring your Practical Classes character, you would earn a ranking. There were badges for this as well, depending on your accomplishments, level, number of retired characters, title (earned through special battles and items) and more.
You could 'study classes' which was a more virtual system than the forum classes. You earned, found, or bought "lessons" from certain canon teachers and then had to solve puzzles and answer questions. A positive score contributed to your number of lessons of each subject. Once you completed all the lessons in a "year", you could become a student of the next year. This went up to level 7, from whence you could take as many lessons as you liked. It raised your lesson statistics, and although you could get a different title with each accomplishment, you never got over the level 7 "stats" so to speak, as it plateaued. In addition, there was a second 'Quizzes' section where you could answer canon questions about the books and movies for house points and money. Members could create quizzes and list how much it was worth.
You could play Arithmancy - separate from the other games, which was just sudoku. With each game, you earned ranking, as well as house points, and yes, again, money. You could play Monopoly with friends for HP and money, and that was a widely used and fun part. Shortly after I joined, a third battle system was created. A more in-depth modern one. You could sculpt your character more than the one of the practical classes, but didn't earn anything. It was used mostly as just a virtual avatar. There was a member dueling system, where you could cast funny spells on another member and it would cause their avatar to change, or their profile to display a funny illness on their virtual characters. It could be "cured", of course. There were the more 'serious' spells, which was rather like rock, paper, scissors, and you earned money from the other person and HP if you won.
You could join clubs, many of which had private forums and awards/badges for members. There were canon clubs, and off-topic clubs. There was a library where members could write and post fanfics or original works. There were the 'Top Students' Ranks, where there were four categories. Richest, Practical Classes, Housepoints, and Dueling. There were smaller sections, links to e-cards, floo network (where you could view similar sites and member sites), overviews of the books with pictures, and picture galleries of member images.
There were site secrets. Clicking on a certain pixel, or image, or pixel in an image, guessing a secret password to forums, or a link, and solving puzzles all earned you special recognition once completed. These were the hallmark when I joined, but as the site began to change a few months later, many of those secrets were 'lost' or couldn't be used anymore. But, the site was evolving. Some of the more advanced features already mentioned were implemented, and more were being developed, such as Hippogriff racing. Hippogriff racing worked by you going to the link, and "walking into the forest." Sometimes a Hippogriff would appear, and if it did your Practical Classes character would have to fight it to win its loyalty. Hippogriffs came in varying colors depending on how fast it was, its stamina, etc. and you had to pay to feed and maintain them. You raced them for rank, money, and House Points. You could breed them to get better Hippogriffs, and then race them. Ranking was determined in several ways by how many Hippogriffs, what types of them (color), number of races, number of won races, etc.
Then came the Marriage system after dozens of members requested it. Many role-playing families were well-established, and felt a simple marriage system/family tree system would really enhance the site where you could follow people's lineages and see who you were related to, as some of these families were quite massive. After just a few weeks "poof", it was there. Xauror (the Admin) said it could be a bit buggy, but that overall was very stable. And that was true. You would go in, and you could petition to be adopted by a certain couple, or ask them to adopt you. It did cost money, but if you could afford it it was worth it. Once you were adopted you could see your entire family tree. In addition, even if you weren't adopted you could get married. It was a staircase system. You paid for the first date, then to kiss, then to actually become a couple, then to be engaged, and then to marry. After you were married you could adopt a member as your child. It was a very simple, good system.
At the same time, the Admin began allowing people to buy their own boards, usually for their "houses" due to the Marriage system, so that all members of a family could congregate or RP privately. This was not an easy task, since you had to raise, I believe 2,000,000 galleons which is the highest of the three types of coin. You also had to give the premise of the board, which had to be approved. You were then made a moderator of your own forum, created by the Admins, in which you could control. In addition to this, the Dorm boards were changed so that you could only enter the dorm of your house, and only the dorm of your gender. Before you could cross-play, as in real life, where you'd be able to go and hang out with a friend from another house, no matter their gender.
Anyways, after you established yourself on the forums by posting, being helpful to other members, and showing your skills RPing, then you could apply for a job. Jobs included being a Professor (teaching forum classes and later using the class system), medal mod (awarding medals), Secret Keeper (as the name implies), Quizmaster (approves quizzes), Fan Art Mod (moderating the Picture Gallery), Specialty (which meant a variety of things, including Secret Keeper of multiple things), Librarian (as the name implies), and later, you could apply to become part of the Help Team or Head Professor. Towards the end of Xauror's (the website's) life, there were RP teachers as well, when a small system was developed since a lot of new members no longer could use proper RP speak, nor could spell or punctuate correctly. So it basically taught forum and RP etiquette. You wrote a post at the end of your help, and were graded. That grade was put on your profile, and at that point the Admin developed a system so that only members with a certain grade could go to certain forums, and members could control what grade was needed for their own personal forums. Due to complaints, X (the Admin) began making moderation changes and made the site almost self-sufficient so that most moderators weren't necessary anymore.
That was the first step to the end of the forums. Things had drastically changed at the end as far as which members were still around (most of us older members had accounts 4-5 years old at this point), because us older members were unsatisfied with the lack of moderation. People were RPing however they wanted. Medals and awards started to take forever to be awarded. Secrets were practically gone. Those of us who really tried to continue participating, were annoyed since people who weren't a part of the RP would jump and then throw a hissy fit when you told them it was a private RP, ruining the entire thread. Challenges and special events stopped happening. Features were left on their own, and no more were added. It was almost as if X had given up on the site. She had stopped coming online for months at a time. No one was checking to make sure moderators were doing their jobs, and the RP teachers weren't enough to teach the influxes of members how the site worked. Many of us older members would log in, but we wouldn't post. We'd answer each others' Owls, and log out. We connected in other ways since we were older, we got Myspaces, then Facebooks, shared emails and eventually phone numbers. Some of us fell out of touch. Most of us banded together.
And I'm going to share the story of this with this blog. Because I feel these memories need to be shared. They need to be written down. The complete greatness of what this site did for my life then needs to be written down so that when the memories fade, I can look back and remember. Because the website is gone. Poof. For 2 years now. I can never go back and look on it. No one can. The URL was given to some members who wanted to start an 'Xauror Reborn' website, but it never made it anywhere. I feel the need to get it down before I forget.
