Sorry.
Loved the books. Liked the movies pretty well, too. Just finished watching number 7, part two a few minutes ago. Still a pretty exciting movie, even though it degenerated into one long wand fight. (it’s a movie thing, wands, swords, light sabers, you know what I mean?) and a lot of the backstory and interesting characters and dialog didn’t make the cut.
Think about it, when you try to compress 800 pages into a 4 hour movie, it’s about 3.33 pages per minute and now that I calculate it out that doesn’t sound like such an amazing feat at all, except that Rowling put action on every page.
But Pottermore sucks. I can’t understand what the delay was, if they’re going to put out something this lame. You can read the first chapter, if for some reason you’ll get more out of it by reading it from a computer screen than by reading it from a book.
I don’t get the marketing here. Most of the people who are on the site, I’m sure, are already devoted fans. We’ve read the books. I was hoping for something a bit more.
Or you can look at a picture of Privet Drive, which is basically a view of a still, quiet British suburban street, with a cat.
That’s about it. I haven’t got my wand yet, haven’t been sorted into a house, none of that cool stuff.
I hope it will improve, and I will update you in this space if it does, but I’m not holding my breath.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
It doesn’t get any better. It’s cool to get a wand and get Sorted, and try out the duels and potions, but in all, Pottermore is really boring, lame, and frustrating (I can’t get over 137 for my spell strength in duels and I keep running out of time making potions. I’m not computer illiterate and I’m not a moron. I don’t get why it has to be so awful). I am not a fan. 😦 I joined yesterday and spent a few hours on it before the novelty wore off. I totally agree–what was the delay in opening if it sucks so much? The artwork is pretty…that’s about it.
When you are trying to find all the hidden stuff, it’s kinda fun. And reading more info about characters is always nice. But I finished book one in two days. I don’t want to make the same potions over and over – and frankly, having my cauldron blow up because I stirred 3 times instead of 2 seems unfair. I don’t want to duel other people with the same spell over and over(because only one spell actually has enough points to defeat people). There are no forums where you can truly chat about the books. I will probably not visit again until there is something new to do.
Yes, Pottermore sucks. I hate saying that cause I’m a huge potterhead, but its true. (I’m just so frustrated by the website’s lousiness, that this may be very long).
After what felt like an eternity, Pottermore finally opened it’s cyber doors, and many fans simply can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be. If you’ve ever played any of the epic hidden object games on Shockwave and Big Fish, many of which are fantastically based on books or movies, you’ll understand what they’re trying to do on Pottermore, and failing – big time. There is very little actual content, and the “minigames” they do have are boring, uninspired, and not worth a repeat play. Like the cake you click on about 20 times to keep it from falling. Not fun at all, and not anywhere near up to the Harry Potter standard they should have.
Of all this, the dueling is the worst part of the Pottermore experience, in my opinion. You get excited and think, ‘Cool, I get to duel other fans! Hope I win!’ Then you click you click the duel button, and the whole boring thing is over in ten seconds, if that. Really, how can anyone enjoy a game that’s so quick? And how can a duel of any kind not be the slightest bit interactive between the duelers? You don’t see anything your opponent does on-screen, you don’t know who you’re dueling most of the time, and in fact, you can duel with someone hours or days after they challenge you and it doesn’t make a difference. There’s no animations, no images/pictures/sprites of spell-casting, nothing to make it visually stimulating in the least to make up for the lack of brainpower used. Worst of all, the gameplay is completely uninteresting–you click the letters in a spell’s name as these moving circles pass over them. Even though there are like 10-15 spells, only ONE spell is used by everybody because the others are so weak it’s pointless. Seriously, one spell. Its funny, if you get bored and decide to use different ones, your opponent will never fail to select ‘rematch’ over and over, cause they think they’ve got an idiot they can beat for easy points. They won’t believe their good luck. There’s so much that sucks about Pottermore, so I’ll move on.
The potions – as you’ve probably heard, they are ridiculously hard, to the point of being broken. They give you a much too small amount of time to add the ingredients, and the vials flail all around when you pick them up, often spilling their contents everywhere, making it super hard to add the right amount to your cauldron. They’ve even managed to make stirring hard as well due to the frequent unresponsiveness of the ladle! After you’ve somehow managed to add the ingredients and stir it up right, you then have to ‘wave your wand’. The first time I made it to this point, I could not find the wand. It was nowhere to be seen on my little table of stuff. And then time ran out, starting me over. After about 4 tries like this, I stumbled upon the wand while frantically clicking around at random. It was half behind the ingredients and half camouflaged by the wooden desk. So then you click and drag the wand to the cauldron, where it taps the rim and then kinda bounces around in slow motion, aimlessly shooting lightening bolts till it settles back down on the desk. Really, this is the Harry Potter world–wand waving should be animated correctly! Now we’ve come to the most diabolical part of potion making: the unholy amount of time it takes. Sony has decided to give this little minigame a totally unethical twist: Each of the potions (and you can only make one at a time) takes on average 45 mintues, and as long as 95 minutes, to brew before you can add the rest of the ingredients. This is in REAL TIME. If you don’t come back to it within a small time frame after its done brewing, the potion is ruined, and its back to the start. Good God, this is soooo maddening. Especially considering the fact that the second round of ingredients are often harder than the first. One mistake, and you’ve blown all your hard work, and an hour or more of time. If you want to try again, you’re looking at another freaking hour of waiting. The reason I say this is unethical is the fact that many children are on Pottermore, and making them sit at the computer for hours while they try to make these potions is just wrong. And kids will, because they really want to make these potions right. To add insult to injury, the potions don’t seem to have a single purpose! You earn a small amount of house points for each correctly brewed potions, but otherwise they sit in your trunk without meaning.
I’m trying to be optimistic when it comes to the purpose of all those random objects (hairpin, alarm clock, etc) you collect while going through the story pages. They do absolutely nothing right now except sit in your trunk, next to the Chocolate Frog Cards you collected, of which have no stinking pictures on them! Just a description of whose on it. Why? Are the game designers that lazy?
There are a couple fun things about Pottermore, and they are of course the wand selection and sorting. Its cool answering the questions, being analyzed, and labeled in Harry Potter terms. I also love the extra bios and information written by Rowling herself for the game. I had no idea there was so much backstory for minor characters! But these things alone aren’t enough. The designers of Pottermore have failed us, and they need to regroup, and rethink what they want Pottermore to be, and give us something worthy of the Harry Potter name.