Review: Alohomora

Alohomora

Harry Potter

212

Forum

ProBoards

17

Intermediate

100-400 (But there are some longer)

A good number of recent posts.

All

Fairly typical future-based HP RP, but with some interesting plot twists.

The color scheme works well together, and the pastels are not overbearing, which makes it pleasant to look at. The colors of the "Create Thread" button and hover color as well as the cbox are a bit outside of the rest of the site, so they upset the uniformity of the color scheme, but its not too bothersome since the cbox is at the bottom of the site. Other than that Alohomora has the general appearance of any ProBoards board, so its not cluttered or overbearing, but the skin isn't setting it apart from other boards.

There is little about the site besides the header that says "Harry Potter" from a visual standpoint, however, so perhaps adding more Harry Potter-esque graphics in other areas of the sites (area and sidebar headers, forum descriptions) and changing the default folder thread icons to more Harry Potter-feeling icons would help give it more of a Wizarding World feel.

All the areas a guest would need to navigate through to learn about the board are at the top together, which is good, as the board itself has many forums and is quite long. In addition, the navigation in the sidebar gives the most important links to read, which saves prospective members some trouble in clicking through the boards to find everything they need.

The OOC Area right under the information area makes it easily visible when looking through the site, so its quick to see what the members are doing outside of the RP itself and therefore get a feeling for the community. The IC sections of the board are long. There's a lot of places to RP here, and that's not a bad thing, but some of them don't have any threads and the rest tend to have few, so it can make the board look less active than it actually is.

The plot information is easy to find, as its linked in the sidebar with the current plot pinned across the board as an announcement. The former major site plot is summarized as well so that new members can be up to date on things older members might mention and that would likely have an effect on their characters. However, the summary is a bit difficult to read due to dates within the bolded headings not being too easily distinguishable. The information provided, however, is nice and concise, meaning that it doesn't take a lot of reading to gain an understanding for how its working.

Other than the plot information there's not much offered in the way of RPG info. Granted, most players are going to be intimately familiar with the setting, but more topics like the "Wands" topic in the "Daily Prophet" forum would be beneficial for if members wanted more detailed information on the site itself to assist in character building without going off-site.

The rules are concise and to the point, however there is some repetition with the site rating that is unneeded, since they are so short. The first mention is under the "Account" section of the rules, and it doesn't really fit there as the rating is not related to making an account and is its own category below.

There's a guest-friendly board to pose questions and a cbox as well (although you must register a name to post a question there). The admin is listed in the sidebar along with accounts to make it easier to know which accounts to contact, however the drop-down does not link directly to accounts so you'd have to go find them in the member list to message them, except for the one linked outside the drop-down. In addition there is a suggestion thread so that members can suggest new things for the site. This makes the admin seem easily accessible.

The application process is set up easily enough, with both an application and a guide to filling it out in the character creation forum. The accepted applications are also viewable so that new members or potential members can look through them to see what is looked for in an app. It doesn't require an RP sample and seems fairly straightforward. The approved applications seem to vary in length as well, and there is no set requirement stated for the application length. Approval seems to be fairly quick for the most part.