Graduation on Potterworld
Feature
Written by Spaghelle
Edited by ShaneChi
Greetings, my lovely audience, and welcome back to another edition of the Daily Diviner! In today’s piece, I’m going to take us back a few weeks: all the way to the end of the 2019-2020 school year! For many, it was just a short goodbye until fall; however, for the graduating classes of this year, it was a permanent farewell to their schools as they move onto the next stage of their lives! Unfortunately, the class of 2020 weren’t able to celebrate their graduations as usual, due to the global health crisis that ended the education of many prematurely in the spring. Due to the fact that so many graduates put years of effort and hard work, devoting countless hours to school and their personal lives, the staff team took it upon themselves to form a specialized Potterworld Graduation Event, one that had never been seen before on the server in all its years!Feature
Written by Spaghelle
Edited by ShaneChi
The Graduation Event, lasting from June 12 through June 27, consisted of many parts despite being a mini-event. The concept for this event was originally created by staff members Ralie and WhirlwindWar, and finally brought to life! Players were able to travel to the Graduation Hall through an NPC situated right at the doors of the Great Hall, where you couldn’t miss it! Upon entry, you were greeted with a magnificent hall adorned with purple banners and carpeting, round tables in lieu of the standard Great Hall ones, but most importantly; the hall was filled with the NPCs of graduating staff members! These staff members, rising from all levels of education, are constantly dedicating their hard work to both their education and Potterworld, and it is only right to give them the recognition that is deserved. As you passed by the NPCs sitting at their own house tables, a Droobledore NPC offered multiple gifts of graduation; an interactive graduation cap that had the ability to be tossed into the air, a special 2020 diploma, and a book full of sentiments from all of the Head Staff! It was truly a memorable event in Potterworld history, and hopefully made the graduating class of this year feel like they were being recognized for their amazing achievements.
Alongside the player-based event, the staff held a smaller, more private event to personally celebrate the graduating students among the team. Listed here, to provide recognition of their achievements, are all of the staff, team members, and contributors who were featured in the ceremony! We’d like to thank everyone on this list for everything they’ve contributed in the past and into the future, and wish them well for what lies ahead in life!
RobotWizz, Sunnya, xAutumnn, zachmath15, Serinades, EricaEH, gospojken, SimplyAna, NSgaming, Marijensn, calliemath15, Aoshimason, Polarxo, Crestilia, Queeeni, Mr_Grindelwald, CarlieShock, albanybrookexo, and Decidanny.
I had the pleasure of talking to a couple of staff members and players about the event, and the consensus was astounding! The graduation event was truly a unique experience, as both Serpent Staff member gospojken and Griffin staff member RainTM say:
“I think that it made me very happy to see all of the appreciation that the event gave each and every one of the graduates throughout the entire thing.”
“I really enjoyed seeing all the graduates in the graduation hall, it felt very nice for those who can't really have a party because of what is going on in the world. I think Potterworld did an amazing job of getting these graduates what they deserve after all their hard work.”
I certainly couldn’t agree more; this was one of the most touching aspects of the whole event. Speaking of which, I’d like to introduce the two people who brought the event to life! Without the aforementioned staff members WhirlwindWar (Paul) and Ralie (Emily), this graduation event would have never happened on Potterworld. They were able to devote their time to answering questions about the graduating event, something that I’m truly grateful for!
When first forming the event, both said similar things; COVID-19 prevented close friends of theirs from graduating this year, and eventually they decided to take it to Potterworld so that everyone would have the opportunity to experience a proper graduation. As Ralie (Emily) and Paul said,
“Paul and I were inspired to create a graduation event for the Potterworld community due to the COVID challenges. Unfortunately, the class of 2020 will not have traditional graduation ceremonies this year, but they still worked hard and deserved to be celebrated! Many of our friends on the server were supposed to graduate, so we wanted everyone to come together as a community and show the graduates our support!”
“Obviously, as everyone is aware, the pandemic stopped most graduations from happening, or at least stopped them from happening the way they would have happened sans-quarantine. Because of this, two of mine and Ralie's friends were unable to get the graduation that they had thought they were going to get. As such, Ralie had the idea to host an online graduation. It started as something we were going to do on a small private server, but Ralie and I decided it would be more worthwhile to host it on Potterworld and open it up to any of our other friends and team-members who weren't going to get a graduation the way they had previously thought they were going to.”
However, there also came the issue of bringing the idea to fruition forming the event itself, which players experienced first-hand through both the decorated Great Hall and the special collectables of the year. On this, Paul explained,
“So, we approached the HS with the idea for it and got started working on it. Through a little bit of hard work by Ralie, myself and some of the Head Staff and Leads of the server, we were able to get the event out to the public, so that everyone could enjoy at least some resemblance of the graduation that they would have had without the pandemic.”
Getting to see all of the hard work that was put into this event is amazing, and truly makes it an event to remember. Again, I’d like to thank all of the people who I interviewed for answering my questions, and a very special thanks to Paul and Emily for all of the effort they put in to see this event come to life! Even in these troubling times for the world, it’s amazing to see people be able to group together in communities such as Potterworld and celebrate each other's achievements. I hope everyone is able to stay safe and healthy, and a special congratulations to all of the graduating classes of 2020 from the Daily Diviner team! Thank you for reading, and farewell!