Something that I can't decide how you plan to balance this, and its got me genuinely confused - in the books the story starts with the kids aged 11, obviously for E's purposes the story starts at Hogwarts with them aged 16. The period from 11 to 16 at the Ministry school where you say they use practice wands and such - how much else is learned there? Or are we in effect postponing the start of their main academic studies for 5 years - so that in effect the 16 year olds are now learning what Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco et al, all started learning at age 11?
If various spells, skills, broomstick flying, duelling and such HAS been mastered at the Ministry School, what method is in place to say how much each of our characters already knows and how good they are at it?
Finally, how does this affect the skills and spell knowledge of the older students in the game since they came up through the same system?
The first year at Hogwarts will be a SIGNIFICANT spike in difficulty for the students. For the most part they practiced theory and got most of the "boring" subjects out of the way. You wouldn't be really able to compare "this setting" and the one from the books, since some things had to change(to follow board rules). Students would be finishing school a year later if we did not change the age range and we felt the allure of a Hogwarts game was actually being at the castle. Who wants to come in as a age 22 paper pusher for the ministry.

We are giving players free range on how "good" they are as wizards but we do have optional systems if you wish to duel/play quidditch that is a simple system. (which we will test when the game starts)
Optional meaning- If you want to duel (join the dueling club), you have to use out system. BUT if you wish to duel for the hell of it, as long as you and the person involved can resolve it with out drama, go right ahead!
As for what sets apart a 1st and 5th year, those optional systems have a way that some of you can use, but we have not released it yet. (final tweaks)
OH I was wondering if you guys would like me to work up a class schedule like I did for the X-men thread? If you pm the classes, days, if you want which teachers are doing that class and so forth. I can even see about working on which student is taking what if you list that for me. Put it in a calendar or graph like I did for the other thread. That is if you want me too. Just offering to help is all, plus my OCDness actually likes to do it. lolz
We won't be having a class schedule, we will let people make their own schedules, classes will be free form with post from time to time from a professor. Thank you for the offer.
Kendra and Aiden, for the more advanced (University) classes, do you want us to pm you which classes we'd like to be taking or are you going to assign them to us?
We will tackle that IC perhaps with a separate orientation or one on one with your HoH.