This is what I would do.
Announce that the game would be offline for 42 hours. See example below:
Beginning at midnight on Sunday July 22 - 6pm Monday July 23 the game will be down for maintenance. Since all tournaments are scheduled by HRF, just make sure no tours are scheduled during that timeframe.
Starting at midnight you begin transferring the files to the new game. Hopefully that takes 24 hrs or less. That gives you 18 hrs to run tests and make modifications as necessary.
If everything goes well and you can bring the game back online before 6pm on Monday, that's great. If things are not looking good after 26-32 hrs, you back out and keep everything as is and try again in another month.
As part of the announcement of taking the game down for maintenance you state that "All members that joined prior to Saturday July 21 will be rewarded as follows - non VIP members will receive 50,000 community points and VIP members will receive 500,000 community points for being patient and supportive.
This would act as an incentive to get non VIP members to become VIP, and also get the players that removed their VIP status to get it reinstated.
Maybe a separate server could be setup so during the downtime people could still run practice races and jockey horses on the old platform.
These are just my thoughts. I don't claim to know if this would work or not.
No. Taunting and teasing you people about the update is far better. Nothing pleases Flyingdaaka more than to see an irate member sound off about how upset he is about the update.
Matter of fact, Flyingdaaka would donate 500,000 points directly to HRF for continuing these actions.
The fact is taking down the site for that long would cause several new members to drop out. That wouldn't be a good idea.
~~ Loving every minute of watching you people wait in dire hope for The Update ~~
If you donate 500,000 to HRF your balance would be -279310. Not a good idea.
~~~“The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese.” ~~~
Yes Kingbroke, but unlike you, Flyingdaaka, with a few strokes off the keyboard, and at his leasure, could easily make that number grow in a matter of moments.
That could be done at any time and as often or as rare as The Flying One pleases.
You on the other hand often carry lint in your account and clearly scramble to keep your head above water.
~~ Loving every minute of watching you people wait in dire hope for The Update ~~
I like my idea better. But I do find it funny when I hear all the rants and threats. I think I may have even made a few myself....lol
As a matter of fact I think I will retire 1 or 2 right now in protest.
Just retired one myself in protest. Of course, it was an 87 BSR!!! And it took several glasses of wine for me to retire even that one! LOL!!!!
"As part of the announcement of taking the game down for maintenance you state that "All members that joined prior to Saturday July 21 will be rewarded as follows - non VIP members will receive 50,000 community points and VIP members will receive 500,000 community points for being patient and supportive."
This comment right here is a great idea, cause HRF wouldn't have to give hardly anyone these points. I would get the 500,000 and maybe a few others, but that's about it. How about HRF deducts points from players that have not been supportive during this whole process. LOL
~~~“The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese.” ~~~