Planned Maintenance Downtime

[larissar]

We recently learned the company hosting this game will be closing its doors at the end of the month so we'll be migrating the game to a new server.

The new server has been created and most of the software is now installed.
I'll be uploading a test version of the game to make sure everything is setup and configured correctly.
Once I'm happy with the setup I'll begin making a copy of the live game database. Some of this process can be done while the game is still running but at some point I will have to put the site offline to finish the copy.
Once the database is uploaded to the new server I can then put the game back online.
This process can take a few hours to complete.

Throughout this entire process I will keep you informed as to the progress via our Facebook and Twitter accounts (linked in the page footer).

I do not have a time-frame as to when each step will happen but as I get closer to knowing when the game will be offline I will give you as much notice as I can. Tentatively I'm hoping to have the server ready to do the transfer Sunday evening (tomorrow, eastern standard timezone).

UPDATE 11/13 (Sunday): The new server is online and running a test version of the game and renderer perfectly so far! There is a little more configuration to complete, mostly just for performance and security, and then I'll begin migrating the database. The plan is to take the time tonight to complete the configuration, then Monday Tuesday evening I'll begin migrating the database. I'll post a notice a few hours before this beings.

Edit: Going to push this back to Tuesday instead, to give me more time to test a few other things so I'm 200% sure the server is ready.

UPDATE 11/15 (Tuesday): Configuring the security settings has taken longer than I planned, and during the process it was suggested to me that now is a good time to look into getting an SSL certificate to further increase security. Since we still have 15 days before we have to be off the current server I'm going to push back the database migration another couple of days while I look into setting up the SSL certificate as well as a few other things I'm going to do while I have this opportunity. I'll keep you all updated on continued progress

UPDATE 11/20 (Sunday): Tonight the database migration will begin at 8:30pm Eastern Standard Time. The game will be offline during this migration. We anticipate at least a couple hours downtime but it could be far less. Stay tune for Facebook and Twitter for updated.

UPDATE 11/21 (Monday, VERY early am!): Database migration is complete and appears to have gone smoothly. Please report anything strange or any bugs that appear and please bear with us through this transition.

UPDATE 11/21 (Monday evening): We are experiencing some intermittent performance issues so we're going to increase the system resources. The server has to be powered off for this to happen. We're expecting just over an hour of downtime. This process will begin tonight at 9:45 pm EST.

[Slash-GNR180]

So will we still have all our horses and data once the game is remade, or do we have to start over, and is it a brand new game or same game?

[stephanie111]

Thanks for the update! Do you know if anything will be changed?

[larissar]

So will we still have all our horses and data once the game is remade, or do we have to start over, and is it a brand new game or same game?

You'll be able to continue from where you left off, nothing will be lost.

Thanks for the update! Do you know if anything will be changed?

The only thing changing right now is it'll be a faster server

[Slash-GNR180]

that is nice, so there won't be any download necessary right?

[Angelll]

Thanks so much for the update.I love this game!!

[stephanie111]

So will we still have all our horses and data once the game is remade, or do we have to start over, and is it a brand new game or same game?

You'll be able to continue from where you left off, nothing will be lost.

Thanks for the update! Do you know if anything will be changed?

The only thing changing right now is it'll be a faster server

Thanks!

[SaddleUp]

Do you know when that is going to happen'?

[larissar]

that is nice, so there won't be any download necessary right?

Thats correct, there will be no downloads.

Thanks so much for the update.I love this game!!

Your welcome I love hearing that you guys enjoy the game.

Do you know when that is going to happen'?

It could possibly happen tonight, but at this point I can't say for sure yet.
I'm just putting the new server into testing right now. Once I'm 200% sure everything will work on the new server then I can begin the database transfer process. I'll keep you all posted.

[ablaise]

Thank you for letting us all know!