I know a lot of you are waiting for the patch, so I figured I'd make this post going over what will happen tomorrow step by step.
When the countdown hits 0 the game servers will go offline.
A new "temporary" countdown is set, usually for 24h later.
While the game servers are offline I'll be doing some maintenance such as creating a manual database backup (Just in case).
Backup done, many databases will be removed as they were only used by Vagabond, and all databases will have things reset and changed.
With database maintenance done it's on to general server maintenance, updating OS, checking the hardware for errors (The HDs specifically), and rebooting a few times.
All that done it's time to copy the new server software from the dev. machine to the server, and make sure it runs correctly.
This includes doing some testing as well, just so we don't get a repeat of December's disastrous Foundation launch.
Finally it's time to fix any last minute issues that creep up, this is usually when I notice minor things such as buttons missing click-sounds, typos, or minor bugs such as server not sending updates fast enough.
During all this the countdown may be extended if required, usually I do that in either 6h or 12h increments.
With everything now updated, checked, and running, it's just a matter of waiting for the countdown to expire before allowing you all to join back in.
And with all the above finally done, almost 3 months late, you will all get to experience what Foundation was meant to be back in December.
As always, you can catch me in the chat, or on the forums if you have any questions.