CyberVic Keep in mind that uptime is one of the main factors that goes into rank calculation on server lists. As long as our bungee and hub servers are up, they should be able to ping us just fine, but I thought it'd be a good idea to point that out. Maybe we could have a message display on hub during downtime that lets people know what's going on so we don't lose any potential players. As far as everything else goes, I agree that all the things you mentioned need to get done, but I can't see us needing as much time as you're proposing (yeah, maybe for the initial database optimization and whatnot, but updating plugins isn't that intensive of a process). Late Saturday works for me in most cases, but if anyone has another suggestion, I'm all ears.
The plan is to do it during hours in which no one is even awake, or very few people. Yeah I think the database stuff is just a one off kind of thing which would take the most work. And yeah I would stick to one server at a time and keep bungee up only taking it down if we absolutely have to. Thankfully Bungee is all config and no database.
Maybe you could schedule an Arcadian Wars for when it happens? Like everyone gets the kit and just messes around doing it for fun, while people are doing what needs to be done behind the scenes.
Don't know why I started this thread. We've already begun the process and been doing it when no players are around.