I like this idea, but what constitutes "core" data versus something that can wait for 1/week? For some people who don't hatch a lot of eggs or do a lot of collecting, fields and similar things don't matter. But some people don't use the forums at all, so that wouldn't be important to them. Everything on the site is important for some people, so only selecting certain things for frequent backups would be problematic.

The problem is that it's been slowly getting longer, and the longer time is what caused glitches like the Shelter crashing the backup. It'll only get worse as time goes on, so best to fix it before something more serious happens. In reply to the question of how much people are affected currently, there's usually around 300 people at minimum online around the backup. That's still a lot of people, even if our American users are fortunate enough that I picked the time that you're all asleep as the time backup would run - in case you ever wondered why it was 10:12 Server Time and not something logical like midnight ;)

kinda have to agree with Kiryu on that. not everyone shiny/albino/melan hunts that's for certain, and i think the majority of the site actually doesnt. there's no way to tell how much could be lost. like garth said, it it's up to one week, so we could lose just a few hours or possibly 6 days of time. but even if the majority wouldn't suffer as much as a melan hunter would, you can't leave that minority out of the scenario. you can't really refund people's time, especially since how much would be lost varies per player. if the site crashes, it'd be devasting. but losing a few hours is way less worse than a few days. i'd still rather it not happen every day, mostly due to the problems it causes for pokerus. nobody would want the rus during backup, so would they just not click the host prior to it? that'd kinda suck imo but when i think about it a little more, a week is kind of long. if the site does have to roll back because of a crash, people could have to redo events like tournaments and type race, along with any hatching the did for their hunt, trading, or post creation (thinking like journal stuff here) maybe we could have backup every other day, or every three days? in all honesty im not concerned about the site crashing like it did that one time (was that 2 years ago?), but it seems a lot of ppl in this thread are. people don't play this game with the expectation that they could lose stuff so randomly like that, but i'm thinking it would ease a lot of minds if there was some sort of plan in place in case that happens again. i think the compesation last time was some bonus counters? that was nice, but it doesnt make up for pokemon that were essentially taken away. but you can't really just give people melans back based on if they said they lost one. it's a tricky situation, but i think people would be happier knowing that there's no possibility of losing up to a week's worth of work.

I think the question thats been on my mind is if this were to happen would there be replacements for possible specials lost? Particularly melans.... i am just curious. And zc and items returned? I do not know... i originally voted weekly but now um thinking daily

Lol, I was wondering why I'd never encountered the backup downtime! I'm so used to it happening at 00:00 on Flight Rising (which is only 1 hour away from my time zone so still during a time when I'm asleep) that I didn't even realize there WAS downtime for that on here :P

I believe daily updates to be the best course of action. While it's true they will only continue to get longer, there are a large number of websites that have an hour worth of maintenance per day, and as annoying as that is, it ensures that any changes and backups can be done to the best of the ability of the programmer, without any glitches. While the situation is a little different here, I'd much rather lose an hour and do something else than risk a week's worth of effort being completely lost - to start the week over would be infuriating, especially with the progress that can be done in a week. An hour or two lost is nothing compared to what could be lost in a week. Imagine if a data leak happened during MCW or 12DoC... I think Rus is a small fish to fry compared to what could potentially be lost, and I'd ask how a major data loss would effect things such as forums, paypal purchases, ZC purchases, and things involving real money. A honest trader would still send a recent Melan purchase or major trade, but a dishonest one could theoretically get away with it. Or, if the forum post data is lost, they may not even be able to find the person to return the melan. Edit: If it makes a difference, I see backup daily, without fail.

ohh yeah that's something i hadn't really considered. i've sold a few melans within hours of hatching, so if the buyer had bought with paypal right away and then we had to roll back to before i had hatched it... i would still have the money and the buyer would have no melan, and i wouldnt have a melan to give back to them. i figure things like zc purchases can be refunded since that has to do with real money and is probably also stored with a bank or something similar, but a lot of people are using paypal now too. that is a 'do at your own risk' thing, but it's something that shouldn't really be brushed under the rug even if it's unlikely to happen i'd like to hear if there's some sort of prepared plan in case this happens tho before changing my mind about wanting it to not happen every day. i'm curious to know if there's an actual plan in the event that this happens, or if it's just gonna be a 'sorry that happened, have some bonus counters' i still really doubt that the site is gonna have to roll back again, but things happen. like even if you dont live in an area where natural disasters happen, aren't you still gonna have a kit just incase? that kinda thing :3

I'd definitely prefer daily backups, especially if there's an event going on. I'd hate to do all of the work on an event only to have the site crash and erase everything, and the only backup is from last week. I have to voice my concern over lost things- if I hatched a shiny/albino/melan or had x amount of currency, and the site crashed and had to go back to a backup where said Pokemon/currency doesn't exist, would it be replaced or would we be SOL?

I have no idea is this is even possible, but maybe have daily backups that don't back up everything, just the most important stuff, and then have the weekly backups to backup everything? That might balance the issue of losing data v. overly long backups.

As someone who is on to see the daily backup every now and then (about once a week if we want an average), it's not something that bothers me to keep it daily. I'd much rather find something else to do for 20 minutes (heck, even 30) than potentially lose up to seven days of work. I can't really speak for the Pokerus that's missed with it happening daily, but I'd rather miss my time with Pokerus and only lose at most 24 hours of work, than get it and lose a potential 7 days.