It's incredibly hard to plan the exact date when the transition is going to be made. Lately, however, I have been hoping to be able to do the transition after the FUMBBL Cup has completed. This is of course a bit dependant on Kalimar, as I want to be able to keep the critical bugs to a minimum.

What I'll most likely end up doing to handle the transition is to first, together with Kalimar, declare the end of the beta phase of FFB. When that is done, all existing teams will be retired. I realise that this retirement will not be popular, but feel that this is necessary for a number of reasons. In order to give something back to the people who have been testing, the test-teams will have the ability to "resurrect" at a later stage. What this means is that the coaches will be able to create a new team with the same name in one of the active divisions.

Depending a bit on the timing of when the FFB client is deemed to be "stable", the current FFB division might be reopened and work much like a proper ranked division, with the rules, expectations and constraints that we use in R today. The teams that are created in this division would, in effect, be considered Ranked and will be transferred to R when the transition has been completed. The important point here is that there will only be one single clear up of teams.

After the FUMBBL Cup has finished, the Blackbox division will be migrated to FFB. The reason for me to start with Blackbox is that it's simpler in terms of teams that are available. There are no old grandfathered teams, and all teams in that division are "clean" in terms of the current rules. After that has been completed successfully, the ranked division will be migrated.

Existing R and B teams will have the opportunity to choose to follow the migration, or transfer to a LRB4 division (Perhaps L, but it may also be a completely new division).

FUMBBL will absolutely continue to support LRB4 as long as there is interest for it. However, the official tournaments will be moved over to FFB. Coaches will be allowed to run their own tournaments in the LRB4 setting should they choose to do so.

Once B and R are migrated properly, the Academy division will be migrated as well. This leaves two divisions: League and Stunty. The L division will most likely eventually be split up in two. The idea is to allow current leagues and groups to migrate to a new FFB L, and also allow teams to choose to go to the LRB4 division.

And finally, there's Stunty. This is a division that I am not directly overseeing myself, and the decision where to take it rests on shadow46x2's shoulders. I have a feeling, though, that this division will remain as-is until the majority of work has been done with the other divisions.

LRB4 support in the FFB client is something that me and Kalimar have been talking about, but is not a high priority at this time. It may happen down the line though, but that is most likely depending on how much LRB4 traffic there will be on the site after the transition has been made.

-- Christer

Editors note – Shadow46x2 has since confirmed that Stunty will go FFB when it is up and running.

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