What would happen if the servers go offline forever?

This month my first mmo server will be shut down. I'd never thought that would hurt this much, as all the data are just a few bits and bytes on some server in the unknown webspace. But hell, I've spent and wasted some good 4 years there, had a lot of ups and more downs, and found my boyfriend there, and we quit that server 2 years ago, and joined Eve. And we're still together and marriage is planned - I've never thought that turning an Internet relationship into something more graspable would really be possible, just because most (though not all) people on the internet are jerks. Or act that way as the shroud of anonymity hides their true self. Either way, its rare to find people who you can trust and count to your real friends, true friends, who stick up to the good and more importantly, bad times of your life. This counts to RL as to Inet-L, imo.
But back to my server: It hurts. A lot. Right now I've fallen back to that game, how simple it may be, but really need to sit down and think what will happen to my chars, as a account transfer to another server wont be done as far as I know. Restarting on another countrys server isn't really an option, if one official server dies, the others wont last too long in my opinion. So its either going grey, joining a pserver, or digging a small grave for my chars....

I've bought a soundtrack of the game music about a week ago, even I have all of them as mp3s, as they're included in every game client, but as I opened the package from Yokohama, there was the very first version from 2004 without any upgrades and game additions included. Hum hum, well I guess its going grey then, but for myself only. And so I can play with my server and mod it to my liking - and keep my chars.

But all the thoughts on another game aside, it got me thinking. People spend a real long time on a game, get attached, become addicted, live more in a game than in RL, get the curb, play a game, and have gotted "ahead" quite a bit and perhaps are even a known personality within the community. But how do these people react, when, let say, Eve would shut down? Would they set up an memorial of some sort, perhaps getting as much merchandise as possible, to remind them of the good times? Or would they go even grey, trying to private server the game in some way?
Or would they shrug, smile remembering the fun times and move on to another server or game?And what impact would it have to your life?

As for me, I'm back an my old game, and less and less here in Eve. Seems like I will never get over my first game.... :)