Either the OP was a troll (and I'm not taking the bait) or an imbecile (and I'm not going to lend credence to his post with a direct response).
The shutdown, to me, reemphasized the inarguable, immutable fact that FFXI is a game, an amusement and folly that exists nowhere other than SE's cluster of servers. Those who forget that fact, and cling to FFXI as though it were something real and meaningful, do so at their own peril.
Honestly, I felt creepy playing during the period between the earthquake and the shutdown, knowing that all hell was breaking loose outside the server on which my placid little fantasy world resided.
With an appropriate adjustment in billing, of course, I wouldn't mind SE shutting the game down for a week every quarter: players could reconnect with their lives and SE could work on the game and infrastructure without the pressure of five-nines uptime. The only downside I could see is that once some players are forced to find another diversion -- or, perhaps, rediscover reality -- they may not come back to the game.
Just my $0.02...






