sometimes it's best to err on the side of caution and update systems while your databases aren't exposed to changes from the outside. Periodic offline updates and even backups actually are a somewhat common practice for mission critical operations (companies with the resources may take a replicated database offline though to do maintenance and then resynch later, to avoid extended downtimes). Granted, it may be a bit overkill for FFXI...but they are a bit of a peculiar lot at SE.