Quote Originally Posted by Enyyx View Post
I would assume, depending on how the DB is structured, that they could query for materia'd gear pre patch, perform the maintenance, then do a post update query and make sure it matches. If not, restore player inventory from backup before allowing people back on, or at least generate a note to the affected players that it will be restored shortly.

Handling it through GM calls just seems messy.
That could be a HUGE query, reloading all that data could take a very long time. Maybe they've determined that this is the best route to take. Or maybe they ARE doing that, but wanted to warn the players first so that they don't have to do as much restoration of the meld data.