Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

With the recent retail successes of World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online, it's easy to forget about the games that paved the way for these modern MMOGs, titles like Ultima Online, EverQuest, and Final Fantasy XI. Yet among those three games, the title that is arguably still the most successful continues to be Final Fantasy XI, which continues to boast hundreds of thousands of subscriptions. Nearing its seventh year of live service, FFXI recently held its annual Fan Festival where Ten Ton Hammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye caught up with the developers and talked with them about the future of their long lived MMOG. Topics included solo vs. group play, end game content, and the recently announced mini-expansions.

“Solo play is definitely something that we want to engage in and that we want to introduce more of into the game,” the developers said. “But even when players are engaging in solo content, we want make it so that players are exposed to party play and find out that party play is also fun. The depth of gameplay is there [in party play], and they definitely want players to develop an appreciation for that area of the game.”

• To read the rest of our exclusive FFXI interview, click here!