SOE San Diego's Studio Head, Nicholas Beliaeff, talked with Gamasutra on a number of interesting topics, including what it takes to keep a game alive.

How much can you change the graphical interface and things like that with a game of that age? How much can you do of that without alienating people?

NB: You can actually do a lot. If you look at the original EverQuest over its span, it's had some pretty significant engine revamps. Some of the things that we've been doing, particularly over the last two years, are going through the older zones and redoing all the art in those zones, to modernize them to the changes that we've done to the engine.

This is a great interview and worth stopping in at Gamasutra and giving it a read!