With the recent retail successes of href="http://wow.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank">World
of Warcraft, href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc" target="_blank">Age
of Conan, and href="http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/" target="_blank">Warhammer
Online, it's easy to forget about the games that
paved the way for these modern MMOGs, titles like href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/154"
target="_blank">Ultima Online, href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38"
target="_blank">EverQuest, and href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/211"
target="_blank">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.”

• target="_blank">To read the rest of our exclusive FFXI
  interview, click here!