Single Player/Offline Mode?

[Alhanelem]

It does beg the question though: What happens when FFXI eventually goes dark forever? Will FFXI only exist as a memory after that?

Yes, it will just disappear. No single player mode. SE won't have control of the game anymore if it's still able to be played.

The game will run until such a time when it doesn't earn them any money, and then it will stop for good. MMOs disappear when they die, they don't turn into offline games. You'd be basically asking them to spend more money to change almost everything int he game so that it can be done single player, which is A lot of work and money investment when they are no longer collecting money from players.

I'm still hoping for a public release of the server software rather than an offline version.

Will never, ever, ever happen and I would bet my life on it. All the known unofficial server projects have also been shut down by SE so there's no chance of that either.

Releasing the server software potentially means someone else can make money off SE's work.