Quote Originally Posted by Zyeriis View Post
I think it would be nice if they went the PSO route and allowed/distributed the data to be used on non-official servers, allowing the game to live on through private hosting. This may not be possible due to Playonline but, it would be nice.
I don't see that happening. FF is the company's bread and butter. They aren't going to let anyone use any part of the property it without properly licensing it, and paying through the nose.

On the bright side, the only MMOs that have shut down, were flops from the beginning, or intentionally sabotaged by their owners (see Neverwinter Nights, and The Shadow of Yserbius, both of which were destroyed by AOL out of spite). The Realm Online is still up. UO is still up. Everquest is still up. Asheron's Call, Lineage, RO, DAOC, Anarchy Online, all still up. These sorts of games have incredibly long lifespans, and I don't see any reason FFXI will be any different. Besides possibly Lineage, FFXI probably has the healthiest populations of all of the aging MMOs.