From what I've noticed in recently returning to the game, FFXI cycles its population. There were many long-time well known players that stopped playing last fall/winter. Many of them are now returning to the game, and the game's hopping(Shiva in particular). I don't see the game dying out any time soon. Even if populations start to dwindle a bit they'll just close a server and move those people to other worlds to even things back out. When I left last October Shiva's population was about 1200 up to about 2400 at peak hours. Now the population's about 1700 to 3500 at peak hours, and this with Shiva's RMT population having been crippled. The game seems emptier than it really is sometimes b/c it is so spread out now with all of the different areas.