I've played Just about Every MMORPG that's Ever Been released.  So I think I made a pretty good list ^_^.

My poor Poll will die if you People Don't Leave Comments LoL ^_^. 

Fact that you omitted everquest 1 in its original form sort of killed the poll as it is the front runner.

Forget pvp ,this game was unforgiven.firstly, to level was a real nightmare and most classes could not even solo the green con mob so required a group.many classes would not even find a group.it took ages to travel anywhere so even if you form a groupa a particular dungeon ,since it was not instanced and there were certain camps you could actually have a "filled " dungeon and needed to travel 1 hour to get to another and sometimes people die travelling there.

death meant a massive blow to the already slow experience so a single death could mean losing a whole day of experience  gathered.you would be naked and spawn at your home town and cannot get to your body because it was in a bad spot or you needed to run thru dangerous territory.

to get some exp back you needed a priest to rezz you when you get the body to a safe spot and needed to drag it to him.

at times your body is lost in a raid and there no one to retrieve it even with  a sk corpse summoning as the entrance had raid mobs at the zone entrance and i think all old timer eq players have actually lost all their stuff to decay of the body at some point and some of the loot was so hard to gather..

the list of things go on and on and it was truely a unforgiven world to play.you could actually lose level due to death back then!

Dude, WoW was the absolute hardest game ever. You had to have some serious SkillZ to bypass the monotany and boredom of chores and leveling.

Everquest 1

Hercules speaks the truth...but you wouldn't know that unless you played EQ1 in 1998-2001. I heard they've dumbed it down quite a bit over the years.

I don't know what you mean by "hard".

Yeah, define hard.  If you want long/insane grinds, Lineage 2 should have been on your list, especially back when it was released.

Some early MMO's like EQ and Lineage 1 asked players to camp in one spot waiting for a npc to spawn for 8, 12 or 20 hours at a time.  I found that too be hard.

EVE has quite a bit of complexity, and a steep learning curve, and taking over the universe is pretty hard (ask BOB), but and it has its grinds in the form of ISK and crafting.

DAOC was a challenge in its day to grind through 50 levels, then about 100 levels of realm ranks and earn enough gold to buy the best crafted gear.

EQ1 and WOW had some pretty tough raids that req lots of coordination by the entire raid (not so much with WOW anymore) and usually a decent amount of time spent raiding.

Usually in an MMO we translate the word hard to how many time sinks does a game make the players fight their way through, be it in terms of exp/item loss at death, time spent playing/grinding,

i voted for ultima online (never played eve), but i believe the 4th coming was the hardest mmo i 've played,in terms of time required to get to high levels and gear up your character.

i found leveling-gearing in wow easy enough

Agree EQ1, first thing that came to mind. You had to be on your toes (TRAAIIN). And corpse runs made you wanna avoid death at all costs.

The learning curve of EvE, that they don't do a lot to help you with, combined with the sheer vast scope of what you're able to do combined with an extremely unforgiving playerbase make EvE a hard game.

Its definitely a challenge.

 EVE, as far as the amount of things you need to learn to actually play well.

UO wasnt hard.

I say FFXI(or whatever number it is)  The grind on that game was mind numbing. Never played L2 so It might have been worse.

Originally posted by hercules

Fact that you omitted everquest 1 in its original form sort of killed the poll as it is the front runner.

Forget pvp ,this game was unforgiven.firstly, to level was a real nightmare and most classes could not even solo the green con mob so required a group.many classes would not even find a group.it took ages to travel anywhere so even if you form a groupa a particular dungeon ,since it was not instanced and there were certain camps you could actually have a "filled " dungeon and needed to travel 1 hour to get to another and sometimes people die travelling there.

death meant a massive blow to the already slow experience so a single death could mean losing a whole day of experience  gathered.you would be naked and spawn at your home town and cannot get to your body because it was in a bad spot or you needed to run thru dangerous territory.

to get some exp back you needed a priest to rezz you when you get the body to a safe spot and needed to drag it to him.

at times your body is lost in a raid and there no one to retrieve it even with  a sk corpse summoning as the entrance had raid mobs at the zone entrance and i think all old timer eq players have actually lost all their stuff to decay of the body at some point and some of the loot was so hard to gather..

the list of things go on and on and it was truely a unforgiven world to play.you could actually lose level due to death back then!

Spot on.  Just reading this gives me a slight twitch.

Though I enjoyed it, I always loved UO much better.  It still amuses me to see old schoolers say this was the best MMO.  It was by far the "hardest".  Nothing like it would last on the market today because people just wouldn't stand for it.  I doubt a game based on these mechanics would have any appeal in today's "MMO market"....

 I might get laugted at, but Saga of Ryzom.

It's not that the game would have been that hard, but it managed to offer me challenge in come other way than just with ridiculous time penalties when I failed.

PS. I must admit EVE is even harder, but since it's so diffirent from others I decided I didn't want to count it in now.

EVE, by a long way.

tons to learn, tons of complexity, brutal penalties & losses if you fuck up.

see below:

EQ was the hardest I ever played, but it was also the best MMO I have ever played back in its prime of course. I compare every game i play  to it now. I guess thats why i get bored with alot of the new kiddie styled games like WoW.

Next would have to be Asheron's Call and DAoC. Never payed to Play UO only played on Free Servers and those i played on my friends hosted so i had it easy lol.

World of Warcraft is easily the easiest game on the list, but for that reason it can be fun when you want a break at times.

I find that WoW is fun for about a Month then i have to quit lol. I can't take the community most of the time. But that could just be the server all my toons are on.

Vanguard

Because it's group based an you'll' never find players for grouping; so you 'll have to finish the dungeons alone, so hard. (4 dots mobs)  Wipe , corpse run, wipe, corpse run, wipe, corpse run, cancel the account.

Vanguard, too hard for you.  ^^ this game is not for everyone ^^

Originally posted by ougarit

Vanguard

Because it's group based an you'll' never find players for grouping; so you 'll have to finish the dungeons alone, so hard. (4 dots mobs)  Wipe , corpse run, wipe, corpse run, wipe, corpse run, cancel the account.

Vanguard, too hard for you.  ^^ this game is not for everyone ^^

 

LOL...this is actually the truth!

Some easily confuse the "hardest" game with the biggest timesink game.

No need for a poll: EVE online.

Just a side comment, EQ2 was pretty tough in the first few months until it got gradually wowified.

Originally posted by GrandoReaper

Some easily confuse the "hardest" game with the biggest timesink game.

Every MMO every made is a timesink game.  So I do not understand your post.

EQ1 was the hardest game, Death was painful, travel took brains, big learning curve for new players, the "journey" to max level was challeging and felt rewarding.

EQ1 is my favorite MMO to date, I have played just about everything on the market and I still look back at my time in EQ1 and wish I could find another game like it today. 

Originally posted by ougarit

Vanguard

Because it's group based an you'll' never find players for grouping; so you 'll have to finish the dungeons alone, so hard. (4 dots mobs)  Wipe , corpse run, wipe, corpse run, wipe, corpse run, cancel the account.

Vanguard, too hard for you.  ^^ this game is not for everyone ^^

 

VG is a teddy when put up against EQ1. If you found VG hard then you really never played an unforgiving mmorpg.No quests markers so you had to talk to the npc and many skills were skill bases like sense heading and kick to name just two. Before POP there was no instant travel to zones unless you found a wizard to port you or a druid(god they were great days).

In VG you don't lose a level if you keep dying. In EQ1 you could actually go down in levels and corpse runs were really corpse runs.VG is a very good game and is harder than all mmorpg out at the moment but it was a pussycat to eq1.

I wish SOE would make an exact copy of EQ1 but with up to date graphics.

Originally posted by omnichao

I've played Just about Every MMORPG that's Ever Been released.  So I think I made a pretty good list ^_^.

It depends on what you mean.  Do you want to know the MMO with the most grind?  (grind is not hard, just takes a long time).  Do you want to know the MMO that is the hardest to play?  Most challenging PvP?  What?

SWG was probably one of the most challenging games I have ever played in terms of its depth and the amount of grind (pre-cu holo grind was a bitch), Jedi perma death, etc.  It had a larger learning curve to it than most other MMO's too.  This is of course Pre-Cu SWG im speaking of here.  Not the new WoW clone they are calling SWG now.

Im surprised how many games were left off this list tbh.  So surprised that im not even gonna vote on it.