To give an idea of what I'm looking for: My two favorite MMOs of all time are EQ1(EverQuest) and DDO(Dungeons and Dragons Online). I prefer a PvE focus where PvP is optional, or non-existent. I prefer a group-focus where a good player can solo some xp, but to solo anything worthwhile is difficult solo. I prefer a large open world. Basically another game, or several other games, for me to try out that meet all, or most, of the following criteria(which, imho, DDO meets most of):

EverQuest had…

• Open World, open and shared dungeons, no instancing
• Harsh Death Penalty – could lose your entire corpse including everything you had if you could not retrieve it (until they added the necro spell), and you could actually lose levels, even from the max level.
• Difficult Leveling – It took a really, really long time and yes there was grinding.
• Almost Forced Grouping, soloing was limited to a couple classes
• Camping spawns
• No Bind on Equip, they had soulbound but those were later.  You could twink level 50 dungeon items down to a level 1.
• Incredible race/class diversity/starting stats
• No loot pinatas – Gear was not replaced often at all.  Items were cherished.
• Epic Quests – none of this “go gather me 10 radishes” but quests that took weeks, months
• Non-linear place, unique racial starting areas or even continents.
• Faction system that allowed you to become hated by your own people but liked by another.  There was no built in “good guys” and “bad guys” 2-faction system.

I got one for you, its called..w8...damn lost reception in my see-into-the-future-orb.

The only 2 games that comes into my mind, and yet no single one fo them hols all those features (and yes im taking the bother to feed you) is EvE and Vanguard.

Problem is 2 things: EvE has no sorcerers or elves dwarvs etc, and Vanguard i still havent found the guts to start playing it, but community appraise is high.

One sort of close to this would be Shaiya.  On hard-mode which creates a strong character, it's clearly not a typical easy themepark.  On ultimate mode the strongest characters are created, it's insanely slow, and perma-death, although avoidable, is a very stiff death penalty.

The closest thing to your list you are going to find is Anarchy Online

Open World, open and shared dungeons, no instancing

Well, you got both here, Lots of instancing, but it's shared to everyone who enters, you don't have your own dungeons.

Harsh Death Penalty – could lose your entire corpse including everything you had if you could not retrieve it (until they added the necro spell), and you could actually lose levels, even from the max level.

It's not that harsh, but it's not nothing either, you lose your current XP pool to zero, You will eventually get it back but it takes longer.

Difficult Leveling – It took a really, really long time and yes there was grinding.

HAHA! Yep 100% got that one down.

Almost Forced Grouping, soloing was limited to a couple classes

Yep! Most of the good stuff is not soloable.

Camping spawns

Oh YEAH! Good luck getting the good stuff!

No Bind on Equip, they had soulbound but those were later. You could twink level 50 dungeon items down to a level 1.

There is a lot of stuff that is and a lot of stuff that isn't. Some of the best gear in the game is crafted and tradeable.

Incredible race/class diversity/starting stats

Oh, Hell yeah!

No loot pinatas – Gear was not replaced often at all. Items were cherished.

some will last a long time, some won't

Epic Quests – none of this “go gather me 10 radishes” but quests that took weeks, months

Shadowlands has some of the best quest chains I've ever done. Some of the worst too.

Non-linear place, unique racial starting areas or even continents.

Yes

Faction system that allowed you to become hated by your own people but liked by

Sorta but not really.

another. There was no built in “good guys” and “bad guys” 2-faction system.

2 factions and a nuetral

Originally posted by Clerigo

I got one for you, its called..w8...damn lost reception in my see-into-the-future-orb.

The only 2 games that comes into my mind, and yet no single one fo them hols all those features (and yes im taking the bother to feed you) is EvE and Vanguard.

Problem is 2 things: EvE has no sorcerers or elves dwarvs etc, and Vanguard i still havent found the guts to start playing it, but community appraise is high.

Eve I've had moderate fun with playing off and on, Vanguard I would enjoy playing if the game wasn't so damn dead at early and mid levels, been waiting for the f2p conversion on that so that hopefully there are enough warm bodies to actually group and level.

And this is why I've been generally burnt out on the MMO world. Playing EQ1 and DDO currently(active sub on both, multi-account for EQ), I flirt with eve for about a month at a time every 3-4 months, but the PvP tends to put me off. Vanguard... yes, if it had enough players... /sigh

DarkWind Online pretty much requires you to group at lower levels to do anythign more than balls to the wall cargo runs. This is a hardcore post apocalyptic sandbox car wars graphical adaptation. Perma Death of your gang members and repairs that require from minutes to days. This is a sleeper sandbox. Pardon the lack of up to date graphics but it's of course like any good sandbox an indie.

Almost tempted to say "If FFXI had a decent PC interface - something like that". Because I loved FFXI - on PS2, but the pc interface blew chunks, and I've not had any interest in console gaming for years now. I'll check out AO, I seem to recall doing so years ago, but since I cant recall much else, it's probably a good time to check it out again 8)

:> Don't even bother checking out FFXI anymore...It is still a good game to play if you have never played it before, but now it has lost all of its splendor that it once had. It isn't nearly as hard, you can hit the new cap in under 3 weeks if it is your first time, hell I took one class from 17-49 in a couple of hours, and that wasn't even prime exp. 

Just wanted to tell you that since you mentioned it, it is no longer worth the sub for any vets, its just not the same anymore.

Eh... Mabinogi isn't exactly difficult but it does fit on some points, there aren't any classes, so you get your diversity with all the ways to hybrid and what not. Currently there are... I want to say 2-3 continents, which are really rather large. 

The epic quests you want would have to be found in the story line quests which, honestly are quite awesome. Its one of the few MMOs that I actually cared about the storyline in. 

Grouping is usually a must when you get into Shadow Missions, although the story lines for Generation 10-12 are mostly solo (if you want a challenge wait until your character hits total level 300... Advance mode story missions are annoying even for my total 900 character :>)

Although, there is not level cap since you can rebirth every 3 weeks to reset your level and keep your skills etc. Meaning you will just get stronger and stronger, so eventually...you will have every skill maxed out but...that takes a long time, loonnggg time, even if you buy rebirth cards to rebirth each week.

When you die, you lose experience and have a chance to drop your items if they were not blessed with holy water. Dropping your item is a grave thing if you all wipe/ if you were going solo because you then need to retrieve it in town at the town center for an amount of gold based on how rare/expensive the item is and how long it was sitting in there. And yes, you will go into negative EXP if you die too much xD

Most gear, if you upgrade it, will stay with you for a while. My friend has been using the same upgraded Gladius's for 3 years, and just got an upgrade from his 2h smash weapon.

As for factions, you can side with Giants and Elves, but that is a whole different kettle of fish.

Give it a go if your interested, the combat is twitch based and actually requires you to think a bit...you can be killed by anything since unless you gear yourself with some of the heaviest armor and upgrade it etc, you will die in 2-3 hits from anything remotely near you in strength.

I wish you luck in your endeavors ^^

Vanguard,final fantasy xi or xiv