MMORPGs are an extremely characteristic genre in the videogame industry. Among its peculiarities are its rather complex fantasy worlds, its system of creating avatars along with the customization of their skills and jobs, the possibility of exploring a vast world full of monsters to defeat and dungeons to conquer, among many other features.
But, there are some MMORPGs that focused on offering a much more challenging adventure for their players. There are relatively few MMORPGs that can be considered difficult, due to the type of format they have, but there are some fairly recognized exceptions. Having said that, the following will mention the MMORPG that stand out for their high difficulty, which is not suitable for amateur players.
Eve Online
Eve Online is an emblematic MMORPG-RTS that is known for its extremely complex economic and social system, where stellar trading is combined with the mechanics of an RPG. The influence that can be achieved in this game can even be taken to the real world.
This MMORPG is developed in a universe where the player will have intergalactic adventures with thousands of planets to visit, spaceships to transport, and above all, you can experience a complex social system. EVE Online was designed with the goal that the player has unprecedented freedom, and for that reason, players can control both the politics and the internal social dynamics of all EVE.
In EVE Online you start out as a pawn and if you play the cards correctly, you can become an influential entrepreneur in the game economy. In the first missions, players can ask for a job, which must be carried responsibly as they can even be fired, and being out will automatically make them undesirable in the game. Bosses want effective people who work fast and well, just like the real world. Everything in this game works with money, the currency of EVE Online is called “EVE ISK” (EVE Interstellar Kredit). In EVE there are internal credit banks, and a lot of licenses that diversify the professions of the game.
EVE’s difficulty comes from its rather relist economic and social system, where players will have to beware even of the various scams planned by some players to benefit from the misfortune of others, this aspect represents that EVE can also represent the crude reality of the real world.
Among all that can be achieved in the game, the most valuable asset are the Titan Ships, which can boost the economy of players, as they are virtually entire companies, which will influence employees, partners, investment funds, among many other economic aspects.
In short, EVE Online is basically a real-world simulator where getting a job, managing the economy well and forming bilateral relationships with other players can be the difference between success and failure in this huge virtual universe.
Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XI (abbreviated FFXI or FF11) was at the time the MMORPG par excellence of Square Enix, and was also the first cross-platform videogames in history. Although FFXI has more than 15 active years, many players remain faithful to the developed world this game offers. FFXI even continues to maintain its internal and parallel markets, where “gilsellers” continue to use this game for profit. Among all markets, the sale of FFXI gil is the most popular, in this trade, players can buy FF11 gil through websites specializing in these businesses.
Final Fantasy XI Online is set in a world that is divided into four main nations: Vana´Diel, Bastok, Windurst and San d’Oria. Each of these nations has an enormous territory, a unique history, and its own cultures, among other particularities. FFXI has an excellent history, and very emotional and epic CGI cinematics (very characteristic of the saga). Another particular aspect of FFXI is the importance it gives to time, as it has a complete solar and lunar cycle, its own calendar and meteorology, each of these aspects affects the enemies, nature, agriculture and trade of this whole game. FFXI also has store opening and closing times and established days of rest.
But, this MMORPG is also characterized by its high difficulty, not suitable for everyone. This difficulty lies in the great power difference between the player and the monsters in the game, so high that the monsters can kill any player in a few hits (even if their level is taken into account). The monsters in this MMORPG have the ability to hear and detect players from afar; so many players constantly try to avoid fights through stealth skills.
The great difficulty of FFXI is also due to the extensive amounts of time that are required to accomplish various important things in the game, for example, it takes many hours to simply level up and along with this, FFXI includes a lot of challenges that require great patience and perseverance to overcome them.
Ultima Online
Ultima Online is an MMORPG developed by Origin Systems and is recognized for its enormous number of active years (in fact, it holds the Guinness record for being the MMORPG with the most online time, having exceeded two decades).
Ultima Online, being one of the first MMORPGs in history, began as a kind of social and economic experiment. Such research has served as a foundation for current MMOs. Ultima Online also introduced and improved several fundamental systems in this type of games, such as, for example, the development of the skills system for players, the inclusion of an economy totally dependent on players, among other elements.
This MMORPG to be old, at the time reached an extreme difficulty, was so hard that developers had to correct several times at the request of players. Ultima Online had great difficulty in every aspect of it, such as: the huge power difference between monsters and players, the large number of missions that required many people and took an extremely long time to complete, and its system of skills where players must work hard enough to increase them. In the early days of Ultima Online, if a player’s character ever died, their skills lost part of their progress; this harsh penalty was later removed by Origin Systems. And those are some of the elements that make Ultima Online a Hardcore game.
Although this game is quite a few years old and many of its challenging aspects have been softened quite a bit by its developer, Ultima Online continues to be an extremely challenging MMORPG, which is not recommended for everyone.