There are some games like how you described it, but they all have issues. Here are three examples of games you would love but all had major issues.
Minions of Mirth
This is one of the best MMORPG's I have ever played. It was similar to EQ, similar graphics, harsh death, inter-dependence etc. I had a LOT of fun playing that game. Sadly... the fun only lasted for a few months. An MMORPG like that made by only 3 or 4 people just can't develop enough content to keep you happy for a long time. What they did make was fantastic, but there were only a dozen or so zones, and a dozen or so quests.
Dawntide
One of the first, and the most successful Everquest emulator servers (before P99 came along) was made by this one guy. He did a great job and his server was a LOT of fun. He took on more and more volunteers to develop it even further and it grew and grew and has lots of content (it's still going today). But eventually he had done all he wanted to do with it, and he and some of his uber staff left and formed their own company to make their own MMORPG, exactly like you described. They decided to make a very hardcore, sandboxish MMO world inspired as much by Ultima Online as it was by EQ. Not sure if the beta is still available, but they opened the beta up to anyone and people can/could play it and give them feedback. Anyway, it was developing, verrry sloowwwwly, but still, it was going in the right direction, gradually. But then it all went quiet for a long time, and eventually they posted a message, "I’m sure it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that we haven’t resumed development or posted any news in quite some time. The truth is, we experienced some uenxpected financial difficulties at the end of last year, and while we expected to have them solved quickly, this did not happen. In fact, as it stands right now we do not have the money to continue developing Dawntide." They say they are still looking for new investors, but I don't hold out any hopes for them to be honest. And they also have the added issue that their game looks more and more dated as the years go by. When I first saw early screenshots in 2008 or so, it looked really good! By 2011 it was starting to look pretty old. And now, with probably at least a year or two until it even makes it to release (if at all), it's going to look even more ancient.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
You must have heard about this game? This was BIG hope for many former EQ fans. Brad McQuaid who was one of the key people behind Everquest, left and started his own company, Sigil Games Online. He got huge funding from Microsoft, and he hired an amazing team of all the best people in the industry, and they set to work on the killer MMORPG that was going to blow us all away.
Somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong. They ended up splitting up with Microsoft and therefore ran out of funding completely, and had to go with whoever would take them on. And during Beta, the original game which was very original and very hardcore, they started getting negative feedback from some of the testers. Rather than having the balls and the self confidence to stick to their plan, they started making changes, and more changes, and even more changes... By the later stages of beta, they had basically completely changed how the game plays, and made it in to just another WoW type game.
Apparantly, it still managed to get 400,000 subscriptions in it's first month which was about as high as EQ was during it's peak! But within one month, almost all of those players had quit, and they never returned.
The moral of the story? A lot of people would love to make a new MMORPG but with old school designs. But it's easier said than done! To say the least.
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