You are running through a dark cave, quietly sneaking by all of your foes.
You are almost to the deepest part of the dungeon when you are spotted. Joining
battle with one creature, you notice out the corner of your eye that a second
has joined the battle, and then a third.

Every atom in your body is screaming, "RUN!" You try to run, but
are cut off by another of your foes. Desperately, you fight with everything
you have, swinging your weapon to lay waste around you, but to no avail. You
died. Time to assess your losses-you have lost a good chunk of experience and
are now without your gear. Worse still, you have to retrieve all your prized
armor and equipment from the depths of the dungeon that did you in.

Last week my counterpart Aunraye stated in her column entitled It's
Not About Debt or Loss... that players pride themselves on their character
and its achievements. I completely agree. Death is a sting to that pride. I
read post after post after post on how people hate death penalties. To that
I say, good. That means it worked.

The way I see it, death penalties should be both hated and feared. If they
lack either, they are useless. Death is a learning tool-here's how it works.
A player who has no death penalty will have nothing to fear by dying and nothing
to gain by learning. If a player can run blindly into the woods, flailing his
sword like a flashlight and then get mauled, he has no problem about doing so
again without fear of setback or anything. He simply continues the flailing
until he gets lucky.

On the other side of the coin, a player who suffers an experience loss and
a mandatory corpse run upon death will think twice before making the same foolish
move that got him killed in the first place. Dying isn't such a good plan after
all, he thinks to himself. And next time, he will be more cautious. Thus is
born the wisdom of a player.

Loss is there to make you learn. It also is part of what instills that pride
in our character that Aunraye referred to. The fear of losing something that
defines your character, be it your level, experience, or gear, makes us cautious.
Nobody wants to lose things that signify one's accomplishments. The fear that
at any moment we could lose any of those items that we take pride in only serves
to solidify our bond with our avatar…a bond that is a key point to success
in MMOs such as this.

A great example of this bonding process was one that I did not realize myself
until after it was over. I was deep within the Crystal Caverns of Everquest
one day, minding my own business, when WHAM this crazed MOB named Stalag Terror
and a few of his lackeys get trained on me. Total accident. The guy apologized,
but I wasn't really mad at him. I did, however, have an unhealthy urge to go
back there and kill the Stalag, and all of his family. Happily, I can report
that I did this multiple times. This slaughter of the boss MOB paid for the
loss of experience, as well as contributing to my own personal satisfaction.
A slight hint of psychosis there I know, but hey I blame the death penalty.
Anything that can make me focus on nothing but getting revenge for a death like
that has done its job, and done it well.

It is my humble opinion that any game worth its salt will have a respectable
death penalty, to be feared and hated by all. These penalties help us to learn
our characters and how to play them by adding that sting that we all hate. This
very mechanic will inspire players to find better ways to play more efficiently.
It is one of the key mechanics, likely universally hated, but also one of the
most useful tools an MMO can have. In this regard, Death is, indeed, only the
beginning to wonderful discoveries about our character and about the game.