So yes, risk is implicit in rewards, but some people want that risk to be akin to permadeath, while others consider risking their leisure time sufficient. You can’t satisfy everyone with the same risk/reward. The finer grained your system, with risk/reward calculations for everyone, the more people you’ll be able to make happy. It’s sort of a market segmentation mentality, just writ in risk/reward game design terms.

http://word-of-shadow.blogspot.com/2009/06/let-us-eat-cake.html

Check out the book 201 Principles of Software Development. It is exactly the kind of book I wish someone would put out about game design. Forget the 900 page mega-tomes. Give me a $20 book on game design that has ideas that get me thinking.

I agree with you. I’d argue that the acquisition of ingredients and (if possible) design of the item are the fun things about crafting distinct from adventuring; the possibility of failing once you’ve done that undercuts the things that make it fun (whereas the possibility of failure in a fight underlines the things that make it fun – the pacing, strategy/tactics, and risk inherent in combat are the selling points). There’s a case to be made for making crafting more combat-like, in which case the risk of some degree of failure is probably desirable. I respect that design particularly in a more social-style game, but in my opinion a combat-focused game best leverages crafting as a significant counterpoint to its combat rather than as a second combat-esque path for players. You get more value, imo, with something significantly different from the main purpose of the game rather than with something mostly the same, since players who want that already have an outlet for their energy.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”

The “low end” is what matters because that’s what people see for a couple hundred hours.

You’re probably thinking I’m completely nuts, but hang on a second. It depends on the stage of the game you’re playing at.

Leveling up, EQ’s death penalty is clearly much more severe. XP loss and facing a corpse run means you have a very real fear of dying while leveling up. But the thing is, once you got to a certain point it started to matter less and less. I’m not talking about late in EQ when we had the Guild Lobby to summon a corpse to either. At higher levels, I cant think of a single time that I wasn’t able to grab a rez from someone, especially after the cleric rez-stick epic was introduced. When raiding, it was absolutely guaranteed that I’d get a 96% rez after every death. Even on progression nights where we wiped endlessly, I didn’t lose much XP. Killing a few mobs that I was probably AAing on anyway usually got my buffer back.

WoW is the opposite. Leveling up, the death penalty is very light. The durability loss on such low levels items doesn’t mean much, so you don’t really fear dying. On the other hand, once you’re max level and wearing mostly epics (and especially if you’re a Plate class) you’ll start to see some serious repair bills. I’ve lost hundreds and hundreds of gold in a single raiding week if we happened to be struggling with a boss or achievement. Considering I had been saving up for some stuff at the time, I actually felt that loss. There’s no rez stick to get any of that gold back! Sure, we have dailies and harvesting and other methods to make gold, but getting your XP back in EQ was just as easy as doing that. That’s where I feel the penalties sort of meet and become even.

I think, even as a former hardcore EQer, I ultimately prefer WoW’s method. I attribute this to the fact that I’m mainly an Explorer type, and I enjoy knowing that I can go dive into that interesting-but-undoubtedly-suicidal area I come across without really hurting my play session with a time-consuming corpse run.

Shifting slightly, I’m curious what you think of this topic in regards to crafting? I’m of the opinion that the risk/challenge should come in acquiring the mats needed to create an amazing item, but that once acquired the player has no risk of failing that combine. Others might disagree and say there should be some risk in the creation itself so that the result is more satisfying. Isn’t it satisfying enough to have finally gathered the necessary materials and see that item fall into your pack?

Anyway, things like the EQ-style uber-harsh death penalty have their place. By raising that kind of barrier to entry with difficult content, eliminating easy content and adding significant penalties, you significantly increase player enjoyment of your game because you get people significantly more invested in what’s going on. The downside is that by definition raising barriers to entry excludes people. You have to decide up front: do you want to make a game for a relatively small, relatively hardcore audience or a larger, less devoted one? There is no wrong answer to that question, but a game that tries to be both is going to fail at both, because you achieve one by eliminating the other. They ARE mutually exclusive beyond a certain point.