> MR definitely wasn't bad about it. You're right about level 4-6. It was the only area of the game that required me to kill monsters just for experience rather than to explore and progress. I spent some time revisiting a certain area of level 9, but I was getting so many new items that it stayed interesting until I decided to try 10. As for 4-6, I think the limited new areas available was a major contributor to the problem, but it was also an interesting puzzle.

This is exactly my own analysis in almost the same terms I would have used! Hearing it from you makes me feel pretty good about the accuracy of my hunches. You're right, level 9 is also a sticky spot but less problematic because of the item density and pool quests available to you. The game almost has to slow down a bit right there, to provide time to find everything.

> I prefer rpgs with a steep death penalty. It makes me care more about dying. . . . I think this was a good balance between death being final and death being free.

That's an interesting point; thanks for bringing it up. The new game will behave similarly as MR did, so I think I'm already ok in that respect, but I'll keep in mind this particular balance when I'm playtesting.

That was one thing I found disappointing about MV, incidentally. I didn't quite see how to make all the other aspects of the game work unless dying sent you back to a prior saved state. Otherwise you'd either be stuck (since you don't have the freedom to work directly with anybody other than the one character) or could solve any problem, such as a powerful horde of adventurers, just by picking away at them a few turns at a time and getting free resurrections in between.

But although death in MV is neither free nor fatal, the price it exacts isn't (to my mind) a very fun one to pay. Sure, creating and advancing new characters to raise gold isn't exactly the highlight of a playthrough either, but they're progressive consequences -- you're still always advancing, always accruing. You're never knocked back and forced into repetition. I don't really regret the way I did it, but I don't see myself designing a game that way again.

> I think with your experience on MR and MV, you'll be able to make something really great for the third installment.

I sure hope so. So far, it's shaping up according to my high expectations, but it's impossible to say until I get to the point where the game is playable and I enter the phase of development where I'm trying to balance out all the numbers -- playing it through relentlessly and adjusting monster strengths here, equipment rarities there, gold prices hither, and advancement rates thither.