The Diablo games were used in a similar analogy, and what Roper referred to as the "monster pinata." Even when beating up on smaller monsters, you're constantly being rewarded with loot flying out everywhere. And since it's not real money you're winning, it's important that the booty continually has value; in the case of Diablo II, that meant lots of randomized magic items that provide value even in the first few hours of the game.

Roper also used his experience as an EverQuest beta tester to illustrate his own penchant towards using rewards -- as opposed to penalties -- where possible. He described an early EverQuest battle where his character -- still level one -- was duking it out to a standstill with a fearsome rat. After setting his character to automatically keep fighting, he awoke the next morning to find out ... his character was dead. Interestingly, the rat didn't kill him, but he simply died of starvation -- a penalty of disobeying one of EverQuest's rules. In contrast, the upcoming World of Warcraft (which Roper was working on before leaving Blizzard) uses food as more of a bonus -- eating may help you regenerate faster or provide other bonuses, but if it's something you don't want to bother with, you can do so without fear of penalty.