Game designers love surprising the player. They call them “Gotcha” moments. The general assumption that this means the death of the player is not always true. A treasure or cutscene can be a surprise. The thing is, most designers are the diabolical type. A tad masochistic and definitely sadistic, we like watching player struggle on difficult tasks. Well, most of us do anyway.

One common surprise tactic is to have the “BAM, you’re dead” moment. This can be a falling rock, a hidden sniper, or a bridge that falls when you walk across it the seventh time. My level design professor once said that we should always be careful with such moments and make sure the player receives plenty of clues. If you are going to have a sniper hiding to get the player, have bullet holes on the wall, or dead corpses in the street. Then, from that point onward, you can play on the player’s fear. Want them to slow down and stop? Place some bullet hole decals and a corpse. Even without the sniper, a player who has died that way before will stop in their tracks and look around before proceeding.

World of Warcraft does this same thing, in a slightly left handed fashion. When the player begins leveling, the areas are safe, contained, and kind to the player. Once they hit about level 20, Blizzard slowly introduces the idea of “danger” to the player by having mobs tied to other mobs, so when you pull one, you always pull several. Nothing drives home the idea that you are not safe more than the random wandering Elite monster.

Elites are super strong monsters, generally named, that are designed to be killed by a group of players. This can be anywhere from 2 to 5 players. Commonly they are the goal of a long and complex quest chain in the area as well. As a designer, I can see that the point of such mobs is to teach solo players they can’t do everything alone. They need help. As a level 20 player, soloing and exploring, wandering across one of these Elites means certain doom.

WoWInsider posted about revenge being a dish best served cold at level cap. They talked about the various elites they encountered as they leveled that created interesting reactions in level capped players. As soon as I read the title, I smiled. They were talking about the Sons of Argual. Oh, not specifically, perhaps (the writer stuck to Mord’lam, an monster in Duskwood), but as a young leveling mage, the first time I ever encountered such a creature was a Son of Argual, in Silverpine forest. He had a tasty mage snack that day.

I learned to be careful. I learned to watch mobs that were moving. I learned to zoom my camera out as far as I could. And I learned that sometimes your only option is to run like hell for the road.

Much later, after two expansions, several level 80 toons, and a faction change, a friend and I were riding through Silverpine to go to Undercity to steal the fire for Fire Festival. As we passed the Sepulcher, I started looking for him. Sure enough, as we crossed the bridge, there he was, in all his level 23 glory. I dotted him with all my most powerful spells. His death was almost immediate. I mounted up to my friend asking, “What was that about?” “Just some unfinished business.” I responded. As an Alliance player, born and bred, he wouldn’t understand the hatred of this mob. But he would understand if it were Mord’Lam, the Fel Reaver, the Storm Giant, or any one of the other dozens of such Elites that patrol the world and make it perilous.

It is worth noting that this post has 9 pages worth of comments, an excessive number for WoWInsider. Many of which are a single name or “This” as a statement of agreement.

Yes, revenge is a dish best served at level cap. But even after 3 years, my anger at that NPC wasn’t cold. It was still red hot. But the wondrous truth is, we level, they don’t.