Death Penalties

No, this isn’t a controversial topic; it’s the topic in MMORPG’s. How are you penalized when you die? Do you lose experience, your items, or something more feared? In my opinion, it’s important to have a balance. If there is nothing to lose when you die, you lose something vital to every game and life itself. This thing I speak of is of course, excitement. If you aren’t getting close to death every now and again, things might get a little mundane. On the flip side, if you lose a ton of experience or some rare items you are carrying after a death then it won’t take many deaths to lose motivation to continue.