As harsh as it was in the old days, I find myself preferring the old harsh death penalty's. Not that I enjoyed the penalty itself, but I enjoyed the fear of my character getting killed. Now days death means nothing and in a lot of cases death is used as a fast way to "teleport" back home.

I miss the old days in EQ when entering Kithicor Forest and debating if I was going to have enough time to cross the zone before nightfall came and the higher level undead spawned. That same scenario with no or minimal death penalty and that zone suddenly isn't as scary because the worst that happens to me is I get TP'd to my bind point.

Games of today have none of that, hell games like Champions Online are designed that you're likely going to die in a 5 person mission and it's not unheard of teams dying more then 10 times then just keep working away at the mission as they run back to where they left off.