Awesome awesome responses.
As I built more and more areas, I think I got better and better. My earlier areas were simple "beat the guardian" to advance areas...nothing too spectacular. In fact, watching the progression of my areas were kind of like watching me grow up.
What I find to be difficult is much of what was said. Keywords, passwords they are often difficult to use because of special keywords or passwords. So I try to stray from those, and other problem is that when you really want to turn the situation into a quest type feel, the scaling becomes a bit too large and finishing becomes the problem.
An example is that in a normal town, nothing special, there is a rock wall where a simple "climb up" command will lead the player up onto a plateau. It truly has nothing to do with the area...but for the person that was lucky (or smart) enough to read the description and just joke around by trying to climb...
...imagine their exhilaration. THAT is what I try to build for.
Another problem I notice is that once one person finds whatever it is you hid in the area...the entire world knows and your area is effectively through...especially if it didn't hold some awesome item that kept people coming back.
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