Change is good... and frightening
One of things that shocked Sam the most was how a set could begin in a state and after the developmental process it went through, end up in a completely different state compared to where it began. The design team produced a set of cards and handed it to the development team to finish the job by adjusting costs, tweaking numbers and so on. He tells that there is a threshold between changing the set too much and too little. The development team certainly cannot reject everything and change all the cards and they also cannot accept everything as it is because the final product is not ready yet. He tells that the beauty of the whole process is how something that you loved in a set can, one month later, be called out as the worst of the set. It's an awkward feeling as he puts it. Ultimately, the players aren't going to know how much sweat, tears, joy, anger, rage, etc the developers went through before the set hits the stores.
From what I read about game design it's the very same process. Sometimes the game reaches the stores and is highly praised, but the players have no idea of how much it has changed since its inception. Mark Rosewater in his lessons tells that often you need to cut out things from your project. That something can be great, wonderful, but it has to serve a purpose in the set's context and if it doesn't. Cut it out. The same thing applies to level design. I understand the part that Sam discusses about being attached to the things that you are working on. If you are deeply attached to a level, or a game for that matter, you really care about it. Letting it go is not easy but sometimes we have to learn to let it go. You are building an awesome level and investing huge amounts of energy into it. Abandoning it because it doesn't fit into the game or theme can feel devastating.
This certainly relates to some metaphors regarding "to renew" or "to refresh". Sam began his lessons discussing the importance of the process to reach the ultimate goal of making the best possible game. Yes, to renew, to refresh, to abandon old things in Favour of new things, that is a process in itself.
