TheRetroArcade
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Posts: 1,997
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
"And we're like, wait a second, you just expect to have quests keep going?"
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The idea that World of Warcraft was ever light on quests sounds like blasphemy at this point. Why would you ever make a game about killing seven wolves not because an NPC asked you to but just for the fun of it? But that's how MMOs like Everquest worked back then, and it's how the team at Blizzard thought WoW should work too, according to quest designer and former game director Jeff Kaplan.
Speaking to Lex Fridman, Kaplan said the goal during his early days as a quest designer on WoW was to try to mirror Everquest, the biggest competition at the time. That meant trying to guess how many quests it had and attempting to launch WoW with a comparable amount. It also meant the quests were initially designed in a radically different way than WoW ended up shipping with.
The point of quests, as Kaplan and the other designers, like Allen Adham, thought at the time, was to point players toward a group of enemies they could kill over and over again to level up—just as they're designed in Everquest. But when it came time to playtest the game with Blizzard developers who hadn't touched an MMO before, Kaplan and the rest of the team quickly realized their approach to quests wasn't universal.
"Our assumption was because of the way Everquest worked, players want to level up. It was a level-based game. You go out, you kill a creature, you get experience points, you level up a little bit," Kaplan explained.
"We do this team playtest and we had a bunch of people on the team who had never played MMOs—you know, guys with shooter backgrounds, StarCraft fans, etc.—and they play WoW. I think we played for like an hour of two and we only did Elwynn Forest," he said. "And the overwhelming feedback from our team—and these are people who really didn't play Everquest—were like, 'My god, Pat [Nagle, quest designer], that was horrible! I ran out of quests right away!' And we're like, 'Wait a second, you just expect to have quests just keep going?' And they're like, 'Yeah, we expect to have quests just keep going the whole way.'"
Kaplan said the team had an "'oh shit' moment right after the Elwynn Forest playtest, where we had realized that we had vastly underestimated the number of quests we were going to need." This led to a massive shift in how quests were designed and is one of the few key reas...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
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Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
The idea that World of Warcraft was ever light on quests sounds like blasphemy at this point. Why would you ever make a game about killing seven wolves not because an NPC asked you to but just for the fun of it? But that's how MMOs like Everquest worked back then, and it's how the team at Blizzard thought WoW should work too, according to quest designer and former game director Jeff Kaplan.
Speaking to Lex Fridman, Kaplan said the goal during his early days as a quest designer on WoW was to try to mirror Everquest, the biggest competition at the time. That meant trying to guess how many quests it had and attempting to launch WoW with a comparable amount. It also meant the quests were initially designed in a radically different way than WoW ended up shipping with.
The point of quests, as Kaplan and the other designers, like Allen Adham, thought at the time, was to point players toward a group of enemies they could kill over and over again to level up—just as they're designed in Everquest. But when it came time to playtest the game with Blizzard developers who hadn't touched an MMO before, Kaplan and the rest of the team quickly realized their approach to quests wasn't universal.
"Our assumption was because of the way Everquest worked, players want to level up. It was a level-based game. You go out, you kill a creature, you get experience points, you level up a little bit," Kaplan explained.
"We do this team playtest and we had a bunch of people on the team who had never played MMOs—you know, guys with shooter backgrounds, StarCraft fans, etc.—and they play WoW. I think we played for like an hour of two and we only did Elwynn Forest," he said. "And the overwhelming feedback from our team—and these are people who really didn't play Everquest—were like, 'My god, Pat [Nagle, quest designer], that was horrible! I ran out of quests right away!' And we're like, 'Wait a second, you just expect to have quests just keep going?' And they're like, 'Yeah, we expect to have quests just keep going the whole way.'"
Kaplan said the team had an "'oh shit' moment right after the Elwynn Forest playtest, where we had realized that we had vastly underestimated the number of quests we were going to need." This led to a massive shift in how quests were designed and is one of the few key reas...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?