Recording intelligenceAI-generated brief · check the source for context

Jeff Kaplan on Blizzard and The Legend of California

5:16:57 recording · EN · 2 speakers

Listen to the original

Listen to the episode

Brief overview

Jeff Kaplan turned failure as a writer and EverQuest obsession into designing World of Warcraft and Overwatch.

  1. Focus on what you want to doKaplan's advice to young people: chase the activity that brings fulfillment, not the job title others ask you to name.
  2. Walking away can open the next doorThrowing his manuscripts in the dumpster ended the writing career and freed the obsession that became his life's work.
  3. Small teams give everyone a loud voiceWith ten people in the room for every decision, nobody becomes a cog or starts saying 'the artists just don't get it'.
Executive Summary AI
  • Lex Friedman introduces Jeff Kaplan, designer of World of Warcraft and Overwatch, who left Blizzard in 2021 and is now building The Legend of California, an open-world online multiplayer game set in the 1800s gold rush era, wishlistable on Steam with an alpha coming in March.1:27
  • Kaplan describes his first career: a creative writing master's from NYU, three years writing eight hours a day in California, over 170 rejection letters in one year, alcohol, deep depression, and finally throwing every journal and manuscript into a dumpster.30:18
  • EverQuest became the replacement obsession — he logged roughly 272 played days over three years, more than 6,000 hours, and rose from unguilded halfling rogue to leader of Legacy of Steel, the top guild on the Nameless server.43:01
  • Running raids taught him leadership, and his guildmates turned out to be Blizzard developers: guild leader Ariel was Rob Pardo and troll warrior Barfa was founder Alan Adham, which led through lunches in Irvine and a six-month interview to an associate quest designer job on World of Warcraft in May 2002.55:01
  • On WoW he and Pat Nagel built the quest system Alan Adham had asked for, with Eric Dodds on the interface and Chris Metzen supplying the stories, replacing EverQuest-style camping with quest-driven leveling.1:57:53
Key Quote
“focus on what you want to do, not what you want to be.”
— Jeff Kaplan39:27
Key Quote
“my whole career and my family are thanks to EverQuest.”
— Jeff Kaplan50:20
Key Quote
“And Chris famously said the lead character of World of Warcraft is the world.”
— Jeff Kaplan1:40:19