A terrible quest in vanilla WoW 'holds a really special place in my heart', says Jeff Kaplan, but was also 'the hubris of a junior game designer who thinks he's clever but is actually a dipsh*t'

An edited image of Jeff Kaplan from Blizzard Entertainment, smirking knowingly in front of Stranglethorn Vale.

The original World of Warcraft—no bells, no frills, no expansions—was a very special videogame. It was also occasionally insufferably annoying. Part of the reason it was so successful is because it was less annoying than the competition at the time, sure, but it also had some real stinkers when it came to quest design.

One of those stinkers is The Green Hills of Stranglethorn, a quest that tasks you to find a bunch of randomly-dropped pages at the behest of one Hemet Nesingwary. It is a major pain in the ass. Jeff Kaplan, who designed the thing during his stint at Blizzard, explains why to Lex Fridman in an interview this week.