More on World of Warcraft’s Limited Quest Text

MTV Multiplayer brings us some further coverage of the GDC presentation made by Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan about the quest-related mistakes the company made with World of Warcraft.

He explained that (WoW) quest designers are limited to 511 characters but he wished the number were smaller. (This is a phrase I learned from the forums: ‘˜Too long, didn’t read,’) Kaplan said, explaining that his own step-children never read the quest texts. (I think it’s great to limit people in how much pure text that they can force on the player. We need to show the story and not go crazy with the text.)

Kaplan also said that the reason text is long in some games is because they have (medium envy.) Then, in the spirit of GDC, he proceeded to do his own rant on the topic:

(We’re so fortunate and privileged to work in a medium that is not only an art but a revolutionary, interactive form of entertainment. That’s the key word there: entertainment. It’s unfortunate to see so many games try to be what they’re not, including our game at times. Of course we should embrace the concept of story. I’m not ranting ‘˜Don’t have story in your game’ I’m ranting about how to tell it.