As a lead game designer at Blizzard Entertainment for World of Warcraft, the ridiculously successful online PC game that now has more than 5.5 million subscribers, Mr. Kaplan, 33, is a combination of long-term planner, whipping boy, police chief and deity for a rabid global player-base that is about as large as the populations of the cities of Chicago, Houston and Detroit combined.
For some reason I can never really enjoy wow for more than half an hour. Thats a good thing. I know people who are really addicted to the game. I've been playing of and on for a while, and I just reached lvl 20. Which is extremely slow, however I have no problem with this. I've watched friends spend four or five hours in the same place, trying to defeat the same monsters, weekend after weekend. The place is called Molten Core. It seems damn boring. However, these friends are doing this "run" with 39 other players from around the world. I think after you reach a certain level in the game, the entertainment comes from teamwork amongst a large team of players. The content remains the same over and over. I'm just glad I'm not their yet. Losing 4 to 5 hours every friday and saturday night for three or four months seems like a lot of time wasted.
