WoW's quest design was shaped by a playtest where testers 'ran out of quests'

World of Warcraft's early quest design aimed to mirror Everquest: rather than supplying a steady stream of tasks, quests originally pointed players toward groups of enemies they could kill repeatedly to level up, Jeff Kaplan said.

When Blizzard developers who hadn't played MMOs—many from shooter and StarCraft backgrounds—took part in a team playtest in Elwynn Forest, their reaction surprised the designers. Testers told quest designer Pat Nagle, 'My god, Pat [Nagle, quest designer], that was horrible! I ran out of quests right away!'

The feedback made the team realise their approach wasn't universal. As Kaplan recalled, testers expected quests to 'just keep going the whole way,' prompting a shift toward a steadier supply of quests in the game.

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