Lex Fridman: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yes. It was everything I… As such an introvert, you think that there are extroverts and introverts, and introverts don’t need anybody, but weirdly, I think introverts almost need people more. And we don’t always know how to engage- … in the right, healthy ways, and how to find people and how to connect with people. And it was- it was great. One… The thing that had attracted me to creative writing was the solitude of it, and the fact that you didn’t have to collaborate, and you could just write what you wanted to write and it was all you. You would succeed on your own or you would fail on your own, and that was very attractive to me. And the thought of creative collaboration was actually off-putting. I’d spent all four years of undergrad interning at Universal Pictures, ’cause I thought I wanted to be in film, and it was such an unhealthy creative collaboration in the film industry. It’s a very, you know, I look up unhealthily to the film industry and admire it and, you know, grew up with all these legends who had come from there. But it’s like a caste system. And I was on the bottom of the caste system as an intern, and I was seeing how the other people who were low caste in the film industry were treated, and it was just horrible, you know. But games was different. Games was very flat. It didn’t matter if you were the CEO or the boss, like, the way Mike and Allen carried themselves with, you know, me, who was an associate game designer, you felt like an equal. And I think it… Not just the camaraderie, but the part that shouldn’t be overlooked is the work itself and the work ethic. That’s what really pulled me out. Hard work on a thing you love. I have to, if you may allow me, read the prophetic “one of us” quote, “one of us” post you made on April 18th, 2002. Because in some deep sense, you, I think, remained one of us. The… I apologize to bring up Justinian the emperor, but remained a kind of peasant gamer, a true, true gamer, who happens to be also be designing the games. And so this post kind of speaks to that. It’s fascinating to read, because that was at the very beginning, right? You didn’t know anything. You didn’t know the games you would end up creating. Title of the post, “If you want something done right.” He wrote, “This week, I accepted a position as associate game designer with Blizzard Entertainment. Specifically, I will be designing quests for World of Warcraft, Blizzard’s MMORPG based on the popular Warcraft series. In addition to my duties as quest designer, I will also be expected to contribute to helping design the end game content for World of Warcraft. The reason I’m sharing this information, besides the fact that I have a masochistic love of reading rants and flames about myself, is because I know that the fans of this site are hardcore MMORPG players. The readers of the site have also come to know my personal opinions on what constitutes a fun gaming experience versus what feels like a complete waste of time or poorly designed encounter.” Wow, you’re very eloquent in this post and without too much shit talking. “You’ve all read my opinions on such things as tedious key camps, obvious time sinks devoid of any story or linear narrative, quests which reward the lucky over the skilled, and quest rewards which are out of sync with the amount of time and effort required to complete them. I hope that my association with World of Warcraft will serve to comfort MMORPG fans that one of us is on the other side of the fence, looking out for the interest of the player.” And you go on to describe some of the high hopes you have for World of Warcraft, which is really fun to read because you don’t realize- Now-…

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