Jeff Kaplan: recommendation

Transcript context

…And that’s the combination. And then Rockstar does a really good job with, you know, even in Grand Theft Auto with the radio. It can be kind of a side aspect to the game; that great writing there can create—help create the world— … with humor, with color, with depth, with heartbreak, all that kind of stuff. There was a moment in Red Dead where it… There’s the Daniel Lanois song— …”That’s the Way It Is”. I just… I love Daniel Lanois, so the fact that somehow Rockstar landed him and like, was able to get that song out of him. And there’s this moment where you’re, like, riding back and they start that song, and- Everything up to then had been gorgeous, like, more of a score. There’s Woody Jackson, who’s, like, a really amazing game composer. He had done the score for that, and so nothing had been, like, lyrical with words. And then they play the Daniel Lanois song, and there’s, like, the quotes are coming back— … from, like, Dutch and Arthur Morgan, and I’m just like, “Goddam, this is, like… This is art.” You know, this is like—I know it’s supposed to be entertainment, I know it’s a business, but the top of the pyramid is art, and- … it just hit me emotionally. Yeah, there’s certain games where, you know… I mean, that moment, you just imagine the number of people who shed a tear during that moment, and that’s just a reflection of how much you’re invested into this world, into these characters, and it’s a beautiful thing. I have to ask you about this, this image that you sent me. It’s super cool, so I’d love it if we could nerd out about it a little bit, the zone flow for the original World of Warcraft. There’s a bunch of zones. It’d be awesome if you kinda talk through how, like, this world is built. Take me to that time when you were designing this, before anyone else got a chance to play it.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.