The New York Times has an interesting Q&A conversation with Jeff Kaplan, the lead game designer behind World of Warcraft. The key to WOW's success has been the balance between making the game easy early (to satisfy the n00bs) and harder—much harder—after Level 60 to appease the l33t. As Kaplan points out, "People talk about the game fundamentally changing at Level 60, and they are right." He goes on to discuss how to keep people interested who aren't interested in forming guilds to progress, and what's new in the expanded areas.

Also, this isn't news but hearing Kaplan describe it makes it friggin' awesome:

Q. What can you tell me about Naxxramas?

A. Naxxramas is going to be the most difficult thing in the game until the expansion pack comes out. It will be the pinnacle, and it's absolutely massive. You'll see this big necropolis floating above Eastern Plaguelands. It's a 40-man raid zone, and it's bigger than the Undercity [one of the main cities in the game]. Things could change, but we're up to something like 18 bosses in there, and they are really cool, too. But it's going to be hard. Really hard. We're hoping to release it in the spring.

Kill the Big, Bad Dragon (Teamwork Required) [The New York Times]

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