Twitch star Asmongold has blasted the current state of World of Warcraft following the release of the Chains of Domination expansion, calling for new ideas from Activision Blizzard.
If there’s one streamer that has truly conquered the MMO world, it’s Asmongold. With an ever-growing follower count and an infectious personality, the Texan-born Twitch star has etched himself into both Azeroth and Eorzea’s history books.
Following the Activision Blizzard lawsuit, which accuses the company of fostering a “frat boy” culture in the workplace, the self-professed professional neckbeard has pivoted away from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, taking to Final Fantasy XIV Online or Amazon Games’ New World instead. Many fans have followed him, too.
In an exclusive interview with Dexerto, the streamer also suggested that Activision Blizzard’s MMO could learn a lot from Square Enix’s iconic title Final Fantasy XIV.
Where has WoW gone so wrong, and can Shadowlands recover?
Dissatisfaction has been growing within the WoW community ever since the release of Chains of Domination, the highly anticipated expansion to the game’s iconic World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. Plagued by lag and suffering from severely uninspired narrative direction, Asmongold has explained what WoW needs to do to stop this mass exodus.
“I think they just need to come into [WoW] with new ideas,” he told Dexerto. “I think that’s why a lot of people have been looking at other games and looking at different things. I think people really want to see Blizzard try to flip the board over and try and do something new and different. Right now, I feel like there’s no real innovation going on with the game. The developers just don’t know what the players want,” he explained, “they’re doing things that are just time-wasting mechanisms.
“A game should not waste your time, it should make you want to waste your time, and WoW just now just wastes your time.”
Regarding Shadowlands’ fall from grace, he notes: “I know a lot of people hate Shadowlands and it’s really popular to think Shadowlands is awful. I think the problem Shadowlands has is the lack of content and the lack of innovation. The lore in the game is like sprinkles on a cupcake. You don’t eat a cupcake for the sprinkles, but they certainly make it look a hell of a lot nicer, and right now WoW has sprinkles of dogs**t on it.
“I am just tired of the story writing and everything like that,” he said. “I think in terms of that, Shadowlands is definitely at the bottom, which is disappointing because at the beginning I think it was at the top.”
How WoW can take a leaf out of FFXIV Online’s Book
As hoards of streamers continue to flock to the green pastures of Square Enix’s Eorzea, behemoths such as Jaryd ‘summit1g’ Lazar have praised the game’s community for being so welcoming.
Asmon is among these, even going so far as to call WoW’s community “trash” in comparison.
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While he believes that a fanbase like FFXIV’s does exist in WoW, he added: “Blizzard is notorious for not being able to handle bad actors in their game. What happens is it alienates people that are just normal and well rounded, reasonable people, and creates a community of people who are increasingly more hostile to outside members, and to women specifically.
- Read More: Best FFXIV Online Twitch streamers to watch
“There are so many different problems with the WoW community it’s very hard to just nail down one or two of them,” he goes on. “I think that one good thing for FFXIV is they have the little sprout icon next to people’s names. I think a lot of times people would be rude to somebody if they didn’t know they were new, but if they did know they were new they’d be more understanding.
“Another thing is the amount of punishment for loss that you have inside of a raid. In Final Fantasy if you wipe on a boss usually you respawn right in front of the boss, and you have pretty much everything so you’re ready to pull the boss again. In WoW you need to run back and waste your time, and whenever you’re having your time wasted like that by somebody you create a much more toxic relationship.”
Will Asmongold stream WoW again?
Despite recent streams being dominated by the FFXIV adventures of Asmongold Bald, the fearsome Warrior of Light, Asmongold has stressed that WoW hasn’t been regelated to the forgotten depths of The Maw.
“I played WoW like, a couple of days ago. I don’t want to quit the game, I don’t have any plans to quit the game. Does that mean I’ll never quit the game? I don’t want to, I never want to quit the game. I love WoW, that’s why I played it for so long.
“I do absolutely plan to come back to WoW, I do play the game regularly off-stream. It’s just that right now I’m taking a bit of a break because I just don’t really feel like playing it right now and I’d rather play something else that I’m more interested in.”
And that’s what fans love about Asmongold: he does what he wants, when he wants, and he is always unapologetically himself.
As his streaming career continues to soar to new heights, we can’t wait to watch him accept his newest quest.