World of Warcraft has just achieved great success on Twitch. This can be clearly attributed to a single, large guild.
Actually, not much is happening in World of Warcraft right now. In The War Within, everyone is waiting for the first major content patch, and in Classic, not much has happened since the launch of the “Anniversary” realms.
Nevertheless, World of Warcraft is currently extremely popular, especially on Twitch. The game is regularly and consistently found in the top 5. The reason for this is primarily a guild that does everything right.
What is happening with WoW and Twitch? Looking at the current charts on Twitch, it can be seen that World of Warcraft has been in the top 5 for the past few weeks or at least close to it. Sometimes in 6th place, sometimes in 7th, occasionally even in 3rd place. With 60,000 to 80,000 viewers, the now somewhat old game is holding its own against competitors like Fortnite, Valorant, GTA V, and sometimes even Minecraft.
Why is WoW so popular on Twitch? This is mainly due to the WoW guild “OnlyFangs,” which consists mainly of well-known streamers. The guild plays World of Warcraft in hardcore mode, but also engages in roleplay, as one might know from GTA5-RP. This means that the streamers play the role of their character and act as their character would.
What makes OnlyFangs so special? OnlyFangs has imposed a lot of rules on itself to make the guild entertaining. Participants had to complete a small personality test beforehand, based on which their played race was chosen. This of course limited the selection of available classes. At the same time, the different races see themselves as smaller “factions” within the guild—so, for example, the Orcs act together or the Undead cooperate. This often leads to rivalries and amusing incidents.
In addition, the guild brings together quite a few big names from the streaming scene. Known streamers like Sodapoppin, Tyler1, Mizkif, PirateSoftware, TimTheTatman, and Jaythebard are part of the guild. There’s something for everyone – whether you are looking for wild, emotional screams or rather calm entertainment.
For viewers, the whole thing feels somewhat like a big daily soap that can be grasped at its core, even if one has no idea about World of Warcraft. The fantasy setting is still easy to understand. Most of the drama and humor arises from the respective moment—sometimes a grand execution is celebrated to punish a cheater, or a single, careless moment causes the leadership of the guild to transfer to another person.
Because it is spread across multiple streamers, it is also virtually impossible to keep track of all incidents simultaneously. While PirateSoftware, for instance, has entertaining encounters with a rather simple Orc, who has now morphed into a philosopher with Arcane Intelligence, Sodapoppin tackles a dungeon that ends in the death of his character.
Voice chat makes everything better: Particularly interesting is the fact that OnlyFangs uses an addon that allows for Proximity Voice Chat
. When you get close to another character from the guild, you can hear them in voice chat—and they become quieter the further away they are. This creates a similar atmosphere to that in GTA-RP. Actually, there is no such feature in World of Warcraft, but an addon makes it possible and greatly contributes to the flair of the whole project.
Why is this so unusual? Normally, World of Warcraft only stays on Twitch for a very short time. Usually when either a new expansion is released or when there is a “World First” race for a new raid. For World of Warcraft to consistently be in the top 5 for weeks on end is extremely unusual and is mostly attributed to the guild “OnlyFangs,” which hosts interesting and entertaining hardcore roleplay in WoW Classic.
Even if one can’t relate to this entertainment at all, it is fundamentally a good thing for all WoW fans. Because the more relevant the game remains in the streaming sector, the more secure the future of Blizzard’s MMORPG is likely to be. At least the story chief Chris Metzen still has 7 expansions planned …
