Rank 1 – World of Warcraft
Setting: Fantasy | Developer: Blizzard Entertainment | Platform: PC | Release Date: November 23, 2004 | Model: Buy2Play with subscription
What kind of game is this? World of Warcraft is the most famous MMORPG in Europe and North America. Blizzard has released nine expansions for WoW so far. It is aimed at solo players who want to experience the story, but also at fans of group play in dungeons and raids, which the game is regularly expanded. In addition, there are PvP contents, which, however, are not heavily promoted.
WoW uses a comic graphics style that has been slightly upgraded over the expansions. However, the age shows in some places, after all, WoW is about to celebrate its 20th birthday. The combat system relies on classic tab-targeting.
Currently, WoW offers several versions:
- The current expansion is called Dragonflight and was released in November 2022. This is the “normal” WoW, also known as “Retail WoW”.
- WoW Classic is a re-release of the base game and was released in August 2019 – for which, in May 2024, the expansion Cataclysm Classic was released.
- WoW Classic: Season of Discovery is also a re-release of the base game and was released on November 30, 2023. The level cap is lower and you will experience different changes than in Classic.
- Additionally, there are the era servers of WoW Classic, for which there is also a hardcore variant.
How does it stand on Twitch? In the last 30 days, WoW had:
- On average 33,960 viewers (Rank 12 of all games)
- 24,451,200 watched hours
- On average 964 active streamers
WoW is currently experiencing a very mixed addon with Dragonflight. Many features are well received, and there is plenty of praise, for instance for WoW Remix: Mists of Pandaria. However, player numbers are overall lower than they were during Shadowlands. And now, Dragonflight-Season 4 is also causing some trouble.
What’s worth watching? Many WoW streamers love to showcase their leveling experiences, PvP or group raids. One of the biggest streamers, JokerdTV, shows his hardcore leveling in Classic. Other streamers also enjoy taking on such challenges.
Additionally, current raid instances from either the Classic or Retail version are often streamed live.
However, some of the WoW streamers have also become “meta streamers.” Asmongold, the largest WoW streamer, frequently discusses other MMORPGs or general MMO topics such as shops, which he has gotten very angry about at times. Other big names like sodapoppin or shroud also showcase not just WoW on their channels.
