The MMORPG World of Warcraft is experiencing a crisis, says a Twitch streamer. The streamer Taliesin considers “WoW: Dragonflight” to be the best expansion of the MMORPG since Legion in 2016, or even the best WoW there has ever been. However, the patch 9.1 in June 2021 was the “last nail in the coffin” for WoW. Players had to wait 8 months for the patch, there were scandals at Blizzard, and when the patch finally arrived, it had the completely wrong theme.
This makes the criticism particularly noteworthy: Twitch streamers complaining about the state of WoW is nothing unusual. Complaining is somehow part of the WoW experience. The super eyebrow Asmongold has built a career around this.
The special thing about Taliesin is that he not only likes WoW: Dragonflight, but he even considers it the best expansion of WoW of all time – and yet the current state of the game is difficult:
WoW is currently brilliant. Dragonflight is fantastic, just a really good expansion. In my opinion, WoW has never been as good as it is today – at least on par with the best versions that WoW has ever had. The game is fundamentally really good today. People enjoy the game as much as they did during Legion, one of the best expansions.
So where’s the catch? The streamer states clearly:
WoW is currently dead – not a corpse, but subscriptions are in the basement, viewer numbers are in the basement.
And this applies not only to him; one can also look at the figures of the top people like Preach. The viewer metrics are way down.
8 months waiting for patch 9.1 drove many players away from WoW
What is the reason for this? According to the streamer, the cause of today’s crisis in WoW lies in the past; he sees the last expansion Shadowlands and especially the long wait for patch 9.1 as the biggest reasons why WoW is currently in such a deep slump and very few people are interested:
- Shadowlands was the “last nail in the coffin” for WoW
- If WoW survives, patch 9.1 will go down in history as “the patch that nearly killed WoW”
- If WoW dies, patch 9.1 will be the patch that killed WoW
The current problems are not because the pandemic is over, but Shadowlands has exhausted many players. 9.1 was the “perfect storm of crap”:
- It was the second disappointing expansion in a row
- Never before had players to wait so long for a first patch – it was already “obscene” and “crazy”. For 8 months there was no patch. People couldn’t talk about anything else but what annoyed them after such a long time
- Even if the patch itself was good, everything revolved around the zone “The Maw”, where players had already spent the 8 months. Players simply had enough of the zone
At the same time, Final Fantasy XIV exploded and a “terrible scandal” blew up around Blizzard, which cost a lot of enthusiasm. Because WoW was in such a bad state, it was easy to make the moral decision to distance oneself from the game.
The streamer says: Blizzard has always been a terrible company, but their games were fun, so many could overlook the problems. However, because WoW was in such a bad state when the scandal broke, it became very easy for many to separate themselves from the MMORPG and Blizzard.
Viewer numbers down from 250,000 to 12,000
How bad is it for him right now? The streamer analyzes that the numbers on WoW videos are currently only about one-twelfth the size compared to Battle for Azeroth.
While BfA videos often received 250,000 views – today the same videos would land at 12,000 views.
Only Asmongold is an exception, who still reaches 400,000 views.
It is “hard times,” says the streamer.
This sobering impression of WoW seems to occupy many of you as well:
Many of you have turned your backs on WoW Dragonflight – these are your reasons
