My Life As A Gamer: Twitch's Biggest MMO Player Reviews "A Realm Reborn"

Let the Bald One speak for himself.

Who Is This Guy?

What you're getting here is an intelligent and knowledgable gamer giving his take on the game.

Asmongold is one of the biggest streamers on Twitch. He's one of the most influential streamers in the gaming world, earning direct lines to developers that want him to check out their games. He's known for being a (former?) World of Warcraft.

"Asmongold" is also a persona, a mask worn to entertain an audience, which is not present here. This is Zach, the man behind the mask, speaking as himself and not as Asmongold; think of the difference between a major radio DJ on and off the air. Alex Jones, Wolfman Jack, Casey Kasem- all of them exaggerated for effect when doing their jobs. Turn off the camera, go off the air, and they are someone else for all intents and purposes. This is the same thing.

So when you see this, see the man as he is and not the persona that gets clipped a lot in highlight channels and meme videos.

Observations

His take isn't that different than mine, even if his frame of reference differs; I refer you to my own review if you want details.

The thing that I see is that he comprehends that this MMO is very different from what he is used to, that he gets what Jesse Cox said in refering to 14 as a JRPG first and a MMO second, and adjusted his expectations accordingly.

Because he adjusted his expectations, he made himself able and available to engage the game on its own terms in good faith. He did not rush through. He did not pay to skip to the end. He did not fail to learn how to manipulate the controls and read the telegraphs. He did exactly what a new player is expected to do, and he appreciates the result of that effort.

Zach is also a serious gamer, not a Normie, but his MBA background does mean that he understands Normie psychology; on videos like this, and in his second channel livestreams where he also isn't in his persona, you'll see him explain in Normie-friendly terms how the business of gaming actually works because he gets what's going on in those development offices and business suites.

He knows that Normies don't work for their entertainment; he can see that the stuff put in a Normie's path in the game is as easy as it is because it is meant to keep a Normie entertained and excited, not to make him frustrated (and thereby likely to quit) or to bore him by making him wait much.

The side content, on the other hand, gets away with being more difficult (more or less) because Normies aren't likely to bother seeking it out and the top-tier difficulties are entirely opt-in with no unspoken incentive to push Normies into it because it. Furthermore, older side content is often soloed by higher-level characters that have quests going into such places; this is a common Normie approach to dealing with difficulty, so it's not uncommon to see Normies not bother with top-level stuff until two or four years later when they can outlevel and outgear it massively.

I can't wait to see what his take on Heavensward will be now that he got there. He already unlocked the Dark Knight Job--hence his Berserk talk, since that Job is Guts as a class--and leveled it into the level range for HW, so I expect he'll proceed apace shortly to the Level 60 raids and Trials. (He's going to love the Knights of the Round fight.)

Zach gets Normies. Zach gets gaming. Zach gets business. This is why people like Amazon listen to him when they have him play their games--he demoed New World and Ashes of Creation recently--and justifies the attention he garners. He's also a funny entertainer that knows his audience and how to make them want to spend time watching him screw up names that are not contemporary Anglo-speaking while hacking up raid bosses like they owned him money.

If Zach gives your game a good review, it's a game worth playing. FF14 got a good review. It is worth playing.