"Am I playing Redfall?" - Asmongold expresses frustration with World of Warcraft's optimization issues after new patch launches

On May 2, 2023, popular Twitch streamer Zack "Asmongold" returned to World of Warcraft to play Dragonflight's first patch, Embers of Neltharion. After logging in, the streamer noticed that his game was lagging significantly. He attempted to troubleshoot by disabling some of the add-ons. However, this did not appear to resolve the problem.

Asmongold expressed his frustration at World of Warcraft and inquired whether he was playing Redfall. For context, Arkane Studios' title has received a lot of flak due to poor optimization and the prevalence of numerous bugs and glitches:

Sharing his thoughts on the current state of the MMORPG, Zack exclaimed:

"Dude, why is it so laggy?! What the f**k! I'm at 33 (FPS). Dude, am I playing Redfall? Like, what is this?! This is crazy!"

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"Even with no add-ons, I'm at 37 FPS" - Asmongold unhappy with the state of optimization for World of Warcraft patch 10.1

Asmongold started playing World of Warcraft's latest patch at the two-hour mark of his livestream. Right off the bat, the Texas native observed that the game's performance was not up to the mark. He decided to go to The Stockade (a dungeon in Stormwind City) to see if the issue still prevailed:

"Jesus, man! It's like, I'm playing Wrath (of the Lich King)! What is this?! 100 outdated add-ons? You think that's it? Maybe I should reinstall my add-ons? Dude, I can't even load The Stockade! Yeah, I'm getting 26 FPS inside of The Stockade!"

The One True King (OTK) co-founder then updated all the add-ons. After reloading the game, Asmongold discovered that it was still lagging:

"Oh, my god! What is this? Why is my framerate so bad? I'm going to close the game and re-open it. That's nuts!"

Timestamp: 02:08:00

Even after Zack disabled the add-ons, the situation remained unresolved:

"Even with no add-ons, I'm at 37 FPS. What the f**k!"

Asmongold kept troubleshooting by changing some graphical settings and tweaking other options. After re-logging for the third time, the 32-year-old saw he was getting 33 FPS.

He then switched to playing World of Warcraft Classic to see if the same problems existed with the other MMORPG. When he saw that everything was running smoothly, he burst out laughing and said:

"Oh, my god! It's actually better! I don't even know what to say!"

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Fans react to the streamer's clip

The YouTube comments section featured over 260 reactions. Here's a snapshot of some relevant ones:

Fans in the YouTube comments section reacting to the streamer's clip (Image via Asmongold Clips/YouTube)

While one viewer joked that Blizzard Entertainment was following the trend of AAA developers releasing unfinished and unoptimized games, another community member speculated that Zack may have enabled ray-tracing, which has a significant impact on the performance.