I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of, what effects will streamers have on the server they’re on (good and bad), and these are the results I’ve come up with:
Positives:
In my mind, streamers actually come with a lot of positives. They bolster the community, as they attract players who want to play with them. Not only that, they tend to host interesting events that mix things up, that get people talking, and generate memories. They also end up being one of the “known” people on the server (whether good or bad). That last one actually falls into the category of something that would be repeating the original experience of the game, as there were always those people.
Negatives
For drawbacks, the first downfall I can think of is if the streamer quits, a lot of that community might quit, and that server might die off. The second thing is maybe they have obnoxious followers, and you might have to deal with them in trade chat or something.
Counter Arguments:
When it comes to the first negative point, who really thinks Asmongold is ever going to really quit the game? As for the second negative, you’re going to have to deal with annoying people either way. It’s apart of the OG experience, you don’t get to replace people at a moment’s whim because their xmog is ugly, you’re generally stuck with people unless you want to go back to town and start spamming for a half hour or so. Most of those people you’d be able to avoid anyways by just not joining the streamer’s raids or groups. Might suck for the opposing faction in PvP I guess, but it’d still be something interesting.
Tl;dr:
I think it’s a bit silly to be hating on people who are probably going to end up getting trolled into oblivion for being on a PvP server, and who are probably good for the game. Having your location exposed at all times is probably going to stop the game from even being playable for them, so ironically, they’re probably going to be the ones who don’t get a true vanilla experience until they either quit streaming, or roll on a PvE server.
It’s whatever though, just thought I’d give my perspective on the matter. I hope that streamers and non-streamers alike all have a good experience either way… Though if you’re on Herod Horde, I aim to make your experience a bad one. =P