World of Warcraft flies to the top of Twitch as players rush to claim a free mount and watch streamers lose their Hardcore characters

World of Warcraft
(Image credit: Blizzard)

World of Warcraft has rocketed to the top of Twitch's most-watched streams as viewers seek a free mount and enjoy the near-endless entertainment value in watching Hardcore players melt down as they lose their characters permanently.

From now until November 21 at 10am PST, Twitch members can snag the White Riding Camel mount (pictured above) by watching a cumulative four hours of eligible World of Warcraft streams. That, along with the new Guardians of the Dream update and raid, seems to be fueling a surge in popularity for the legacy MMO. At the time of writing, World of Warcraft is Twitch's most-watched game by a considerable margin, with 232,000 active viewers compared to the runner-up, League of Legends, at 187,000 viewers.

The majority of streamers are playing the Classic iteration of World of Warcraft, which has found a spot in a lot of popular variety streamers' rotations. And with this uptick in viewership in Twitch, we've seen some wildly amusing clips from players on Hardcore mode losing their sometimes high-level characters and, understandably, wigging out on camera. I take no joy in their pain, but there's no denying the sheer comic value in some of the more exaggerated reactions. Behold poor Masayoshi dying a brutal and tragically avoidable death to a bunch of Black Guard Sentries at level 60:

I won't pretend to know what exactly went down here, but the streamer's reaction is gold. It's also very loud, so you might want to turn your speakers down a few notches before watching.

You can find more like the above all over the LivestreamFail subreddit, but suffice it to say, the it's been a bloodbath in World of Warcraft's Hardcore mode over the last day or so as WoW veterans and newcomers flock to the MMO to capitalize on its recent Twitch popularity and, inevitably, face the permanent consequences of their actions.

As for Wow Classic Plus, not even Blizzard is all the way sure what that is.

Jordan Gerblick

After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.