Uhhh annd that's my whole point? This has been about whether or not the term casual friendly includes information about difficulty of the game.
Yes, and clearly it does. However, one might object to what is implied, namely that a game that is casual friendly is necessarily boring to the hardcore gamer -- by appealing to the fact that difficulty occurs at different stages in the learning process of a game, and that a game can in principle be easy to learn (i.e., casual), yet difficult to master (i.e., hardcore).
Chess is a perfect example. It is a relatively easy game to learn, but it is extremely difficult to master, and its difficulty ranges quite a bit depending on your opponent's skill level. A game can be very easy and engaging right from the start, drawing you in and providing you with fun in a relaxed and casual manner, and yet simultaneously contain so much potential that it keeps you enthralled for a lifetime.
Interesting to note, that was actually my experience with my first MMORPG, DAoC. I suspect this was many of our experiences. We didn't start out hardcore. The game was simple enough to jump into and have fun right from the start, and yet the amount of fun I was having drew me in deeper and deeper, eventually turning me into a hardcore gamer. The key, however, was that when I wanted to go deeper, the game let me go deeper, there was more there there. Modern MMOs sometimes feel like they are simple and let you jump in, but they don't let you go any deeper.
Tetris is another example that people here have brought up about a videogame that starts out casual friendly but can be appealing to hardcore gamers. I don't have any qualms with that. In the context of my claim (casual friendly implies on average less difficulty), and you break these examples down you'll see that the casual friendy aspect of these games is the easy beginnings and then as you become more hardcore about the game, that's when you get into the more difficult aspects of it.
For example, let's say Tetris started out at the max difficulty. That wouldn't be very casual friendly. However, to make it more casual friendly you could have the difficulty start out relatively easy and work up from there.
Which is another way of saying, "for something to be casual friendly it has to be easy."
If it takes a lot of time to learn how to do something, that something is not easy. Learning a musical instrument, generally speaking, is more difficult than learning how to dig a ditch. I imagine once mastered, playing an instrument is probably a lot easier than digging a ditch. It is not the difficulty in the moment of performance which makes it difficult, it is the long years of practice required to get you there that makes it difficult.
Time invested is connected to difficulty. That seems self-evident to me. How that relates to MMORPGs may be another matter. But at the very least, if we all more or less agree that "time investment" is primary to how we understand the distinction between 'casual' and 'hardcore', then we have already, to an extent, admitted that one is more difficult than the other.
I think that's a marketing thing. Team Fortress isn't going to advertise itself as a "casual" game, no matter how little time investment is needed to play the game and have fun.
Also, "casual" doesn't refer to the total time invested in a game. A person could play the same game casually for years, becoming very skilled at the game. This doesn't change their status as a casual player and it doesn't change the game itself either.
Professional football isn't a casual sport. For that matter, neither is high school or college football. The time investment is significant.
Yes, that is precisely my point. A hardcore game, like professional football, is inherently more difficult. For a game to be "casual", it has to be easier than that. "Casual" does seem to be, as Holophonist has been arguing, inherently connected to "easy" in some way. The confusion is in the fact that you can have professional football, which is difficult, and a leisurely football game with your friends in the park, which is easy, but both are . . . football.
Now you say, "casual" doesn't refer to total time invested in a game, presumably just the time spent per day. I'm not really sure if that syncs with my own ideas about casual or not, but just for the sake of consideration let us say that is the case. If it is possible for someone to become very skilled at a game after a couple years of play, 20 minutes a day. Where then would we expect his fellow player, who has also been playing for 2 years, but rather 5 hours a day, to be?
The answer depends on how deep the game is. If the game is like chess, presumably (assuming all else between the individuals being equal) the guy who plays 5 hours a day would be miles ahead of the casual player by the end of two years. That is because chess has lots and lots of room to master, you never stop learning. On the other hand, if the game were tic-tac-toe, the two would be basically equally skilled at the end of two years. That is because you can learn everything there is to learn about tic tac toe quite quickly, all the remaining time invested essentially goes to waste.
Jjix, you seem wise beyond your years but don't you know that this is the internet and if you're not spiking the football and gloating, you're doing it wrong.
Anyway yeah I basically agree with everything you said and appreciate the insight.
Originally posted by Jjix Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by Holophonist
You keep coming back to the idea that casual games are easier, but there's nothing to support the idea as being generally true. It seems intuitive, but looking around at the games being offered results in many examples that do not support the idea. Team Fortress 2 is designed with a very low time investment needed, but it is nearly 100% skill based. Left 4 Dead 2 can be played in short, ten minute bursts but again, it's nearly 100% skill based. It no longer exists but Picaroon was a game designed to be played in short bursts, but required a good bit of strategy and luck to be successful. There are mobile games designed around the idea of players spending as little as ten minutes at a time playing, but those games require strategic skill to be successful. Especially since action takes place without player input. If advanced planning and strategy skills are absent, the player will have little fun and have little progress. I'm sure with a little bit of research we could compile a longer list of games with a low time investment, skill dependent games. The idea that casual games are generally easier may seem intuitive, but it doesn't work in practice. This is probably why the terms "Casual" and "Hardcore", when applied to games and people generally revolve around the time investments rather than the difficulty. I think you are correct to say time investment is central to the common meaning of 'casual' and 'hardcore', and twitch skill isn't. But then, why bring up twitch skill at all?
It seems to me that twitch is the ultimate expression of casual gaming. It is simple, even a 3 year-old can do it, yet mastery can be difficult. It is like throwing a football, anyone can do it, it is casual . . . not everyone can be a professional quarterback.
Nevertheless, it isn't precise to say "casual" -- understood in terms of time investment -- has no connection to difficulty. If you threw an average person who can throw a football into a professional game, it would be EXTREMELY difficult for them.
I think that's a marketing thing. Team Fortress isn't going to advertise itself as a "casual" game, no matter how little time investment is needed to play the game and have fun.
Also, "casual" doesn't refer to the total time invested in a game. A person could play the same game casually for years, becoming very skilled at the game. This doesn't change their status as a casual player and it doesn't change the game itself either.
Professional football isn't a casual sport. For that matter, neither is high school or college football. The time investment is significant.
If TFC isn't going to market itself as a casual game, there's probably a reason for that... probably a number of reasons actually. One of those reasons is probably the difficulty/steep learning curve. Again, it's not a coincidence that TF2 was both easier and also more casual friendly than TFC.
A better player (more skilled) will find games to be less hard than an inferior player. But we're not comparing players, we're comparing games. That skilled player will find harder games to be more hard than easier games.
Fixed for you. Hardcore isn't a synonym for hard you know.
And did you know that the whole point of this discussion is to define the term that you're just arbitrarily defining?
Hardcore players will tend to play harder games. It's evident everywhere you look. The people who play WoW hardcore are raiding and pvping. The people who play difficult games like stacraft are known for playing them for a long time and for long sessions. Darkfall is mechanically harder than most MMOs and it houses a large proportion of hardcore players.
Starcraft is only difficult dependent on who your playing against.
Starcrafts games mechanics are not difficult to understand. (Again totally subjective, someone may find them hard.) They are very casual friendly.
You can have crap hardcore players. You can have hardcore Minecraft players, a game with no goal/no end.
Name me one game that is hardcore only and I bet you it isn't.
Hardcore within gaming has always meant what I've been saying. Google it. Your the one trying to redefine a meaning. Good luck, hope your hardcore enough.
You haven't responded to what I said. The people who are playing the mechanically difficult games are the ones who are typically considered "hardcore." That's not a coincidence.
Your rebuttal is seriously that SC2 isn't considered a mechanically difficult game? Well you're wrong. Winning a game is dependent on your opponent, playing well is NOT. You can be in a match completely by yourself and I will be able to point out dozens of mistakes that you're making. There are objectively good things to do in that game, and they're difficult to pull off. It has nothing to do with whether or not you win the game, that's the separate question.
The only people who call those type of players hardcore obviously don't know what the word means and need re-educating.
No response to the SC2 thing? This is why arguing on the internet is pointless.
Yet you continue to do it more then anyone I've seen on thus site lol. Must be a glutton for punishment.
A better player (more skilled) will find games to be less hard than an inferior player. But we're not comparing players, we're comparing games. That skilled player will find harder games to be more hard than easier games.
Fixed for you. Hardcore isn't a synonym for hard you know.
And did you know that the whole point of this discussion is to define the term that you're just arbitrarily defining?
Hardcore players will tend to play harder games. It's evident everywhere you look. The people who play WoW hardcore are raiding and pvping. The people who play difficult games like stacraft are known for playing them for a long time and for long sessions. Darkfall is mechanically harder than most MMOs and it houses a large proportion of hardcore players.
Starcraft is only difficult dependent on who your playing against.
Starcrafts games mechanics are not difficult to understand. (Again totally subjective, someone may find them hard.) They are very casual friendly.
You can have crap hardcore players. You can have hardcore Minecraft players, a game with no goal/no end.
Name me one game that is hardcore only and I bet you it isn't.
Hardcore within gaming has always meant what I've been saying. Google it. Your the one trying to redefine a meaning. Good luck, hope your hardcore enough.
You haven't responded to what I said. The people who are playing the mechanically difficult games are the ones who are typically considered "hardcore." That's not a coincidence.
Your rebuttal is seriously that SC2 isn't considered a mechanically difficult game? Well you're wrong. Winning a game is dependent on your opponent, playing well is NOT. You can be in a match completely by yourself and I will be able to point out dozens of mistakes that you're making. There are objectively good things to do in that game, and they're difficult to pull off. It has nothing to do with whether or not you win the game, that's the separate question.
The only people who call those type of players hardcore obviously don't know what the word means and need re-educating.
No response to the SC2 thing? This is why arguing on the internet is pointless.
Yet you continue to do it more then anyone I've seen on thus site lol. Must be a glutton for punishment.
Yeah I'm pretty stubborn. I only argue about a few things and only when I'm fairly certain I'm right... so when I do get into an argument I take it pretty seriously. It does really bother me that the best case scenario in an internet argument is the other guy just ignores you. Nobody ever seems to want to admit they were wrong.
I get the OPs point and I have to agree with him but I guess he isnt explaining it correctly, I will try, its all about the choices you can make that you cannot make in nowadays mmorpg, lets see :
In vainilla Ultima Online were able to :
-Have all kind of pets by taming any living animal (birds, dogs, lions, bears, dragons...) and not only one, you can have all you wanted while you feed it so your dragon will not eat you...
-Have your own House (many different types and NOT INSTANCED)
-Have your own clan castle (another time NOT INSTANCED)
-Sail your own boat and use it to attack a isle with your clan or just keep yourself fishing in the sea alone.
-Have multiple mounts (I still remember a guys in Atlantic mounting Nightmare!)
-PlayerNPC vendors to sell your stuff in front of your house door, no AH or Bazar just risk your butt to monsters,PKs,clanwars... and explore to find good trades (exploration in UO is still the best in a mmorpg for me, ...aah that feeling!)
-Build a unique class from a very big set of skills for example being a warrior with magic healing(paladin?) a tamer with archery(ranger?) a miner with invisibility and runspeed to help you not being robbed and a bit of mage to teleport, a mage with herbalism and blacksmithto never fall off reagents and win some money... combinations were abrumating when you think about it.
AND WHAT WE HAVE NOW?
-Go this way -> theres a big mountain, an invisible wall or a teleport so you cannot depres if you get lost of fall in a deep pixel abyss... Please the level 1-5 zone and after that WOOW the level 5-10 zone but you can choose beetween 2 different zones! (like if we have no brain).
-Select class in the beggining and dont change it, follow our pre-defined path of skills with a no-matter-what-u-choose talent treee, if you want different go altoholic.
-Rush the same dungeons and raids over and over again, devour content till we launch more for you, so you can quit in a month and return for the next xpac YEAH!
-We protect our players from harm because they are glass made and they can broke if someone ganks them or a boss wipes a clan raid.
Sorry for the wall of text but thats the terrible truth : You WILL leave your current mmorpg in less tan a year because you are terribly bored because developers are trying to make fun games forced by publisers that have no idea what fun can be...
Sorry for the wall of text but thats the terrible truth : You WILL leave your current mmorpg in less tan a year because you are terribly bored because developers are trying to make fun games forced by publisers that have no idea what fun can be...
Honestly I'm not sure how anybody could expect otherwise. Who thought it was a good idea to have an MMO based around scripted content that people can run through extremely quickly compared to how long it takes. The fact is that people blow through the new content from expansions way too quickly and so various tedious grinds are implemented to keep people busy. Just doesn't seem sustainable... which is probably why so many modern MMOs fail.
How long is it gonna take for me to beat this level? Well if it's really hard I could be here all night.
Or, if it's a casual game, you could stop playing and pick up the difficult game whenever you want. Only a hardcore player actually sticks with it all night.
So your argument is that a casual game is any game that you don't have to play? What?
The discussion is about what features attract what type of player. If you look at games that are considered casual, they're going to, in general, be easier than games that are considered hardcore. It doesn't mean that difficulty is the only factor, but it is one of them.
There are casual games and games that can be played casual. Both can be seen completly different. Where the casual game is in fact the easy game to get into. Where the game that is played casual might still be the hardcore game just takes that person longer to achieve playing it casual (lack of time) then a player playing it hardcore (between 6 -12 hours a day)
Yes people can play a game more casually than others, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the "casual" game as considerer by most people. However, casual games are games that are more conducive to casual play. So really what you're saying is that there are outliers or anomalies in the data where some people will play a casual game in a hardcore way, or play a hardcore game casually.
Highlighted red is just common within MMORPG's or MMO's and by no means anomalies.
It seems your focus is more geared towards single/multiplayer games. And that is where I could understand the casual/hardcore debate. Not so much with MMO/rpg's.
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
I bet none of the definitions explain casual in the context of video games.
Well as it turns out the phrase includes the word casual for a reason.
Yes and "tunneling" within the context of software engineering involves shovels and pick axes ...
Ofcourse it does! Skill transfers over from game to game. Accumulated wealth and advancement does not. Ergo, practice and training is not the same as grind.
Dear lord.... please please please try to read and comprehend this. I'm not saying they're not different, I'm saying they're not different in the context of this debate. The fact that training can transfer into different games doesn't matter when you talk about accessibility. You put somebody in front a difficult game and he's going to have to spend time to become competent at it. The fact that his time can then be used LATER in life in a different video game doesn't change that.
Read carefully: Skill carries over, grind does not. Skill is different from grind. Grind to stay competitive is against casual friendliness. Skill is not.
To put it simply, casual friendly means minimal time investment and the ability to enjoy the game in short bursts. If you look what that means in practice, you realize accessibility (and, in part, usability) plays an important role to make that possible.
From the gamasutra article Venge linked:
Challenge. The most common assumption is that a difficult game is necessarily hardcore. This is simply not true. The confusion lies in the language: just as "hot" describes both spice and temperature, difficult describes more than one thing.
If your interface is vague, the game is "difficult", if the objectives are unclear, the game is "difficult", if your game is addictively simple yet impossible to master, it is also "difficult". Difficult describes both accessibility and challenge. Difficult accessibility is bad and is covered by all six bullets in the previous section.
Difficult challenge is good and, in fact, it's the most casual route to replayability. You want a user to feel that mastering your game is a challenge; that each session ends with a new sense of accomplishment. The real trick is in instilling challenge without devolving into one of the six pillars of hardcore design. Tetris manages to do it simply by speeding up the drop rate of the pieces, but most games don't have the luxury of such a straightforward solution.
-Tony Ventrice, Evolving the social game: Finding casual by defining hardcore, Gamasutra.com
Another piece Venge quoted:
While the term “casual gamer” is utilized a great deal in today’s market, some experienced game players dislike the term and consider it divisive. That may be because the descriptor “casual game” is often (and incorrectly) utilized to identify easy and/or childish games that are repetitive and mind-numbingly simple. A casual game can actually take a lot of skill to master: again, consider Tetris, which has very basic rules, but boasts a heck of a challenge at certain levels. Well-built casual games should appeal to everyone, regardless of their skill level.
-Nadia Oxford, Casual game, About.com
And another:
So, what is casual? Portnow believes it's hard to define, but the quick and dirty answer is: a game that can be played in short sessions, lacks finality and is "replayable ad nauseam." Now, that could mean Bejeweled, but it may also include "hardcore" darlings like Geometry Wars.
-Alexander Sliwinski, What defines a casual game, Joystiq.com
Now I am not going to list all of them, but I am curious, which one of those says that hard games cannot be casual friendly?
Kudos to Venge for scouring the Internet for some articles by the way.
Those are terrible examples TBH. It doesn't compare casual games to hardcore games at all. Difficulty isn't an objective thing. The point is that casual friendly games are going to be easier than their hardcore peers. It doesn't mean every casual game is easy and every casual gamer is bad at games. But it does mean if you're making a game geared towards casual gamers, it's going to tend to be easier than a game that is geared towards hardcore players.
Also you're defining casual friendly incorrectly. You're describing a casual player (and even that definition I don't agree with). Casual friendly means it's designed to attract casual players. Aside from the fact that a casual player by definition is looking for a relaxing experience and difficulty is related to relaxation, you're wrong even assuming that's not the case (which it is). Even assuming your definition of a "casual player", a casual friendly game is still one where the difficulty is going to be easier than a hardcore game. Why? Because it's appealing to somebody who doesn't play games as much as more hardcore players.
Casual game:
"A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience of casual gamers. Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games.[1] "
1. It says they are typically distinguished by simple rules and a lack of commitment required. If a game is more difficult, it requires more commitment.
2. They're targeted towards casual gamers. Casual gamers can be described as such:
"For this reason, games which attempt to appeal to the casual player tend to strive for simple rules and ease of game play"
No, those are good examples, because none of them speaks about difficulty playing a role to being casual friendly or hardcore. One of them says it straight: "The most common assumption is that a difficult game is necessarily hardcore. This is simply not true."
You define casual friendly wrong. That has been the point of all this all along. Me and Venge have provided quotes from people who agree with our definitions to a varying degree, but more importantly, are directly against yours. Casual friendly games are not designed to attract the market which is referred to as casual players.
Don't play dumb. Your definition of casual is a general definition. It does not define the word within the context of video games. The context we are talking in right now. Different contexts offer different meanings to words. Venge's articles talk about the definition within the context of video games.
Right when they made the term for video games they completely changed the meaning of the word casual, I guess. A casual gamer is somebody who plays games casually. Casually has a definition. So does casual. You can say the definition of a casual gamer is simply somebody who doesn't want to put in the same time commitment as a hardcore player and you'd be wrong. But even assuming you're right about that, you're still wrong about what a casual friendly game means. A casual friendly game is appealing to those people. It's appealing to people who spend less time playing video games. What on earth makes you think it wouldn't be easier than a game that is appealing to people who play games MORE?
Because I have seen many games that require a huge time investment, but are very easy. Eve Online might be the best example: It is notoriously inaccessible, everything but casual friendly, yet it is a very easy game. Sure, it takes a long time to learn it, but it is not a hard game the same way SC2 is. Eve Online takes tremendous effort if you want to succeed, but it is not hard as in you have to be skilled to succeed.
The part which you quoted I am referring to games where the game starts with just a press of a button i.e. you enter que, and the system finds you a suitable opponent(s).
Good usability design can make a difficult game accessible. Although the initial skill level of a player is relevant as it defines that starting point for usability design, it is not required to teach the player everything there is to know about the game. For example, things like metagame are frankly impossible to teach in a tutorial. Some things players have to learn themselves.
Accessibility is a broad term. You talk about accessibility in terms of first time use. Yes, if I jump into SC2 from WC3, SC2 may appear more accessible to me than to a player completely new to RTS games. But difficulty does not matter when we talk about accessibility relevant to casual friendliness. After we have both become proficient in the game, how hard the game is becomes irrelevant.
You said accessibility is how fast you can be having fun. Having fun depends on the difficulty level.
The rest of this reply is just you rambling until you simply repeat your mantra of "Difficulty does not matter when we talk about accessibility relevant to casual friendliness." Why? Because you say so, that's it. I've explain why accessibility is related to difficulty. If you have a game that is mechanically difficult to the point of you having no idea what you're doing (Broodwar), it's not going to be as accessible as a game that is mechanically easier, a game that lets you start doing all of the cool things the game has to offer more quickly.
No you missed my whole point completely. Difficulty applies to accessibility in first time use not when it applies to accessibility in terms of casual friendliness.
And I am saying it is not. See above.
You said I myself didn't bring up difficulty in my example of SC2. I did. I highlighted it. You're clearly not even reading my responses at this point. Here it is again:
"LOL.... no. I didn't ask anybody anything. It's a known issue that LoL is more casual friendly than SC2. Like I've said, there was a massive crisis in the SC2 community about the game not being casual friendly and it wasn't able to compete with LoL for those reasons. It lead to a lot of changes in the game, including things like ranks you can level up for each race, new avatar portraits and an emphasis on the "arcade" aspect of starcraft which promotes community made custom games that are mechanically easier and less hardcore PRECISELY to attract casual players."
If it plays a factor (and I am not saying that it does), how do you make SC2 "easier"?
And you are bringing up definitions that are not within the right context. You are doing a horrible job proving your point.
I'm bringing up definitions that are what this term is based on. Casual players want a casual experience. I've explained so many times that difficulty is related to accessibilty and that a casual gamer is obviously not going to be as skilled, on average, as somebody who plays games more often and for longer. Yet you just kind of ignore it when I say these things and go back to saying "difficulty is not related to accessibility."
Don't misquote me. Difficulty is not related to casual friendliness.
What you are talking about is "how to stay on top". You are not demonstrating how to enjoy the game. While one does not exclude the other, you don't have to try to be the best in order to enjoy the game.
If you're getting worse at the game over time because it's so mechanically difficult that you have to play often to maintain your skill level, that's probably not going to be very fun for a lot of casual gamers. It's not about staying on top, it's about accessibility. You can't come right into the game and start having fun, you can't leave and come back and be right where you were. Lots and lots and lots of people quit SC2 for this very reason and switch to more casual friendly games like LoL and DOTA.
In fact that makes me realize how wrong you are about the SC2 skill compared to LoL rank thing from above. Having a rank that isn't based on personal skill is probably MORE casual friendly because you can leave and come back and still have that benefit. A game that requires a lot of consistent training isn't going to be as casual friendly because you don't have that same ability to leave and come back.
A lot of people quit LoL and DotA for the same reason. In LoL and in SC2 you are always pitted against opponents of the same skill level. You are always challenged no matter how good you are. The system tries to do its best to makes sure you are having fun.
Games like Quake Live are very casual friendly, yet very hard to master. It takes regular practice to maintain your edge, but you can enjoy them even if you are nowhere near the top. You just jump right in and start shooting. No need to prepare no need to grind.
Lets see if you can follow this:
The term "casual game" best refers to games played on Wii, on a smartphone or in Facebook - mind you, games on these platforms do not have to be casual games, but majority of them are
The term "casual gamer" refers to someone who doesn't identify himself/herself as a "gamer" i.e. he/she rarely play video games.
Casual games are casual friendly but casual friendly games are not necessarily casual games.
Casual friendly games are designed to attract all players, not just casual ones.
These points I gathered through years of observation. This is how they are used as far as I can tell. There's a huge difference between a "casual game" and a "casual friendly game". Majority of todays games are casual friendly (SC2 included) as opposed by many of the old school MMORPGs which were not.
Wow you are so incredibly wrong. How can a casual game... hell, how can ANY game attract all players? There are conflicting types of players.
The degree to which a game is casual friendly is the degree to which it attracts casual players. Why would they be called CASUAL friendly games? Why not hardcore friendly? Are you serious right now?
And if they're designed to attract casual gamers (they are, btw), then you need look no further than your second bullet point: casual gamers don't play video games that often. If they don't play video games that often, they're not going to be as skill, on average. If they're not as skilled on average, making a game accessible to them is going to have to be easier than a game that is designed to appeal to more hardcore players. Game. Set. Match. Stop wasting my time.
Yeah, "if they are", but they aren't. Your point after that is moot.
I am afraid you are starting to sound less and less coherent. I noticed you misused the phrase "can't prove a negative" and the term "circular logic", but I let those pass at the time. Now I just don't know what you are aiming at. I feel like I am wasting my time since since you refuse to concede defeat - not even a minor one. You are not making any progress, you are not trying to explain your point differently... you are just repeating the same thing over and over.
This is getting tiresome since since you apparently have nothing new to offer.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Especially considering that a lot of casual players have played from the start. I've started with text MUDs; while I do remember early games with a kind of nostalgy, I will not play them or games built on their model again. I'm a casual player and I'm proud of it - there is so much more in my life today (as opposed to when I was a lot younger, in those early days of games) that I can't afford to play games any way but casually.
And "casual" doesn't mean "easy" - it means that you can play them in short periods/bursts.
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
I disagree with you. Its simple math. If majority of MMORPG players arrived after WoW and majority of MMORPGs are WoW like after WoW it seems obvious most MMORPG players haven't experienced much but quest hub themeparks. I seriously doubt people who started after WoW would want to play with the poor graphics and rough dated MMO mechanics/UI that older games had. When you have people even here question how you progress without quest hubs it kind of makes you think.
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
I disagree with you. Its simple math. If majority of MMORPG players arrived after WoW and majority of MMORPGs are WoW like after WoW it seems obvious most MMORPG players haven't experienced much but quest hub themeparks. I seriously doubt people who started after WoW would want to play with the poor graphics and rough dated MMO mechanics/UI that older games had. When you have people even here question how you progress without quest hubs it kind of makes you think.
This is exasctly right .. basically the newer generation of mmo players , doenst even know there was a point.. They were teethed on Wow and its Dungeon finder , and think this is what an MMORPG is erhmmmmm . i use that term lossely ..
I bet none of the definitions explain casual in the context of video games.
Well as it turns out the phrase includes the word casual for a reason.
Yes and "tunneling" within the context of software engineering involves shovels and pick axes ...
Except the word tunneling was chosen to describe that because of the similarities with the original word. That's why they chose it...
Ofcourse it does! Skill transfers over from game to game. Accumulated wealth and advancement does not. Ergo, practice and training is not the same as grind.
Dear lord.... please please please try to read and comprehend this. I'm not saying they're not different, I'm saying they're not different in the context of this debate. The fact that training can transfer into different games doesn't matter when you talk about accessibility. You put somebody in front a difficult game and he's going to have to spend time to become competent at it. The fact that his time can then be used LATER in life in a different video game doesn't change that.
Read carefully: Skill carries over, grind does not. Skill is different from grind. Grind to stay competitive is against casual friendliness. Skill is not.
How... how is this possible. Over and over you just ignore what I'm saying. I know they're DIFFERENT. The point is they're not different in this context. If the point is how quickly you can get into the game and both games have something that slows you down in getting into it, how are they different?
The only thing you've said is "grind to stay competitive is against casual friendliness. skill is not." This is a perfect example of you just asserting that you're correct without offering ANY reasoning. I say how are they different in the context of accessibility; in the context of how long it takes to get into a game. And you retort with just that they're different. Great....
To put it simply, casual friendly means minimal time investment and the ability to enjoy the game in short bursts. If you look what that means in practice, you realize accessibility (and, in part, usability) plays an important role to make that possible.
From the gamasutra article Venge linked:
Challenge. The most common assumption is that a difficult game is necessarily hardcore. This is simply not true. The confusion lies in the language: just as "hot" describes both spice and temperature, difficult describes more than one thing.
If your interface is vague, the game is "difficult", if the objectives are unclear, the game is "difficult", if your game is addictively simple yet impossible to master, it is also "difficult". Difficult describes both accessibility and challenge. Difficult accessibility is bad and is covered by all six bullets in the previous section.
Difficult challenge is good and, in fact, it's the most casual route to replayability. You want a user to feel that mastering your game is a challenge; that each session ends with a new sense of accomplishment. The real trick is in instilling challenge without devolving into one of the six pillars of hardcore design. Tetris manages to do it simply by speeding up the drop rate of the pieces, but most games don't have the luxury of such a straightforward solution.
-Tony Ventrice, Evolving the social game: Finding casual by defining hardcore, Gamasutra.com
Another piece Venge quoted:
While the term “casual gamer” is utilized a great deal in today’s market, some experienced game players dislike the term and consider it divisive. That may be because the descriptor “casual game” is often (and incorrectly) utilized to identify easy and/or childish games that are repetitive and mind-numbingly simple. A casual game can actually take a lot of skill to master: again, consider Tetris, which has very basic rules, but boasts a heck of a challenge at certain levels. Well-built casual games should appeal to everyone, regardless of their skill level.
-Nadia Oxford, Casual game, About.com
And another:
So, what is casual? Portnow believes it's hard to define, but the quick and dirty answer is: a game that can be played in short sessions, lacks finality and is "replayable ad nauseam." Now, that could mean Bejeweled, but it may also include "hardcore" darlings like Geometry Wars.
-Alexander Sliwinski, What defines a casual game, Joystiq.com
Now I am not going to list all of them, but I am curious, which one of those says that hard games cannot be casual friendly?
Kudos to Venge for scouring the Internet for some articles by the way.
Those are terrible examples TBH. It doesn't compare casual games to hardcore games at all. Difficulty isn't an objective thing. The point is that casual friendly games are going to be easier than their hardcore peers. It doesn't mean every casual game is easy and every casual gamer is bad at games. But it does mean if you're making a game geared towards casual gamers, it's going to tend to be easier than a game that is geared towards hardcore players.
Also you're defining casual friendly incorrectly. You're describing a casual player (and even that definition I don't agree with). Casual friendly means it's designed to attract casual players. Aside from the fact that a casual player by definition is looking for a relaxing experience and difficulty is related to relaxation, you're wrong even assuming that's not the case (which it is). Even assuming your definition of a "casual player", a casual friendly game is still one where the difficulty is going to be easier than a hardcore game. Why? Because it's appealing to somebody who doesn't play games as much as more hardcore players.
Casual game:
"A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience of casual gamers. Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games.[1] "
1. It says they are typically distinguished by simple rules and a lack of commitment required. If a game is more difficult, it requires more commitment.
2. They're targeted towards casual gamers. Casual gamers can be described as such:
"For this reason, games which attempt to appeal to the casual player tend to strive for simple rules and ease of game play"
No, those are good examples, because none of them speaks about difficulty playing a role to being casual friendly or hardcore. One of them says it straight: "The most common assumption is that a difficult game is necessarily hardcore. This is simply not true."
You define casual friendly wrong. That has been the point of all this all along. Me and Venge have provided quotes from people who agree with our definitions to a varying degree, but more importantly, are directly against yours. Casual friendly games are not designed to attract the market which is referred to as casual players.
So what about the definition that I offered that directly contradicts your definition? What about all of the common sense, which you consistently ignore, that directly contradicts your definition? Do you deny that a casual friendly game is a game that is trying to appeal to casual gamers? And do you deny that casual gamers are going to be less skilled on average than hardcore gamers? It's not a coincidence that you never answer these points straight up.
By the way, here are some quotes from earlier in an article that Venge posted. He of course conveniently left these parts out:
"Casual games can fall into any genre, and even games for veteran players can contain casual elements that are meant to help ease less-experienced players into the gameplay until they find their footing (for instance, interactive tutorials and/or adjustable difficulty settings). "
"The term “casual game” hit the mainstream around 2006, when Nintendo’s Wii introduced families to easy-to-play games that could be enjoyed by everyone. In reality, casual games have existed for decades. In general, games that are built around an easy-to-grasp system of rules are considered “casual.”
Don't play dumb. Your definition of casual is a general definition. It does not define the word within the context of video games. The context we are talking in right now. Different contexts offer different meanings to words. Venge's articles talk about the definition within the context of video games.
Right when they made the term for video games they completely changed the meaning of the word casual, I guess. A casual gamer is somebody who plays games casually. Casually has a definition. So does casual. You can say the definition of a casual gamer is simply somebody who doesn't want to put in the same time commitment as a hardcore player and you'd be wrong. But even assuming you're right about that, you're still wrong about what a casual friendly game means. A casual friendly game is appealing to those people. It's appealing to people who spend less time playing video games. What on earth makes you think it wouldn't be easier than a game that is appealing to people who play games MORE?
Because I have seen many games that require a huge time investment, but are very easy. Eve Online might be the best example: It is notoriously inaccessible, everything but casual friendly, yet it is a very easy game. Sure, it takes a long time to learn it, but it is not a hard game the same way SC2 is. Eve Online takes tremendous effort if you want to succeed, but it is not hard as in you have to be skilled to succeed.
Yeah and I'm the one saying that a lot of factors go into what makes a game casual/hardcore. This example of yours is like me pointing to a casual game that is easy and saying "see all casual games are easy." Just because there are hardcore games that are mechanically easy doesn't mean casual games don't have to be easier (on average) to appeal to casual players. This just basic logic...
The part which you quoted I am referring to games where the game starts with just a press of a button i.e. you enter que, and the system finds you a suitable opponent(s).
Good usability design can make a difficult game accessible. Although the initial skill level of a player is relevant as it defines that starting point for usability design, it is not required to teach the player everything there is to know about the game. For example, things like metagame are frankly impossible to teach in a tutorial. Some things players have to learn themselves.
Accessibility is a broad term. You talk about accessibility in terms of first time use. Yes, if I jump into SC2 from WC3, SC2 may appear more accessible to me than to a player completely new to RTS games. But difficulty does not matter when we talk about accessibility relevant to casual friendliness. After we have both become proficient in the game, how hard the game is becomes irrelevant.
You said accessibility is how fast you can be having fun. Having fun depends on the difficulty level.
The rest of this reply is just you rambling until you simply repeat your mantra of "Difficulty does not matter when we talk about accessibility relevant to casual friendliness." Why? Because you say so, that's it. I've explain why accessibility is related to difficulty. If you have a game that is mechanically difficult to the point of you having no idea what you're doing (Broodwar), it's not going to be as accessible as a game that is mechanically easier, a game that lets you start doing all of the cool things the game has to offer more quickly.
No you missed my whole point completely. Difficulty applies to accessibility in first time use not when it applies to accessibility in terms of casual friendliness.
You have completely derailed. Re-read that sentence and tell me it's a reasonable response to what I'm saying.
In fact the last two things you've said on this particular point are just.... confused.
"Difficulty does not matter when we talk about accessibility relevant to casual friendliness?" = "I'm right because I'm right"
"Difficulty applies to accessibility in first time use not when it applies to accessibility in tersm of casual friendliness." = "I'm right because I'm right."
Look, accessibility is how accessible the game is, particularly right off the bat. If a game is really mechanically difficult, it's not as accessible. You can't play the game they way it's meant to be played until you practice at it. Do you see how I use simple, easy to understand steps in logic to SHOW why I'm right?
And I am saying it is not. See above.
You said I myself didn't bring up difficulty in my example of SC2. I did. I highlighted it. You're clearly not even reading my responses at this point. Here it is again:
"LOL.... no. I didn't ask anybody anything. It's a known issue that LoL is more casual friendly than SC2. Like I've said, there was a massive crisis in the SC2 community about the game not being casual friendly and it wasn't able to compete with LoL for those reasons. It lead to a lot of changes in the game, including things like ranks you can level up for each race, new avatar portraits and an emphasis on the "arcade" aspect of starcraft which promotes community made custom games that are mechanically easier and less hardcore PRECISELY to attract casual players."
If it plays a factor (and I am not saying that it does), how do you make SC2 "easier"?
There's a feature called the arcade where people can post their own mods to the game. People have made MOBAs, FPS, RPG, etc using the starcraft 2 engine. They've even made bejeweled type games. It's KNOWN for people attracting casual players and it's KNOWN for being easier than the 1v1 ladder.
And you are bringing up definitions that are not within the right context. You are doing a horrible job proving your point.
I'm bringing up definitions that are what this term is based on. Casual players want a casual experience. I've explained so many times that difficulty is related to accessibilty and that a casual gamer is obviously not going to be as skilled, on average, as somebody who plays games more often and for longer. Yet you just kind of ignore it when I say these things and go back to saying "difficulty is not related to accessibility."
Don't misquote me. Difficulty is not related to casual friendliness.
Wait so you admit that difficulty is related to accessibility? And do you also admit that accessibility is related to casual friendliness? Because it seems pretty obvious that a casual player is going to be more attracted to a more accessible game.
But besides, again you just ignore the whole point. Casual friendliness is how much a game attracts casual players. Casual players don't play games as much as hardcore players. Therefore casual players aren't going to be as skilled. Therefore making a game geared towards casual players is going to be easier than one that isn't, on average.
What you are talking about is "how to stay on top". You are not demonstrating how to enjoy the game. While one does not exclude the other, you don't have to try to be the best in order to enjoy the game.
If you're getting worse at the game over time because it's so mechanically difficult that you have to play often to maintain your skill level, that's probably not going to be very fun for a lot of casual gamers. It's not about staying on top, it's about accessibility. You can't come right into the game and start having fun, you can't leave and come back and be right where you were. Lots and lots and lots of people quit SC2 for this very reason and switch to more casual friendly games like LoL and DOTA.
In fact that makes me realize how wrong you are about the SC2 skill compared to LoL rank thing from above. Having a rank that isn't based on personal skill is probably MORE casual friendly because you can leave and come back and still have that benefit. A game that requires a lot of consistent training isn't going to be as casual friendly because you don't have that same ability to leave and come back.
A lot of people quit LoL and DotA for the same reason. In LoL and in SC2 you are always pitted against opponents of the same skill level. You are always challenged no matter how good you are. The system tries to do its best to makes sure you are having fun.
Games like Quake Live are very casual friendly, yet very hard to master. It takes regular practice to maintain your edge, but you can enjoy them even if you are nowhere near the top. You just jump right in and start shooting. No need to prepare no need to grind.
Except they didn't quit LoL to play SC2, that's the difference. A lot of people have quit SC2 to go to LoL precisely because SC2 is too difficult.
Also, quake live ISN'T casual friendly. It's casual friendly based on your incorrect definition, but that's not how it's viewed. Not a lot of people who consider themselves "casual gamers" play quake live. Again, you're simply relying on your definition, not any kind of reason or real world example.
Lets see if you can follow this:
The term "casual game" best refers to games played on Wii, on a smartphone or in Facebook - mind you, games on these platforms do not have to be casual games, but majority of them are
The term "casual gamer" refers to someone who doesn't identify himself/herself as a "gamer" i.e. he/she rarely play video games.
Casual games are casual friendly but casual friendly games are not necessarily casual games.
Casual friendly games are designed to attract all players, not just casual ones.
These points I gathered through years of observation. This is how they are used as far as I can tell. There's a huge difference between a "casual game" and a "casual friendly game". Majority of todays games are casual friendly (SC2 included) as opposed by many of the old school MMORPGs which were not.
Wow you are so incredibly wrong. How can a casual game... hell, how can ANY game attract all players? There are conflicting types of players.
The degree to which a game is casual friendly is the degree to which it attracts casual players. Why would they be called CASUAL friendly games? Why not hardcore friendly? Are you serious right now?
And if they're designed to attract casual gamers (they are, btw), then you need look no further than your second bullet point: casual gamers don't play video games that often. If they don't play video games that often, they're not going to be as skill, on average. If they're not as skilled on average, making a game accessible to them is going to have to be easier than a game that is designed to appeal to more hardcore players. Game. Set. Match. Stop wasting my time.
Yeah, "if they are", but they aren't. Your point after that is moot.
I am afraid you are starting to sound less and less coherent. I noticed you misused the phrase "can't prove a negative" and the term "circular logic", but I let those pass at the time. Now I just don't know what you are aiming at. I feel like I am wasting my time since since you refuse to concede defeat - not even a minor one. You are not making any progress, you are not trying to explain your point differently... you are just repeating the same thing over and over.
This is getting tiresome since since you apparently have nothing new to offer.
I'm not making any progress with you because you are totally ignoring my points, as you always do. I have nothing new to offer because you haven't dealt with the original points LOL. That's why arguments with you seem circular, because I say something, you ignore it, so I say it again. Arguments with people like Lizardbones at least progress and move in a certain direction, but with you they just go on forever because you just flat out ignore things you don't want to answer.
You're saying that casual friendly games/casual games aren't designed to attract casual players? Are you serious? To me that's the whole debate. You can forget everything else because if you don't admit that casual friendly/casual game is the degree to which it attracts casual players then what the heck is even the point of all this? What else could it possible mean? You think casual game/casual friendly game is totally disconnected from the term casual player?
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
It's math. There are way more people playing modern MMOs than there were playing oldschool MMOs. This is the point I've made before where oldschool players on average know more about both sides of the genre than newschool players do. It's simple numbers.
Originally posted by Jjix Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by Holophonist
You keep coming back to the idea that casual games are easier, but there's nothing to support the idea as being generally true. It seems intuitive, but looking around at the games being offered results in many examples that do not support the idea. Team Fortress 2 is designed with a very low time investment needed, but it is nearly 100% skill based. Left 4 Dead 2 can be played in short, ten minute bursts but again, it's nearly 100% skill based. It no longer exists but Picaroon was a game designed to be played in short bursts, but required a good bit of strategy and luck to be successful. There are mobile games designed around the idea of players spending as little as ten minutes at a time playing, but those games require strategic skill to be successful. Especially since action takes place without player input. If advanced planning and strategy skills are absent, the player will have little fun and have little progress. I'm sure with a little bit of research we could compile a longer list of games with a low time investment, skill dependent games. The idea that casual games are generally easier may seem intuitive, but it doesn't work in practice. This is probably why the terms "Casual" and "Hardcore", when applied to games and people generally revolve around the time investments rather than the difficulty. I think you are correct to say time investment is central to the common meaning of 'casual' and 'hardcore', and twitch skill isn't. But then, why bring up twitch skill at all?
It seems to me that twitch is the ultimate expression of casual gaming. It is simple, even a 3 year-old can do it, yet mastery can be difficult. It is like throwing a football, anyone can do it, it is casual . . . not everyone can be a professional quarterback.
Nevertheless, it isn't precise to say "casual" -- understood in terms of time investment -- has no connection to difficulty. If you threw an average person who can throw a football into a professional game, it would be EXTREMELY difficult for them.
I can't remember if I responded to this or not, so apologies if there are two responses to this one post.
Football is certainly a casual past time. Professional Football on the other hand is not casual in any sense of the word. There is a distinct difference between people playing football in their backyard, and people playing football to earn a living. In backyard football, rules are largely optional and the yard being played in is going to be very different from a professional football field.
SC2 is the same game whether the person is playing casually, or playing professionally. The rules are not optional and the environment is not going to be different. The difference is the people playing.
It may not be precise to say that time investment has no connection to difficulty, but it's not a consistent connection. There can be both easy and hard casual games. There cannot be casual games where the player can't drop in an play whenever they want, for however long they want and continue to advance at the game. The time investment definition is definitive, and the difficulty definition is not.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
How?
It's difficult to fully appreciate or understand something that you have never experienced first hand. Pretty basic stuff, bud.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
Not all vets blame Blizzard for every wrong in the galaxy.
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
How?
It's difficult to fully appreciate or understand something that you have never experienced first hand. Pretty basic stuff, bud.
Sure, bud, but the glaring assumption here is to think the only reason not to like old-school is not to have experienced it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
How?
It's difficult to fully appreciate or understand something that you have never experienced first hand. Pretty basic stuff, bud.
Sure, bud, but the glaring assumption here is to think the only reason not to like old-school is not to have experienced it.
No the assumption is that you have to take certain opinions with a grain of salt. It's not that we're assuming that anybody who has played one of these "oldschool" mmos would prefer them, but just that their opinion isn't really valid if they haven't experienced both.
You keep coming back to the idea that casual games are easier, but there's nothing to support the idea as being generally true. It seems intuitive, but looking around at the games being offered results in many examples that do not support the idea. Team Fortress 2 is designed with a very low time investment needed, but it is nearly 100% skill based. Left 4 Dead 2 can be played in short, ten minute bursts but again, it's nearly 100% skill based. It no longer exists but Picaroon was a game designed to be played in short bursts, but required a good bit of strategy and luck to be successful. There are mobile games designed around the idea of players spending as little as ten minutes at a time playing, but those games require strategic skill to be successful. Especially since action takes place without player input. If advanced planning and strategy skills are absent, the player will have little fun and have little progress. I'm sure with a little bit of research we could compile a longer list of games with a low time investment, skill dependent games. The idea that casual games are generally easier may seem intuitive, but it doesn't work in practice. This is probably why the terms "Casual" and "Hardcore", when applied to games and people generally revolve around the time investments rather than the difficulty.
I think you are correct to say time investment is central to the common meaning of 'casual' and 'hardcore', and twitch skill isn't. But then, why bring up twitch skill at all?
It seems to me that twitch is the ultimate expression of casual gaming. It is simple, even a 3 year-old can do it, yet mastery can be difficult. It is like throwing a football, anyone can do it, it is casual . . . not everyone can be a professional quarterback.
Nevertheless, it isn't precise to say "casual" -- understood in terms of time investment -- has no connection to difficulty. If you threw an average person who can throw a football into a professional game, it would be EXTREMELY difficult for them.
I can't remember if I responded to this or not, so apologies if there are two responses to this one post.
Football is certainly a casual past time. Professional Football on the other hand is not casual in any sense of the word. There is a distinct difference between people playing football in their backyard, and people playing football to earn a living. In backyard football, rules are largely optional and the yard being played in is going to be very different from a professional football field.
SC2 is the same game whether the person is playing casually, or playing professionally. The rules are not optional and the environment is not going to be different. The difference is the people playing.
It may not be precise to say that time investment has no connection to difficulty, but it's not a consistent connection. There can be both easy and hard casual games. There cannot be casual games where the player can't drop in an play whenever they want, for however long they want and continue to advance at the game. The time investment definition is definitive, and the difficulty definition is not.
Ok, good and well thought out point. I appreciate that you can process information in one round and then convey a response concisely and coherently. This is really important, I think, in avoiding circular, minutia-based arguments.
Here's my point: If you're making a game with the intent of making it casual friendly, that includes in it ease of play. Is it possible to make a game that can potentially be both difficult and easy? Yes. But in order to appeal to the casual player, it has to be easy. Just because it can be difficult if played differently or against different people doesn't really seem to matter in the context of this discussion. The question is whether or not difficulty is related to how casual friendly a game is, and to me it seems pretty obvious that it is. Tetris has to start out easy in order to appeal to casual players. If you started on super mega hardcore mode in Tetris, it wouldn't be as casual friendly.
A side note regarding your point about sc2: SC2 is inherently difficult no matter who you are playing against. I have friends who used to play SC2 but switched to LoL about a year ago. Whenever they come back to SC2 to play games with me, they note how much more difficult the game is as soon as they load in... completely unrelated to the other opponent. What you're talking about isn't really the difficulty of playing the game, you're talking about the difficulty of the winning the match.
Originally posted by Scot The new generation has not been given a chance to get it, so it is hardly surprising they do not realise what they are missing.
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
How?
It's difficult to fully appreciate or understand something that you have never experienced first hand. Pretty basic stuff, bud.
Sure, bud, but the glaring assumption here is to think the only reason not to like old-school is not to have experienced it.
Obviously it's not the only reason, but considering the differences between the old MMOs and the new ones, it's likely a very common reason.
If we brought some of the ancient Romans back with a time machine they'd probably not be very entertained by our relatively soft combat sports; even MMA.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Comments
Which is another way of saying, "for something to be casual friendly it has to be easy."
If it takes a lot of time to learn how to do something, that something is not easy. Learning a musical instrument, generally speaking, is more difficult than learning how to dig a ditch. I imagine once mastered, playing an instrument is probably a lot easier than digging a ditch. It is not the difficulty in the moment of performance which makes it difficult, it is the long years of practice required to get you there that makes it difficult.
Time invested is connected to difficulty. That seems self-evident to me. How that relates to MMORPGs may be another matter. But at the very least, if we all more or less agree that "time investment" is primary to how we understand the distinction between 'casual' and 'hardcore', then we have already, to an extent, admitted that one is more difficult than the other.
Yes, that is precisely my point. A hardcore game, like professional football, is inherently more difficult. For a game to be "casual", it has to be easier than that. "Casual" does seem to be, as Holophonist has been arguing, inherently connected to "easy" in some way. The confusion is in the fact that you can have professional football, which is difficult, and a leisurely football game with your friends in the park, which is easy, but both are . . . football.
Now you say, "casual" doesn't refer to total time invested in a game, presumably just the time spent per day. I'm not really sure if that syncs with my own ideas about casual or not, but just for the sake of consideration let us say that is the case. If it is possible for someone to become very skilled at a game after a couple years of play, 20 minutes a day. Where then would we expect his fellow player, who has also been playing for 2 years, but rather 5 hours a day, to be?
The answer depends on how deep the game is. If the game is like chess, presumably (assuming all else between the individuals being equal) the guy who plays 5 hours a day would be miles ahead of the casual player by the end of two years. That is because chess has lots and lots of room to master, you never stop learning. On the other hand, if the game were tic-tac-toe, the two would be basically equally skilled at the end of two years. That is because you can learn everything there is to learn about tic tac toe quite quickly, all the remaining time invested essentially goes to waste.
Anyway yeah I basically agree with everything you said and appreciate the insight.
I think you are correct to say time investment is central to the common meaning of 'casual' and 'hardcore', and twitch skill isn't. But then, why bring up twitch skill at all?
It seems to me that twitch is the ultimate expression of casual gaming. It is simple, even a 3 year-old can do it, yet mastery can be difficult. It is like throwing a football, anyone can do it, it is casual . . . not everyone can be a professional quarterback.
Nevertheless, it isn't precise to say "casual" -- understood in terms of time investment -- has no connection to difficulty. If you threw an average person who can throw a football into a professional game, it would be EXTREMELY difficult for them.
I think that's a marketing thing. Team Fortress isn't going to advertise itself as a "casual" game, no matter how little time investment is needed to play the game and have fun.
Also, "casual" doesn't refer to the total time invested in a game. A person could play the same game casually for years, becoming very skilled at the game. This doesn't change their status as a casual player and it doesn't change the game itself either.
Professional football isn't a casual sport. For that matter, neither is high school or college football. The time investment is significant.
If TFC isn't going to market itself as a casual game, there's probably a reason for that... probably a number of reasons actually. One of those reasons is probably the difficulty/steep learning curve. Again, it's not a coincidence that TF2 was both easier and also more casual friendly than TFC.Yet you continue to do it more then anyone I've seen on thus site lol. Must be a glutton for punishment.
Yeah I'm pretty stubborn. I only argue about a few things and only when I'm fairly certain I'm right... so when I do get into an argument I take it pretty seriously. It does really bother me that the best case scenario in an internet argument is the other guy just ignores you. Nobody ever seems to want to admit they were wrong.
I get the OPs point and I have to agree with him but I guess he isnt explaining it correctly, I will try, its all about the choices you can make that you cannot make in nowadays mmorpg, lets see :
In vainilla Ultima Online were able to :
-Have all kind of pets by taming any living animal (birds, dogs, lions, bears, dragons...) and not only one, you can have all you wanted while you feed it so your dragon will not eat you...
-Have your own House (many different types and NOT INSTANCED)
-Have your own clan castle (another time NOT INSTANCED)
-Sail your own boat and use it to attack a isle with your clan or just keep yourself fishing in the sea alone.
-Have multiple mounts (I still remember a guys in Atlantic mounting Nightmare!)
-PlayerNPC vendors to sell your stuff in front of your house door, no AH or Bazar just risk your butt to monsters,PKs,clanwars... and explore to find good trades (exploration in UO is still the best in a mmorpg for me, ...aah that feeling!)
-Build a unique class from a very big set of skills for example being a warrior with magic healing(paladin?) a tamer with archery(ranger?) a miner with invisibility and runspeed to help you not being robbed and a bit of mage to teleport, a mage with herbalism and blacksmithto never fall off reagents and win some money... combinations were abrumating when you think about it.
AND WHAT WE HAVE NOW?
-Go this way -> theres a big mountain, an invisible wall or a teleport so you cannot depres if you get lost of fall in a deep pixel abyss... Please the level 1-5 zone and after that WOOW the level 5-10 zone but you can choose beetween 2 different zones! (like if we have no brain).
-Select class in the beggining and dont change it, follow our pre-defined path of skills with a no-matter-what-u-choose talent treee, if you want different go altoholic.
-Rush the same dungeons and raids over and over again, devour content till we launch more for you, so you can quit in a month and return for the next xpac YEAH!
-We protect our players from harm because they are glass made and they can broke if someone ganks them or a boss wipes a clan raid.
Sorry for the wall of text but thats the terrible truth : You WILL leave your current mmorpg in less tan a year because you are terribly bored because developers are trying to make fun games forced by publisers that have no idea what fun can be...
But, but, but he attacked me when I was low life!
Yes, HE DID, why you cant do the same to him?
Uf that will take me a lot of time...
HERE IS YOUR QUEST!
Honestly I'm not sure how anybody could expect otherwise. Who thought it was a good idea to have an MMO based around scripted content that people can run through extremely quickly compared to how long it takes. The fact is that people blow through the new content from expansions way too quickly and so various tedious grinds are implemented to keep people busy. Just doesn't seem sustainable... which is probably why so many modern MMOs fail.
Highlighted red is just common within MMORPG's or MMO's and by no means anomalies.
It seems your focus is more geared towards single/multiplayer games. And that is where I could understand the casual/hardcore debate. Not so much with MMO/rpg's.
This!
But, but, but he attacked me when I was low life!
Yes, HE DID, why you cant do the same to him?
Uf that will take me a lot of time...
HERE IS YOUR QUEST!
Yes and "tunneling" within the context of software engineering involves shovels and pick axes ...
Read carefully: Skill carries over, grind does not. Skill is different from grind. Grind to stay competitive is against casual friendliness. Skill is not.
No, those are good examples, because none of them speaks about difficulty playing a role to being casual friendly or hardcore. One of them says it straight: "The most common assumption is that a difficult game is necessarily hardcore. This is simply not true."
You define casual friendly wrong. That has been the point of all this all along. Me and Venge have provided quotes from people who agree with our definitions to a varying degree, but more importantly, are directly against yours. Casual friendly games are not designed to attract the market which is referred to as casual players.
Because I have seen many games that require a huge time investment, but are very easy. Eve Online might be the best example: It is notoriously inaccessible, everything but casual friendly, yet it is a very easy game. Sure, it takes a long time to learn it, but it is not a hard game the same way SC2 is. Eve Online takes tremendous effort if you want to succeed, but it is not hard as in you have to be skilled to succeed.
No you missed my whole point completely. Difficulty applies to accessibility in first time use not when it applies to accessibility in terms of casual friendliness.
If it plays a factor (and I am not saying that it does), how do you make SC2 "easier"?
Don't misquote me. Difficulty is not related to casual friendliness.
A lot of people quit LoL and DotA for the same reason. In LoL and in SC2 you are always pitted against opponents of the same skill level. You are always challenged no matter how good you are. The system tries to do its best to makes sure you are having fun.
Games like Quake Live are very casual friendly, yet very hard to master. It takes regular practice to maintain your edge, but you can enjoy them even if you are nowhere near the top. You just jump right in and start shooting. No need to prepare no need to grind.
Yeah, "if they are", but they aren't. Your point after that is moot.
I am afraid you are starting to sound less and less coherent. I noticed you misused the phrase "can't prove a negative" and the term "circular logic", but I let those pass at the time. Now I just don't know what you are aiming at. I feel like I am wasting my time since since you refuse to concede defeat - not even a minor one. You are not making any progress, you are not trying to explain your point differently... you are just repeating the same thing over and over.
This is getting tiresome since since you apparently have nothing new to offer.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
That is such a cop-out response from the vets.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Especially considering that a lot of casual players have played from the start. I've started with text MUDs; while I do remember early games with a kind of nostalgy, I will not play them or games built on their model again. I'm a casual player and I'm proud of it - there is so much more in my life today (as opposed to when I was a lot younger, in those early days of games) that I can't afford to play games any way but casually.
And "casual" doesn't mean "easy" - it means that you can play them in short periods/bursts.
I disagree with you. Its simple math. If majority of MMORPG players arrived after WoW and majority of MMORPGs are WoW like after WoW it seems obvious most MMORPG players haven't experienced much but quest hub themeparks. I seriously doubt people who started after WoW would want to play with the poor graphics and rough dated MMO mechanics/UI that older games had. When you have people even here question how you progress without quest hubs it kind of makes you think.
This is exasctly right .. basically the newer generation of mmo players , doenst even know there was a point.. They were teethed on Wow and its Dungeon finder , and think this is what an MMORPG is erhmmmmm . i use that term lossely ..
Except the word tunneling was chosen to describe that because of the similarities with the original word. That's why they chose it...
How... how is this possible. Over and over you just ignore what I'm saying. I know they're DIFFERENT. The point is they're not different in this context. If the point is how quickly you can get into the game and both games have something that slows you down in getting into it, how are they different?
The only thing you've said is "grind to stay competitive is against casual friendliness. skill is not." This is a perfect example of you just asserting that you're correct without offering ANY reasoning. I say how are they different in the context of accessibility; in the context of how long it takes to get into a game. And you retort with just that they're different. Great....
So what about the definition that I offered that directly contradicts your definition? What about all of the common sense, which you consistently ignore, that directly contradicts your definition? Do you deny that a casual friendly game is a game that is trying to appeal to casual gamers? And do you deny that casual gamers are going to be less skilled on average than hardcore gamers? It's not a coincidence that you never answer these points straight up.
By the way, here are some quotes from earlier in an article that Venge posted. He of course conveniently left these parts out:
"Casual games can fall into any genre, and even games for veteran players can contain casual elements that are meant to help ease less-experienced players into the gameplay until they find their footing (for instance, interactive tutorials and/or adjustable difficulty settings). "
"The term “casual game” hit the mainstream around 2006, when Nintendo’s Wii introduced families to easy-to-play games that could be enjoyed by everyone. In reality, casual games have existed for decades. In general, games that are built around an easy-to-grasp system of rules are considered “casual.”
http://ds.about.com/od/glossary/g/Casual-Game.htm
Yeah and I'm the one saying that a lot of factors go into what makes a game casual/hardcore. This example of yours is like me pointing to a casual game that is easy and saying "see all casual games are easy." Just because there are hardcore games that are mechanically easy doesn't mean casual games don't have to be easier (on average) to appeal to casual players. This just basic logic...
You have completely derailed. Re-read that sentence and tell me it's a reasonable response to what I'm saying.
In fact the last two things you've said on this particular point are just.... confused.
"Difficulty does not matter when we talk about accessibility relevant to casual friendliness?" = "I'm right because I'm right"
"Difficulty applies to accessibility in first time use not when it applies to accessibility in tersm of casual friendliness." = "I'm right because I'm right."
Look, accessibility is how accessible the game is, particularly right off the bat. If a game is really mechanically difficult, it's not as accessible. You can't play the game they way it's meant to be played until you practice at it. Do you see how I use simple, easy to understand steps in logic to SHOW why I'm right?
There's a feature called the arcade where people can post their own mods to the game. People have made MOBAs, FPS, RPG, etc using the starcraft 2 engine. They've even made bejeweled type games. It's KNOWN for people attracting casual players and it's KNOWN for being easier than the 1v1 ladder.
Wait so you admit that difficulty is related to accessibility? And do you also admit that accessibility is related to casual friendliness? Because it seems pretty obvious that a casual player is going to be more attracted to a more accessible game.
But besides, again you just ignore the whole point. Casual friendliness is how much a game attracts casual players. Casual players don't play games as much as hardcore players. Therefore casual players aren't going to be as skilled. Therefore making a game geared towards casual players is going to be easier than one that isn't, on average.
Except they didn't quit LoL to play SC2, that's the difference. A lot of people have quit SC2 to go to LoL precisely because SC2 is too difficult.
Also, quake live ISN'T casual friendly. It's casual friendly based on your incorrect definition, but that's not how it's viewed. Not a lot of people who consider themselves "casual gamers" play quake live. Again, you're simply relying on your definition, not any kind of reason or real world example.
I'm not making any progress with you because you are totally ignoring my points, as you always do. I have nothing new to offer because you haven't dealt with the original points LOL. That's why arguments with you seem circular, because I say something, you ignore it, so I say it again. Arguments with people like Lizardbones at least progress and move in a certain direction, but with you they just go on forever because you just flat out ignore things you don't want to answer.
You're saying that casual friendly games/casual games aren't designed to attract casual players? Are you serious? To me that's the whole debate. You can forget everything else because if you don't admit that casual friendly/casual game is the degree to which it attracts casual players then what the heck is even the point of all this? What else could it possible mean? You think casual game/casual friendly game is totally disconnected from the term casual player?
It's math. There are way more people playing modern MMOs than there were playing oldschool MMOs. This is the point I've made before where oldschool players on average know more about both sides of the genre than newschool players do. It's simple numbers.
I think you are correct to say time investment is central to the common meaning of 'casual' and 'hardcore', and twitch skill isn't. But then, why bring up twitch skill at all?
It seems to me that twitch is the ultimate expression of casual gaming. It is simple, even a 3 year-old can do it, yet mastery can be difficult. It is like throwing a football, anyone can do it, it is casual . . . not everyone can be a professional quarterback.
Nevertheless, it isn't precise to say "casual" -- understood in terms of time investment -- has no connection to difficulty. If you threw an average person who can throw a football into a professional game, it would be EXTREMELY difficult for them.
I can't remember if I responded to this or not, so apologies if there are two responses to this one post.
Football is certainly a casual past time. Professional Football on the other hand is not casual in any sense of the word. There is a distinct difference between people playing football in their backyard, and people playing football to earn a living. In backyard football, rules are largely optional and the yard being played in is going to be very different from a professional football field.
SC2 is the same game whether the person is playing casually, or playing professionally. The rules are not optional and the environment is not going to be different. The difference is the people playing.
It may not be precise to say that time investment has no connection to difficulty, but it's not a consistent connection. There can be both easy and hard casual games. There cannot be casual games where the player can't drop in an play whenever they want, for however long they want and continue to advance at the game. The time investment definition is definitive, and the difficulty definition is not.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
How?
It's difficult to fully appreciate or understand something that you have never experienced first hand. Pretty basic stuff, bud.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Not all vets blame Blizzard for every wrong in the galaxy.
Sure, bud, but the glaring assumption here is to think the only reason not to like old-school is not to have experienced it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
No the assumption is that you have to take certain opinions with a grain of salt. It's not that we're assuming that anybody who has played one of these "oldschool" mmos would prefer them, but just that their opinion isn't really valid if they haven't experienced both.
Ok, good and well thought out point. I appreciate that you can process information in one round and then convey a response concisely and coherently. This is really important, I think, in avoiding circular, minutia-based arguments.
Here's my point: If you're making a game with the intent of making it casual friendly, that includes in it ease of play. Is it possible to make a game that can potentially be both difficult and easy? Yes. But in order to appeal to the casual player, it has to be easy. Just because it can be difficult if played differently or against different people doesn't really seem to matter in the context of this discussion. The question is whether or not difficulty is related to how casual friendly a game is, and to me it seems pretty obvious that it is. Tetris has to start out easy in order to appeal to casual players. If you started on super mega hardcore mode in Tetris, it wouldn't be as casual friendly.
A side note regarding your point about sc2: SC2 is inherently difficult no matter who you are playing against. I have friends who used to play SC2 but switched to LoL about a year ago. Whenever they come back to SC2 to play games with me, they note how much more difficult the game is as soon as they load in... completely unrelated to the other opponent. What you're talking about isn't really the difficulty of playing the game, you're talking about the difficulty of the winning the match.
Obviously it's not the only reason, but considering the differences between the old MMOs and the new ones, it's likely a very common reason.
If we brought some of the ancient Romans back with a time machine they'd probably not be very entertained by our relatively soft combat sports; even MMA.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb