Bottom line: 'Casuals' as they were back in the 2000s dont want a stupid treadmill gear grind with a mindless tiered raid/ilevel system. thats what MMORPGs mostly are now.
Its the 'content locusts' that are more to blame. They devour content faster than devs can put it out, so we need things like structured grinds over daily quest repetition and new gear ilevels every raid.
Why would you say that?
For a casual player, MMORPGs aren't raids.
For a casual player, MMORPGs are the solo content prior to hitting max level. (You know, the most casual-friendly content MMORPGs tend to have?)
Casual players aren't even getting to the brutal part of the grind.
But the casuals are the ones who demand access to the raids. Later they want changes: Less mobs/respawns, 3 bosses, 15 minutes runs, and participation currency to buy items they lazy devs and their RNG tool system cheated them out of.
The problem is that WoW set up the raids to be the main content-everything in the expansion led up to the killing of the last raid boss.
A game like EQ was less concerned with a specific storyline. Quarm wasnt thrown in your face the second you stepped into Plane of Disease. But Arthas is thrown in your face all over the place during WOTLK and heavily tied into the solo experience. And then its like 'hey, I hope you enjoyed the first 49 chapters, but you cant see the final chapter 50'. So yes, people wanted to see the content.
Rift, for all the shit I like to give that game, had a good solution to this with chronicles. Raid finder on paper isnt a bad idea, but in execution its a mess. Its cool seeing the story, but the gameplay doesnt work. Putting 5 strangers together into a dungeon sort of works. Putting 25 strangers together into a raid doesnt really work in practice.
The less trash/less RNG comes from the fact that the only content is the raids. And this comes from the hardcores moreso than the casuals, as the casuals arent typically as obsessed with gearing in a hurry. But when you are doing the same wing for the 10th time in 10 weeks the trash gets old to everyone. the culprit here is the one tier at a time model. In EQ's prime you had a range of zones-for instance the 'tier' before Plane of Time consisted of four zones you could rotate. And it wasnt a linear slog through each one (although PoTime was, but the trash i dont remember being that bad in that zone...although i never cleared it until during OoW 2 or 3 expansions later). hell it was glorious for the casual raiders...you would typically have something like the end zone from three expansions ago, high end zones from 2, medium zones from one prior, and early zones form the current expansion, all with worthy targets and gear upgrades.
It all comes down to not having enough content for anyone. So no one is really happy and all sides end up bitching. Yet somehow this wotlk model keeps getting copied.
A game like EQ was fairly demanding in terms of commitment and it was often a draining experience. Those are the type of things casuals want to avoid. It doesn't matter if it's solo, group, or raid.
EQ was unfriendly to those that couldnt commit to large time blocks, ill give you that. I would never really call it a draining experience though. I had lots of 4 hour 'grind' sessions, but the game allowed you to be laid back, the down time helped with that. I get far more drained doing a stupid LFR run in WoW where i have to mindlessly click for 8 minutes to kill a boss that requires little to no brainpower.
EQ in many ways was a far more relaxing game than WoW, and the games WoW inspired. Take a look at Wildstar, youll have a seizure playing that game. All kinds of shit thrown at you on your UI with a quest here and a challenge there, red and green circles on the ground everywhere, constant motion...ugh.
EQ you could relax and let the bard do all the clicking, but you did want to be prepared because an extra mob meant the shit was hitting the fan and you would have to use your abilities to mitigate the disaster...and then you could go back to a casual pace.
The reason why so many games lack longevity is because most things are handed to you, you get geared by doing simple solo content that requires zero effort which render group content redundant and make it really easy to reach cap within a month. Once you hit level cap you enter quick dungeons that throw gear on you. Once you finished dungeons you enter raids where gear is thrown on you. Some games even make it so you can choose how hard the content will be.
The other problem is that games are so similar that experienced mmorpg players will know how to play before they even set their foot inside the game. Leveling is a learning curve we already did meaning that time needed to reach cap is halved compared to how it was when we were new to the genre. We know how to play dungeon content. We know how to organize raids. We even organized guilds before we started to play.
Its shallow games that are the real problem, not content locust.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Bottom line: 'Casuals' as they were back in the 2000s dont want a stupid treadmill gear grind with a mindless tiered raid/ilevel system. thats what MMORPGs mostly are now.
Its the 'content locusts' that are more to blame. They devour content faster than devs can put it out, so we need things like structured grinds over daily quest repetition and new gear ilevels every raid.
Why would you say that?
For a casual player, MMORPGs aren't raids.
For a casual player, MMORPGs are the solo content prior to hitting max level. (You know, the most casual-friendly content MMORPGs tend to have?)
Casual players aren't even getting to the brutal part of the grind.
But the casuals are the ones who demand access to the raids. Later they want changes: Less mobs/respawns, 3 bosses, 15 minutes runs, and participation currency to buy items they lazy devs and their RNG tool system cheated them out of.
Yer full of shit.
It is my opinion. It is ok to have content for those who want to spend a little bit of time in a game and for those who want to spend a lot of time. If someone can't/won't do the big time sink content, they accept it and not ask for it to be changed just for them. That is my point of view. Doesn't matter if anyone doesn't like it.
No...it's because you are full of shit
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
The casuals just say: "We rule your games, because we are those who PAY for those games". Actually, those "hardcores" should be glad developers keep on adding hard/heroic/mythic modes for them.
Sorry hard to tell if sarcasm or......
I highly doubt casuals make up any form of real revenue other than on newly launched games and casual orientated games. Casuals play little and pay little, usually just bouncing from one game to the next looking for that sweet spot of little effort and big rewards...before being distracted by the next shiny object and moving on.
Hardcores remain, they play they pay and they participate in how the game develops, because they have an interest in it. How many casual "whales" do you think f2p games have? By definition a hardcore player will spend more money, because they need more things, play more, get more levels and need more stimulus.
You are completely wrong here.
Being 'casual' has absolutely NOTHING to do with your play time. You can be casual and play 40+ hours a day, just as you can be hardcore and only log in for raids and to prepare for raids.
If you are looking at an eastern p2w model like nexon games, then sure, its the hardcore that buys the most. but if you are looking at western games...you think the hardcore players are the ones buying the sparkle ponies when they can just show off their mythic raid mount instead? You think its the hardcore buying all the housing fluff that dominates the eq2 store?
And finally:
CASUALS (in general) DO NOT WANT LITTLE EFFORT AND BIG REWARDS You have the wrong set of players there. Casuals do often want rewards to match their effort (which is often substantial, just in different ways than raiding), which very few games do a good job of delivering on.
I would argue against that logic. Someone who invests large quantities of their time in something is hardcore weather they are just soloing or not IMO. When I played EQ it was almost like a job for me. I soloed most of the time and invested an insane amount of time into leveling up and exploring the different areas of the game. It was a fairly exhausting experience even though it was fun. Someone who invests small amounts of time into something is not hard core even they are an endgame raider IMO. It's more like a hobby and that's what most MMOs are to people now. They don't really take much out of you because you don't really need to invest much.
I was never once considered hardcore in EQ, EQ2, or WoW and I had phases of my life where I was a 'no lifer' who would play 40+ hours a week. Its a mind set, not a time played thing.
There are definitely some people that want to be hardcore but can't invest the time some games require, but you could play 16 hours a day and still be casual. Its all in how you approach your time.
Your definition of casual may be different, but when people say the majority of people that play MMORPGs are casuals that doesnt mean the majority of people only play a couple times a week, it means the majority of players arent concerned with min/maxing, getting the fastest exp possible, and killing raid bosses on the highest difficulty when they are still current. Hardcore people try to beat the game, casuals just want to enjoy it.
Lol, that's like saying "I'm just a bit of a fan of Star Trek" while you have a closet full of costumes, toys, the movies, etc. They aren't the same thing. You aren't a casual player if you spend as much time on a game as a 40 hour job no matter what YOU are trying to redefine the word to mean. You are also not a casual player if you manage to get to the end of an MMO in a week. You don't get to say "That depends on what your definition of the word is is" like President Clinton long ago. You don't get to redefine the word casual just because you don't like the meaning behind it.
If you google it, you can find hundreds if not thousands of links that all talk about "its the amount of time you play and the intensity of your dedication to it". A casual gamer is not going to spend 12 hours on a raid every weekend (or more). Casual gamers spend maybe a couple hours a night on it, likely less. Even if you do eventually reach the end of the game, it's going to take you alot longer than it would a hardcore gamer or the average gamer.
-I- am a casual gamer. I usually play an hour or two a night or less. Sometimes I play a bit more on the weekend but I have a life. A family. A job. Sometimes all I really want to binge watch Xena or something after working with the public all week.
Lol, that's like saying "I'm just a bit of a fan of Star Trek" while you have a closet full of costumes, toys, the movies, etc. They aren't the same thing. You aren't a casual player if you spend as much time on a game as a 40 hour job no matter what YOU are trying to redefine the word to mean. You are also not a casual player if you manage to get to the end of an MMO in a week. You don't get to say "That depends on what your definition of the word is is" like President Clinton long ago. You don't get to redefine the word casual just because you don't like the meaning behind it.
If you google it, you can find hundreds if not thousands of links that all talk about "its the amount of time you play and the intensity of your dedication to it". A casual gamer is not going to spend 12 hours on a raid every weekend (or more). Casual gamers spend maybe a couple hours a night on it, likely less. Even if you do eventually reach the end of the game, it's going to take you alot longer than it would a hardcore gamer or the average gamer.
-I- am a casual gamer. I usually play an hour or two a night or less. Sometimes I play a bit more on the weekend but I have a life. A family. A job. Sometimes all I really want to binge watch Xena or something after working with the public all week.
This is from 16 years of mmorpg experience, all of them in guilds that were advertised as casual guilds.
casual gamer =/= 'casual' in how its been used since the early days of MMORPGs. Ive always seen it used as an intensity measurement, not a time measurement. i would never consider the guy that plays 3 nights a week in WoW with a min/maxed spec doing raids casual while the guy that plays 7 days a week alt hopping and soloing old raids for transmogs hardcore.
You cant be hardcore without the intensity mindset. but you can be hardcore without excessive time
If you were able to get to max level in, say, Burning crusade in a week you were probably not a casual. It was doable, but it would take a drive to not experience content but instead to take the fastest path.
Warlords of Draenor, on the other hand, was super easy to reach max level in a couple nights. Especially considering you got lots of exp for exploration (finding the treasures was huge exp). the questing was so confined and the exp was thrown at you so fast it was impossible not to level fast.
If you spend a lot of time in any one game you arecloser to the hardcore end of the spectrum then the casual. Yes they are attitudes but casuals don't spend a lot if time in a game wile hardcore players do.
Post edited by VengeSunsoar on
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
When viewing people as either casual or hardcore I always think of two factors:
-Attitude -Timescale
I don't believe you can be considered hardcore without the attitude. This is your approach to gaming, the desire to really understand the whole game, all the mechanics and to "be the best". Being the best might not be down to best player on the server, but certainly being the best you can be within your own limits. For example, I have a hardcore attitude to gaming - I try to full understand all the mechanics of any game I'm playing and then try to optimise my gametime / character builds etc so that, for my preferred style of gameplay, I'm the best I can be.
On timescale, I believe this is less important. You may have a hardcore timescale to your gaming (40+hrs per week) but if the attitude isn't there, you are still a casual gamer. Likewise, if you have a hardcore attitude on a casual timescale, you can still be considered hardcore (though, I generally refer to these people as semi-hardcore).
The final proviso I I like to think about is ability to beat the content. If you aren't at least attempting to beat the hardest content in the game or if you don't have the ability to beat it, then I don't think you can call yourself hardcore. I know MMO players who've played games from launch, shoved 30-40hrs per week into the game but due to their attitude, will never be able to beat the hardest content. They don't try to learn the mechanics, they just consume content, so as a result when they hit the hardest content they don't have the understanding of the game to be able to beat it. These people aren't hardcore.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
As someone who says casuals ruined the genre I'll also say that their is different definition on what casuals are. I see hardcore players as those who will grind endless hours to become the best there is in whatever they are going for, normal players which some call casuals as those who just kind of do their own thing slowly playing the game and going with the flow but often not willing to grind for endless hours, and then what we have come to term as *casuals* which isn't really a fair word for it but they are the players who want to play whatever they want but also want immediate rewards and want access to that top stuff and hard stuff w/o much work involved. They play like normal players but expect the rewards the hardcore players get and they demand access to it all immediately.
I think they got called casuals because way back they were the guys who showed up occasionally for raids usually at the last moment also. Yet they expected to be able to compete with the raiders who showed up every day and stayed for the entire raid for the best gear that those hardcore have been waiting weeks and months for. Those were what we called casuals and they usually just got the leftovers and they complained about old systems like DkP that rewarded hardcore players over *casuals*.
Bottom line: 'Casuals' as they were back in the 2000s dont want a stupid treadmill gear grind with a mindless tiered raid/ilevel system. thats what MMORPGs mostly are now.
Its the 'content locusts' that are more to blame. They devour content faster than devs can put it out, so we need things like structured grinds over daily quest repetition and new gear ilevels every raid.
Why would you say that?
For a casual player, MMORPGs aren't raids.
For a casual player, MMORPGs are the solo content prior to hitting max level. (You know, the most casual-friendly content MMORPGs tend to have?)
Casual players aren't even getting to the brutal part of the grind.
But the casuals are the ones who demand access to the raids. Later they want changes: Less mobs/respawns, 3 bosses, 15 minutes runs, and participation currency to buy items they lazy devs and their RNG tool system cheated them out of.
I don't think the casuals haedemanded access to raids, i think, at least in respect to games like WOW, that they, Blizzard, deliberately lowered the bar to raids in an effort to draw the casuals in, who were for the most part, totally ignoring raids, while doing the dungeons. Blizzard wanted the casuals to get into the game more, i dont know if they succeeded, but i woudnt say it was becaues the casuals demanded access to raids in the first place. ps, i hate typeing on a white on white background... aaarrggh.
Theres nothing wrong with casuals according to the normal definition: players who really enjoy a game but cannot play it as often as others.
The problem is the design of games to attract casual fans - those who have only a passing interest. By doing this they are creating games that are nothing but a mish mash of ideas and attractive to those who do not want to devote any real time to the game, leaving all the real fans with a dirth of meaningful and challenging content.
This was the point of the OP and the video, not this semantics debate that the thread deteriorated into by non-readers (and those who didn't watch the video).
Bottom line: 'Casuals' as they were back in the 2000s dont want a stupid treadmill gear grind with a mindless tiered raid/ilevel system. thats what MMORPGs mostly are now.
Its the 'content locusts' that are more to blame. They devour content faster than devs can put it out, so we need things like structured grinds over daily quest repetition and new gear ilevels every raid.
Why would you say that?
For a casual player, MMORPGs aren't raids.
For a casual player, MMORPGs are the solo content prior to hitting max level. (You know, the most casual-friendly content MMORPGs tend to have?)
Casual players aren't even getting to the brutal part of the grind.
But the casuals are the ones who demand access to the raids. Later they want changes: Less mobs/respawns, 3 bosses, 15 minutes runs, and participation currency to buy items they lazy devs and their RNG tool system cheated them out of.
I don't think the casuals haedemanded access to raids, i think, at least in respect to games like WOW, that they, Blizzard, deliberately lowered the bar to raids in an effort to draw the casuals in, who were for the most part, totally ignoring raids, while doing the dungeons. Blizzard wanted the casuals to get into the game more, i dont know if they succeeded, but i woudnt say it was becaues the casuals demanded access to raids in the first place. ps, i hate typeing on a white on white background... aaarrggh.
LFR makes sense. Not just for casuals, either. Remeber that a single-digit percentage of people actually complete regular raids and a fraction of a percentage of people actually complete the highest level of raids.
Think about it, you've spent hundreds of hours grinding through this game and the climax IS!!!!!! You can't finish the story line and have to resort to watching the cutscene on YouTube. Fuck yeah!!! That is why I buy games!! /sarcasm
If I remember correctly, and there is probably a site that would tell you definitively, but something like over 50% of the population completed LFR content. There were also increases in Normal raid completion (up to like 15% completed or something), Heroic was like 1% and Mythic was like 0.25%
In theory, net result is that you have more players engaged and interested in the game. The actual result is that you probably have people playing through an expansion, completing it, and moving on. I think that the added box sales from casuals probably outweighs the other options. There are definitely some features I'd like to have back, like my skill tree, but if people somehow believe they had no part in those types of changes, they're crazy. Case in point, the so-called "hardcore" players created all these fancy tools which, essentially, boiled each class down into 2 or 3 "viable" builds. On top of that, should someone NOT conform to one of said "viable" builds, they will immediately be kicked from the group. TADA!!!! Congrats l33t players! You broke the game!
Casual players also like group content and maybe even lower tier raids. I don't know where this asinine notion is that casual players just want to solo and pet level 1 critters all day. I led 10 man raid during wotlk. We made it to Yogg Saron 10 man normal. Got halfway through ICC. But outside of raiding the game became a drag. Do the daily dungeon run. do icecrown dailies. log in, check things off, log out. We didn't want to push ourselves for hard mode ulduar or try to recruit for 25 raids, but we also had no content to do outside of raids that was rewarding. People act like Cataclysm was the turning point in WoW's popularity, but it was really the latter portion of wotlk where people grew impatient and started leaving. Except the hardcore, because they were focused on some great raids at the time.
But to your point... The 'content locusts' take content that might take a casual player a month to do and do it in 3 days. then they will sit and demand more content. So to pacify them the daily grind is born. Also, they are given a new tier of gear to work towards, only slightly better than their current gear. it is more cost efficient to make things like daily grinds.
You're just mixed up about "casual" is all. At the point where you hit any significant grind in WOW you've already graduated from the quick/easy casual content to the content which is designed for more hardcore players. (And if that's too grey-area, keep in mind that while raiding you're scheduling pre-determined time slots out of your schedule, for a videogame.)
But yes, casuals are fine with group play and GW2 World Event style raids (which aren't raids at all in the classic sense, but just a random group of people contributing towards the same goal.)
Casuals by definition are not content locusts. They simply don't play enough to consume content faster than it's made. They're the players who are still gradually plinking their way to max level 2 years after an expansion releases. Periodically someone here on the forums even admits to never having achieved max level in WOW in spite of "playing it for a long time" (though the weirdest part of that isn't that it happened -- it probably happens much more often than we see -- but that it happened with a player who was simultaneously that casual and yet hardcore enough to come into a forum to chat about MMORPGs.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Personally I think it's the hardcore who are hurting MMOs.
I don't think it really matters tbh, neither type of player hurts the game, if anything, MMO's rely on casuals as they make up the vast majority of player types in MMO's anyway, the more hardcore players have agendas that rarely intersect those of a more casual nature except perhaps in passing.
But the casuals are the ones who demand access to the raids. Later they want changes: Less mobs/respawns, 3 bosses, 15 minutes runs, and participation currency to buy items they lazy devs and their RNG tool system cheated them out of.
Well
Those players aren't really all that casual. One isn't a particularly casual player if they're posting on forums and progressed enough to consider raiding.
It does make sense to spend 80% of your time improving the game for 80% of players (or at least the 20% of players who might represent 80% of the revenue your game makes.) It doesn't make sense to make raiding excessively closed so that only a tiny minority of the minority of endgame players can see it.
It does make sense to fit into players' lives by portioning content into bite-sized 15-minute pieces (since nothing stops players from eating all eight 15-minute pieces of the raid in a row.) It doesn't make sense to require 2-6 hours of continuous gameplay (since players would simply choose not to play that game as a result of it not fitting into their lives.)
It makes sense from a player's perspective that beating a boss ~3 times proves a consistent mastery over that boss. Also it makes sense from a developer's perspective that content is finite, and you need some way to portion out that content (RNG loot drops are one way to get players to repeat content.) These two factors are in tension with one another, but obviously the more content a game has the less it has to arbitrarily stretch out that content, and that's better for a game. This relates to the participation currency you mention, showing how it's only actually bad for a game if it causes many players to easily reach the end of gear progression (I haven't seen a game where that was true though.)
It does make sense to vary the types of challenges a game offers. It doesn't make sense to imply a game should always rely on the same challenge (like implying there's something wrong with players asking for the removal of mob respawn -- respawn is only one type of challenge, and it's fine especially in a raid context for you not to have to re-fight mobs to excess repetition.)
So (a) these players aren't necessarily casuals, (b) making a demand isn't the same thing as developers listening and acting upon those demands, and (c) the specific demands mentioned aren't automatically good or bad in isolation (with the exception of bite-sized session length, which is predominantly good.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Black Desert and Archeage are examples of dumbed down games with the purpose of trying to make everyone happy. i'm still looking for another Lineage successor.
Theres nothing wrong with casuals according to the normal definition: players who really enjoy a game but cannot play it as often as others.
The problem is the design of games to attract casual fans - those who have only a passing interest. By doing this they are creating games that are nothing but a mish mash of ideas and attractive to those who do not want to devote any real time to the game, leaving all the real fans with a dirth of meaningful and challenging content.
This was the point of the OP and the video, not this semantics debate that the thread deteriorated into by non-readers (and those who didn't watch the video).
You will often see things like 'casuals make up the majority of MMORPG players' thrown around, and those people have nothing to do with the 'casuals' that this thread is about.
And it is a problem that developers go for this segment, because they don't last. Maybe its a F2P thing, they might drop a few bucks in the cash shop before moving on? I have no clue.
The traditional casual though, the one who doesnt want to do hard mode raids or timed dungeon runs or race to max level yet still plays several days a week or more...This is the person that makes up the majority of the player base. And modern MMORPGs do a terrible job with this type of player.
I'll say again. I really think the meaning of what *casual* started off as is the same as what its used as now. *Casuals* back in WoW classic at least on my server were really considered *casual raiders* but we just called them the casuals. They were the guys who would show up for 1 or MAYBE 2 raids a week when the guild was raiding 5 days a week. They were the ones complaining every-time a new boss was downed because they didn't get to roll on loot because of systems like DkP and such which rewarded the players who showed up for every raid and stayed for the entire raid time. They were the same type complaining they should be able to get everything at the same rate as everyone else. They also existed in PvP complaining that casual PvPers couldn't ever attain the top ranks needed for the best PvP gear.
They weren't the real casuals who just took their time and didn't play much but had fun doing whatever they were doing. They were complainers thinking just because they paid their sub they should have everything everyone else had w/o putting in the same effort. But I think we got to call them *casuals* as a nicer way of putting it which in many ways mixed them up with the casual players.
And boy could those *casuals* scream on the forums and ingame on everything isn't fair because they didn't get this and they can't get that. My guild booted so many of them back in the day because all they would do is create infighting and drama.
Cater to casuals, business choice pure and simple. There are more casual players than hardcore. Which means that quality of game suffers. I believe it's possible to create quality content for what I like to call permanent casuals. Those people who play everyday but have no friends type of people so don't get to experience end game group content despite being an active daily players. This makes up a noticeable portion of modern day MMORPGs despite the whole point of the genre is to experience it with friends and guildmates. So, it's really the devs who make the games which are ruining the games themself and they keep doing it because the players keep playing it.
I'll say again. I really think the meaning of what *casual* started off as is the same as what its used as now. *Casuals* back in WoW classic at least on my server were really considered *casual raiders* but we just called them the casuals. They were the guys who would show up for 1 or MAYBE 2 raids a week when the guild was raiding 5 days a week. They were the ones complaining every-time a new boss was downed because they didn't get to roll on loot because of systems like DkP and such which rewarded the players who showed up for every raid and stayed for the entire raid time. They were the same type complaining they should be able to get everything at the same rate as everyone else. They also existed in PvP complaining that casual PvPers couldn't ever attain the top ranks needed for the best PvP gear.
They weren't the real casuals who just took their time and didn't play much but had fun doing whatever they were doing. They were complainers thinking just because they paid their sub they should have everything everyone else had w/o putting in the same effort. But I think we got to call them *casuals* as a nicer way of putting it which in many ways mixed them up with the casual players.
And boy could those *casuals* scream on the forums and ingame on everything isn't fair because they didn't get this and they can't get that. My guild booted so many of them back in the day because all they would do is create infighting and drama.
Right this walks through examples of why casual has always been a relative term. The person playing 40 hours a week isn't casual just because they're standing next to the player playing 60 hours a week -- but inevitably somebody's going to call him that (either themself, or the 60hr player, or some onlooker.)
As for the complaints, a non-zero number of people make just about every complaint imaginable on any given topic. And it's a little dangerous to mention their complaints alongside legitimate ones, as people are notoriously bad at understanding how irrelevant such complaints are (I'm reminded of John Oliver's climate change bit, especially the end with the statistically representative groups arguing.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Content is bad because content is used to level. This means you have filler content, easy content based on the lowest skill level and content being used as a roadblock in an almost negative way. It's not causals or hardcores fault. It's just a design flaw in 100% themepark games.
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A game like EQ was less concerned with a specific storyline. Quarm wasnt thrown in your face the second you stepped into Plane of Disease. But Arthas is thrown in your face all over the place during WOTLK and heavily tied into the solo experience. And then its like 'hey, I hope you enjoyed the first 49 chapters, but you cant see the final chapter 50'. So yes, people wanted to see the content.
Rift, for all the shit I like to give that game, had a good solution to this with chronicles. Raid finder on paper isnt a bad idea, but in execution its a mess. Its cool seeing the story, but the gameplay doesnt work. Putting 5 strangers together into a dungeon sort of works. Putting 25 strangers together into a raid doesnt really work in practice.
The less trash/less RNG comes from the fact that the only content is the raids. And this comes from the hardcores moreso than the casuals, as the casuals arent typically as obsessed with gearing in a hurry. But when you are doing the same wing for the 10th time in 10 weeks the trash gets old to everyone. the culprit here is the one tier at a time model. In EQ's prime you had a range of zones-for instance the 'tier' before Plane of Time consisted of four zones you could rotate. And it wasnt a linear slog through each one (although PoTime was, but the trash i dont remember being that bad in that zone...although i never cleared it until during OoW 2 or 3 expansions later). hell it was glorious for the casual raiders...you would typically have something like the end zone from three expansions ago, high end zones from 2, medium zones from one prior, and early zones form the current expansion, all with worthy targets and gear upgrades.
It all comes down to not having enough content for anyone. So no one is really happy and all sides end up bitching. Yet somehow this wotlk model keeps getting copied.
EQ in many ways was a far more relaxing game than WoW, and the games WoW inspired. Take a look at Wildstar, youll have a seizure playing that game. All kinds of shit thrown at you on your UI with a quest here and a challenge there, red and green circles on the ground everywhere, constant motion...ugh.
EQ you could relax and let the bard do all the clicking, but you did want to be prepared because an extra mob meant the shit was hitting the fan and you would have to use your abilities to mitigate the disaster...and then you could go back to a casual pace.
The reason why so many games lack longevity is because most things are handed to you, you get geared by doing simple solo content that requires zero effort which render group content redundant and make it really easy to reach cap within a month. Once you hit level cap you enter quick dungeons that throw gear on you. Once you finished dungeons you enter raids where gear is thrown on you. Some games even make it so you can choose how hard the content will be.
The other problem is that games are so similar that experienced mmorpg players will know how to play before they even set their foot inside the game. Leveling is a learning curve we already did meaning that time needed to reach cap is halved compared to how it was when we were new to the genre. We know how to play dungeon content. We know how to organize raids. We even organized guilds before we started to play.
Its shallow games that are the real problem, not content locust.
They compensate by putting things behind RNG/pay walls or extreme time walls to compensate.
Time has proven this is not the answer.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Definition from Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Casual player
From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casual_game
If you google it, you can find hundreds if not thousands of links that all talk about "its the amount of time you play and the intensity of your dedication to it". A casual gamer is not going to spend 12 hours on a raid every weekend (or more). Casual gamers spend maybe a couple hours a night on it, likely less. Even if you do eventually reach the end of the game, it's going to take you alot longer than it would a hardcore gamer or the average gamer.
-I- am a casual gamer. I usually play an hour or two a night or less. Sometimes I play a bit more on the weekend but I have a life. A family. A job. Sometimes all I really want to binge watch Xena or something after working with the public all week.
casual gamer =/= 'casual' in how its been used since the early days of MMORPGs. Ive always seen it used as an intensity measurement, not a time measurement. i would never consider the guy that plays 3 nights a week in WoW with a min/maxed spec doing raids casual while the guy that plays 7 days a week alt hopping and soloing old raids for transmogs hardcore.
You cant be hardcore without the intensity mindset. but you can be hardcore without excessive time
If you were able to get to max level in, say, Burning crusade in a week you were probably not a casual. It was doable, but it would take a drive to not experience content but instead to take the fastest path.
Warlords of Draenor, on the other hand, was super easy to reach max level in a couple nights. Especially considering you got lots of exp for exploration (finding the treasures was huge exp). the questing was so confined and the exp was thrown at you so fast it was impossible not to level fast.
-Attitude
-Timescale
I don't believe you can be considered hardcore without the attitude. This is your approach to gaming, the desire to really understand the whole game, all the mechanics and to "be the best". Being the best might not be down to best player on the server, but certainly being the best you can be within your own limits. For example, I have a hardcore attitude to gaming - I try to full understand all the mechanics of any game I'm playing and then try to optimise my gametime / character builds etc so that, for my preferred style of gameplay, I'm the best I can be.
On timescale, I believe this is less important. You may have a hardcore timescale to your gaming (40+hrs per week) but if the attitude isn't there, you are still a casual gamer. Likewise, if you have a hardcore attitude on a casual timescale, you can still be considered hardcore (though, I generally refer to these people as semi-hardcore).
The final proviso I I like to think about is ability to beat the content. If you aren't at least attempting to beat the hardest content in the game or if you don't have the ability to beat it, then I don't think you can call yourself hardcore. I know MMO players who've played games from launch, shoved 30-40hrs per week into the game but due to their attitude, will never be able to beat the hardest content. They don't try to learn the mechanics, they just consume content, so as a result when they hit the hardest content they don't have the understanding of the game to be able to beat it. These people aren't hardcore.
I think they got called casuals because way back they were the guys who showed up occasionally for raids usually at the last moment also. Yet they expected to be able to compete with the raiders who showed up every day and stayed for the entire raid for the best gear that those hardcore have been waiting weeks and months for. Those were what we called casuals and they usually just got the leftovers and they complained about old systems like DkP that rewarded hardcore players over *casuals*.
The problem is the design of games to attract casual fans - those who have only a passing interest. By doing this they are creating games that are nothing but a mish mash of ideas and attractive to those who do not want to devote any real time to the game, leaving all the real fans with a dirth of meaningful and challenging content.
This was the point of the OP and the video, not this semantics debate that the thread deteriorated into by non-readers (and those who didn't watch the video).
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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But yes, casuals are fine with group play and GW2 World Event style raids (which aren't raids at all in the classic sense, but just a random group of people contributing towards the same goal.)
Casuals by definition are not content locusts. They simply don't play enough to consume content faster than it's made. They're the players who are still gradually plinking their way to max level 2 years after an expansion releases. Periodically someone here on the forums even admits to never having achieved max level in WOW in spite of "playing it for a long time" (though the weirdest part of that isn't that it happened -- it probably happens much more often than we see -- but that it happened with a player who was simultaneously that casual and yet hardcore enough to come into a forum to chat about MMORPGs.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
- Those players aren't really all that casual. One isn't a particularly casual player if they're posting on forums and progressed enough to consider raiding.
- It does make sense to spend 80% of your time improving the game for 80% of players (or at least the 20% of players who might represent 80% of the revenue your game makes.) It doesn't make sense to make raiding excessively closed so that only a tiny minority of the minority of endgame players can see it.
- It does make sense to fit into players' lives by portioning content into bite-sized 15-minute pieces (since nothing stops players from eating all eight 15-minute pieces of the raid in a row.) It doesn't make sense to require 2-6 hours of continuous gameplay (since players would simply choose not to play that game as a result of it not fitting into their lives.)
- It makes sense from a player's perspective that beating a boss ~3 times proves a consistent mastery over that boss. Also it makes sense from a developer's perspective that content is finite, and you need some way to portion out that content (RNG loot drops are one way to get players to repeat content.) These two factors are in tension with one another, but obviously the more content a game has the less it has to arbitrarily stretch out that content, and that's better for a game. This relates to the participation currency you mention, showing how it's only actually bad for a game if it causes many players to easily reach the end of gear progression (I haven't seen a game where that was true though.)
- It does make sense to vary the types of challenges a game offers. It doesn't make sense to imply a game should always rely on the same challenge (like implying there's something wrong with players asking for the removal of mob respawn -- respawn is only one type of challenge, and it's fine especially in a raid context for you not to have to re-fight mobs to excess repetition.)
So (a) these players aren't necessarily casuals, (b) making a demand isn't the same thing as developers listening and acting upon those demands, and (c) the specific demands mentioned aren't automatically good or bad in isolation (with the exception of bite-sized session length, which is predominantly good.)"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And it is a problem that developers go for this segment, because they don't last. Maybe its a F2P thing, they might drop a few bucks in the cash shop before moving on? I have no clue.
The traditional casual though, the one who doesnt want to do hard mode raids or timed dungeon runs or race to max level yet still plays several days a week or more...This is the person that makes up the majority of the player base. And modern MMORPGs do a terrible job with this type of player.
They weren't the real casuals who just took their time and didn't play much but had fun doing whatever they were doing. They were complainers thinking just because they paid their sub they should have everything everyone else had w/o putting in the same effort. But I think we got to call them *casuals* as a nicer way of putting it which in many ways mixed them up with the casual players.
And boy could those *casuals* scream on the forums and ingame on everything isn't fair because they didn't get this and they can't get that. My guild booted so many of them back in the day because all they would do is create infighting and drama.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Any new insights to be gleaned in this thread that were not in the tens of thousands of previous threads?
As for the complaints, a non-zero number of people make just about every complaint imaginable on any given topic. And it's a little dangerous to mention their complaints alongside legitimate ones, as people are notoriously bad at understanding how irrelevant such complaints are (I'm reminded of John Oliver's climate change bit, especially the end with the statistically representative groups arguing.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver