Many discussion and debate is centered on terminology. Thus far, there hasn't been any undisputed definition for what it means to be a casual gamer vs. a hardcore gamer vs. a skilled gamer vs. a veteran gamer. There's aspects that people have put into each category that may apply for another.

I think a casual gamer is someone who logs relatively few consecutive or total hours during any given week due to whatever reason that they are not playing the game. A hardcore game is someone who plays religiously, treating the game as their happy job. I do not equate skill with time logged, and I think that's the root with a lot of negative connotation of the word casual and hardcore. A skilled gamer is someone who is able to maximize the potential of their character, gaining respect as a good player from their fellow teammates as well as their opponents. A veteran gamer is someone who has stayed with the game for a set amount of time (whether it'd be BETA or launch), and it is regardless of how many hours they log on average per week.

In my humble opinion, no player falls into just one box. It's unfair to force that issue, just like all the bashing WoW has got for trying to incorporate all of those types of players into the game. Whether or not they are doing a good job, well, that's not for me to say since I stopped playing about 2 years back.

I will say that from what I've been following up with recent activities in WoW, there are many disgruntled players, and there are still many who rave about the game. Ultimately it comes down to money. As long as there is a "healthy" number (aka giving Blizzard their revenue cow), WoW will continue to its imperfect and quite frankly impossible to perfect way of keeping our eyeballs glued to the computer screen.

Originally posted by Unibrow

The problem is that hardcore players don't feel "epic" anymore. It used to be a status symbol to carry around that T3 armor, you had achieved something that about 2% of the WoW population achieved (can't find the article, will look it up).

Seriously, 2% of WoW players got to complete AQ40 and Naxx. That's not a whole lot. At all. Even if they only had 2mil subscribers then, that's still a very few.

Thus, the devs are trying to open end-game content up to casual players as well as hardcore players. They're giving you different options to acquire the gear. They want more than a handful of people to experience end-game content, more than a handful to take on Arthas when he arrives.

In my book? Not such a bad idea. Just because someone who wears the armor that I wear, but acquired it in a different fashion, doesn't ruin the game for me. As long as they put in the same amount of work that I do for it. Whether that's grinding dailies and heroics over and over again, or painfully gathering mats to craft something of close-to-equal value... not such a big deal to me.

Now, I don't rate myself as hardcore, I'd say I'm casual. But I do consider myself skilled enough, and my guildmates skilled enough, to make it through everything thus far in a relatively short amount of time, acceptable to us all. 10-mans, that is. 25-mans are another story, which we have had limited success with. Although we all pass the gear checks, as a 25-man group, we're not coordinated enough, and a few of us just don't make the DPS cuts. What does that mean? Obviously Blizzard is doing something right with making 25-man content more difficult than 10-man. Obviously, there is still an amount of prestige to be had if you're wearing that armor, but since it looks almost identical to 10-man armor, and armor acquired through tokens, the hardcore crowd is pitching a fit.

Sad, because I think Blizzard is actually doing the RIGHT thing by offering different ways to different people to play a game, and giving people incentives to get that armor to feel like they are capable of the raids that people SHOULD be playing. Just my two cents.

It has become harder to get 'respect' by simply flashing your epic bling.  You can actually tell a lot about a character by studying their achievements but it takes knowledge of the game to interpret things properly.  So the good players still get recognition but only from other players who 'have been there'.  Those who want to be 'worshipped by the masses' are out of luck. 

Originally posted by djFEVA

Many discussion and debate is centered on terminology. Thus far, there hasn't been any undisputed definition for what it means to be a casual gamer vs. a hardcore gamer vs. a skilled gamer vs. a veteran gamer. There's aspects that people have put into each category that may apply for another.

I think a casual gamer is someone who logs relatively few consecutive or total hours during any given week due to whatever reason that they are not playing the game. A hardcore game is someone who plays religiously, treating the game as their happy job. I do not equate skill with time logged, and I think that's the root with a lot of negative connotation of the word casual and hardcore. A skilled gamer is someone who is able to maximize the potential of their character, gaining respect as a good player from their fellow teammates as well as their opponents. A veteran gamer is someone who has stayed with the game for a set amount of time (whether it'd be BETA or launch), and it is regardless of how many hours they log on average per week.

In my humble opinion, no player falls into just one box. It's unfair to force that issue, just like all the bashing WoW has got for trying to incorporate all of those types of players into the game. Whether or not they are doing a good job, well, that's not for me to say since I stopped playing about 2 years back.

I will say that from what I've been following up with recent activities in WoW, there are many disgruntled players, and there are still many who rave about the game. Ultimately it comes down to money. As long as there is a "healthy" number (aka giving Blizzard their revenue cow), WoW will continue to its imperfect and quite frankly impossible to perfect way of keeping our eyeballs glued to the computer screen.

Very nice post! I understand your point and this can be put into many other games as well.
 

But you forgot one category that is slightly important: the incompetent gamer.

These are the players you see in-game making poop and Chuck Norris jokes in a trade chat. These are the players kill stealing your monsters for an important quest you have to do and then laughing at you. These are the players corpse camping you when they are 70 or so levels above you! This is the REAL Problem WoW has with me. I have played many other games and by far WoW has the worst community voice ever; a fat 11 year old spamming "n00b" in your message box as he hammers you to the ground. It's hard to even consider them "Players".

If these changes are in addition to and not replacing then who cares?   Only the jealous/selfish few would care less if they add casual content to the game.  As long as they dont replace or take away the content already there and expected in the game.  Otherwise so what if others dont have to punish themselfs the same as you did?  They should give a badge or something who do complete the more difficult content to be fair.   Like a no whimp badge.   And im sorry I had to laugh at "the good player" doesnt get respect.   Come on man its a mmo.  Its not like were making as much as a tennis pro playing quake or other FPS requiring dead on reflex and hard core practice hours like other sports.   I sure the hell cant compete with that lot and put in more hours than most and I  "get no respect".   Should start a comedy bit but that lines been taken.   Mmo's are a second life to some I understand but expecting respect from a toon for flashing epic bling is taking things a little too far. 

Why should a casual player have similar gear to someone thats not . Whats gone is the investment in a character . Its only a game but its indicative of the I WANT IT NOW over I WANT TO WORK FOR IT mentality . The sort of thing that led to borrowing which led to the credit crunch which led to the global recession . If someone has time and is willing to put in the work they should have superior items , armor and weapons . This does nt happen in WOW anymore . Its why the game has lost its edge and is dull and boring these days . A Cataclysm needs to happen but not just to Warcraft but to Blizzards attitude to the game .Otherwise its just more of the same . A con job .

TOC  is about the only reason to play the game anymore. I don't expect raid quality gear as I  made the choice not to raid as I have a job and kids.  So in the less than 10 hours I get a week it is nice to have something to do that is enjoyable again.

Originally posted by googajoob7

Why should a casual player have similar gear to someone thats not . Whats gone is the investment in a character . Its only a game but its indicative of the I WANT IT NOW over I WANT TO WORK FOR IT mentality . The sort of thing that led to borrowing which led to the credit crunch which led to the global recession . If someone has time and is willing to put in the work they should have superior items , armor and weapons . This does nt happen in WOW anymore . Its why the game has lost its edge and is dull and boring these days . A Cataclysm needs to happen but not just to Warcraft but to Blizzards attitude to the game .Otherwise its just more of the same . A con job .

Exactly..... I'm so tired of hearing that people don't have the time to invest to get good items. Well.. I suggest playing a single player game or not playing at all because I work 12 hours a day and play for 2-4 a day and I still have time to enjoy what I can. The problem is that the casual complainer wants everything to be easy so they can be equal but that's no different than the guy working 4 hours wanting the same pay as me, does that sound right? NO!.

This is an old debate and we all know the outcome these days with MMOs let's make is easy because people are cry babies and don't want a challenge but in the meantime the casuals stay on the forums 24/7. I quit WoW a while back because the end game is pointless and after you have the best gear what's the point to keep playing? More gear? The new expansion is just a new carrot that has more levels to do and the blacksmithing is still pointless and pvp is for what? No goals.

Originally posted by Hives

Originally posted by googajoob7

Why should a casual player have similar gear to someone thats not . Whats gone is the investment in a character . Its only a game but its indicative of the I WANT IT NOW over I WANT TO WORK FOR IT mentality . The sort of thing that led to borrowing which led to the credit crunch which led to the global recession . If someone has time and is willing to put in the work they should have superior items , armor and weapons . This does nt happen in WOW anymore . Its why the game has lost its edge and is dull and boring these days . A Cataclysm needs to happen but not just to Warcraft but to Blizzards attitude to the game .Otherwise its just more of the same . A con job .

 

Exactly..... I'm so tired of hearing that people don't have the time to invest to get good items. Well.. I suggest playing a single player game or not playing at all because I work 12 hours a day and play for 2-4 a day and I still have time to enjoy what I can. The problem is that the casual complainer wants everything to be easy so they can be equal but that's no different than the guy working 4 hours wanting the same pay as me, does that sound right? NO!.

This is an old debate and we all know the outcome these days with MMOs let's make is easy because people are cry babies and don't want a challenge but in the meantime the casuals stay on the forums 24/7. I quit WoW a while back because the end game is pointless and after you have the best gear what's the point to keep playing? More gear? The new expansion is just a new carrot that has more levels to do and the blacksmithing is still pointless and pvp is for what? No goals.

Lol your argument against playing WOW can be applied to every MMO ever made. What is the reason for end game playing if not to get better gear? And to those that state that anyone can get the good epics easily and fast obviously have not played and do not know what they are talking about. It may be relatively easy to get the epics but it is not fast. It takes time to collect the badges to get the gear. And still a casual player will not be able to get the best gear in the game. Legendary Items cannot be gotten in any other way than being a Hardcore player. Then there are the Achievements that award Items that you cannot get unless you are the elite. There are still those weapons and mounts you see people with that inspire aww.  And the new raid dungeon has gear that is better than anything a casual player can get and very few people actually have the gear.

But I guess a few better Items for the hardcore is not enough they have to have everything. They want to be the only ones that see all of the game. Do they pay anymore for the game than anyone else? 

---

Originally posted by gorillaz951
But you forgot one category that is slightly important: the incompetent gamer.
These are the players you see in-game making poop and Chuck Norris jokes in a trade chat. These are the players kill stealing your monsters for an important quest you have to do and then laughing at you. These are the players corpse camping you when they are 70 or so levels above you! This is the REAL Problem WoW has with me. I have played many other games and by far WoW has the worst community voice ever; a fat 11 year old spamming "n00b" in your message box as he hammers you to the ground. It's hard to even consider them "Players".

---

Sounds like you need to get off the PvP servers. The average age of the players goes up at least 10 years going from PvP to PvE and another 2-3 years going to RP PvE.

Come to think of it... What you are talking about has been true for EVERY PvP game I have ever played.

In UO they would camp outside of cities killing every new player who tried to leave the cities.

In Lineage 2, they would walk up to you while you were fighting mobs and hit you over and over to make you weak so the mobs would kill you. If you attacked back them and their 3 buddy's would drop you instantly stealing your loot.

In Eve.... Gods. Just bend over, the kiddies run the freaking show.

I could go on and on. But let me leave it at. PvP attracts far more kids who want to take out their anger on people then it attracts adults looking for a good fight.

Originally posted by googajoob7

Why should a casual player have similar gear to someone thats not . Whats gone is the investment in a character . Its only a game but its indicative of the I WANT IT NOW over I WANT TO WORK FOR IT mentality . The sort of thing that led to borrowing which led to the credit crunch which led to the global recession . If someone has time and is willing to put in the work they should have superior items , armor and weapons . This does nt happen in WOW anymore . Its why the game has lost its edge and is dull and boring these days . A Cataclysm needs to happen but not just to Warcraft but to Blizzards attitude to the game .Otherwise its just more of the same . A con job .

Humbug.  The truly competive people still get the best gear and the respect for being on the cutting edge.  The problem is that the players realized that the 'hardcore' did not really put that much more real effort in the game and got massive rewards for stuff that was time-consuming, tedious but not really that challenging. 

WoW has finally turned away from the 'you are what you have' mentality and instead focuses on the 'you are what you do' aspects. 

I think the best part of WoW was and always will be the adventure from 1-50-60-70-80+

As an MMO vet, very few of the end-game instances/raids really had the WOW factor they should have...and I actually enjoy the tongue-in-cheek humor of the game (Linkens sword of mastery, anyone?)  Now there are certainly cases of laugh worthy quest titles and rewards in the newer content...but not nearly as much, or as good, as the earlier stuff.  I can't imagine how much will be removed for cataclysm.

Now, it seems like WoW is trying to cater both to the casual gamer and the power gamer...but failing on both accounts.

But thats how most mmos are...the first expansion blows your mind, then every one thereafter shaves a bit of the fan-base off.

Honestly, it is pointless to have a game that caters only to the long term, hardcore gamers.  Hardcore gamers, while they may spend more individually, are a minority of gamers and casual gamers collectively spend more than the small smattering of hardcore gamers combined.  Good for Blizzard for finally recognizing not everyone games 24/7/365.

I've played off and on for some time now, and I did think for a while that when I last went thru BC, I skipped most of the story.  It was too easy.  I loved it at the time because I was just interested in getting to WOTLK anyway.  But then I realized and still know today, I can just start up another character and take a different route.  That's what I like the best.  I don't see how people get bored unless you really played ever class/race combo.  Get tired of grinding levels?  Go BG.  Tired of getting your butt kicked in 2 vs 2, try out a small raid 10-man.  There seems like there is so much to do and not even enough time for me to even try it.  But maybe that just makes me a "casual" player.

2 cents.

Great another Vanilla vets QQ about WoW being Ez mode, god mmorpg.com must be desperate as hell to post such utter nonsense. WoW has a broad appeal, every time Blizzard adds something for those players who don’t sock poop and live in Mommy’s basement we get Bullshit pieces like this. The bottom line is if you find WoW too easy try uninstalling those 450 face roll add-ons you use, or maybe actually try to run a dungeon without reading every connect the dot walkthrough.

At the end of the day no one gives a fuck that you find something that was created for entertainment unchallenging. If you want a challenge try designing chess programs in Pascal or better yet take your lard ass out of the basement and attempt to walk a mile without keeling over from a heart attack We have had enough of these dumbass post that basically say the same thing…”.I am no longer a special snowflake.”
 

Originally posted by todeswulf

Great another Vanilla vets QQ about WoW being Ez mode, god mmorpg.com must be desperate as hell to post such utter nonsense. WoW has a broad appeal, every time Blizzard adds something for those players who don’t sock poop and live in Mommy’s basement we get Bullshit pieces like this. The bottom line is if you find WoW too easy try uninstalling those 450 face roll add-ons you use, or maybe actually try to run a dungeon without reading every connect the dot walkthrough.

At the end of the day no one gives a fuck that you find something that was created for entertainment unchallenging. If you want a challenge try designing chess programs in Pascal or better yet take your lard ass out of the basement and attempt to walk a mile without keeling over from a heart attack We have had enough of these dumbass post that basically say the same thing…”.I am no longer a special snowflake.”
 

While I don’t necessarily agree with the content, I can respect the pwnage.

Originally posted by todeswulf

Great another Vanilla vets QQ about WoW being Ez mode, god mmorpg.com must be desperate as hell to post such utter nonsense. WoW has a broad appeal, every time Blizzard adds something for those players who don’t sock poop and live in Mommy’s basement we get Bullshit pieces like this. The bottom line is if you find WoW too easy try uninstalling those 450 face roll add-ons you use, or maybe actually try to run a dungeon without reading every connect the dot walkthrough.

At the end of the day no one gives a fuck that you find something that was created for entertainment unchallenging. If you want a challenge try designing chess programs in Pascal or better yet take your lard ass out of the basement and attempt to walk a mile without keeling over from a heart attack We have had enough of these dumbass post that basically say the same thing…”.I am no longer a special snowflake.”
 

and another one of the WotLK kiddie noobs facerolls the keyboard.

If you ever actually worked for anything in your life you know that you feel better when you get something you worked for rather than yelling Mommy this is too hard.

Seriously we need a game that is full of challenge that keeps us working and keeps us playing with something new each day as it takes that long to get through the levels and you learn to play your class right instead of thottbot cookie cutters running around using the same moves as the last tool.

There was a time when having the gear meant you were respected in the game and comments like this are the same as what trade chat is full of now.

I think that the majority of the groaning about WoW is comming from those that think that they are hardcore not those that are hardcore.  I find Blizzards approach interesting, vanilla wow 2-3% of players got to see the highest end content the end of TBC was what i like to call the great epic giveaway with the reduction of difficulty and access to new epics more players got to see the higher difficulty dungeons.  I would venture to say that the vast majority of players never saw anything close to "end game" content in TBC.  Now we have WoLK and each major content update has done some of what xpacs do to the game and this is what i find interesting so now with the argent tournament and heroic ToC and regular ToC you can get roughly uld 10 naxx 25 equivalent gear.  I would venture to say that anyone that needed gear from these instances is an alt or never saw a full clear of naxx 25 or even naxx 10 unless they got a superior pug.  Badges have also been reworked allowing people to get some gear from heroic farming and letting the more casual player attempt uld 10 or maybe 25...would these players ever cut it in a end game raiding guild, probably not considering most of them probably do not play many hours a week.  Blizzards approach is quite logical here they are allowing people that would otherwise never see the inside of most of these instances the gear to attempt them and have a little fun they allow time extensions on raid ID's why do you think that is...so people that otherwise would not have the time in a week to complete an instance have a chance to clear it.  The kicker here is that the people that play a lot but dont cut it for a major raiding guild are not longer vastly superior to the average kid that plays a few hours a week and i am sure that there are more than a few bruised egos.  Access to the most difficult content is now the distinguishing factor not i played a lot for the last year and got some good pugs and i have better gear than most casuals.  Blizzard is raising the bar but they are raising it from the bottom picking up the majority of their player base to allow them access to content that they would otherwise never see and for the most part none of these people will ever see arthas besides on a youtube video.

sorry for the wall of text guess i got carried away with my explination and didnt use many paragraph breaks and such. :p

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Everyone i know likes it.

And it is not as easy as the author has indicated.

My guild has tried TOC 10, and the tank is not geared enough to get through all of it. Just the first boss took us a few tries. It is not undoable but it will take a few weeks/months before even a big fraction of the guilds can have it on farm. And don't forget 25 man & hard mode.

If you read MMO-champion, only TWO guilds in the world have cleared hardmode 25 man TOC. That is a total of 50 players out of 11M. I don't think Blizzard has anything to worry about making the game too easy.

If you go to wow-heroes.com, as of NOW, on my server, calestrasz, there are like only 20 guilds who have clear anything in TOC 10, out of >200. None has cleared everything. ONLY 6 guilds have down any TOC 25 boss.

It will be months before even half of the guilds are having any of these in farm.

 

That isn't challenge, that is just a time sink. Those bosses haven't been taken down not because they are that difficult to beat, but because players haven't grinded enough to get the gear to beat them. I never found any of the raids I did in WoW challenging, the only challenging was grinding enough so that I could have good enough gear to beat the encounter.

The difficulty should be in the encounter, not the time it takes to have enough gear to beat it.

I think the real problem is that every hard core player doesn't have much success in real life(work, studies, girls, etc).

Most of them have nasty jobs with lower wages, working a lot hours per day (8+ or 12 like some people are saying here) and are a 0 at school. I've played in blade's edge and and I've trialed a guild named Fortuna, and there were even a lot of 25+ year old guys that still lived in their parents home and had very trash jobs like carrying bags in airports, some didn't even had a job and where unemployed. And fortuna isn't even an harcore guild, eventough they are on top of the horde guilds on the server.

They always hanged on to mmorpgs to beat the guys that play casual and that normally have more success than them in RL, and to have a chance of being recognised in anything.

Mmorpgs are the easiest way for hard core gamers to have some success in anything without the need to have a good academic profile, or a good reputation at work,  you just need to spend some time in mmorpgs to achieve that (3 to 4 hours per day, 5 days a week). Playing more hours and having tighter raid schedules  than casuals is the only way to beat them.

The problem comes when hard core gamers shout out loud that "their" game is not meant to allow  casual players that pay the same monthly fee as they do to have some success in "their" game and achieve some glory in "their" game. If blizzard listens to hard core gamers, you see casual players leaving and they might be 70% of their playerbase. If they don't, you see hard core gamers cry on forums, but they are just too addicted to leave, mostly because they don't have anything else to  hang on to, and because wow is "their game".

I believe blizzard is getting smarter, and they are opening the game to casual players, but they are leaving the heroic and epic achievements for hardcore gamers. HC gamers just don't like casuals to wear pretty gear, and they cry.