I don't have a problem with creating a game casuals can play but I hate this new thing of dumbing down the game so theres nothing for the hardcore and casuals can get everything.  We've seen this with World of Warcraft where theres nothing really anymore for the hardcore to differentiate themselves from the casual players. Now everyone can have everything and things like epics arn't special anymore and you miss that sense of omg he's badass. In SWG for example there was so much you could do to make yourselves different and the main reason for that is they didn't spoon feed the content to you and you had to work it out for yourselves. The suprising satistics I found of how few people did the things that I did, even other hardcore players and it made me feel proud. However if the game is too easy and thousands upon thousands of people have done that same thing, then you just don't care about doing anything.

Even in TF2 now they looked at how many people had the unlocked weapons and only a small percentage of players did so they decided to change the system to random so everyone had the chance. I just think thats dumb because the hardcore player has to have something to be different from the rest and if everyone had them then they arn't special anymore.

Why should everyone be able to see everything? Alot of people complain about content they wont see but why should they? I just want a game where the time I put into it makes me different and unique so I can feel happy about my character which is important for an mmorpg.

hmmm.

well just think what really matters in a game. a piece of armor that everyone around you have or the fact that you feel you are much more skilled. you know that and its cool. whats the point of showing off really? are you like 'hey i grinded 24/7 so im better than u'. others would be 'well ok, my son who is ill and skips kindergarten did that a few weeks ago'.

skill can only be shown in real time. most of 'achievements', 'stamps' that you did something is more or less grindable.

in guildwars everyones lvl20 with same looking weapons and armor. no one complains.

You sir need to get a life. Better yet, you sir need to do something outside of video games to make yourself feel special and confident so you don't have to seek so desperately in a fantasy world. But just for the sake of argument, i'll take on all of your argument about the so called problem of letting the casual getting their hands on some loots.

First of, in world of warcraft, even if the casual do get their hands on a few epic. Their epic is no where as good as the one the hardcore able to obtain through constant raiding. The casual epic might give that person plus 100 to spell power. The 10 raid would give 110, and the 25 man raids would give 120, or something like that. The best ingame epics and legendary are all locked inside 25 man raids that require a very large amount of time and effort to aquire. The kind of things that a typical casual player will never able to get and even if he could, he wouldn't have nearly as many as you Mr. Super 1337 hardcore raider would have. In tern even you can understand, the different between casual and raider epic is about 500 to 1000 dps in wow at the time when I quit, so no, they are not the same. Now if you have a problem with the casual having any epic what so ever, then you sir have a bigger problem to worry about and i suggest seeking help from a shrink or a swift kick in the ass. Either would be good.

Now for TF2, as the developer stated. They want EVERYONE to be able to get ALL of the unlock within a reasonable amount of times. Those weapon are not ment to be better. What those weapon ment to do is to give a player a different style to play that class and thus make then entire game more interesting. The problem with the old a achievement is not that the casual can't get them. Anyone that want any of those weapon can unlock them within a day top going into of them achievement farm. The problem with it is that when some new toy released, anyone legitimate player and their red headed step sister debra would play nothing but that class for a straigh week or two will they get all of the unlocks. Furthermore, they don't really bother helping out the team buy choosing a more useful class (god know you don't need to have 10 heavy in a single team) or simple ignore the objective all together and do nothing but attempting to farm for the achievement. This destroy kill the fun for many many people and one of the biggest reason when so many player like me hate when valve announce new unlocks.

Both of your example are not only horrible but totally selfish and for the developer to cater to your need would significantly harm their games.  So simply put, no.  Stop being a prick, and go find something else that make you feel good about yourself.

No one understands what it means to be hardcore anymore. The reason the first hardcore players were hardcore and the reason I am is because... You got to experience things no one else did you got to kill bosses 1/100 people would even see. You would get satisfaction from learning how to decimate the competition with your group. Items mean shit to a real hardcore player its all about the things he accomplished and what he wants to accomplish the items are just there to show what he went through and to get him to the next step he doesn't give a shit.

Originally posted by sazabi

hmmm.

well just think what really matters in a game. a piece of armor that everyone around you have or the fact that you feel you are much more skilled. you know that and its cool. whats the point of showing off really? are you like 'hey i grinded 24/7 so im better than u'. others would be 'well ok, my son who is ill and skips kindergarten did that a few weeks ago'.

skill can only be shown in real time. most of 'achievements', 'stamps' that you did something is more or less grindable.

in guildwars everyones lvl20 with same looking weapons and armor. no one complains.

 

No one complains because people who play this game have probably never notice it? Do you really think people who like challenges would play this game?

I am a casual player looking for a hardcome game, if eveyone has epic weapon then it is no more epic. This is what the two clowns who posted above failed to see.

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

It is important to realise that this great hardcore / casual divide is nonsense why should someone who isnt able to play 24/7 be penalized by only allowing him to see half the games content. A hardcore player gets there first he gets to show off all the shinies way before the casual player can even dream of it.

By all means have alternate ways to get the super equipment, the epic sword of troll castration which is found in the epic treasure pile of the great space hamster (rare raid mob only appears once every leap year). But there should be a equivalant weapon for the quester who cant garauntee to be available at a drop of a hat. Make the epic sword of pointlessness only achievable after a legendary quest involving about 3000 kills hundred rare world finds and a couple of dungeons. This will take forever but for the casual player is doaable.

The hardcore gets a quick kill a mob get a item, the casual has a long drawen out quwest that can and probbaly will take months. Remember a casual player doesnt necessarly mind a long drawen out action but he wants the rewards to be equivalant. to the time sink.

In the long rum both playing styles are valid and both deserve rewards and both deserve to be treated EQUAL. The hardcore player isnt anymore or less deserving than the casual. He just wants to fight the bigger badder bosses for the big rewards the casual player wants to be able to work his way through obstacle after obstacle to get his rewards. Both deserve their rewards and both rewards should be equal.

Just my 2 cents

Gadareth

Hardcore died the day blizzard realised they could make more money out of casuals, few games companies will break that trend, they are in the business of making money, and casuals makes the more. Besides, it is just a game, who wants to devote their life to playing it, most people want a game they can jump into, have fun and jump out of and then get on with real life.

The days of hardcore have come and gone, and they will never be catered for as the forefront of mmo’s again. The new model is family and friend guilds, easy to attain goals, look at wow, it has become more successful the more it has changed over the last year or two, and will continue to grow. If you want hardcore in your life, juggle two jobs and bring up a family, otherwise realise its just a game, and if you don’t like the new style of mmo's then move along to something you do like.
 

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

That is kind of true.  Hardcore player play for the game, the rush to the top.  We mainly do it to be the so we can say we conqure it all, and be the first if possible.  Real hardcore player don't give a rat ass about the gear since it was never really that hard for them to get their hand on them in the first place.  All the hardcore player ever care about is getting to the top, not about who get there after them.  But in order to get to the top in the first place, we do spend a stupid amount of the playing the game in a short period of time.

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

Exactly.  There's no golden rule somewhere that says "hardcore in an MMO must = time-sink".  People just want the unfair advantage that 133t gear provides.  It also allows the crappy devs to focus more on that carrot on a stick rather than interesting, dynamic gameplay or combat.

Bottom line: Should there be ways to differentiate hardcore players and allow them to show off their status?  Yes.  Absolutely!  Does it have to be based around the stats of their gear?  Hell no.  A little thinking outside the box by MMO developers is needed, instead of following the old, tired EQ model of raiding, item treadmills, and time-sinks.

Originally posted by Yamoth

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

 

That is kind of true.  Hardcore player play for the game, the rush to the top.  We mainly do it to be the so we can say we conqure it all, and be the first if possible.  Real hardcore player don't give a rat ass about the gear since it was never really that hard for them to get their hand on them in the first place.  All the hardcore player ever care about is getting to the top, not about who get there after them.  But in order to get to the top in the first place, we do spend a stupid amount of the playing the game in a short period of time.

And that sir is exactly why game companies DO NOT cater to hardcore types. You burn through the content, get bored, and unsub. See the logic?

On a secondary note, Casuals make up the lions share of the market. so companies go where the money is, not the short term player base that gets bored after burning through content fast and quits or unsubs.

Sigh you people dont appear to understand, always trying to rekindle the casual vs hardcore debate thats been debated many times before. 

Edit: spelling

there are plenty  hardcore MMOs out there. they arent AAA titles nor mainstream, stop looking in those like a dork.

game devs arent gonna spend close to $100m making an outstanding hardcores-wet-dream MMO when it will probably have less than 20k subscriptions.

stick to MUDs or indie productions ala DF ,not necessarily DF,but belonging to that same league...

Hmmm, gets hard sometime working out when a terms meaning changes. From the game I played Hardcore wasn't so much set on skill. A casual player could be just as skilled at the game as the hardcore he just coudnt spend the same amount of time ina  single sitting.

I mean look at the so called hardcore guilds they organise and expect therir members to be available x number of hours per day / week at set times. If you miss x number of raids your dropped. Its not skill its all abou the numbers.

I do agree we don't want things to be easy but we do want them to be achievable. If you can't dedicate yourself to more thana couple of hours a night why should you be penalised. shoudnt you be able to achieve in 30 hours worth of 2 hour play. What someone can achieve in a single 5 hour period of continous ?

Hardcore does not mean (or at least didn't) a good player it just means one who is putting in longer hours the hardcore player can and will spend ten hours on a continous attempts to defeat a end mob. This does often mean by the end of his shift hes gotten darn good at that mob. BUT it does not mean that the casual player is worse he to probably knows his character inside and out.

Final note the hardcore achievement focused players are like locousts they descend on a new mmorpg ravage it for all its worth then move on to their next conquest. the casual player is there for the long haul. He takes his time and knows that sooner or later he will get to the top. Doesnt it make sense for the game to be made to actually let him ?

Just my 2 cents

Gadareth

Originally posted by cyan85

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

 

Exactly.  There's no golden rule somewhere that says "hardcore in an MMO must = time-sink".  People just want the unfair advantage that 133t gear provides.  It also allows the crappy devs to focus more on that carrot on a stick rather than interesting, dynamic gameplay or combat.

Bottom line: Should there be ways to differentiate hardcore players and allow them to show off their status?  Yes.  Absolutely!  Does it have to be based around the stats of their gear?  Hell no.  A little thinking outside the box by MMO developers is needed, instead of following the old, tired EQ model of raiding, item treadmills, and time-sinks.

Well games are time sinks and noone said raiding and item treadmills.

In SWG there wasn't raids and stuff like that but the hardcore got the Jedi and the hardcore got all the badges and found the hidden quests. The hardcore had lots of vendors and made lots of money and made friends and experienced things the casual players didn't.

In Planetside the Hardcore were just better players like what happens in online FPS and they were leders of squads and Outfits and they were CR5 where as casual players wouldn't ever get CR5 because it's a big comitment.

The Hardcore got things casual players didn't deserve to get and see what they didn't deserve to see because they didn't invest the time into the game. You have to award players for playing the game and this is where these new casual mmorpgs are failing.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Originally posted by cyan85

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

 

Exactly.  There's no golden rule somewhere that says "hardcore in an MMO must = time-sink".  People just want the unfair advantage that 133t gear provides.  It also allows the crappy devs to focus more on that carrot on a stick rather than interesting, dynamic gameplay or combat.

Bottom line: Should there be ways to differentiate hardcore players and allow them to show off their status?  Yes.  Absolutely!  Does it have to be based around the stats of their gear?  Hell no.  A little thinking outside the box by MMO developers is needed, instead of following the old, tired EQ model of raiding, item treadmills, and time-sinks.

 

Well games are time sinks and noone said raiding and item treadmills.

In SWG there wasn't raids and stuff like that but the hardcore got the Jedi and the hardcore got all the badges and found the hidden quests. The hardcore had lots of vendors and made lots of money and made friends and experienced things the casual players didn't.

In Planetside the Hardcore were just better players like what happens in online FPS and they were leders of squads and Outfits and they were CR5 where as casual players wouldn't ever get CR5 because it's a big comitment.

 

The Hardcore got things casual players didn't deserve to get and see what they didn't deserve to see because they didn't invest the time into the game. You have to award players for playing the game and this is where these new casual mmorpgs are failing.

As i stated above, main stream companies and even a few indi ones will not cater to a smaller player group of the market. Once games drift to the ol "oh you dont put in the time you cant have this" item/achieve etc sets guess what? All the hardcore players wont be enough subs for the game to be successful. And then poof your precious holier than thou game will be in a grave. I have no problems with some player who deems themselves hardcore getting an item in say a week, and I know it will take me months to get. Thats not the problem, If you tell me I cant get said item, I tell you, you wont get any additional sub money from me. This is why I avoid those games that are F2P but offer a mini sub for all of the better stuff.

The so called "Hardcore crowd" cracks me up, reminds me of the DFO fans sometimes in their mindset...

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

I don't have a problem with creating a game casuals can play but I hate this new thing of dumbing down the game so theres nothing for the hardcore and casuals can get everything.  We've seen this with World of Warcraft where theres nothing really anymore for the hardcore to differentiate themselves from the casual players. Now everyone can have everything and things like epics arn't special anymore and you miss that sense of omg he's badass. In SWG for example there was so much you could do to make yourselves different and the main reason for that is they didn't spoon feed the content to you and you had to work it out for yourselves. The suprising satistics I found of how few people did the things that I did, even other hardcore players and it made me feel proud. However if the game is too easy and thousands upon thousands of people have done that same thing, then you just don't care about doing anything.

Even in TF2 now they looked at how many people had the unlocked weapons and only a small percentage of players did so they decided to change the system to random so everyone had the chance. I just think thats dumb because the hardcore player has to have something to be different from the rest and if everyone had them then they arn't special anymore.

Why should everyone be able to see everything? Alot of people complain about content they wont see but why should they? I just want a game where the time I put into it makes me different and unique so I can feel happy about my character which is important for an mmorpg.

Help me out a little here shipmate, what is your definition of “HARDCORE?” I get really confused at some concepts behind a person’s self appointed designation of the term. One person will say that being a hardcore player means you are playing PC games a lot while others indicate that it’s all about how they play. Perhaps I would understand your post better if I had your definition. For example, you state, “We've seen this with World of Warcraft where theres nothing really anymore for the hardcore to differentiate themselves from the casual players.” In this statement casual would be defined by time as in occurring at irregular or infrequent intervals. Then you indicate that you have located some interesting statistics showing few people did, or played the way you did…even other hardcore players, which would indicate a type of play style. I would like to see these statistics too if you’re willing to reference them.
V/R,
Seabeast
 

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

Everyone has their own definition of it. Some feel that being able to grind mobs 24/7 til they reach cap is hardcore. In games like WOW, there is zero skil necessary and zero risk possible, so the only measure of hardcore there is how long someone sits their fat ass in front of the screen. In full loot games, fighting in top gear can be perceived as hardcore if yop gear is somewhat hard to get. In games with permadeath, sometimes simply playing it at all is considered harcore.

It all depends on one's measure of where people stand out surpass the others.

Originally posted by Sortran

Originally posted by Yamoth

Originally posted by galliard1981

I believe you are seriously mistaken what hardcore means. Hardcore is player who is better than majority, not one that spent more time on the game.

To me its great where everybody has easy access to the best items and only skill matters who pwns who. Guild wars being best example of game which allows to show everybody who the leet is. I am not talking about rare armor, which requires only grind, but titles achieved through skilled gameplay, especially pvp titles.

Again,

nolife doesnt equal hardcore

 

That is kind of true.  Hardcore player play for the game, the rush to the top.  We mainly do it to be the so we can say we conqure it all, and be the first if possible.  Real hardcore player don't give a rat ass about the gear since it was never really that hard for them to get their hand on them in the first place.  All the hardcore player ever care about is getting to the top, not about who get there after them.  But in order to get to the top in the first place, we do spend a stupid amount of the playing the game in a short period of time.

 

And that sir is exactly why game companies DO NOT cater to hardcore types. You burn through the content, get bored, and unsub. See the logic?

On a secondary note, Casuals make up the lions share of the market. so companies go where the money is, not the short term player base that gets bored after burning through content fast and quits or unsubs.

Sigh you people dont appear to understand, always trying to rekindle the casual vs hardcore debate thats been debated many times before. 

 

Edit: spelling

Actually I do, carting game difficulty curb on player like me is suicide for a company.  I never said I'm for game that cater to people like me cause of two reason.  First of you already said it, we burn through content too fast and no matter what the developer do, there will alway be people like me if not better than me that will exceed their expectation.   The second important point is that if a developer do make a game that hard, it will alienate too large of a community that they might not make enough money to sustain or put out new content.  So instead of making content catering just to the hardcore, game developer should and they do focus on making it more interesting and entertaining.  The casual player alway make up the bulk of the playerbase and company should spend most of their effort catering to them.  I'll be happy if they just throw us a bone every now and then and most company do.

Back to the point.  Playing the game, beating the boss, and getting the loot should be enough reward for anyone.  I really don't understand why so many people get upset just because someone else able to get it also by some different mean.  Basing your own happiness and enjoyment on what other don't have or can't do is a really messed up way to view things.

Originally posted by Yamoth

That is kind of true.  Hardcore player play for the game, the rush to the top.  We mainly do it to be the so we can say we conqure it all, and be the first if possible.  Real hardcore player don't give a rat ass about the gear since it was never really that hard for them to get their hand on them in the first place.  All the hardcore player ever care about is getting to the top, not about who get there after them.  But in order to get to the top in the first place, we do spend a stupid amount of the playing the game in a short period of time.

No PvE MMO is going to cater to people who skip most of the content so they can grind to top level then cancel their account telling everyone there's no endgame and it's too easy. It's just not in the business plan. PvP centered MMOs on the other hand focus on getting quickly to the endgame consisting of constant player conflict with little other content if any. The hybrid MMOs just seem to get trashed by everyone for having too little content and a weak endgame.  When was the last time you felt you accomplished something by achieving a mid game goal? Like it was worth doing for it's own sake instead of just another waypont to the end? People are discovering in the polarization between the hardcore and the casual the fun has been lost and no one is really satisfied. Remove the grinds, bring back the challenge and the sense of accomplishment, remove the players stratification brought about by the over emphasis on itemization and character power increases with level. It won't happen because our buying patterns drive the development rather than our ideals.