MMORPG.com World of Warcaraft Correspondent Robert Duckworth writes this look at Skill vs hardcore and how tiered rewards may not be the wisest move on Blizzard's part.
Casual is to Hardcore, as a Banana is to ...
The arguments between Casual and Hardcore players can touch on almost any facet of the game. It is almost impossible to draw a line anymore with how many players have perceived themselves as more or less based on their personal ideals. Some players can spend eight hours a day and never enter a raid setting, but whether or not that is considered Hardcore is personal opinion. Other players are considered hardcore when they spend less than 12 hours a week, but due to their surroundings and happenstance, are on the near bleeding edge of content. They are not cutting themselves on it and gushing like the top of the top, but they plug along and make larger raid progress in a week than most guilds make in a month. That does not sound Hardcore at all compared to the first example, but many players would like to call themselves such. All this confusion came about due to the stigma associated with various words, and then the impossibility of such a large community agreeing on anything over the internet: Elitist, Hardcore, No Life, Skilled, Basement Dweller, Window Licker, Pro, Casual, Semi-Casual; the list goes on, most of them not the nicest of terms.
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Read Semantics and Tiered Rewards
