Your understanding about hardcore/casual playstyles are a bit obsolete now (by almost 6-7 years), and SWTOR is the proof of that. There was a time when MMOs were not only dominated by hardcore players but they were the only players that played them. Then came WOW and opened the genre to more casual gamers. During this time (up to vanilla, or BC) everyone who was not hardcore was considered casual. But that was around 6 years ago and time passed. During this time the genre opened to even far more "extreme" casual players(casuals by todays standard). This left those early casuals that were(and are still) the masses of players in the middle of the spectrum(so to say). The middle masses WERE casuals before more "extreme" casual player entered into MMOs. And todays playstyles are far from this hardcore-casual differentiation - today the playersbase is more like spectrum. Yes the genre is opening more toward "extreme" casuals to accommodate them but they are not the masses - game developers just want to appeals to all niches and take every possible sub. Today if we can even place labels they are more like - hardcore minority, "competitive" masses and casual minority (the term "competitive" is my pick and probably is not correct). I know that we all tend to think that out playstyle is the most widespread becuse we look at ourself and say something along the lines "I'm ordinary sane guy like most other ppl around so they for sure share my playstyle because its the only sane way to play MMO". But its not always the case. During Guild Summit (March) Bioware released info that AVERAGE swtor player plays close to 5 (FIVE) hours a day. So are you still an average player from the masses? Sure by now the numbers don't look the same. But its just to prove that "modern"/"extreme" casual playstile (call it whatever you like) doesn't appeal to masses and the term casual went far away from the middle to the end of the spectrum. And a lot of casual players still think "casual" means the same as 7 years ago and that they are still the masses. P.S. Sorry for my English but i hope most will get the idea