Ethice Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Endgame grind? I don't want the game to end and I don't want to grind either. Nuf said! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieAlteHexe Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) 2 posts above i define what i think is casual and harcore.. its callled reading and it is intensively part of our culture.. learn it Learning to be critcal without being offensive is also part of our culture. Perhaps you might give that some consideration? Edited February 17, 2012 by DieAlteHexe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfab Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I'd say a casual player is one that schedules his gaming around his life, not his life around his gaming. Very much so! Great definition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joonbeams Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I have only about an hour or so to play a day, late at night, maybe 2-3 hours/day on weekends (family, career, hobbies, etc.). I think about the game the remaining 23 hours (hence my presence here). I'm a "casual" player, with a "hardcore" obsession. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coiffio Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 All I know is ever since someone came up with these pointless titles it's become more painful than listening to old chuck norris "facts". Why the distinction? everyone is a gamer, playing a game. Whether you play 5 minutes a day or 5 hours, you're just playing a game. Why did this hobby adopt a system of segregation again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bamajawn Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) I have only about an hour or so to play a day, late at night, maybe 2-3 hours/day on weekends (family, career, hobbies, etc.). I think about the game the remaining 23 hours (hence my presence here). I'm a "casual" player, with a "hardcore" obsession. Interesting points. I play much more than you do (20+ hrs/wk), but I don't think about the game all the time and I certainly don't feel like I'm missing anything when I'm not logged in. However, like you, I spend time here and on other sites researching my characters, tactics, gear, etc. I also love PvP and spend a lot of time in it. Simply put, I have no idea where I fit in the definitions. I would tend towards hardcore, but the elite would consider me a casual. Someone said earlier that it all boils down to whether or not you can play the game with skill and definitions don't matter. I'll play with either group. The only people I avoid playing with are griefers. Edited February 17, 2012 by Bamajawn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SushaBrancaleone Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I have only about an hour or so to play a day, late at night, maybe 2-3 hours/day on weekends (family, career, hobbies, etc.). I think about the game the remaining 23 hours (hence my presence here). I'm a "casual" player, with a "hardcore" obsession. you made me think. now i thinking a HC player could be anyone with any play stile as far as he/she has access to "top level" content. im not familiar with OPs in TOR yet but who ever has access to gear from end game (with end game i mean 16 man OPs in nightmare mode) truely falls under that category HC. it really is the only thing. The definition hard core player i find is more a qualitative one rather than quantitative, meaning that even if u play 6 days a week 8 hours a day if u are not seeing top/end game content (not just HM fp's) u just are a very dedicated casual. you could be in a good guild and log on just for Operations the 2-3 times a week for those 3-4 hours per OP, (that would be 9-12 hours a week) but if you have that very end game gear that most other players dont have they u are a harcore player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vecke Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 This is the best description I can come up with (I posted this on another thread about this a while back). When I was a kid back in the 70s, my parents decided to take up bowling. They loved it. As time passed, they got better and better at it. Eventually, they bowled regularly in tournaments and had a room full of trophies from the tournaments they won. Then, one day, they abruptly stopped bowling. They quit, gave away all their stuff, and never went back. They started playing softball after that. Years later, I asked my dad why they quit bowling. I found it odd, because they were so good at it. The following is what he said to me (to the best of my memory): "When we started we bowled twice a month. We loved it. Every time we made a strike, we'd jump with joy and celebrate. There wasn't any pressure. It was just fun and we loved the feeling of getting that strike. But after a couple years, it changed. We were so good, we didn't celebrate strikes any more. We expected them. Instead, we just got angry when we didn't make a strike. Making a strike was expected, and even a spare was considered a small failure. and if we didn't pick up the spare... well, that was downright unforgivable. We just got so good at it, it wasn't fun anymore. It was just frustrating. We started bowling because it was fun. When it wasn't fun anymore, we moved on." Casuals - while maybe not as good as min/maxers - just like to celebrate the strikes. Not sure if that makes any sense, but it's the best description I could think of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieAlteHexe Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 ...Casuals - while maybe not as good as min/maxers - just like to celebrate the strikes. Not sure if that makes any sense, but it's the best description I could think of. That works perfectly for me, yes. Thanks for posting that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kabjat Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 It's simple. A casual player is a player who plays an MMO like it's a single player game. Which is the vast majority of players. And, no, joining a guild doesn't mean you don't fit this category. I don't care if you're playing it 20 hours a day while never interacting with another soul in game. You're still a casual in my eyes. You're the blight that game developers are obsessed with catering to, while sacrificing the entire original premise behind 'MMO', which was once this bright promise of a virtual online world, and was in the early years. But, we've learned the dark side of the human psyche as "MMOs" stopped intrinsically forcing players to function as members of their given online society, by introducing more and more "solo" content. There is nothing more vile and vicious than an MMO community, and what's even more enlightening is what it says about humanity as a whole: that as soon as we think there are no repercussions for acting in a vile manner, we're going to go ahead and do so. If there was ever a better argument for a police state than MMOs-and the internet in general-I can't think of it. I can only hope real life societies never advance enough that people start to think they don't need anyone else, because the 'community' we see in MMOs is a dark vision of what real life society will become as our technology continues to progress to make us ever increasingly self-sufficient-yet isolated. This is a creatively and eloquently presented assessment. It's also total and complete nonsense to compare REAL LIFE to an ONLINE VIDEO GAME. Blaming 'casuals' who choose to predominantly solo for the decline of MMO communities is absurd. You said yourself that there is nothing more 'vile and vicious' than an MMO community. Has it occurred to you even ONCE that those of us who prefer to solo and AVOID the community do so because we prefer DECENT company yet wish to enjoy the game? No, probably it hasn't, because you have labeled 'solo casuals' a 'blight' that MMO devs cater to.' The idea that you think players should be 'forced' to interact seems to be a common trend among those who share your backward viewpoint. If I want to play this game like a single-player game, then it's my prerogative to do so. If the devs cater to us, maybe it's the job of those of you who want us to 'stop being a blight on the community with our anti-social ways' to give us a good reason to participate. I don't like interacting with people who have horrible attitudes, who insult others, who are impatient and think everyone should have their 'GOGOGO' mindset. I do not like vapid, meaningless conversation while I'm trying to PLAY my game. Yet, to you, I am the problem because I simply choose to sidestep all of that. I am a casual, solo gamer. I have absolutely zero incentive to group up with any of you because experience has shown me MANY times that it's just not worth the aggravation. I get plenty of enjoyment playing by myself and with my husband. To all of you whiners who complain that we are ruining the game, maybe you should do something to make the community more tolerable instead of berating soloers and 'casuals' for our gameplay choices. It's not up to me to change anything. I have never acted like a selfish, foul mouthed jerk in a group. I treat others the way I wish to be treated....in-game (when I encounter anyone) and in real life. I am plenty social in RL. In-game? Not so much. The community makes me sick. For what it's worth, and I know I've already likely hit the TL;DR threshold, I used to be a hardcore gamer...back in WOW. My husband and I both raided like clockwork and set our schedules around raid times. It was what we enjoyed AT THE TIME. I'm long past having ANY desire to do any of that in an MMO setting. I don't ever want guildies, fellow raiders, or online relationships to EVER again get in the way of my priorities in REAL LIFE. That may be fine for some people but it doesn't work for me anymore. It's why I solo in this AWESOME game. TL;DR again: I play in such a way that I will be able to turn the game off at any given moment, no matter what. To me, I CAN stop at any time, and care NOT A BIT if I log out in the middle of the road or in a cantina. To me, that's another definition of casual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GalacticKegger Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Traditionally mmo causaly stop playing before they even reach cap lvl..If I may be so bold as to inquire ... what pray tell would lead you to that conclusion? There is no "casuals not allowed" wall in front of end game, at least I haven't found one. No player who enjoys exploring a game would ever consider building one. Casuals certainly wouldn't lose interest in that aspect of the game unless it's just not fun to play. And the only way they would know that for themselves is to physically engage the content. If this thread is any indication then almost all players (casuals included) are very much interested in engaging cap content on some level. Edited February 17, 2012 by GalacticKegger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mhak Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) In SWTOR's case, a casual is somebody who tells everybody complaining about PvP/lack-of-endgame-content to "stop complaining" or "just don't play if you don't like it." Edited February 17, 2012 by Mhak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vecke Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 It's simple. A casual player is a player who plays an MMO like it's a single player game. Which is the vast majority of players. And, no, joining a guild doesn't mean you don't fit this category. I don't care if you're playing it 20 hours a day while never interacting with another soul in game. You're still a casual in my eyes. You're the blight that game developers are obsessed with catering to, while sacrificing the entire original premise behind 'MMO', which was once this bright promise of a virtual online world, and was in the early years. But, we've learned the dark side of the human psyche as "MMOs" stopped intrinsically forcing players to function as members of their given online society, by introducing more and more "solo" content. There is nothing more vile and vicious than an MMO community, and what's even more enlightening is what it says about humanity as a whole: that as soon as we think there are no repercussions for acting in a vile manner, we're going to go ahead and do so. If there was ever a better argument for a police state than MMOs-and the internet in general-I can't think of it. I can only hope real life societies never advance enough that people start to think they don't need anyone else, because the 'community' we see in MMOs is a dark vision of what real life society will become as our technology continues to progress to make us ever increasingly self-sufficient-yet isolated. I am a very casual player and at least 90% of my playtime has been in groups. I respect your opinion here, but I disagree with pretty much every assertion in this post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieAlteHexe Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Kabjat...well said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
otterscrubber Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Casual players play the game because they want to have fun. They dont grind for Gear or Rank as that ISNT fun. I agree with this. I am married and have a very full time job. I play when I can but I can only commit to 1 night/week. I'm not worried about capping out, I play 4 characters, only one of which is over lvl 21. I have serious alt-itis, but thoroughly enjoy playing my low level characters, seeing the story lines develop, slowly learning the best way to gear up, doing everything I need to gear up, etc..... I certainly don't stress if my team does not win hut ball match, if we are losing then I will focus on just killing someone, move on to the next target, etc..... If I find I have trouble with sorcerers, then i will look for sorcerers to practice against. But I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it. I used to want to grind and get to the top, but when I got there I realized it wasn't a terribly different experience from not being at the top and that I had missed a lot of fun along the way. I don't do that anymore. This is a brand new game, so I'm focussing on enjoying all the lower level content and innovations the designers have put into it and not on the end game as I would not expect that to be fleshed out fully yet. When it is, hopefully that will coincide with me actually hitting lvl 50 and getting all the fun stuff there that is currently available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Light_Valkyrie Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Casual - A subscriber that feeds the company money, plays less that 5 hours a week, plays for fun. Thats my outlook on the definition. Edited February 17, 2012 by Light_Valkyrie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
otterscrubber Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I also agree with what Kabjat said on page 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edryk Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 "Casual" and "hardcore" are bad ways to try to classify the community. Each person plays the game differently, so there are probably millions of descriptions of players. In my experience you need to stop thinking of people as either casual OR hardcore and think of them as one of a number of playstyles, or better yet, as individuals. For example: Competitive - pushes the envelope in PvE or PvP to get firsts. Can require much or little playtime. Semi-competitive - enjoys the above competitive playstyle, but can't or won't make the commitment to be able to do so. Probably a good player in a mid tier guild. Average end gamer - clears content, average to high skilled. May or may not be content to remain so. Behind the curve - less geared or less skilled, either from starting late, or less playtime, or less desire to do more. May be in a low-mid tier guild, aspiring to end game content. Non-End Gamer - Not interested in end game, enjoys questing or dungeons or crafting/etc at their own pace. Not interested in grinding or having the best gear. You could go on and on, but using these examples, some would only consider the first to be hardcore, and the rest casual. Some would only consider the last to be casual and the rest hardcore. I bet the majority of players lie somewhere in the middle and overlap in playstyle, yet like to classify themselves to look superior either because they aren't a 'no-lifer' or a 'bad'. And that's why I don't like the labels 'casual' or 'hardcore'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gomuningen Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Casual playing is some one who does not dedicate their life to the game. Purely plays to enjoy and have fun. The ones that spend 18 hours a day playing.....well I could say many horrible things about them but I am a gentleman and will refrain from starting a flame war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blotter Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 this is the best description i can come up with (i posted this on another thread about this a while back). When i was a kid back in the 70s, my parents decided to take up bowling. They loved it. As time passed, they got better and better at it. Eventually, they bowled regularly in tournaments and had a room full of trophies from the tournaments they won. Then, one day, they abruptly stopped bowling. They quit, gave away all their stuff, and never went back. They started playing softball after that. Years later, i asked my dad why they quit bowling. I found it odd, because they were so good at it. The following is what he said to me (to the best of my memory): "when we started we bowled twice a month. We loved it. Every time we made a strike, we'd jump with joy and celebrate. There wasn't any pressure. It was just fun and we loved the feeling of getting that strike. But after a couple years, it changed. We were so good, we didn't celebrate strikes any more. We expected them. Instead, we just got angry when we didn't make a strike. Making a strike was expected, and even a spare was considered a small failure. And if we didn't pick up the spare... Well, that was downright unforgivable. We just got so good at it, it wasn't fun anymore. It was just frustrating. We started bowling because it was fun. When it wasn't fun anymore, we moved on." casuals - while maybe not as good as min/maxers - just like to celebrate the strikes. Not sure if that makes any sense, but it's the best description i could think of. +100. Gg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monorojo Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 A lot of silly outlooks here on what a casual gamer is. Maybe we should define the hardcore gamer, a person who plays this game 5+ hours a day, whose life is concentrated on this game and has a very small social life with few real life friends. A hardcore gamer likely has two 50s or more at this point, one in full battlemaster gear. Then we have the other side of the coin, the casual gamer. I consider myself a casual gamer. I play about 2 hours a night when i get a chance. I grind for gear in PvP (Complete the Dailies, recently just got into full cent. w/ 500 expertise which im proud of) and complete normal mode Ops in PvE with my guild when I'm available. Don't bother with hard modes just yet, if ever because my gear just isn't up to par. What most people forget is the middle ground, those who are not hardcore and cannot be deemed casual either. They are just players, and I believe the majority of people fit into that. Hell maybe even I do. These labels are pretty stupid to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 In SWTOR's case, a casual is somebody who tells everybody complaining about PvP/lack-of-endgame-content to "stop complaining" or "just don't play if you don't like it." That's not a casual speaking, that's just common sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dezzi Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 "Casual" and "hardcore" are bad ways to try to classify the community. Each person plays the game differently, so there are probably millions of descriptions of players. In my experience you need to stop thinking of people as either casual OR hardcore and think of them as one of a number of playstyles, or better yet, as individuals. For example: Competitive - pushes the envelope in PvE or PvP to get firsts. Can require much or little playtime. Semi-competitive - enjoys the above competitive playstyle, but can't or won't make the commitment to be able to do so. Probably a good player in a mid tier guild. Average end gamer - clears content, average to high skilled. May or may not be content to remain so. Behind the curve - less geared or less skilled, either from starting late, or less playtime, or less desire to do more. May be in a low-mid tier guild, aspiring to end game content. Non-End Gamer - Not interested in end game, enjoys questing or dungeons or crafting/etc at their own pace. Not interested in grinding or having the best gear. You could go on and on, but using these examples, some would only consider the first to be hardcore, and the rest casual. Some would only consider the last to be casual and the rest hardcore. I bet the majority of players lie somewhere in the middle and overlap in playstyle, yet like to classify themselves to look superior either because they aren't a 'no-lifer' or a 'bad'. And that's why I don't like the labels 'casual' or 'hardcore'. I agree with you that gross generalizations are no way to look at the people behind the keyboards. However, games are being more and and more marketed along these very narrowly-focused lines; you're either casual or hardcore in their eyes, and they develop their games around that mentality in an effort to maximize profits. What this leads to is games that are narrow and shallow, with little wiggle room for differing playstyles: Want a hardcore game? Don't play Farmville. What a casual game? Stay away from EVE Online. Neither game makes an effort to include anyone outside of the target audience. With TOR, I sometimes get the same feeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieAlteHexe Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Casual playing is some one who does not dedicate their life to the game. Purely plays to enjoy and have fun. The ones that spend 18 hours a day playing.....well I could say many horrible things about them but I am a gentleman and will refrain from starting a flame war. Well, to confuse matters some casuals spend long hours playing too. Not that I would know anything about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) How would you define the "casual" player? IMO, you approaching the discussion from the wrong direction. Establish what "hardcore" is/means in MMOs. Anything that falls outside of that is casual MMO play style. The infamous "MINUS 50 DKP!!!" meme from a guild leader in WoW is classic hardcore. ie: someone who takes the game way more seriously then real life AND works very energetically to impose their personal paradigm on other players. Edited February 17, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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