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Hardcore players? Hardcore games? Have Casuals taken it too far?

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  • exdeathbrexdeathbr Member UncommonPosts: 137

    People are talking about the definition on hardcore and casual here.

    Well, the definition I use is that:

    There are 3 types of players, usual ones, casual and hardcore.

    The definitions of those words have to do with the fun to complexity ratio.

    Hardcore can find fun in games with extreme complexity to fun ratio.

    Casual, will only play (or will prefer) games with low complexity to fun ratio.

    The usual gamers are all other games.

  • pkpkpkpkpkpk Member UncommonPosts: 265
    People have been saying this for years. It's not going to happen. I always find it strange, I remember how bad and easy games were turning out on the PS2 and thinking to myself, it's a wonder that MMORPGs aren't like this yet! Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King and Warhammer Online and they were.  So, no surprise really. Games have been getting easier and easier since the early '90s. Only PC games have really been exempt from this for so long. But the pendulum on that shifted many years ago.
  • GranDuxGranDux Member Posts: 70

    The developers no longer cater to the hard-core/actual gamers. Now *everyone* is a gamer. The reason why games are so shallow today is because the game industry is relying on pretty graphics and not actual play. If it is play then it's generic and mundane concepts taken from other games time and time again.

    Remember the arcade days? Those games had hideous graphics but the games had to be challenging. Forced developers to be creative with what limited tools they had back then and players had to know what their doing to be good at the game.

    Nowadays games are like instant microwave meals. Quick and easy but hardly satisfying and often filled with fat and calories. Much hand-holding or easy modes with very little to no real challenges. Lots of cuddles. No real loses. No risks. Everything predefined in an easy and predictable package.

    It's for profit. Too many hands are in the cookie jar of gaming and everyone wants a piece of the $$$ pie now. When there is a mass production of a certain items there is a tendency of the quality of that item to go down. The technology is evolving but the concept is trapped in hollywood and funco land. The games are becoming main-stream and are being built on cookie-cutter concepts. No more originality or daringness as much because no one wants to venture outside the comfort box.

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910


    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone state they prefer to solo and like to raid.

    I prefer solo game play and I like raiding. I just don't like raiding as much as people who prefer raiding to solo game play. I'm probably the people that WoW was targeting when they implemented the LFR tool, except I had stopped playing WoW by then.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • ArclanArclan Member UncommonPosts: 1,550


    Originally posted by Krimzin
    It just means they aren't social with YOU.


    What an utterly moronic thing to say.

    Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
    In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by lizardbones

     


    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone state they prefer to solo and like to raid.


    I prefer solo game play and I like raiding. I just don't like raiding as much as people who prefer raiding to solo game play. I'm probably the people that WoW was targeting when they implemented the LFR tool, except I had stopped playing WoW by then.

     

    I played LFR for a while (CATA) before i quit. In fact, if not for LFR, i would have quit much earlier. LFR took the dreadful drama, and commitment out of raid.

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910


    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by lizardbones   Originally posted by VengeSunsoar I don't think I've ever seen anyone state they prefer to solo and like to raid.
    I prefer solo game play and I like raiding. I just don't like raiding as much as people who prefer raiding to solo game play. I'm probably the people that WoW was targeting when they implemented the LFR tool, except I had stopped playing WoW by then.  
    I played LFR for a while (CATA) before i quit. In fact, if not for LFR, i would have quit much earlier. LFR took the dreadful drama, and commitment out of raid.


    When leveling up and grouping up for dungeons, I did not mind spending the hours doing stuff. I took about a year to level to 70 on my first character. I had started other characters, and spent time doing different builds and what not, but mostly I just wasn't in any real hurry to do anything in particular. I was just playing the game.

    Then we started raiding Karazan. Holy cats that was cool. We had a pretty tight knit group, mostly people from work, so there really wasn't very much drama, but I got tired of raiding a lot faster than everyone else. I just didn't feel like spending hours a night running things just to run more things. So, I'm being honest when I say I enjoy raiding, but I didn't enjoy the gear treadmill that came later.

    Global Agenda's "raids" were cool. They were drop in and go, with clear goals and a lot of action. They were pretty nice.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • Beatnik59Beatnik59 Member UncommonPosts: 2,413

    A "casual" gamer, like a casual drug user, can take it or leave it.  A "hardcore" gamer, like a hardcore drug user, will do anything for it, pay anything for it, and forsake everything else for it.

    Instead of "casual player," might we use the term "non-committal" player?  Both concepts seem to imply a person who vests little to no emotional interest in the thing.  In other words, prospective customers rather than committed customers.  The job of this industry is, has--and always will be--to turn these prospective "casual" gamers into hardcore, committed MMO junkies...hooked on their MMO rather than the competition's MMO.

    Understanding this helps us to understand what they do.  To say that this genre produces "casual games" is not quite accurate.  Any game that gives you incentives for marathon raids, daily log-ins for quests, or spending money on virtual goods that can disappear on a whim is not a casual game...not by any stretch of the psychological imagination.

    But they just don't look like hardcore games...they don't bill themselves as hardcore games.  Instead, they use "free to play" and tricks like that to entice casual gamers.  But the intent is to turn them into hardcore players once they have them.  And they do that by giving us incentives to go hardcore, spend hardcore money and play like a hardcore once we get psychologically "sold" on the game.

    Is it true that they don't care about hardcores?  Yes and no.  Hardcores are already committed, so there is no use selling the game to them.  What they want is for the casual, non-committal players to become hardcore users of their games.  And the formula for that is really simple: make it look like a casual friendly game (Free to play, fantastic new player experience, promotional giveaways), but make it so the casual will want to go hardcore in order to become satisfied (Item store, zones, levels and gear chase, forum trolling, etc.).

    Make sense?

    __________________________
    "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
    --Arcken

    "...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
    --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.

    "It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
    --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE

  • Beatnik59Beatnik59 Member UncommonPosts: 2,413
    Originally posted by pkpkpk
    People have been saying this for years. It's not going to happen. I always find it strange, I remember how bad and easy games were turning out on the PS2 and thinking to myself, it's a wonder that MMORPGs aren't like this yet! Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King and Warhammer Online and they were.  So, no surprise really. Games have been getting easier and easier since the early '90s. Only PC games have really been exempt from this for so long. But the pendulum on that shifted many years ago.

    You know, it's interesting that you say that.

    I remember those days you talk about with the PS2.  That's when big budget action/adventure games like Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain were king.  But towards the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s, that genre got real stale.

    Those were the days when you'd buy yet another overworked sequal like Parasite Eve II or Resident Evil III or Metal Gear Solid II, play it for one weekend, beat the game and go on to the next overworked sequal.

    MMOs were a breath of fresh air.  Instead of running through yet another plot, MMOs gave us variety; it became many games in one.  It was also far less expensive; it gave us more value for our money.

    Then, slowly but surely, all the things that made MMOs different from action/adventure titles seemed to vanish.  These days, they resemble the overworked action/adventure titles of the 90's, but with far less production value.  Ironically, I find more variety and gameplay value in the Mass Effect series or Fallout 3 than I find in today's MMOs.

    __________________________
    "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
    --Arcken

    "...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
    --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.

    "It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
    --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by MMORPGRIP

    I personally feel there is no such thing. Been gaming since 1982 on nearly every console game, PC's, the Arcade (When it was around...wish they still were), etc etc. I consider myself a gamer, nothing more. 

    I think the term "hardcore gamer" started as a jab at those who prefer strategy or a bit higher level of difficulty to their games by those who prefer games otherwise.

    Well my personal definition is "avid gamer", meaning deep investment in gaming.  (I used to even cut it off at a nice specific point too, like "Top 10% of players in terms of time-investment"; been a while since I really discussed the term though.)

    A company I worked for used the term "self-identified gamer" which is certainly nice and measurable and based on whether someone is willing to describe themselves to others as a gamer.

    I don't think we can say there's no such thing, we could only agree that it's a term without a solid definition to measure against.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • DamonVileDamonVile Member UncommonPosts: 4,818
    Originally posted by lizardbones

     


    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone state they prefer to solo and like to raid.


    I prefer solo game play and I like raiding. I just don't like raiding as much as people who prefer raiding to solo game play. I'm probably the people that WoW was targeting when they implemented the LFR tool, except I had stopped playing WoW by then.

     

    The reason ppl can say they like to solo and they also raid is because there is nothing social about LFR at all. Easy content and random groups that never need to talk.

    At one time raiding was about a group of people looking to work together to over come pve content. The challenge was really found in the people not the content. LFR content is about putting in your 1-2 hrs and getting your participation reward.

     

  • VengeSunsoarVengeSunsoar Member EpicPosts: 6,601
    Originally posted by DamonVile
    Originally posted by lizardbones

     


    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    I don't think I've ever seen anyone state they prefer to solo and like to raid.


    I prefer solo game play and I like raiding. I just don't like raiding as much as people who prefer raiding to solo game play. I'm probably the people that WoW was targeting when they implemented the LFR tool, except I had stopped playing WoW by then.

     

    The reason ppl can say they like to solo and they also raid is because there is nothing social about LFR at all. Easy content and random groups that never need to talk.

    At one time raiding was about a group of people looking to work together to over come pve content. The challenge was really found in the people not the content. LFR content is about putting in your 1-2 hrs and getting your participation reward.

     

     Sounds good to me.  I have a lot of interest in doing challenging content with people.  I have zero interest in challenging people, and even less (if possible) in completing challenging content with challenging people, and only the slightest tiniest bit of interest in the added and extra challenge needed to organize people to do the challenging content. 

    Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
  • DamonVileDamonVile Member UncommonPosts: 4,818
    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    Originally posted by DamonVile

    The reason ppl can say they like to solo and they also raid is because there is nothing social about LFR at all. Easy content and random groups that never need to talk.

    At one time raiding was about a group of people looking to work together to over come pve content. The challenge was really found in the people not the content. LFR content is about putting in your 1-2 hrs and getting your participation reward.

     

     Sounds good to me.  I have a lot of interest in doing challenging content with people.

    I guess no matter how much they dumb down raid content there will always be people who still find it challenging.

  • VengeSunsoarVengeSunsoar Member EpicPosts: 6,601
    Originally posted by DamonVile
    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    Originally posted by DamonVile

    The reason ppl can say they like to solo and they also raid is because there is nothing social about LFR at all. Easy content and random groups that never need to talk.

    At one time raiding was about a group of people looking to work together to over come pve content. The challenge was really found in the people not the content. LFR content is about putting in your 1-2 hrs and getting your participation reward.

     

     Sounds good to me.  I have a lot of interest in doing challenging content with people.

    I guess no matter how much they dumb down raid content there will always be people who still find it challenging.

     And when you've cleared sunwell hardmode we'll pay more attention to you too.

    Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by DamonVile
    Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    Originally posted by DamonVile

    The reason ppl can say they like to solo and they also raid is because there is nothing social about LFR at all. Easy content and random groups that never need to talk.

    At one time raiding was about a group of people looking to work together to over come pve content. The challenge was really found in the people not the content. LFR content is about putting in your 1-2 hrs and getting your participation reward.

     

     Sounds good to me.  I have a lot of interest in doing challenging content with people.

    I guess no matter how much they dumb down raid content there will always be people who still find it challenging.

    That is why MMOs need a difficulty setting like the MP levels in D3.

  • Attend4455Attend4455 Member Posts: 161
    Originally posted by BadSpock

    The real truth is obvious.

    Making MMO games costs a lot more money now than it used to - which means you have to sell more copies.

    The so called "hardcore" gamer is a bit of a rare breed.

    Not enough of them to justify AAA budgets.

    But the real trend now is options - options are good.

    Difficulty settings, hard modes, different servers types, etc.

     

    And besides, most "hardcore" gamers have no idea what they are calling themselves. Any game can be played "hardcore." There are hardcore Hearts players or hardcore Pokemon players...

    Anyone who thinks a world-first competitive raiding guild in WoW isn't "hardcore" is, quite frankly, a moron.

    Certain game mechanics, like those found in EvE or old-school UO/EQ or FFXI certainly tend to attract more of the "hardcore" type of players.

    But investment <= expected return.

    Punishing, brutal and/or grind heavy systems are just not popular.

     

    I like this answer. Define hardcore?

    But as a long time EvE player it's nice to be called a 'hardcore' player but really, it's not that hard if you do some research or even just use some common sense. Yes, it is a long term game. No, you don't need to have played it a long time to make any sort of 'progress'.

    As to what hardcore players are playing? the people I've talked to in Eve seem to think that Darkfall is more hardcore than eve, and I'm ok with that. If you like it, go for it.

    I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone

  • BoneserinoBoneserino Member UncommonPosts: 1,768

    Problem with hardcore games is that  they are never "hardcore"  enough for those that call themselves "hardcore".    And they simply do not support the games that have been created for them in most cases.    Most are "hardcore" complainers IMO.

    Its either that or  there really are, very few of your breed out there.  I think most of you are wannabees which also explains the constant complaining.

    As someone said here already, If hardore means spending your life punishing yourself with brutal death penalties and ganking, and endless grinding for gear,  then that all seems rather pathetic and unenjoyable to us "regular" gamers.   And if you really do enjoy it,  then get out out and support DFUW even if you think it sucks.   Why?   Because it is the opposite of what you "hardore" gamers are always saying to us "regular" players.    Stop supporting the easy mode games!!   Like it is our fault that you have no hardcore games!

      Sorry, we support the games we like, unlike yourselves.

    FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!

  • DoogiehowserDoogiehowser Member Posts: 1,873

    "The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
    -Jesse Schell

    "Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
    -Luke McKinney

    image

  • Beatnik59Beatnik59 Member UncommonPosts: 2,413

    Does anyone else here, except me, think that item store purchases are not "casual friendly?"

    After all, if you aren't that emotionally invested in the game, it makes little sense to dump a truckload of money into costumes or powerups.

    __________________________
    "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
    --Arcken

    "...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
    --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.

    "It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
    --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE

  • pmilespmiles Member Posts: 383
    Just FYI... casuals didn't do anything to the games... developers did.  If you're going to point fingers... start with them.
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Beatnik59

    Does anyone else here, except me, think that item store purchases are not "casual friendly?"

    After all, if you aren't that emotionally invested in the game, it makes little sense to dump a truckload of money into costumes or powerups.

    No. Item stores are extremely casual friendly.

    It let the whales to pay through their noses, and subsidize the casuals. The casuals don't have to buy a single item to appreciate its benefit on their entertainment.

  • david361107david361107 Member UncommonPosts: 279

    I've posted stuff on this subject before and I tend to agree. The issue's the casuals are bringing are stacking up more and more every year. Blizzard didn't have 8 Million subs when they started, it was built on by hardcore players, not casual players, believe me I was there in the beginning. Even back when Vwow started you have the casuals and hardcore but the base player was more hardcore than casual.

    Casual players have bitched until leveling was faster, until they could get into any raid because it's just not fair or they should be able to get this or that because they pay monthy subs just like anyone else. Well now they have what they wanted, easy mode on everything, game Dev throwing shit FTP games every month or so just trying to attract the casual players. Well we all see how that's worked out for most of them haven't we? Casual players do not stick with any game, they could really care less because they haven't "invested" anything but maybe an hour or two a few times a week. I'm still waiting on a Dev to flip them off and make a MMO for real gamers, doesn't have to be all hardcore to the max but just not so freaking easy.

     

    Peace,

    Lascer

  • ArclanArclan Member UncommonPosts: 1,550

    I agree with David. Bravo ^^

    Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
    In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by david361107

    I've posted stuff on this subject before and I tend to agree. The issue's the casuals are bringing are stacking up more and more every year. Blizzard didn't have 8 Million subs when they started, it was built on by hardcore players, not casual players, believe me I was there in the beginning. Even back when Vwow started you have the casuals and hardcore but the base player was more hardcore than casual.

    Casual players have bitched until leveling was faster, until they could get into any raid because it's just not fair or they should be able to get this or that because they pay monthy subs just like anyone else. Well now they have what they wanted, easy mode on everything, game Dev throwing shit FTP games every month or so just trying to attract the casual players. Well we all see how that's worked out for most of them haven't we? Casual players do not stick with any game, they could really care less because they haven't "invested" anything but maybe an hour or two a few times a week. I'm still waiting on a Dev to flip them off and make a MMO for real gamers, doesn't have to be all hardcore to the max but just not so freaking easy.

     

    Keep waiting.

    Where are the hard core gamers now? Guilds like Paragon. They are doing hard mode raid on WOW, instead of waiting for someone to make a game just for them.

    In fact, i would say hard core don't need a game that is challenging from top to bottom. They only need enough challenging parts. So something like a difficulty setting is perfect.

     

  • ArclanArclan Member UncommonPosts: 1,550


    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Where are the hard core gamers now? Guilds like Paragon. They are doing hard mode raid on WOW


    ROFL. When FoH threw a tantrum at SOE, and quit EQ to go to WoW, I laughed my ass off. That would be like Delta Force quitting to do paintball for the rest of their career.

    Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
    In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit

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