Guild Wars 2

Rush.8239:

Seems to me that games these days care too much about the casual player.
Gw2 is ultra casual, no real progression or enticing reward system very easy skill system where you gain every wep skill by lvl 10.
I don’t know whether i want gw2 to do well at all because i don’t want other company’s to keep rolling out these care bear games
I wish companys would just consider the hardcore players you know the type of players that go to game conventions , make youtube videos, spend hours playing these games and try to be the best they can be in any game they play.
There is more of us than you might think ^

so my question to the community is this. Are you sick of games being to casual ? or maybe you prefer games designed for more casual play?
/discuss

Edit: my definition of hardcore vs casual
I guess you could define hardcore as gamers that want to compete with eachother and casual as gamers that play just to amuze themselves.

TSW moved in the right direction. There is much more of a skill curve there. Hell it’s a better game. Funcom just didn’t have the money to fill it out at launch.

Hardcore? Play nethack. So you’re 99% of the way through the game and die? Welcome to nethack, your new character is level 1 and standing at the entrance to the dungeon.

People pretend they want hardcore, but when they’re given it they complain.
Imagine if they added permadeath to GW2.

Hooooooooooooo boy the forums would be waterworks.

completionist /= “hardcore” player
In my opinion completionist = dedicated player.

Not to re-rail the thread topic:
In my opinion GW2 is the best form of MMO to come out in a long time. If that makes me one of those “fanboys” on the game’s own forums then so be it. It’s better than being a hater on the game’s forums.

I completely agree with relentless. People always want difficult challenging content. Then when its too hard, they whine and its nerfed.

Also, I dont think that time spent = hardcore. But there has to be some grind to get the best gear games.

To answer the OP question, yes. But this has been going on for over a decade now. Original UO vets know what I’m talking about.

But, the causal player also represents the VAST majority of a game’s player base.

I wish companys would just consider the hardcore players you know the type of players that go to game conventions , make youtube videos, spend hours playing these games and try to be the best they can be in any game they play.
There is more of us than you might think ^

Yeah, you comprise merely a couple % of the gaming population. Making a hardcore game for only the most hardcore of the hardcore is a sure-fire way to fade into hardcore video game obscurity.

I guess you could define hardcore as gamers that want to compete with eachother and casual as gamers that play just to amuze themselves.

This game offers a plethora of ways to compete with each other on equal, or semi-equal footing (equal being tPvP and sPvP, and semi-equal being WvWvW).
But that’s not what you hardcore whiners want, now is it? What you want is a means by which you can spend exponentially more time than everyone else playing the game and growing your kitten with “uber-l33t gears” so that you can go out and “pwn some noobs.”

Kids these days…

Interesting post. Being an EQ vet myself from beta and 8 years in I honestly have no idea why you would think this game is carebear
Of every game within the last 8 years this is the last one I would use to describe this game.
With the amount of time that this game has been live you could not possibly have even put in enough time and done or experienced enough to make that statement.
You are considering WoW lol that is the world of carebear. I wouldnt say that was #1 on the easiest MMOs of all time in the last 8 years but I would certainly put it at 2. Rift was a firm 1 for me just so ridiculously easy.
My only guess is that you are a raider and because this game has no 40 mans you consider it carebear. Well thats your opinion. I wish you luck with your panda

Also, sorry for the trollish tone of my first post, but I’m just so sick of seeing 100’s of thesekitten“hardcore vs. casual” posts on video game forums all over (it’s like thekittenD3 forums all over again).

Nothing will ever be good enough for the “hardcore” gamer, Anet could release dozens of high-end raid content tomorrow that’s nigh-exclusive to the top 5% of gamers, and 2 weeks from now the usual suspects would be back on this board saying “I put in 12 hour days like a hardcore gamer should, finished all your content, we want MOAR. This game is too casual.”

Seriously….

The game is just so casual you do not see any complaints about dungeons being too hard or people being mad they have to mitigate damage by actually using the controls instead of just standing there being pounded upon. The most ridiculous thing about this Golden Past movement is the reference to GW1 that comes up all the time. I dare anyone to go back to GW1 with a fresh character and play the game for 3 weeks. Everyting that is vicioulsy attacked here is in that game allready, for the most part (before DoA) the endgame was staying ahead of the nerfbat with solo builds able to farm FoW und UW for a prestige armour. But I know, the past was always better, kids today just do not know how easy they have it etc. etc.

Rush.8239:

Seems to me that games these days care too much about the casual player.

What, exactly, is a casual player? I’ve been playing video games for the better part of three-decades, and it’s by far my favorite hobby, so I would consider myself a “hardcore” gamer, but I really like the modern design philosophy where the goal is to entertain the player rather than beat him, so does that make me casual? For that matter, isn’t it a bit elitist to try and categorize gaming hobbyist as being on a lower tier than you simply because they don’t share your gaming preference?

Frankly, the whole notion of punishingly difficult game design is like putting mousetraps in a book to make it more “challenging” to read.

WoW was casual. It sure seemed to work for them.

EQ player here.

Dead.7385:

WoW was casual. It sure seemed to work for them.

EQ player here.

WoW is much more hardcore than GW2.

Gladiators and world ranking guilds say “Hi.”

‘Casual’ is just a stereotype created by frustrated ‘hardcore’ players who can’t understand why obsessively pouring dozens of hours into a game per week doesn’t make them any more fulfilled than the guy who plays for ten hours and seems happy as a clam and has a good set of gear to boot.

‘Casual’ is a vitriolic term used to express contempt for players less masochistic than you. It is a term used to express contempt for developers who design games for—Dwayna forbid—the 90% of gamers who do play ‘casually’ rather than “you,” the ultra-dedicated hardcore type, who’s grinding endgame, buying multiple accounts and dropping a lot of gold into the gem store.

In the context of the OP, ‘casual’ means a relatively run of the mill normal gamer who doesn’t play as often as him but still has better opportunities. The problem is that…

• Casual denotes time played, not skill. If the difference between casual and hardcore were measured in skill, then casual players shouldn’t be able to clear the same content. They can.
• The peculiar use of the term “casual” as a kind of pejorative illustrates just how backward and toxic the idea of hardcore gaming has become. Why shouldn’t we be casual players? Being able to enjoy the same game without having to invest tons of hours a week is a sign of good game design. There’s something fundamentally weird about mocking another player as a “casual” just because they keep sane /played hours.
• Unfortunately for some, ‘casual’ players—players who play primarily on their own, or with friends, or who don’t really do that much endgame content, or play less than roughly 20 hours a week—make up a huge population of the player base. Essentially, they are the playerbase. This is as true in World of Warcraft as it is in Guild Wars 2. Designing for the “hardcore” players at the cost of everyone else is an exclusionary design philosophy and a great way to dissuade players from being a part of your community.

bcbully.7289:

WoW is much more hardcore than GW2.

Gladiators and world ranking guilds say “Hi.”

Your point? Open world based PvE competitive guilds in EQ said “hi” back.

You can drone on about how hardcore WoW was, but it was built upon the idea of essentially making an easier version of EQ. No trains day in and day out. No guilds having to actually compete against each other in a rush of time to get to spawns. No having to sit hours on end at a raid mobs spawn to make sure you could DPS it faster.

It was all snuggy inside instances which also saved progress. You wouldn’t log off due to a couple wipes in ToV or Kael, because the next day those same mobs would be gone and you would have to wait an entire week to even attempt it.

*Edit: Which btw all those things I listed sucks today. Corpse runs? WoW kiddies wouldn’t deal with it at all. XP penalty to make sure you didn’t die? Nope. Having no Auction house interface? Nope wouldn’t cut it today. How about spending hours running across the world? Yeah that sounds “fun”.

Yup. And casual = boring. This game rewards the casual and punishes the dedicated players.

Who in their right mind would make games aimed for kitteny hardcore players? Look at games such as Darkfall, what a success it was.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

The whole game is a paint by numbers experience.

There’s no evolution to how you play, it’s like being stuck with a low level character forever. It’s lame.

What on earth is a paint by numbers experience?

You do know that you will need every level and skill point challenge to get all your skills, and your skill combination radically change how you character plays. Also while you get all your weapons skills just based on using the weapon enough, combine the different effects a weapon has with the different utilities and profession abilities and your game play can change dramatically.

Yup. And casual = boring.

You forgot “casual = larger player base” and “casual = money.”

This game rewards the casual and punishes the dedicated players.

It does no such thing.

oh man OP you are so right, give me my xxtreeeeeeeeeeme hardcore games where I have to pour my blood and tears into the game in order to get anything decent! where I have to treat it like a second job and get no fun out of the experience! hell yes I am so hardcore!!!!

grow up. anyone who uses the terms “hardcore” and “casual” seriously needs to get a life. games are games. if you don’t like GW2’s approach, play something else.

There’s a lot of games on the market for every version of hardcore that you want.

If you actually want actual hardcore, you better read Hangul.

Dgenerate.1948:

Yup. And casual = boring. This game rewards the casual and punishes the dedicated players.

“Dedicated” is not the opposite of casual. “Obsessive” is the opposite of casual. Casual players (i.e, those of us who play less frequently than you) are still dedicated. We still have goals. We still want to improve our skill, our gear, our performance and experience new things.

We just do it in smaller doses.

By the way, the game doesn’t punish dedicated players. If you have a great deal of time to invest in GW2, try sPVP. I’m actually not kidding. GW2 is a brand new game with a metagame still in its embryonic stage. Now is a great time to get into sPVP, accumulate experience, and cultivate real skill. If you have the time and want to devote yourself to something that will distinguish you from other players, go for sPVP.

Hey, heres a game for the hardcore guys who want challange and mindless endless grind:
Diablo 3.

Play D3 on inferno as a barb or witch doctor, solo, without spending real money.

And before the “omg I beat diablo 3 in 10 minutes” nonsense that will follow, I’m pre-empting you all by calling BS.

Diablo 3 inferno has both a time sink of a grind, and skill level required, depending on your class.

Edit to my above post: Im not sayin diablo 3 was an amazing game. Im simply saying that before the nerf to inferno, to which all of you hardcore people whined, it was very difficult, a huge time sink, and if you didnt play a DH(which requires skill to studder step) or a monk solo, it was difficult…without spending real money.

Good luck.

Eveningstar.6940:

Dgenerate.1948:

Yup. And casual = boring. This game rewards the casual and punishes the dedicated players.

“Dedicated” is not the opposite of casual. “Obsessive” is the opposite of casual. Casual players (i.e, those of us who play less frequently than you) are still dedicated. We still have goals. We still want to improve our skill, our gear, our performance and experience new things.

We just do it in smaller doses.

By the way, the game doesn’t punish dedicated players. If you have a great deal of time to invest in GW2, try sPVP. I’m actually not kidding. GW2 is a brand new game with a metagame still in its embryonic stage. Now is a great time to get into sPVP, accumulate experience, and cultivate real skill. If you have the time and want to devote yourself to something that will distinguish you from other players, go for sPVP.

You’re making way too much sense with these posts man, you need to dial it back

Honestly, the idea that someone who has hours upon hours a day to play a videogame, should be catered to day and night, is becoming beyond tiresome. Grow up, get married, have a couple kids…and join the ranks of the ‘casuals’ I suppose. I.E. those of us who have a life outside of a game. There are a TON of games out there that cater to you ‘hardcore’ kids (though most of them have a pathetic number of players playing them), please go play one of those.

It is all about $$$$ and liberals.
The mentality that everyone deserves something for free has permiated society and also gaming. Also, there are a lot of gamers these days that never played some of the old Nintendo/ atari titles which required you to beat them without any saves and a limited amount of lives.

Gaming has become for the casual at mind. A study of the phsycology of gamers determined that there were basicaly 4 types of gamers. 1 of those types is the “fiero” gamer who is only happy when they achieve beyond all odds a difficult task. Another type is the “casual” who seeks no reward other than the experience of the game. This is the most prevelant type of personality and therefor the largest consumer market.

Games will be designed for this market to increase profits.

Roga.3284:

It is all about $$$$ and liberals.
The mentality that everyone deserves something for free has permiated society and also gaming. Also, there are a lot of gamers these days that never played some of the old Nintendo/ atari titles which required you to beat them without any saves and a limited amount of lives.

Gaming has become for the casual at mind. A study of the phsycology of gamers determined that there were basicaly 4 types of gamers. 1 of those types is the “fiero” gamer who is only happy when they achieve beyond all odds a difficult task. Another type is the “casual” who seeks no reward other than the experience of the game. This is the most prevelant type of personality and therefor the largest consumer market.

Games will be designed for this market to increase profits.

Go figure, a company would produce a product that caters to the largest amount of people. Shocking isn’t it! And way to bring politics into a gaming forum man.

I really liked Diablo 3. And after playing through nightmare on every class I was done. There was nothing else for me there, and seeing the same story-line 10 times would have been too much if the classes were no fun to play.

GW2 blows my mind though.

I like casual games. They remind me that there’s other things in life then sitting in front of your computer.

What happened to the OP….got school…yeh thought so….

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

mechasauce.1309:

What happened to the OP….got school…yeh thought so….

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

+1

mechasauce.1309:

What happened to the OP….got school…yeh thought so….

Some people work during business hours.

mechasauce.1309:

people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

You basically described Rush.8239 to a T.

New posts daily detailing how he is bored, he’s done everything, etc etc.

I think he could use a little… vacation. Hint hint mods.

When I was younger (10 years ago), I could affort to spend hours and hours each day playing. Now I’m 26. Started a career, got meself a boyfriend and a nice little house and we’re planning to have kids in a year or two.

Icannot afford to put over 3 hours in a computer game anymore My priorities have shifted. That does not mean I do not enjoy gaming anymore. Which is why I am very, very glad there’s a game for casual players like me. I do not need to spend hours and hours in grind for gear to still kick somekitten in PvP. I can jump in and play whenever I want. No content is denied to me because I have a personal life to manage outside of the game.

I have grown up since I first started gaming, and it’s nice to see my favorite franchise has grown up with me. Today’s casual gamers are yesterdays hardcore gamers. And to all you self-acclaimed hardcore people: I’ll talk to you in 10 years when you are trying to juggle a job, a family and a game

mechasauce.1309:

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

How do you “Blast through” Battlefield 3 multiplayer?

Paul.4081:

mechasauce.1309:

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

How do you “Blast through” Battlefield 3 multiplayer?

Easy….jump in a Tank

get it?

tough crowd…

OP, you’ve already done this thread once. Are you lobbying for hardcore forums (i.e., repetitively grinding for the answers you want) too?

I like WvW and sPvP, which are competitive. However, in PvE I do not like grinding for gear as I see PvE as the cooperative side of the game where players are meant to band together to overcome the threats to the world. Having linear stat progression ruins games, in my opinion. It creates a system of haves and have nots, and is more of a problem when there is instanced content that encourages people to form exclusionary groups; open world content that lacks mob tagging not so much. Other than that I see it as boring and trite. Reward-centric games give the illusion of fun by playing on your brain’s reward "centers". Rewards are not intrinsically fun activities.* I agree that they can prolong an experience you once found fun as with all things humans get bored and will seek novelty in their fun, having rewards can motivate you to do 500 more WvW matches, than you might otherwise.

If something is to change I don’t think it needs to be with linear stat progression, ability progression, or anything else that might lead to players telling their comrades to bugger off due to having inferior gear, stats, or profession abilities. All players should be seen as potential allies for taking down threats to the world. I do think that we can add more challenging open world activities without sacrificing less skilled players. Dynamic events can ramp up based on server success and the skilled players cna support their less skilled comrades by helping them organize against difficult threats. Having more open world activities that require communities to play together, and organize would help. People organize in WvW successfully, the same can be had in PvE which also supports the commander title.

* - You would not have fun in a game that had you sitting in town and just regularly rewarding you without you having to do anything (leveling you up, giving you skills, giving you gear, etc.). More rewards does not equal more fun.

mechasauce.1309:

Paul.4081:

mechasauce.1309:

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

How do you “Blast through” Battlefield 3 multiplayer?

Easy….jump in a Tank

get it?

tough crowd…

/laugh :P

Spryt.8012:

What do you mean with hardcore. Like EQ1 hardcore?
Where you respawn naked and have to fight your way back to your corpse to get gear back?
Where dying in some places without any respawn or way to get back in?
Where disarm makes you drop your weapon on the ground for any player to pick up? Where mob spawns required for progression are so rare you need to camp the same spot for hours/days?

Won’t deny it was a lot of fun back in the day. But tbh if they released that 2012 I think I would have to pass.

Where dying meant you lost xp…(I dinged 56 5 times before I got enough xp to distance myself from level 55.

Where mobs would follow you all the way to the zone out, creating at times massive trains, that could and would attack anyone caught in the path of said train?

daemonlama.5413:

Spryt.8012:

What do you mean with hardcore. Like EQ1 hardcore?
Where you respawn naked and have to fight your way back to your corpse to get gear back?
Where dying in some places without any respawn or way to get back in?
Where disarm makes you drop your weapon on the ground for any player to pick up? Where mob spawns required for progression are so rare you need to camp the same spot for hours/days?

Won’t deny it was a lot of fun back in the day. But tbh if they released that 2012 I think I would have to pass.

Where dying meant you lost xp…(I dinged 56 5 times before I got enough xp to distance myself from level 55.

Where mobs would follow you all the way to the zone out, creating at times massive trains, that could and would attack anyone caught in the path of said train?

that……sounds…..AWESOME!

So, cake anyone?

Are we done here? Are we done with this thread? Can we close it now?

Not quite, we have to wait for kittencheese to return from school.

mechasauce.1309:

What happened to the OP….got school…yeh thought so….

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

Or it’s the guy on the Diablo 3 forums with a full compliment of level 60 characters and hundreds of hours played complaining about how terrible the game is. If it’s so bad then why the hell did you play it for an average of 6-hours a day for the last 4-months?

Rickdog.2853:

Hardcore as in endgame pve? Sure there are people that enjoy grinding their gear from dungeons to get into higher level places like raids and such, but there are also a lot of casuals that would like to do the same, without having to spend hours on end to accomplish such things after they hit max level. Guild wars 1 really didnt have “endgame” like wow does with multiple raids. You had harder modes of instances and areas.

Imho, just because they did not think of their hardcore community coming to try the game, does not mean they will not think and / or actually implement some complex raids or something.. Dunno, but if you want a gear grind for hardcore gaming then just go play wow when mists comes out.

Guess what? Guild Wars 2 has very little rewards for what it asks for. Good luck grinding for dungeon armors post patch when your a “casual player”.

OP:

EVE ONLINE

(i quit it because it was too much life consuming, never ending).

When was the last time you ran an explore mode dungeon naked? I think the problem here is that the care bear you are referring to is yourself… you choose to do it the easy way. The hard way has always been there… but you’ve always chosen the easy route. Always.

Paul.4081:

mechasauce.1309:

“hardcore gamers” are the same people that buy a game on day 1…blast through it..then jump on the forums complaining that its rubbish and does not cater to them.

ow wait…

How do you “Blast through” Battlefield 3 multiplayer?

“hardcore” mmo <> “hardcore” fps

different genre’s with different goals and business models even.

Eveningstar.6940:

‘Casual’ is just a stereotype created by frustrated ‘hardcore’ players who can’t understand why obsessively pouring dozens of hours into a game per week doesn’t make them any more fulfilled than the guy who plays for ten hours and seems happy as a clam and has a good set of gear to boot.

‘Casual’ is a vitriolic term used to express contempt for players less masochistic than you. It is a term used to express contempt for developers who design games for—Dwayna forbid—the 90% of gamers who do play ‘casually’ rather than “you,” the ultra-dedicated hardcore type, who’s grinding endgame, buying multiple accounts and dropping a lot of gold into the gem store.

In the context of the OP, ‘casual’ means a relatively run of the mill normal gamer who doesn’t play as often as him but still has better opportunities. The problem is that…

• Casual denotes time played, not skill. If the difference between casual and hardcore were measured in skill, then casual players shouldn’t be able to clear the same content. They can.
• The peculiar use of the term “casual” as a kind of pejorative illustrates just how backward and toxic the idea of hardcore gaming has become. Why shouldn’t we be casual players? Being able to enjoy the same game without having to invest tons of hours a week is a sign of good game design. There’s something fundamentally weird about mocking another player as a “casual” just because they keep sane /played hours.
• Unfortunately for some, ‘casual’ players—players who play primarily on their own, or with friends, or who don’t really do that much endgame content, or play less than roughly 20 hours a week—make up a huge population of the player base. Essentially, they are the playerbase. This is as true in World of Warcraft as it is in Guild Wars 2. Designing for the “hardcore” players at the cost of everyone else is an exclusionary design philosophy and a great way to dissuade players from being a part of your community.

.Best post I’ve read in ages. Deserves to be quoted in its entirety.

Some of these so-called hard cores have a certain self-centered belief that they somehow are essential to a game’s health. What they fail to understand is without the dollars from this vast market of less obsessed players – those with crucial disposable income – these games don’t get made on the scale they do, and they certainly don’t stay afloat.

Instead of heaping disdain on less obsessive players, these gamers that imagine themselves as hardcore should be thanking them for their ability not to blink at an $70.00 price tag again and again and again. They’re the ones who build these playgrounds, not the handful of gamers who can play 9 hours every day.