To prevent the monkey from bursting your eardrums the direction has taken the liberty of firing a few tranquilizer darts beforehand. Thank you for your understanding.
I was happy this morning, well-rested, good breakfast and the sun was shinning. This all changed rapidly while I was doing my morning rounds of blogs and forums. One of the hot topics is still the changes in WoW regarding the next patch. To be more precise the changes to the newest raid that I’ve already talked about. I was reading a well-written post nerd rage about how Activision has taken over Blizzard and ruined everything good in WoW to cater to casuals. This got the blood pumping a bit because I am very tired of elitist kids who have nothing to worry about besides playing WoW and complaining how the “evil” casuals are destroying everything. Then I started reading the comments and a reply caught my attention:
I’ve been arguing for a long time that casuals don’t deserve the same experience as people who devote more time and effort,..
I think something in my brain tilted at that moment because I then brutally murdered the person sitting next to me.
I may have imagined that last part.
Deserve???? What makes you think you deserve anything you little brat! What have you done that is so incredible that we need to bow down at your feet? You’ve risen the dead? Walked on water? You save puppies from fires for a living? God!!! Get over yourself!
Let’s talk first about what makes the difference between a hardcore and a casual in the sense that most people understand it when talking about MMOs. A hardcore player is someone who is doing top end content on a regular basis and who is very well-informed about the mechanics of the game. And how do you do both these things? Time.
Besides a desire to do said content, the main difference between a hardcore and a casual player is how much time they have available to devote to the game. Many players like me would love to play “hardcore” but can’t because of real life and other interests. So basically the arguments boils down to this :
Because I have more time than you to devote to this game I deserve more content than you do and you don’t deserve access to the content I have already completed. You have to play the same way I do if you want that.
Or to put it simpler:
Playing WoW, ur doin it wrong!
Access to content
Before bringing up the “I pay 15$ a month” defence of the casuals (wich isn’t false in itself), let’s talk about access to content. The main point of the casuals since WoW launched is this:
I don’t want to be penalized for having a life. I want the choice of whether of not I want to raid and not be locked out of content because I can’t/ don’t want to commit to a raider life style. Real life will dictate how much time I can give to WoW, not the other way around.
Here’s the main point a lot of hardcore players seems to be missing. Casuals don’t want to have content handed over to them or made easier, they want access to it. Just like I have access to Arena. Hardcore players get way more out of it but I still can choose to participate if I want to, I have access to it.
Raiding however doesn’t work that way. If I want to have access to the latest dungeon I need to find a guild who can complete the lower tiers of content. If I don’t I am stuck. And to find said guild, which will almost always be hardcore I need to change my real life schedule around that, something I cannot do. Thus I don’t have access to the newer content and I don’t have a choice.
I’m not asking for easier content, nerfs or any other change to the content but there’s need to be a way for me to have access. Blizzard did that with the changes in the latest expansion wich made sure I can get on my own gear appropriate to start raiding at the current tier if I make the effort to farm it.
To all those who say I don’t deserve access or the same rewards I ask again what have you done that makes you deserving of exclusive content? We pay the same price each month and like I said the only difference between us is time. You do get rewarded for it too by getting to do hard modes wich leads to better gear, exclusive mounts and titles. The very thing you asked for in Burning Crusade.
I fully agree that Blizzard could have found another way, that the latest expansion isn’t that great and that the constant nerfing of content sucks. But I’m also really happy that for once I’ll get to at least see the big bad boss without having to kiss my life good-bye like I had to back in vanilla WoW.
Edit: For the new readers of this blog I suggest you go check out this post also wich is a follow up to this one where I address a lot of the comments here.
Screaming monkeys 
At the risk of being ‘monkey slapped’, I was just having a similar debate with a good friend of mine. It was over the new AION video and what it will require in terms of hardware once those game changes are implemented. I can already hear the crying from the folks that can’t or won’t want to spend the cash to upgrade their systems in order to get the maximum experience out of the game. There will be threats of subscription termination, etc. They will in effect complain that the haves will have a better experience than the have-nots. I’m not sure what it is that they will want NCsoft to do for them, but the crying and complaining will still be there.
In the same vein, the have-nots (the ones without the countless hours to spend in game) in WoW will complain that the ones that do have all those hours are getting more out of the game for their $15 than they are. Well, I say DUH!, that that is just the way it is. Like everything else, you get out of it, what you put into it. And if someone can put more hours into something, then I’m all for them getting more out of it. Don’t get me wrong, I no longer have the time I used to have when I was playing EQ, I’ve since married, gotten more responsibilities in my job etc., but I don’t want “access” to things that are out of my reach because of MY limitation. Actually, I would like access, but I don’t want to ruin someone else’ gaming experience because I think I should be catered to as a casual gamer. Let’s just face it, we’re not care free kids any more and we can’t have our cake and eat it too… well, we shouldn’t anyway, though Wow does a good job of it and is the reason I don’t play it. They’ve dumbed it down to cater to the casuals. When I go and put my $15 bucks down on a game like AION, I go in fully aware that there will be things I will not be able to experience due to my RL commitments… and you know what? I’m ok with that.
There’s so much in your reply I could and will do a part 2 to this yesterday! There’s a lot to be said here.
For the hardware part I completly agree with you, if the game requires a certain type of hardware and I don’t have it then too bad for me. If the company makes the game unplayable as a result then I’ll just move on.
I also agree with you that hardcore player should get more out of their time. They are after all playing more. They are already getting more in most games. When I say I want “access” I don’t need it to be easy and right now, I just need it eventually.
Let’s say for example that to reach the ultimate tier raiding you need to put 200 hours in raids and be really skilled. I have no problem with that. Because if I don’t make it it will be because I dint put in enough time or I am not skilled enough, not the game or anyone else fault. Like you said it’s MY fault.
On the other hand if the only way possible to reach the last tier is to spend 5 hours a night 6 days a week then I call it bad game design. The game is literally forcing me into a play schedule I can’t do and because of it I can’t “access” raids.
So in short I’m fine with taking 6 months to get there, I’m fine with it being near impossible but I’m not fine with a game telling me how I should plan my life.
As for casuals ruining the hardcore experience I really don’t get it to be honest. They still have better gear, better raids(playing with skilled people help), titles, mounts and get to do all kind of crazy stuff while I PuG my way through content. Wich I could argue is actually harder than doing it like the hardcore are.
If the fun of the hardcore is to be able to raid stuff others can’t then it’s elitism and I can’t stand it.
I just don’t think that a company can satisfy both needs with the same content. They could create another instance or what have you, with similar or even identical drops to satisfy those that can’t put in the time or effort (casuals), but then that would cheapen the raid instance and no one would do it because they could get the same gear by going the less demanding route. With that said, I don’t think that the people with the time, should suffer with a lesser, or cheapened design in order to appease the casuals, remember now, I’m a casual gamer too, not a hardcore one. If people can’t put in the time, then move on to something else more accommodating to your schedule / time constraints.
I don’t remember if you played EQ1 or not, but there we some places where you had to spend MASSIVE amounts of time to get anywhere. Corpse runs to the Plane of Hate (PoH) after a wipe could take up to 6 or 7 hours. 6 or 7 HOURS.. and that was just getting your corpse back so you wouldn’t lose your hard earned gear. No one complained, or if they did, they were just ignored (best case scenario) or booted from the guild (worst case scenario). It was a game for big boys and girls. Imagine telling a WoW player that he would lose his gear if he didn’t loot it from his corpse in a certain amount of time. I would bet my bottom dollar that the QQ would be loud and long and most likely full of threats and innuendo.
Look, to even get into the POH, you needed to invest weeks of RL time trying to get the gear necessary to even be a viable raid force. It was just the way the game was. No one demanded that the devs dumb the content or requirements down to allow for casual players to have access. If you couldn’t meet the requirements.. gear wise, time wise, what have you.. you just didn’t go. And people understood and were OK with that. Like I said, it was a game for big boys and girls.
It wasn’t until WoW that people started to feel “entitled” to everything a game had to offer. By them (Blizzard) catering to that, it’s my honest opinion that they unintentionally cheapened the whole MMO experience for everyone, to include those not playing WoW because games coming out after WoW figured they needed to do the same in order to compete.
And to address your last sentence, it’s not that you CAN’T raid the hard core stuff.. no one says you CAN’T, it’s there for you if you want it bad enough. However if you’re not willing or able to put in the time required by the game to get there.. then as they say… tough tittie! I hear Dragon Age is awesome…
disclaimer: don’t take my post as an attack or anything, it isn’t meant that way. Just an exchange of point of views.
@Mojeaux
Don’t worry about attacks or anything! I know fully well making a post like the way I did I will have people who disagrees with me and that’s fine. I mean as long as insults are not personal anything go.
To answer your question I skipped EQ1 because I couldn’t stand the graphics but played tons of Ultima Online and FFXI, both of wich are incredibly hardcore. I remember fighting a boss for 11 hours straigth in FFXI.
I’m answering a lot of your stuff in my new post but basically I agree with you. I’m very much agaisnt the nerfing of content and if it takes 10 hours to run back to my corpse that’s the way it is. But I can choose to run now, run 4 hours and stop or log off and do it later. I’m not forced to it right now.
The thing I’m agaisnt is when you have to play for unreasonable amounts of time in one go. For example the 11 hours fight I did it once and refused to do it again since it was too much. Same goes for raiding if I have to be on 5 days a week for 7 hours each time.
But at this point it does become a matter of personnal belief. I believe a game should allow me to have a healthy lifestyle while still giving me a chance at content. I don’t want nerfs to content difficulty, I just want to be able to do it at a slower pace.
I disagree with your comment that “If I want to have access to the latest dungeon I need to find a guild who can complete the lower tiers of content.”
While I agree that this was the case in TBC, that has changed in WoLTK. I was a hardcore raider that killed Illidan numerous times before I quit before the release of WoTLK. I resubscribed about a month ago and went to a new server (because my only one only had hardcore raiding guilds).
I’ve since levelled my character to 80 gotten a few crafted epics and cleared ToTC 10 man on normal with them. I have just picked up my T9 shoulders.
My guild is not hardcore, we raid once a week because it is hard getting enough people together. We have people who have to go AFK because they have to yell at the kids, we have a raid leader who has to whisper into vent after 10 because the kids are asleep. The guild hasn’t even cleared Ulduar cause can’t spend enough time raiding in a week to down all the boss before reset. In anyevent, there is absolutely no requirement to go to Ulduar, because ToTC loot is much better. (By the way I have never been to Naxx or more than half way into Ulduar)
We have every intention of going to Icecrown once it is released. In my opinion casuals have the opportunity to see all the content. All they need to do is be able to show up sit in front of the computer for a (more or less) uninterupted period of about 3 hours about once a week. I came up with this figure because this is the amount of time I spend raiding. If you can organise your guildmates you could even do it in 1 hour stretches. ToTC probably only takes 2 hours anyway.
WoW isn’t a single player game that you can press pause every 5 minutes. It requires a longer time commitment that a single player game. If you can’t commit a couple of hours at a stretch to do instances or raid, I suggest that you are playing the wrong game.
Great read and cool blog, I will definitely be back.
@Simon Lee
“WoW isn’t a single player game that you can press pause every 5 minutes. It requires a longer time commitment that a single player game. If you can’t commit a couple of hours at a stretch to do instances or raid, I suggest that you are playing the wrong game.”
Your right of course . I fully realize that you need to be realistic about how much time the game requires and that spending an evening or two a week to raid is not unreasonable. At the end of my post I do say that I’m happy that everyone can raid if they want to.
My point is that I’m tired of hearing the more “hardcore” players complain all the time how the casuals are destroying the game and how they don’t deserve to raid.
As for the finding the right guild it’s a matter of server I guess. My old servers Mug’thol and Korialstraz were pretty much built on the old mentality and if you wanted to see more than Naxx you had to make your way into the more hardcore guilds. Most raiding guilds on Mug’thol are there since BC if not vanilla WoW. I do plan on switching servers to see if a server like a RP server might be better suited to me.
Player ingenuity oftens leads to mini-exploits. WoW routinely “nerfs” these under the umbrella off “not used as intended”.
Someone who raids 35-40 hours a week is not playing the game “as intended”. By catering somewhat to casuals, WoW is in a way nerfing this type of game play.
Hardcores I’ve talked to are more about the challenge then lore. So give them some random 6 boss instance somewhere. Recycle bosses, mechanics and tune it hard as hell. Hardcores get a chance for epeen, and less hardcore still get at least some of the RP & lore the WoW experience is intended to entail.
Just a note:
“The guild hasn’t even cleared Ulduar cause can’t spend enough time raiding in a week to down all the boss before reset.”
Blizzard implemented the extended lock feature, which is awesome for guilds that can’t commit to a full clear in a week and wants to see content.
Yesterday I was invited by some guild to tank keepers in Ulduar; they have never done them before. We downed Thorim and Hodir (2 shotted him!) couldn’t finish Freya; they’re extending this for today.
That’ s a very good mechanic from Blizzard thinking about time-challenged people.
And as the OP posted, hardmodes, achievements (earth wind and fire anyone?), uber only exclusive from drops, mounts and titles are there to make the difference between the elite pro raider folks from the ‘lolwelfarebadge gear’.
One can’t say ‘welfare gear’ nor noobs raiding totc are killing the game; that would only be true if more people raiding would reduce the amount of loot you get or the content you play. If one’s complaining that no one drools over your epicced out toon sit on the bridge in IF, well, show me some Celestial Defender title and i’ll most certainly /bow to you.
“A hardcore player is someone who is doing top end content on a regular basis and who is very well-informed about the mechanics of the game.”
Sadly, the majority of people who are doing the QQ’ing and calling themselves “hardcore” players do not meet the final requirement of that description. SO many high end raiders I’ve met in the past few months know hardly anything about the fights they are doing, outside of directions given via Vent by their raid leaders. Even funnier are the ones who are on “leveling alts” and ask questions like “how do I get to outland?” and when someone laughs at them, they throw out “I have a level 80 blah blah blah doing Ulduar hardmodes so stfu.” Sure you do, kid.
People in general need to stop complaining about X or Y group “ruining” the game. It’s a game. If it isn’t suiting what you want out of your game play, find another one that does. It’s a collection of data that, at the end of the day, none of us actually own regardless of the ‘work’ we put into it.
(If anything, why oh why are my PvE abilities tweaked to suit PvP?! hehe)
I also disagree with the notion that Instances & Raids are the ONLY thing to do in WoW. THAT idea is what has killed the “R” in the “RPG” part of most online games. End-game isn’t king, but when you are going to rely on it as part of your game design, it NEEDS to be available to casuals. They pay the bills.
I agree fully that the casuals should get as much of a chance at content as the hardcore players. I am going to have an update on my blog about this because it irritates me nowadays with this topic being brought up.
[…] it was inspired by a few recent experiences. There seems to be a renewed hardcore/casual/who-gets-to-access-content discussion floating around on several blogs. With WoW’s Cataclysm expansion and its likely […]
[…] that way. I was doing my round-about blog searches and came across some very controversial topic(s) of casuals vs. hardcore’s and their content. Players contribute the same $15 dollars, whether […]
Great post. I followed the link over from Tobold, and then had pretty much the same reaction (though no brutal murder was involved) as you did. I am part of a casual Guild of friends, and we want to see and experience the content in various MMO’s, and great loot along the way is a bonus. This idea that we cannot see it because we’re not hardcore enough is crap. The elitism in a game, comprised of just a bunch of pixels, is absolutely out of hand, IMO. And the worst part is it comprises a mentality that carries over into real life events and perceptions. “You are not as good as I am, and may not experience what I have because that would diminsih what I experienced.” Really, if I get a pretty purple pixel drop for my priest that healed like mad in 10 man ToC, then that somehow negates your loot that you got first on the server? How? Take what you want from your game, but don’t try to diminish ours. Build yourself up by accomplishing amazing things and making a good name for yourself, not by trashing those of us who focus on things besides just our entertainment hobby…
[…] Monkeys when one of his latest posts caught my eye. It was a rant delving into the well trodden hardcore vs. casual debate. The post was a pretty provocative one, judging by the responses at least, and it got me thinking […]