True, but there are many who do not spend more than a couple of hours online a day, yet when they do, they put their all into learning their characters/classes, spending AAs correctly, etc. And there are many who would consider themselves as hardcore that still don't know jack about their toons/classes, etc. For me, hardcore is defined when you treat the game as a job. You no longer seek enjoyment and relaxation from it, but you drive it as hard or harder than you would a task IRL. Someone misses a heal on you and you blow up on them. Someone doesn't parse the numbers you want, and you boot them from group. You have a disdain for "filthy casuals" because they don't show the same dedication to a pixel life that you do, and you treat them with contempt. For me, what separates a casual from a hardcore is attitude, and how you approach the game, and how you treat others in the game.
I agree with this. I think it's hard to discuss casual/hardcore without adding negativity. You can imagine grouping with a random rogue, seeing that they're not hitting their DPS rotation right and saying, "Hey bud, you might want to try popping X with Y, check out your log in gamparse to see the difference." and them replying with, "Nah I'd rather play the game then look at spreadsheets and graphs" and that, to me, is a big separation.
It's playtime. May of us have played since day one or close. We know everything about every class, every encounter. Learning isn't even a part of the picture anymore. We learned it all years ago. We are hardcore when we decide to dedicate a good portion of our time to the game. 95-100% raid attendance. Dedication to our guild first and foremost. There are hundreds of players that know how to play this game to perfection. The number who are willing to dedicate the playtime is a much smaller group.
I’m literally in the most johnny causal category. I did not magically forget everything I knew as a hard core raider. It’s all relative. Trying to quantify is fruitless. What can you accomplish with limited playtime? I get carried a lot through content when not actually trying to mindlessly escape reality with a video game. Casual is as casual does. I won’t complain something is too hard, I might however comment on how it can be improved. 9 times out of 10 I’ll still tell someone to play better because that’s all it boils down to.
I see mself as casual, someone who games at most 10 hours a week in EQ. Sometimes I go over that. I'm sure I could level faster, but as I have said in the past when this gets brought up again, I like to explore. I like to relax. I don't like to spend my life in a game. I have other hobbies. Even when I DMed 3 to 5 ad&d games a week ( at home and in several game stores), I still had other hobbies. I even got out in the sunlight, went to movies, talked to people who weren't gamers, etc.
Artisan's aug and going back to work on old expansions are things I've done/do precisely BECAUSE I'm a casual. I think people have missed the biggest correlation factor for hardcore/casual. And I say correlation factor because I don't think there are determining factors. Anything you pick, you'll find counter examples. But there's one which I think correlates better than most. Length of play sessions. If you usually can't get on for more than an hour or so, maybe an hour and a half, then you'll likely be casual. No time to waste putting groups together, and limited ability to get very far with current content (unless you're boxing). Absolutely no time to raid.
That sounds more like "retired" or some other 3rd category. Might want to add "Routinely unsubscribes accounts" and "Only logs in to occasionally say hello to a select few friends". Basically someone who knows that RL has completely won the war but comes back for nostalgia .Even then, that will wane as the few true friends leave the game for their own reasons. The rest ultimately were just arbitrary green text. Its like being a hard drinker who gets sober and realizing your so called "friends" were just fellow enablers of bad habits. To me the difference between "Hardcore" and "Casual" is scheduling life around the game or the game around life. That alone should determine the dedication level to actually learn the character, events etc or to just log in for some fun escapism while not getting too wrapped up in it.
I play for 30 min to an hour a clip when I can and mostly solo. My character still progresses and I’ll get groups as I can when I have more than an hour. So you’re saying if you aren’t raiding or grouping for x hours a week you aren’t casual but something else? Hardcore to me is finishing content while it is current, beta testing, being the ones who parse spell files and figure out quests and raids first while also pushing their toon to the max.
Hardcore and Casual are not mutually exclusive terms, because they aren't the opposite ends of the same spectrum. Hardcore <-----------------------> Relaxed Highly Active <------------------> Casual Pick a place on both lines. It's like D&D alignments, you get one from both. The former relates to how you play and the latter relates to how much you play.
Most don't know everything about their class. If it was the case, you would not see for example such large DPS difference between 2 players of the same class. Also you have players in raiding guilds who have the attendance you describe, but who aren't good at playing their class.
That's a pretty good way of looking at it, Tucoh also mentioned in another thread about a desire to CONSTANTLY improve in the context of EverQuest versus other games. I think the same can be said about the hardcore gamer mentality, it isn't necessarily a time thing but rather a competitive nature versus a more relaxed/entertaining approach to gaming. On one side, you have people like Tucoh or Kizant, who are extremely serious about improvement while on the other you have my best friend who is god awful and doesn't care that he's terrible. He may play 10+ hours a day, but he's not "hardcore" in the sense that he pushes content or raids.
YMMV. This is a subjective discussion, but the game for most (emphasis on this) players is centered around the more you put in, the more you get out. Again for most, the currency being traded is time invested. Some are more adept at getting the most bang for their time buck than others. The amount of players that check all those boxes are probably representative of about 0.1% of the total player base. A solid assumption is that most members of top raid guilds rely upon those that you describe to maintain whatever their standing is. Even RoI probably only has a few people who really figure things out while the rest get by on the virtue of reliably showing up, possessing good technical skills, can pay attention and follow orders without question. It is opinion that if when a person logs in for so little time that there is literally no time to accomplish much in the way of anything, that falls outside of even causal play. At that point, why even continue to pay for a subscription? In the realm of casual play you can at least set some kind of a goal within reason and expect it to come to fruition. There will probably be no style points earned, but the mission got accomplished. It could be just a lesson burn in Gribbles or finishing up a Merc task in an expansion 2-3 years out of being current. What constitutes "not enough time to achieve anything" is dependent on the individual (skill level, organization, friends etc) and how reasonable their expectations are. Again, YMMV, but EQ was designed around a business model of time invested=achievement in game. The real hardcore probably spend more time arranging their day in anticipation of accomplishing something in game as opposed to placing emphasis on the daily real life routine. That does NOT translate into the game taking complete priority over all other responsibilities in life, but it might mean that free time will be precisely structured around making sure a raid is always attended or a group of friends can be met up with in game in a routine manner. Its an attitude that will foster always being a high achiever in the game. Hardcore play does not even have to require raiding but more often than not, the two compliment each other.
Part of the problem is there are even more classifications of players and they get mixed up and confused. Competitive versus non competitive (competitive players want to stand apart from the average players and have zones and content that not everyone can do. Hard core versus casual. As mentioned hardcore want to get the most out of their characters and enjoy a challenge. Those looking for constant excitement versus those looking for relaxation or periodic excitement. Those looking for constant excitement are more twitch type players and want all their content to keep them constantly engaged to the exclusion of whatever is going on around them in RL. Those who want to be chained to their computer versus those who want to be able to afk whenever they feel like it. This can overlap some with the competitive players. But some want the game to be hard enough to command all their attention and keep them engaged with the game with little or no breaks. People who want to afk wel... want to afk.. they want to include RL in the time they are playing the game and want content that lets them engage in both to the exclusion of neither. 24/7 gamers versus those who play a few hours a day. Self explanatory. Players can fall on either side of all these groups and these groups are all different but we tend to merge them all together. You could be hard core non competitive, looking for relaxation with occasional excitement and like to be able to afk. We tend to mix all this up and lump everything in to hardcore versus casual or grouper versus raider etc.... I don't think it is that simple though. Add in to that the various degrees players fall into each category and you see it is not a simple defintion of hard core versus casual.
I consider myself a more relaxed but highly active player. For starters my work schedule only allows me to play every other week since I work a week on and week off doing 12 hour shifts. My week off I only get to play when the little ones are down for their nap or after they go to bed. So on these days I probably get in 4-6 hours of gaming tops but by the time I start to play I am usually pretty beat from the daily grind that I am here mostly to get an escape and relax a little. This does not mean that I don't set goals for myself and try to better my toons either. I have completed the artisan's prize on 5 toons (still have to finish obtain a couple seals for my box toons but the questing is all done) and am currently about 80% done with evolving it on my main. T1 and T2 hunter and quests done for HOT and VOA (minus two mobs in VOA that I cant get to spawn). Shards landing quests, hunter and collections done. Half of COTF quests done and half of TDS quests, hunter and collections done. Hero's journey is about 85% completed (had I not dumped so much time into this I would be much further along with other progression). All SOD progression done. 8 toons at 300 in base trade skills with fully evolved trophies. About a dozen toons 105+ and half of them have 25k+ AA's. I have also beaten all COTF raids with my cleric when I actually could raid. To top it off my current box team that has done all of this is only about 2 years old. So with my limited time I feel I have accomplished a lot but I would consider myself more on the relaxed but highly active end of the spectrum as I am always multitasking in game and trying to get the most out of my playing time.
Hardcore - boxing without 3rd party software Casual - boxing using 3rd party software because you aren't good enough to play the other toons yourself
Someday I hope to reach the top-tier echelon of players who don't use gina, gamparse and teamspeak/ventrilo/discord.
That's like saying someone isn't a good driver if they drive an automatic instead of a stick shift. Or you really don't know how to write if you use a pen instead of ink and quill. How about those lazy chefs who would dare to use a food processor or blender instead of manually cutting everything by hand. Lets not forget the best tv experience is one where you have to manually position your antenna and change the tv on the actual tv instead of with a remote. Those who embrace technology typically are more efficient in most regards and appreciate the evolution of things. Those who want to keep doing things the archaic way might feel like they are "hardcore" when in reality they just lack forward thinking.
