The 1 month unlock makes sense because....

A player who has limited time to play IS a casual player SMH

Then what explain the huge population drop off from Classic to Luclin?

No.

A player who treats the game the way the definiton of the word says, with limited interest or lack of concern, they are casual. Maybe that's just having tons of alts, or just sticking with friends, whatever.

A player who is heavily interested in doing many specific things, and is extremely concerned about completion, is the literal opposite of casual.

Stop jumping down to and then stretching some tertiary definition of time investment to try to force a casual identity. It is FINE to be hardcore but strapped for time. Totally fine.

Hardcore and strapped for time.....

How does one become hard-core or near expert level at something but never put in any time?
I've yet to meet a person like that.

It's like you are stating that someone could become a hard-core piano player by simply just thinking about it more or just be more interested in learning.

Maybe I'll become more fluent in spanish because I am so interested in it, other than attempting to spend more an more time trying to learn, I'll give it a go perhaps you are right.

this right here is a load of rubbish.
if you want to go by definitions of words, the words hard core are defined as

"the most active, committed, or strict members of a group or movement."

how can you be the most active, committed or strict member when youre playing 30% of the time of actual hardcore players?

when you split a group into "casual" and "hardcore", then there has to be a stretching of definitions because what of the people who don't fit into those categories? what are those people? none existent? we dont talk about THOSE people? rofl. rediculous.

when we call players casual and hardcore, we're not talking absolutes or definitions, were talking about a spectrum ranging from one to the other.

and people with limited play time are most definitely in the casual end of the spectrum, whether it fits the definition of the word or not.

3 months or 6 months? That's a huge difference, pick one. And I'm a casual and I don't agree with you.

Classic through Velious is a of design, I want the server to start in Luclin. 2 months per expansion at the high rate of experience we'll be getting.

Given the age of the game there are plenty of people who are very good and can get back up to speed after a layoff once they've "knocked the rust out"

But those people are all playing live all the time.

Now the whole "race server" thing. In the past the people who won the races also liked to keep content locked down for a nice amount of time.. This was "solved" by the time lock-voting servers. A 6 month release schedule in no wise precludes a race to the endgame for the expansion in question followed by a hard core farming. In fact you'd be foolish to bet that there wouldn't be such a race on any server.

So really there's no such thing as a race server just hard core, driven racing players

Watching spanish soaps for 4 hours a day vs signing up for rosetta stone and doing academic study 2 hours a day. The half timer will be fluent first and I define as more hardcore. A guy who likes to spend a few hours a night soothing his soul to some familiar songs and maybe singing along, versus the guy who spends a single hour an evening working scales and mechanics and then pushing through new content and then getting instruction from a teacher. The latter, again, more hardcore.

Neither one is going to equal a native speaker or professional musician, just as i wouldn't equal some 90%er. Doesn't make any of us casual.

Your post does not deserve the same thought as the one before it, because your last sentence is one of the single most absurd statements ever made here. If your use of casual is the opposite of its definiton, your use is what's wrong. You don't just ignore facts and make up meanings. Jesus.

Even with half lockout timers, what casual guild is going to call more than 3 raids per week?

Neither are hardcore, they are people who are more focused.

Hardcore: the most active, committed, or strict members of a group or movement.

The hardcore is the top 1%, not just anyone that has goals.

My 1 hour a night of studying Japanese doesn’t make me a “hardcore”, Japanese learner. Just because their are people that study less than me. It means I have an interest, a goal, and a realistic way of accomplishing it.

It's a way of saying I'm casual too, but I don't take it slow. There are many variants on casual, many are casual because they can't put in the time. I can put in a lot of play hours, I just can't batphone/play from work. And even if no Pantheon til 2021, we've still got enough EQ expansions to go through to make 2 years worth -

Hi, I'm a casual. If you want to know what I want, you can just ask. Please don't assume you know what I want. It's kind of rude. You don't see me making posts describing what you want am I? Also Casuals don't have attention deficit disorder. We don't need constant shiny things to hold our attention.

Just hope Daybreak doesn't give us casuals an actual server because other than a bunch of hardcore guilds, no players are going to choose Selo over an actual casual server with double xp, kunark start, an increase in rare spawns and a 3 to 6 month expan unlock timer.

The problem is you don't know what you want because what you listed is what I like to call a burnout server. no one is going to play on that for longer than a year. you lose 50% of your population within the 3 months of classic-kunark already. There is not enough content in that time frame.

He actually has a point you are not seeing. A casual player could play for 12 hours a day and be casual. He could never raid just make a bunch of alts and spend his day RPing. You would not call this guy hardcore no matter how much he played. Another guy may come home from work and he sinks 2 hours a night and maybe 8-10 over the weekend but he goes to all the raids. He grinds xp hard when he is on either always LFG or soloing in between and makes sure he is always working on or toward end game content. It is much more on HOW you play the game rather then how long you play the game. at least strictly. EQ had a bad habit in the past of gating content through long wait times but since a lot of thous gates have been lifted in favor of more hardcore players who have less disposable time.

I meet people like that all the time. Quite a lot of players had very high play time in the past, played very competitively, developed an expert level understanding of the game, and now life circumstances have changed and they no longer have the time to commit. They don't suddenly become poor players, nor do they suddenly start to think about the game the way most casual players do.

In fact, a very significant portion of players in all the top hardcore guilds fall into this category.

Right after they spend 100+ hours getting to max level in the 1st few days... Pure casual.

Pantheon will be out before 2021..

Should be around 2020..As soon as alpha hits this year funds will be rolling in.

It should of been at the very least 6 weeks for new xpacs...and best case 8 weeks for new xpacs.

4 weeks for a new xpac means not really hitting any of the end game for a lot of people.

I guess Selos will be just doing group content for 4 weeks until new group content comes out.

Would of been nice being able to hit some raids.

I consider myself this type of "hardcore" player. I have 2 to 3 hours a night tops, and 8-12 hours a day on weekends if I make no other plans. When I'm on, I use ALL of my time to advance. I keep a notebook with gear I want, I solo blues/light blues if I can't find a group quickly. When I do group, I settle in and grind. I won't do things that would take up my grouping time unless the payout is worth it. I always manage to get max level fairly quickly on progression servers and know I will even if Mangler releases with current rules. My best friend is kinda opposite. He plays a LOT when he's in his groove, but a lot is spent chatting in guild or running around doing random stuff. He always gets out-leveled despite having massive amounts of hours played.

I think their intent was that it allowed for flexibility, but as it has been pointed out, it feels like an obligation to raid more.