What is a 'Casual Player'?

Push the key U in game. Go to recruiting tab. Look down to playstyle drop box. That is what you are.

I am sorry, but the players are typical people who tend to want to put "tags" on everyone. And that includes calling someone hardcore or casual per their own definitions. IOW, this debate is entirely subjective and doesn't have anything to do with the actual game. Besides, that, who the hay is correct in defining each player as this or that.

Instead of debating something that doesn't work, try putting the terms hardcore and casual to the game itself. Yeah, that, right. Define the game as casual or hardcore or both. Then you just might have something worthwhile to talk about.

I can play a game upwards to 30-40 hours each week. Sometimes I don't play a game at all during the week. Sometimes maybe 2-5 hours a week. Other times 30 or 40 hours of week. I enjoy all facets of the game in one form or the other. Kinda difficult to typecast. So why bother?

Think of gaming in terms of what a game offers, not what a player can do. Guild Wars 2 doesn't have raids. Does that mean there is no hardcore within Guild Wars? Yeah, right! Say that to someone who is challenged mentally or physically after they work through a difficult quest. Or to someone who completes their first raid or dungeon. It's all relative.

Rather than player type, look at what a game offers. Everquest 2 - has both casual offerings as well as hardcore offerings - that is - it can be a very intense game through challenging raids and dungeons. It can also be a very immersive game with lore or story lines, character play role and more. EQ2 can also be casual and fun stopping at every red light to pick up a shiny and add to a collection or highly engaging with home decoration and now dungeon making.

Take me - I think I'm pretty laid back. At times I enjoy doing a dungeon once or twice a week. For four years, I raided with two of the best (top 5) raiding guilds of the server. I can also spend time working on my crafts, adorning, and experimentation. When frostfell rolls around - I'm all about having fun with snowball fights and beating Corrival & the Maiden on my 50ish level illy after much thought in how to accomplish this. I never thought those fights would be so intense in solo play with no special gear and no short cuts or use of mercenaries. I have yet to try one of those pets. Right now, I'm on a mission to clear every single dungeon of Norrath at level - in a group - at level. And yes, I'm all about being laid back, easy going, unhurried, no drama, no stress.

I think EQ2 is a great game that offers adventures, and more adventures. There are intense and challenging adventures offered even when role playing or scratching the head trying to figure out how to get that gosh darn layout editor to work the way one visions. And the game is accessible to those with real life challenges, because there are casual quests and fun things the player can do.

For those who need lots of mental stimulation, there is the intensity of the raid; the immersion of decorating a house or making a player dungeon or working out a role playing storyline for the progressing guild. That would be hardcore offerings by EQ2.

Yup, EQ2 offers intense play, challenges at various levels from easy to most difficult, immersion, ability to engage on various levels. As for me - well, it depends.......................................

So reverse the typecasting and place it on the game, not the player. Then, you'll have a very interesting discussion.

I'm not trying to label anybody nor judge anyone. I wasn't trying to get people to 'debate' what the terms meant. I keep seeing the terms tossed around in the forums and it was clear that different people meant different things by it.
So I asked people what they meant by it. Overall, people have been very 'adult' and mature about presenting THEIR ideas and discussing why they hold it without mudslinging or name calling. It's been informative, for me, to hear different people's views on the topic.
Even developers and EQ2 'pr' types use the terms, so I do think it is appropriate in the game-play forum.

Pretty much spot on, I would like to do more but for me personally life doesn't allow for it, I had my hardcore days back in EQ1.

I'm hard casual.

/pops a beverage

/steals aggro from Arch

The casual player is a myth. It's nothing more than a marketing term that largely originated to tell people that a particular MMO wasn't as time demanding or as punishing as the original EQ, which at one point essentially defined the MMO genre.

Time and Punishment does not equal challenging.

Hell I was playing the P99 for a couple of months. It was the same pattern of migration to camp after camp after camp (East commons, NRO, Oasis, HHK ect) as i remembered it.

I think people just let nostalgia heavily exaggerate their past.

And the term "Casual" is so vague and loose that you can literally put so many interpretations onto it. And it can be redefined for each genre or game series you place it under.

I didn't say anything about challenging.

casual = without regularity

Not playing regular prevents those from raiding and often from grouping. Anything else, like not knowing the class well, not be able to play the pp game or always soloing are just secondary symptoms of casual. It all boilds down to "without regularity"

So.... casual = constipated?

I still beleave, casual is someone who don´t go that deep into mechanics of the game, plays more on the minimax style (well if this is known to someone ^^)

I'd have to disagree on that characterization, Kalderon. The min/max style is the style that concentrate almost solely upon the mechanics (corresponds to the type of player we used to call munchkins when playing tabletop RPGs), to the exclusion of everything else. Instead of enjoying the game for the richness of its lore, how well the stories are told within the game, or how immersive the environment is, min/max players get their enjoyment from being able to brag about this or that accomplishment. (Which, frankly, doesn't matter to a majority of the rest of the world* - if you don't believe me, just ask anyone that doesn't play this game if they care who was the first to take down Dozekar.)

*Minmax: I'm the number one brigand, world wide in EQ2!
Other person: That's.....nice...I guess. So...are you still living with your parents?
Minmax: Yeah. Why?

This is an asinine conclusion. Min/maxing to accomplish goals or a degree of power for one's toon, does not necessitate bragging. The former is a play style, while the latter is a personality trait. They are mutually exclusive. Hubris can be found in all play styles as can excessively thin skin.

We have a small guild of people who have played games together for years. Out of this group there's a handful of us who used to hardcore raid on set schedules 5-6 nights a week in one of the top raiding guilds on our server from launch, through to Kunark. Our current guild consists of 12 players in varying degrees of "casual" to "hardcore"

What I consider casual is someone who logs in mainly for the social aspect of the game. They aren't overly concerned with progression, or even if they accomplish anything during their playtime. They take their time with quests, enjoying the scenery and playing with their friends. That's not to say they don't care about progression, or are bad players, but they aren't in any rush to "get to the end".

What I consider hardcore, are the people who log in to progress. Whether that's finishing a quest chain, grinding up a crafter, leveling their 3rd alt, running dungeons, joining a pickup raid etc. Every minute they spend in the game they are working on progression, researching their toon(s), figuring out the best rotation, or helping others get "caught up" so they can do more challenging content to further improve all of the above.

There's a few of us in the guild who have already leveled 2 toons to the cap, and completely geared them in Steward gear (Highest we have access to right now without a full raid force), have all of our masters, and working on the best builds we can put together. While others are still working on their first, haven't hit the level cap yet, and it's not because they have less playtime, just different priorities. I don't consider the casual players bad players, in fact some of them are excellent at playing their class, they just don't feel a need to race to the end and take a more "casual approach" to the game.

TL : DR, To me, casual vs hardcore is how you approach the game, not the content you're willing/able to do while you're online.

You obviously care, or you wouldn't take the time to make such an *** of yourself over it on the forums.

First, there's nothing wrong with bragging rights. If you were truly paying attention, you'd noticed that the bragging, when it occurs, is generally directed at other players and guilds in direct competition for the same achievements.

However, that has nothing to do with this whole conversation. The only common trait that min/maxers have with each other is the desire to not suck. That's it. You can min/max and still RP, decorate, ogle the game environment, and have a successful career, possibly kids, be going to school, and get laid(by attractive people even!). One day perhaps you can manage this balance in your own life.

It's like a dressing code in the office. Hardcore is business like. Everyday suit, all necessary gadgets and tools, in the office with sunrise and off with sundown.. lots of things done by the end of the day... casual is like casual friday, a bit later for starting a comp, Starbucks coffee, jeans but at the end of the day all tasks done, all projects finished.

Both hardcore and casual workers done their deeds but their approach to office work is different by no means better or worse, just different

A casual is looking at cat pics on Imgur right now instead of EQ2 forums. You're all hardcore!

lol probably

I'm a mixture of "casual" and "hardcore". I'm hardcore about each of my adventure characters obtaining the Rime horse as soon as they are of a high enough level to get started on the quest line (I've completed it 6 times now), but I'm casual about getting them to that level. I used to be hardcore about decorating my characters houses, until there got to be too many characters and too many houses. Now most don't even have a house of their own. I'm hardcore about making sure that each character that I'm actively playing is completely adorned and up to date with spells, AA's, gear, etc, but I'm casual about spending the time to update alt characters since the release of CoE. I was hardcore about leveling my own crafters so I could supply myself with what was needed, but I'm casual about leveling my weaponsmith and armorer simply because I hate crafting on the forge.

I think it's all subjective and completely depends on individual point of view. I say potato, you say potahto type of thing.