Casual or Hardcore? What is it these days?

[Sonata]

Yes...now I hope this doesn't die again. Computer died twice, so third time writing is the charm. I thought this might be a nice topic, if it exists already it has disappeared from my notice!

In WoW we have the casual and so-called hardcore players. So which one are you?
But most importantly I want to question what is it that makes a hardcore or casual player.
Some say the hardcore players were only back in Vanilla and that they lived and breathed WoW.

I've read that people complain that you don't need to be hardcore anymore to access endgame content because it can be played by the casual player because of the week lockdown. (Didn't the lockdown exist back before also?)

So that hardcore players can't do their "Look at my shine new gear"-stuff anymore because everybody can have the same gear. But then they introduced the achievement system and the raid achievements can be best done by a guild because they have the patience that PuGs don't have and might never will, because there will always be jerks who say "lol this is a fail group" or "LOOOL his GS is still 4,7k" aka. the morale of the team sucks big.

And is a casual player who only appears in dungeons or are they the ones who grind up those all important Saronite ores or leathers we might need and can't bother to gather. And they decide that today I will go fishing all day long or maybe beat up the Baron in hopes of a mount drop.

This actually shows that I don't know much about the borderline between a hardcore and casual.

[Arwyn]

I've been a casual player since I started playing in Vanilla WoW. There two reasons I call myself casual. The first is because I use my time with the game doing quests, working on skills, grinding faction rep. And the second is because I hardly go into dungeons, unless its helping someone or for a mount, because I actually find them boring.

[Nick]

I'm more of a casual raider than a casual in general or hard-core GOGOGO raider.
Used to be all casual "enjoy the game", but my guild has since gotten me into raiding ICC and the occasional Naxx for weekly quests.

[Adam-Savage]

I would fall into the casual raider. I like to raid but I don't like doing it all the time. I do need a break from it.

[Mindsprocket]

I'm certainly casual. I'm not big into raiding at all and spend most of my time supporting my alts

I think the truly hardcore players are the ones in the top guilds that get world-firsts and at least server-firsts of hardmode content. But personal opinions come into this. For many people anyone who does 25-mans regularly is "hardcore", for others it's anyone who raids at all. Many people seem to think that raiders are on every night the whole week just raiding. But most people just raid maybe twice a week and so a lot of the players called "hardcore" may actually spend less time in game than many of the "casuals".

Even though I don't have much experience with raiding, I think hardcore raiding is easier than it used to be if only because coordinating 40 people is definitely more difficult than 25. Also, since gearing up was also more difficult in vanilla, you had fewer people to choose from for forming a bigger team. And yes, "epics" don't really deserve that name anymore since everybody has them. They're pretty much just ordinary level 80 gear. I'm not really complaining about that, but it's a fact that things that everybody has aren't special.

[Curumor]

Yes...now I hope this doesn't die again. Computer died twice, so third time writing is the charm. I thought this might be a nice topic, if it exists already it has disappeared from my notice!

In WoW we have the casual and so-called hardcore players. So which one are you?
But most importantly I want to question what is it that makes a hardcore or casual player.
Some say the hardcore players were only back in Vanilla and that they lived and breathed WoW.

I've read that people complain that you don't need to be hardcore anymore to access endgame content because it can be played by the casual player because of the week lockdown. (Didn't the lockdown exist back before also?)

So that hardcore players can't do their "Look at my shine new gear"-stuff anymore because everybody can have the same gear. But then they introduced the achievement system and the raid achievements can be best done by a guild because they have the patience that PuGs don't have and might never will, because there will always be jerks who say "lol this is a fail group" or "LOOOL his GS is still 4,7k" aka. the morale of the team sucks big.

And is a casual player who only appears in dungeons or are they the ones who grind up those all important Saronite ores or leathers we might need and can't bother to gather. And they decide that today I will go fishing all day long or maybe beat up the Baron in hopes of a mount drop.

This actually shows that I don't know much about the borderline between a hardcore and casual.

I'd say I've been on both sides of the extreme.
In Vanilla, I started out in a casual guild (though it can be argued that the amount of time I spent playing and trying to run the guild was hardcore).
In TBC, I joined a hardcore guild, raiding 5 nights a week, from 18:30pm to 01:00am. We were one of the fastest progressing guilds on the server, starting months behind the top guilds and catching up to them in BT. Only kill I missed in TBC raiding was Kil'Jaeden, because I took a break just before we got him. I was usually among the top 3 dps, with 6/8 pieces of T6 and fairly proud of it.
Before WotLK, I had kinda decided to quit WoW, but came back (very unusual, I know ), but I've stayed pretty casual and I'm in a easy going and casual raid guild. Most members are 25-30+ with families, so there's not that much time for raiding.

But casual and hardcore are pretty subjective terms. Some say hardcore is anyone who raids regularly, and some say it's only the top guilds and players, who'll only group with people who have high gearscore and accept no mistakes.
Personally, I've never been into the whole "If you don't have [whatever], you can't come with us." mentality. Hell, from I started and till early TBC, I spent loads of time boosting and teaching new players. We even managed to take down Drakkisath with a lvl 57 tank (doesn't say much now, but in Vanilla, that was kinda big ).

But imo, the reason there seems to be a enormous rise in leet kiddies and arrogant morons the last year, is how WotLK is built up. Skill, coordination and tacts have taken a backseat to gear and dps. It's a "how fast can I push my buttons" nukefest, which seems to attract those kind of players. Anyone who's tanked a PuG will have noticed that aggro management is near non-existent nowadays. Half the people in ICC gear I've grouped with fail completely at simple tacts. Personally, I'd rather have a good player with poor gear than a tunnelvision moron with the best gear.

This kinda turned into a little rant, but nvm
Hopefully, things'll change a bit with Cata.

[Galahandra]

Well, back in Vanilla I started out as casual, but then progressed to Hardcore after I joined my first raiding guild. After some dispute with the officers there (*coughwankerscough*) I left and made my own Hardcore raiding guild, which went absolutely brilliantly, one shotting ZG, MC, AQ20 and BWL in our first runs there! All went pear shaped when I went on a school trip though, and the guild disbanded while I was away, which was incidentally my birthday!!

So, before BC was released, did the same as everybody else - grind some PvP!

BC is released and I get a boyfriend...he happens to be the leader of a hardcore raiding guild which made things a tad difficult from time to time, with irate guild members accusing him of favouritism, which was ofc a load of bs as I saved up my DKP like everyone else and signed up for raids like everyone else, I just happened to have better luck with drops being a Moonkin who was allowed to roll on cloth...

Towards the end of BC I hopped back down to casual after splitting up with him and accidentally making him quit, having his guild disband in the process...

Now, in WOTLK am more of a 'hardcore casual' if that makes sense...I do the easier raids, level up lots of alts, but don't do any of the late night raiding, theorycrafting, I just play alot and play for fun!

Come Cata am pretty sure I'll be just a regular casual player, only playing with friends and raiding if the mood suits me :3

[Galahandra]

Even though I don't have much experience with raiding, I think hardcore raiding is easier than it used to be if only because coordinating 40 people is definitely more difficult than 25. Also, since gearing up was also more difficult in vanilla, you had fewer people to choose from for forming a bigger team. And yes, "epics" don't really deserve that name anymore since everybody has them. They're pretty much just ordinary level 80 gear. I'm not really complaining about that, but it's a fact that things that everybody has aren't special.

Gonna have to agree with this...from what I've seen compared to what we used to do the level of skill required has certainly gone down. Raiding in Vanilla was definately quite hard. With entry level raids back then, you had to gear up form quests ofr the four level 60 instances that were on offer - Strat, Scholo, DiM and LBRS. The only raid that was remotely puggable (before BC talent release) was UBRS, and then it required alot of skill. I used to have to kite General Drakkisath at the end, if you lagged or ran one little bit in the wrong direction, he'd kill you before his adds died, or before you could hit feign death, which would most likely lead to a wipe!

Also, managing 39 people was quite hard. Speaking from experience of leadign a raiding guild here, you used to get some absolute wangs in your raids! The amount of people that had trouble with a 16 year old gay guy still in school telling you what to do, telling you off for not doing simple things right, was enormous! You had to choose your officers carefully and have them know exactly how to handle certain people. Was really relieved, actually, when it came to giving up the title or raid/guild leader!

Then, in BC raiding was still quite difficult, especially as CC played a big roll. Mages had to spam Polymorph on just the beginning mobs in TK to stop there being a wipe, I remember having to spam entangling roots in ZA, and also cyclone in ZA and TK. Gear was also quite difficuly to obtain aswell, seeing as the heroics were quite difficult (anyone remember CoT Durnholde?) and Kara was fairly difficult (in entry level gear).

Now, in WotLK, the proper gear is basically handed to us on a plate. From levelling up my druid from 70 - 80 I could practically jump into Naxxramas, do respectable DPS and pick up plenty of loot that was on offer. My prime example of this would have to be on my Disc priest. The same day I got her to level 80, I respecced her from Shadow do Disc, got the requisite glyphs that I needed, then 5 minutes later I managed to heal a Naxx raid with perfect ease. No mana troubles (back before Rapture was changed) and bringing shields, PI and PS to the raid...simples!

[Mockingbird]

Hardcore for me is planned raiding schedule of at least 3 nights a week, and the raiding is the main point of your character (specs/professions desinged for maximum personal and team contribution).

Casual for me is what I do - log on when you like, do what you fancy, raid if there's one going.

I think in terms of time spent there's no set difference, it's more about a mindset. A hardcore raider is fundamentally and primarily part of a raid(ing guild), a casual player is part of a guild/group of friends, or a solo character.

[Sonata]

Nice to hear that people have so many opinions! And exprience from both sides.

Wow Galandra I can't believe we have a real...well guild leader in the middle of us. Well all the guild leaders I have met are always nice.
Yes actually from hearing the Vanilla players sayings it seems raiding had more of a edge to it back in the old days and it actually sounds fun that those spells you have (like good ol' CC who nobody seems to need) get to be used.

Back in my first raid that was Kara (did it with six people, two lvl 70's and 4 lvl 80's) because our guild was small and so on, I was mainly almost the only healer on the scene and Kara was fun and challenging, I would do it again! Moroes and the chess event....talk to me about fun!
Gruuls lair, that was fun too!

Me and Golden do alot of mount runs to ZG and we actually have to think what we do there! The raptor boss we have succesfully mastered but with the tiger we do tend to reset the boss or the fight does drag out to about over a half hour.

Curumor your words don't sound like a rant to me atleast, it pretty much is that in some fights...there are some bosses who still are not tank&spank. Because today is that your gear seems to say your skill, no questions asked sadly and even if you are good geared you don't know the tacts: thus leading to confusion and wipe.
And there is no harm in explaining tactics or telling that you will quick read or that somebody gives a quick version of the encounter.

To learn is to fail first I say.

EDIT:
Pardon my wonderful writing errors and keep more options and stories coming this is some great information!

[Curumor]

Nice to hear that people have so many opinions! And exprience from both sides.
Curumor your words don't sound like a rant to me atleast, it pretty much is that in some fights...there are some bosses who still are not tank&spank. Because today is that your gear seems to say your skill, no questions asked sadly and even if you are good geared you don't know the tacts: thus leading to confusion and wipe.
And there is no harm in explaining tactics or telling that you will quick read or that somebody gives a quick version of the encounter.

To learn is to fail first I say.

EDIT:
Pardon my wonderful writing errors and keep more options and stories coming this is some great information!

Aye, some bosses require small amounts of tacts. But to illustrate what it could be like back in Vanilla, for example, here's how the Drakkisath fight went:
First of all, you need to clear the room. On one side, you have General Drakkisath and 2 (or 3, can't remember) adds waiting. On the other, there are 3 packs of mobs, with one patrol. These needed to be killed without stepping too close to the boss or pulling the other packs. Not hard, but still needed to pay attention.

When the room was clear, you had 2 tanks. One on each add (or if you had a really good tank and healer, just 1 tanking both), and they were killed first. General Drakkisath had a spell called Conflagrate (iirc) which gave a very strong DoT and CC, making tanking very hard, so he needed to be kited out of the room, staying out of range from his Conflagrate spell. This usually was the job of hunters. The path you had to kite him was through a small door, over a narrow bridge, through another small door and into The Beast's room. More than one hunter miscalulated and went diving off the bridge (like me. Have a wonderful screenshot of me standing in LBRS after falling off ) or ran into a wall or got too close. At the end, you had to FD and follow him back in, hoping the rest of the group had taken down the adds. If you messed up, it almost always meant a wipe. And if they weren't ready by the time you reached the end and had to FD (what they actual did in the room, I have no idea about), you'd have to run after, try to grab aggro again before he attacked anyone, and kite again.
And that was just a 10man instance. But it was great fun. And the first place I learned how to kite (had never done it before ).

The only problem back then was that trying to have raid guild was a lot of work! We tried getting our guild up to raiding regularly, but there were simply too many who either left for established raiding guilds as soon as they got some ok gear, or just didn't put in any effort (not showing up for raids they asked about constantly, respeccing from tank or healer without bothering to tell anyone, or just plain refusing to tank/heal, etc..). It's pretty much the reason why I refuse to lead any guild any more. Was mostly a horrible experience, tbh.

Btw, if you want more stories and info about Vanilla and such, you should start a topic just for that. I'm sure a lot of people have some good ones. ^^

[Saturo]

Btw, if you want more stories and info about Vanilla and such, you should start a topic just for that. I'm sure a lot of people have some good ones. ^^

Gather round, gather round, and I'll tell you the story of how I almost singlehandedly defeated Nefarian, while protecting a bunch of other people from death while they pranced about and played with magic!

[Mockingbird]

Heh heh... I rememebr 10-man UBRS.
It was the first >5 person instance I ever went to, and I thought it was CHAOS. It was madness!

I remember the all-jump-together bit, the king kiting, the WHELPS OH GOD WHELPS...

Back when pulling a second group meant instant death unless the tank was a god and the healer a goddess...

Then came molten core. Which was CRAP and BORING because I was feral, so there was literally maybe 1 piece of loot in there I wanted, and it was difficult and slow and grrrr

Then came BWL. Possibly my favourite instance ever. The first room was a diffcult, challenging boss fight that invovled coordination, special abilities, group play, and someone got to possess a giant dragon! The number of frantic last-second wipes (and even more frantic last-second victories) we had there. Vael was second, a dragon that broke all the established rules of aggro, DPS, mana conservation, and everything else, and just made everyone go MAD CRAZY SPAM OMG OMG OMG. After him and some nasty trash came the hatcheries - endlessly respawning mobs where to stand still was to die! Those rooms culminated in the fight against the Broodlord Lashlayer - On my feral I tanked him for our first successful guild kill, back when feral was a joke and there were no items for us (greens "of the tiger" were our babies!). After that there were dragons where you couldn't SEE them, or you'd die, a giant undead dog that breathed fire and required mad decursing/depoison/de-diseasing skills from everyone, then another badass dragon with a healing debuff, and finally we were permitted to go and visit with Neff, who has special skills FOR EVERY CLASS! (Note: feral DPS druids like me loved him - the class call for druids was turning us to cat form. Whoop de do.) If you were a hunter, he broke your ranged weapon. Harsh.

That instance just had a degree of love that had gone into the design that I've not really felt since. Karazhan came close, but never fully made it for me.

I'm yet to do ICC at all though, so they may be ace.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

*Chuckles* Mockingbird, I remember 15 man UBRS, and 10 man Stratholme and Scholomance.

I started casual, went hardcore for a while in the middle of Vanilla, and have been casual ever since that ended. Casual, I just log on and play who I went to, when I want. Hardcore I had certain things I HAD to do at certain times. I was on a schedule for when I did play. Might have been hardcore longer, but the guilds I was running with at the time were horrible.

[Galahandra]

Oh, the Nefarian fight was so fun, I was probably the only hunter who didn't have their weapon broken by him, always carried a spare with me anyhow. In just about every UBRS run there'd be someone who didn't jump off the balcony in time, aggro all the orcs that came running in, then jump down leading to a swift and painful death!

One of my favourite fights from Vanilla would probably be Moam...how many times can you say you ever used Viper Sting in a raid? :p

[Anansi]

I consider myself a casual player. I'm not really keen on hard modes and so forth, and I'm not really a theorycrafter type, so I put myself in the casual camp.

Thing is, the meanings of casual and hardcore are purely those of perspective, so one person's hardcore may be another person's casual, depending on how the person doing the attributions plays the game.

[Dewclaw]

Casual.

[Vephriel]

I probably fall into a semi-casual category.

I didn't raid in Vanilla, and only minimally raided in BC. WotLK I've gone into a bit of raiding, but nothing serious. My main focus in the game is my character, my pets, and the little fun things I enjoy such as collecting mini-pets, mounts, outfits, and of course just hanging out with friends and guildies. Not to mention being a chronic alt-o-holic. xD I'll be getting into raiding a bit more in Cataclysm with the ability for 10m guilds to succeed (My friend is starting a raiding guild for a close-knit group of us, so I'll be looking forward to that).

I enjoy keeping Veph decently geared, though I'm not breaking my neck to do so. Also I'll never be anything but BM, I won't even bother buying dual-spec since I have no interest in playing a talent tree that not only doesn't fit my tastes/playstyle, but also doesn't match my character whatsoever. I've been through the buffs and nerfs of Beast Mastery and it's never bothered me in the least. I can still perform just fine, and I'm not worried about being the absolute top DPS. I just do my own thing.

[Zeilla8]

I'd put myself in the hardcore catagory.

We raid from 19-23 (7pm-11pm) Sunday through Thursday. Friday and Saturday are reserved for 10man raids and are optional, but I usually raid lead one of the 10man teams so don't really take a break from raiding.

For me, hardcore raiding isn't just about the scheduling, it's also about discipline and dedication.
I think ya'll are going to find my guild rules quite extreme, so here you go just for entertainment:
You must be there on time or you loose your raid spot. Missing too many raid start times leads to a demotion. Missing too many raids without posting on the guild forum leads to removal from the guild. You must read all boss tactics before raid starts. You must have flasks, pots, potions, and buff food that is optimal for your class (meaning if your MM and aren't hardcapped for arpen, you better have armpen food and not eat the fish feast). If you fail on the same thing several times during a raid you will be replaced (ie, standing in defiles on LK over and over and not learning to move). Fail too many times you will be gkicked (now that mostly goes for new people who aren't learning fights fast enough for our standards, so they do not pass their trial and are removed).

It's pretty military style, and for me it works great. I love how structured it is. When we start at 19, we are usually pulling trash by 19.05 and have ICC cleared (25hc) to Lich King by 22. We haven't gotten LK 25hc down yet, but we lost about 8 players over the summer due to various reasons. We finally got some good new trials and looks like we'll be starting up our pulls on him soon. I can't wait! It's about time we kill him!!! I have 2 relm first achieve kills both on 25 raids: Algalon and Anub and it was really hard to loose the LK hc relm first to another guild. I really do like being the best.

Now what people say about gear and that casuals can be hardcore raiders ect, I'm sorry I disagree completely. You can get nice tier set gear with grinding emblems, but you won't get the heroic set, and there is a huge difference between the heroic gear and the normal badge gear. On normal and on 10mans there are a lot of ICC bosses that are pugable or casual raiding guilds can get down, but 25hc end bosses, like Putri and Sindra, even Lady D, are quite hard. It's not about gear and smashing buttons on those, it's about tactics and positioning.

Now that ya'll probalby think I'm crazy I just want to say. YES, this is what is fun to me! I totally love it. My husband and I raid together and this is what we do when we're home from work. I don't like questing, so I don't have any alts, but I just love raiding and raiding seriously with others who want the miliatary style raid leading.

[Cerah]

I'm pretty much a casual player, since I do whatever it is that I want to do whenever I log in, whether it be doing dailies on my main or leveling my alts. Usually I make little "projects" for myself -- like getting the Outland Dungeon Hero achievement on my tankadin -- and focus on them. If I get bored with that, I switch to something else. I have 8 toons on Alterac Mountains, 7 Horde, 1 Ally, and 4 Ally alts on Maelstrom, so I can almost always find something to do.

Although I'm in guilds, I'm pretty much a solo player. I'll join PUGs for raiding, and sometimes they go well, sometimes they don't, it all depends. I've never been in a scheduled raid, though, and I don't think I'd want to. I have enough schedules and pressure in real life -- I don't need it in WoW, where I go to relax.