The Lich King's casual decree: No geek left behind?

Two letters: QQ

Seriously though it takes a total idiot to think that all the casuals stand in awe of Hardcore raiders leet skills and play the game because they know that out there somewhere there is somthing they will never do.....

Ya I'm sure there are a few oddballs like that but for the most part casuals play for FUN. I'd guess 3/4 of my casual friends don't give a damn if they never get a piece of tier and really don't care about all the content others do to get it.

As far as ruining it and making it too easy, well theres lots of those every time there is a big patch never mind an expansion. When Buring Crusade came out there were THOUSANDS of people predicting the downfall of WoW because Blizzard had "Ruined" it.

And the biggest thing is, while doing the dungeons and getting the gear is no longer HELLA hard the some of the achivements ARE and thats where the respect comes in.

I'll gladly .bow to the first guild on my server to get the [Immortal] title but none of them have even got close yet......

To sum up if giving more players more access and more things to do in WoW is ruining it then obviously Blizzard needs to ruin it some more.

I'll the one saying that the "true" hardcore players of yore are gone, they dropped out of the game completely, turned off by Blizzard's first steps into making "no geek left behind" their new doctrine a while back.

The "new" hardcore are players excelling at an easy game, and who don't realize they're making themselves look ridiculous.

casual versus hardcore - nerfs, etc. a neverending story....
*sighs*

considering that it takes max a month to "burn" through 70-80 content, I guess it must be easier.
Me as a self-proclaimed casual player (casual due to non-raid, not time-wise) has to admit it is easier. I can even go and solo through say scholomance at level 7x .
That to me though only makes WoW to a game which finally has more dungeons for dungeon crawling available. Most dungeons were specific groups or raids only, something I would probable never even get to see. And with the heroic mode, the hardcore peeps shouldn't have too much to complain. So all in all I think it was a good balance from *my* perspective.

Now I wish it wouldn't be so boring to rolling alts.... A "boost" has become so common place nowadays though. Even, or especially from the hardcore peeps (who usually are the ones to burn through to max level so as to raid/pvp?).

I like wow's new "casual" approach. Instead of just the most hardcore of the hardcore getting to see,say, Kel' Thuzad or Malygos, now we all have a good chance of experiencing it.

I don't think the game is too easy or too hard, it's just right for me. My guild is relatively new and over the last four weeks we've progressed up to Sapphirion, the progression has been difficult, but not "people screaming in vent, constantly squeezing a stressball, throw your computer out the window" difficult that all "teh hadcorez" seem to lust after.

There is just as much content in Wrath end game as in BC's, because all of the raids can be done 10 and 25 man. We didnt have that in BC.

And cry all you want about "its too casual!" but I'll take an accessible FUN game any day of the week over the nightmare that was end game in BC. Kara was a guild destroyer. period.

You had all these huge guilds go from 40 people down to 25, but before they could even do *that* they had to break down into 10 man teams to gear up for the 25 man content. You combine that with the new "classes" for each faction, different leveling styles for guild members, and kara being very long and difficult before they tuned it right and guilds were being bent over.

How quickly everyone forgets the dark times before the sunwell.

I never felt a sense of awe inspired by the unattainable. Then again, I'm probably not typical: I enjoy what I'm doing at the moment and don't worry about how far I may get.

Why should Blizzard care about 'keeping up with hardcores' when it's what they've done for casual gameplay that's made them so successful?

"Not so long ago I, and 39 of my closest friends, did rare battle with fire gods in the bowels of the earth, and it was a big deal. It was difficult, occasionally tedious and a monumental reward for countless hours lost that might have been better spent with friends and family."

He defines himself "casual"?
How many casuals did 40 men raids (Molten Core in this case)?
No, he's not casual, he's simply angry he's not one of the "cool raiders in epix" anymore.
The same old elitist QQ.

Casual vs. Hardcore is the stupidest debate ever. Blizz is a business and they're going to do things the way that makes them the most money. If that means that catering to the lowest common denominator then so be it. Personally I don't see the lack of risk, reward or adventure at all. Then again I don't spend every waking hour playing either.

WotLK is a great expansion.

The world they created in Northrend is vertical, can be flown over and has a very good end game because of a lot of choices. A lot of fun mini games which break the grinding effect all MMO's have.

Be it world Pvp, arena, Bg's, dialy quests, heroic dungeons and intro raiding settings.

All are an evolution we have seen in Wow since patch 2.3 (Nov 2007). It is no longer the raiding game.

Those who say it is too easy are mostly those NOT doing the 25 men Raids or rated Arena matches...

They only choose to play it the easy way and avoid any hard goings.

It looks "cool" when you say WotlK is too easy (by merely doing the open world experience quests) and to me it is proof of being a real "noob" believing you can just walk as a casual and get an arena rating of 1800 or downing everyting in the 25 men raids.

And I have proof: the armory around me shows the opposite !!!

It should say SOMTHING if now 3 months after launch NO ONE camle even close to obtaining the full achievements list.

And the number one on that spot of .... 5.000.000 western subscriptions will even never make it, because he still lacks a dozen achievements in PvP (arena).

So a game where NOT one person out of 5.000.000 could even do the achievements is hardly "casual".

Rethinking about this topic, hardcore or casual aside, I would actually say that Blizzard is simply adapting.
More and more MMOs are coming out, LOTRO and WAR show that competition is possible, and games such as Runescape or MapleQuest show that "primitive" (in lack of better wording, sorry) can have a huge player base anyway.
And if i read about what free to play games like Runes of Magic, Aion, Free Realms (will) have to offer, Free Realms just as Runescape via webbrowser, well heck, the traditional MMO companies will have to rethink what/how they offer for their subscription models.
So again, WoW is simply evolving, even if it might not be to everyones taste.

I think the wraith design is somewhat different than TBC. For one, its very long, it's taking much longer to burn through wraith (time wise) than it did for TBC. Not saying you can't do it in a few days, but for most of us, it takes a while. I play *alot*, 20,30, 40 hrs a week, and i've just now got a second char up to 79. It's taking me about 60 to 80 hours of just straight leveling to get from 70 to 80.

There are alot more quests. This is good and bad. Good in that quests are fun. Bad in that there are just so many. To do the northend loremaster achievement is about 1000 quests. It's pretty typical to do 5 in an hour while leveling. That's 100-200 hours of game play right there.

The quest hubs are tightly unlockable; what I mean is that many quest hubs don't activate until you do a bunch of quests in another quest hub, or hit a specific level. Previously wow has been this way before but never this bad. This means that it becomes very scripted. Want to do dragonblight? Fine, you have a sequence of 100ish quest, go. Its not so true that you can just fly/walk to a quest hub and do a few quests and call it good.

All this means that it's hard to play with friends, quests are usually unshareable, and follow very long chains.

So TL;DR, blizz has made a conscience decision to 1) make wraith much longer in time, and 2) make it more 'solo friendly' but less 'group/friend friendly'.

I play this game to have fun with my friends. It's boring as sin to do the same thing over and over by yourself. I think what will really kill the game at the end is that this inherent problem, its too difficult to play with friends. From finding dungeon groups (all but impossible unless you are a level 80 tank or healer or in a well connected guild), to trying to level with friends of different play styles (ie my wife plays 10 hrs a week, i play 20-30), it's just too hard to actually play the MMO with actual people.

I think the quote that perfectly sums up this whole sorry argument is this:

"To succeed is not enough; others must fail." Gore Vidal.

I personally think this whole issue is a sorry blight on the MMO community, one that has unfortunately bled onto the other genres.

I'm a new, casual player, and I have a couple of thoughts on this...

1) I really like the balance Blizzard has struck with WoW. If I need to devote some time and attention to my real life, I can, and just jump back in when I feel like it and pick up where I left off.

2) I'm finding it harder to view WoW as a "game" so much as a really immersive, involving story. It doesn't have to be terrifically challenging. In fact, if it were, I'd have a hard time staying involved.

3) For my subscription fee, this is the biggest entertainment bargain I've ever seen.