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The latest patch 5.4 newsIs there such a thing as casually hardcore?
by Anne Stickney 
Feb 17th 2012 at 12:00PM
Once upon a time, I was an MC raider back in vanilla WoW. I raided six nights a week, three to four hours a night. My off night, Friday, was spent gathering plants in Felwood and other materials for potions and flasks. We busted our butts on completing progression content before anyone else on the realm, and if we couldn't manage that, before anyone else on our side of the faction fence managed to do so. Somewhere in the midst of AQ-40, the guild fell apart. People were just burnt out on way too much raiding and all the preparation involved in getting that raiding done successfully.
These days, I raid three nights a week, three hours a night or so. To me, it's far, far more casual than what I used to do. I don't spend a ton of time on farming materials, and I don't spend a ton of time on other things unless it happens to be in game holiday time. I don't usually run random instances unless I'm after something specific, and I don't really do PvP at all. I'd call myself casual, simply based on the time that I play and what I do with that time. Yet there are still plenty of people out there who fling the hardcore title at me.
When I look at how I used to play and how I play now, I can't understand why anyone would think what I'm doing now is anything but casual, and I'm confused as to why anyone would say differently.
These days, I raid three nights a week, three hours a night or so. To me, it's far, far more casual than what I used to do. I don't spend a ton of time on farming materials, and I don't spend a ton of time on other things unless it happens to be in game holiday time. I don't usually run random instances unless I'm after something specific, and I don't really do PvP at all. I'd call myself casual, simply based on the time that I play and what I do with that time. Yet there are still plenty of people out there who fling the hardcore title at me.
When I look at how I used to play and how I play now, I can't understand why anyone would think what I'm doing now is anything but casual, and I'm confused as to why anyone would say differently.
It's a really good question, and I don't know if there's really a defined answer to it because the question itself is so subjective. To someone like me who spent endless hours plugging away in Molten Core and trying to smush Ragnaros into a fine paste, what I do now is much less hardcore, far more casual, and just my speed. But to someone who's never stepped a foot into a raid instance in their gaming lifetime, even the little raiding I do must look like a lot.
To our realm, maybe we look hardcore. To the rest of the world, I expect we look somewhat casual. It's all a matter of which perspective you're looking at the situation from, I think. As far as I am concerned, my guild and my playstyle is entrenched deeply in that somewhere in between, and I'm perfectly OK with that. It's exactly where I want to be.
I think what bothers me more than the definitions is the way that the terms casual and hardcore are thrown about like insults, to be perfectly honest. Having played both ends of the spectrum, I can firmly say that there's nothing really wrong with either, but I think that most players out there are somewhere in that in-between space. What I think is most interesting, however, is that WoW seems to be steadily moving, developmentally speaking, to a space that is neither casual nor hardcore. It's somewhere in between -- somewhere where all of us already are.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
tabardsrock Feb 17th 2012 1:13PM
oh mah gawd anne... that song brings back SO many memories! i'm very happy to be hearing it again :)
Peney Feb 17th 2012 1:22PM
Honestly, I would think there is a way to be casually hardcore. If you give yourself/your group certain criteria to meet, most would see that as being 'hard core' (such as demanding gems, glyphs, and enchants)...but the playstyle that you raid with would see it as casual as some prefer to have fun while they raid.
smartazjb0y Feb 17th 2012 1:22PM
I think large part of it is mentality and a small part of it as time put in. I'd say if you don't have a strict time schedule, you're definitely casual. If you're only raiding once or twice a week, but always with the mentality of "everyone on the raid team is going to play their class to the best of their ability, we're going to expect that out of everyone, and we're going to make sure that our raid time is spent on making progress," I'd say that's casually hardcore, regardless of whether they're doing normals or heroics. If they raid a few nights a week, but aren't focused on always making progress, and as long as people play their class well it doesn't really matter what spec they're playing, then I'd say that's fairly casual.
It really is about the mentality. If a guild is thinking "we're going to approach this raid with a fairly hardcore mindset, but not too hardcore" then I'd say that guild is casually hardcore. Paragon-esque hardcore is progression on heroics, you do absolutely everything you can to push top numbers, and you put a significant amount of time in to raid. Casual hardcore, maybe you put in less time and you're not as strict on doing absolutely everything you can to put out top numbers, but maybe you expect to make progress every raid night, and everyone should be putting a fair amount of work into being the best player they can be. And finally, the casual mindset is not necessarily focused on making progress and pushing your character to the limits, but more to having fun. Of course, that doesn't mean that everyone just plays with whatever talents they want, and that raid nights aren't serious at all. It's more like "hey you can play whatever spec you want, we're not looking at numbers and saying that you have to play the spec that pumps out the highest numbers" and "we're not the type of guild that gets frustrated and angry at every sign of failure, we're here to have fun."
And I say this without any implications about the terms casual or hardcore.
Aladeran Feb 17th 2012 1:44PM
I found over the years that the comments coming from people around me were the best indicators of hardcore or casual involvment in the game. And by people ... I mean friends, family and coworkers who do not play WoW. Citizens of Azeroth are (I think) sometimes a bit biased when its time to measure gaming time.
If my wife and kids complain (and they are usually very good with my gaming hobby), I most likely commited myself too much to the game. Personnaly, I rarely met a hardcore raider (in real life) who did not get a fair share of negative comments from their surroundings about the time spent in the game. It would be a useful topic, if WoW Insider could find a recent research that is unbiased on the gaming habits of the WoW Community. My bet would be that for many of us, it would be an eye opener.
Langis Langley Feb 17th 2012 1:53PM
There's a recent article on Bitmob about the terms casual and hardcore that is very much on-topic.
The link:
http://bitmob.com/articles/terms-gamers-need-to-stop-misusing-casual-and-hardcore
Lipstick Feb 17th 2012 1:58PM
I'm a relatively new GM. My guild is still in it's honey moon phase, so what I say might sound like I am in denial, but I firmly believe that my guild is a semi-hardcore guild, with a social twist. For starters, many of us played together in other guilds, which is where the vibe of friendship comes from. As we've brought in outsiders we've brought in people that were groups of friends themselves, and many of us have taken the time to spend time with those groups, so that people enjoy spending time together.
We raid 9 hours a week, 3 hours a night and within 3 weeks have cleared a number of meta achievements towards DS drakes, and are 1/8 H full clearing DW every week, each week on a slightly more challenging difficulty as we work through the chromatic champion achievement.
Not every member of my team pulls the exact same amount of weight as someone else, but every person carries their own weight. Some members are better at some aspects than others, but we don't sit people based on performance, or for specific classes. We were careful when we created our team to pick classes which we could get the most bang for our buck out of in 10m, while still keeping the tier distribution relatively fair.
We've set the standard from the beginning to be a guild which pushes itself and yet still cares about it's members. Our policies are clearly communicated and we settle disputes as fairly as we can, consistently in the same manner. As a result we have a guild which has found success and staddles that fence between hardcore and casual in my eyes.
To our realm, we're doing amazing things, because few guilds actually transfer there, much less go in, in 3 weeks and begin clearing hardmodes or achievements .. but to us, this is hardmode raiding on a casual schedule, with a social focus so it doesn't feel "hardcore".
Aaron Feb 17th 2012 1:59PM
I think it's also important to differentiate between "hardcore" and "raiding". You can be a hardcore PvP'er, a hardcore gold-capper, or a hardcore pet collector. Personally, I think the Insane and Exalted reputation achievements are pretty hardcore, because they require hundreds of hours of work and most of it provides no reward other than progress toward the title. Conversely, there are plenty of casual raiders out there. As others have said, it's not so much a matter of what you do or how much time you spend doing it, but your reasons and attitude.
My realm has a couple of casual raiding guilds that run Firelands and Dragon Soul weekly. They have a standard calendar, but nobody's obligated to show up, so if they come up short they grab people from Trade chat. They care about item level, gems, enchants, flasks, and buff food, but the important thing is that you can survive and contribute. They care about progression, but they don't kick people for making good-faith mistakes. Essentially, I consider them casual because their reason for raiding is to have fun.
Josh Feb 17th 2012 2:04PM
Here is how I play:
M-F: When I get home from work I log in, I run random heroics on my main and my two alts I like. If I have not done the LFR I do it. I will usually run random heroics even if I am VP capped because I enjoy them. I do that for a few hours, then I will go farm some old instances for mounts and transmog items.
Sa-Su: I usualy will play up an alot for fun, maybe farm some more old things.
I really consider myself casual even though I put in a lot of hours. M-F I gerneally plam fomr about 6PM to 11PM each day and weekends I play form arround 4PM to 10PM.
robsmith77 Feb 17th 2012 2:09PM
"Is there such a thing as casually hardcore?"
Yes there is, casually hardcore defines my guild perfectly. We have two raid teams, we raid three times a week for three hours at a time, raiders are expected be properly gemmed and enchanted and are expected to bring enough buff food and elixirs to last the evening. That's the hardcore part. The casual part is that we don't mind if someone has to drop out because something in real life cropped up, so long as you notify the raid leader beforehand, it's all cool. We don't mind if someone consistently fails on one aspect of a particular fight - rather than rotate someone else in we'll keep wiping for an evening or two until that player fully understands the fight and is able to perform (yes, it is massively frustrating, especially if the player that's failing is not you, but it's a part of being in the guild). We're not worried if a particular raid member only has one spec, we don't try to force them into doing something they might not be comfortable with (arms warrior being asked to tank if the regular tank can't make it that paricular evening, for example). And we're not particularly worried if the average dps is only in the 20-25k range. Yes, all this means that we progress very slowly (the guild completed normal Spine of Deathwing for the first time last week, but last night we one-shot our way through the first 6 bosses to give us two nights to focus on that fight again and hopefully move on to Deathwing), but we have a good time doing it and no one (hopefully) gets stressed out about things.
Ominous Feb 17th 2012 2:11PM
Yes there is.
You like to have fun but, when a raid is down, you put your game face on. It's fun too, but in a different way.
You're on point, prepared, stick to tactics and play for the team.
You then go back to /dance emotes (if that floats your boat).
Juzelle Feb 17th 2012 2:22PM
Like the author, I was in a prog-raiding 40man guild in vanilla. we were ranked 3rd for horde and I think 5th overall on the server, and one of only 4 guilds doing original Naxx. I raided 6 days a week for 5 hours a night, with saturdays off and sunday night devoted to BWL/Ony clears for offspec/set pieces. I spent my off-days farming whipper root tubers. The day the AQ40 event happened, I called out sick from work and skipped a final exam because they needed DPS for Prophet Skeram attempts.
In BC we scored server first kills on a number of tier 1 & 2 bosses. We were the one of the first horde guilds on the server to cash in on the lucrative business of selling ZA bear mounts and sunwell trash runs. Our Alliance sister guild had some of the top ranked dps in the US, and were in the running for server first sunwell(screwed outta that one ;p). In wrath, we were one of the first horde guilds running naxx, and my first Lich king kill was a 10man heroic kill.
For alot of people this was what was considered to be pretty hardcore. On the flip side, we didn't feel very hardcore, and we just played the game like anyone else. Eventually due to life constraints, we moved to raiding 3 days a week, and just tried to be really efficient and get as much done as we could in the shorter amount of allotted time that was available to us. We had alot of fun.
After going through the whole nonsense of raiding becoming a 2nd job. I feel fortunate that at one point I could afford the time to spend on raiding 6 nights a week. I know I certainly can't live like that anymore, and I know alot of people simply can't do that because their real lives keep them more occupied.
So from this perspective, it feels like the whole debate on casual vs hardcore is that it belongs in that whole "I am better than you because of XXXX" epeen stroking. The argument seems to stem from something which one could claim makes you feel good about yourself or feel superior to another person. like "i'm hardcore, thus I am better than you" or "I worked harder than you did!".
it's a mentality of exclusivity based on perception of achievement, which, if you sit down and REALLY think about it, is really, really dumb. Like do tyou think the clerk at the grocery store gives a sh*t if you're the best dps on your server? it's like "hey I'm really good at a videogame". That's cool, I guess? I have job, that's pretty cool too right?
Anytime I've gotten that attitude from people I just kind of smile and nod. been there, done that, not a huge deal at all in the grand scheme of the world, guys.
Zaroc Feb 17th 2012 2:26PM
Is there such a thing as casually hardcore? Yes its a good podcast. Also I agree that most players are in the middle somewhere.
Armill3 Feb 17th 2012 2:59PM
Are you raiding current progression content during scheduled periods 2+ nights a week? Congratulations! You're probably hardcore.
Casual players may log lots of hours, but are either unable or unwilling to commit to a regular weekly raiding schedule, especially one that encompasses more than one night a week. It's a matter of perspective, sure, depending on where you're at in your life journey - a college student without extra-curriculars might not even feel a multi-night commitment; a person with a full time job might also not mind so much, though evenings become dearer.
A gamer married to a non-gamer, or a new parent, though? A commitment of 2 nights a week, let alone additional time spent to support that structured time can represent an enormous commitment.
For my part, my reality falls into this latter category. I consider myself a hardcore-wannabe. I would love to progress, would love to raid even two nights a week, but cannot. I wish there were a good way to find people with the same mindset and time constraints. Hardcore one-nighters would be perfect
Armill3 Feb 17th 2012 3:42PM
The reality is, it isn't about ability - there are probably a not small percentage of hardcore "bads" out there - so much as commitment to organized play, at least as far as raiding goes.
Ryan Feb 17th 2012 3:00PM
Regardless of what word you use to describe it, nine hours a week is a lot of time to most people regardless of the activivty. To what Rossi said earlier, if you play WoW for an hour a night plus two hours on the weekends, that is a *lot* of time, even if you're not raiding.
This isn't a judgement; people are free to spend their time as they will. But if you break down hours in a day or in a week after factoring in sleep, work (for most people), and social obligations, you'll see that nine a week is very much NOT an insignificant number.
SamLowry Feb 17th 2012 3:15PM
If someone watches 90 minutes of TV a day, would you call them a hardcore TV viewer? If they read for the same 90 minutes would they be a hardcore reader?
The issue is folks who do nothing but raid 9 hours a week. That's a lot, considering everything else there is to do in the game. However, if you block all of that everything else out and do nothing but raid, that would be like the 9-hour-per-week TV viewer who watches nothing but Glee.
Scary, eh?
junior.thanimator Feb 17th 2012 3:07PM
After reading this article what I’m coming away with is a resolution to not label people as casual or hardcore. It also makes me want to ask people how they define themselves. Do they see themselves as hardcore or casual? And why?
I think I’m pretty casual. I’ve never done a level-appropriate instance before, unless getting a run through by my max-level boyfriend counts. And I’m sure it doesn’t. It took me 8 months to get to level 85, and only JUST started doing quests in Borean Tundra – trying to get my loremaster achievement. That’s probably the only thing I’m hardcore about, getting those PVE achievements.
ravyncat Feb 17th 2012 3:19PM
I think the main issue is that there are several degrees of hardcore, casual, and in between. People get grumpy and try to make it either/or when they are throwing out insults.
Me, I have always been very casual and probably always will be. This means I play maybe four days a week with most of my play concentrated on the weekend.
(I would play more if I didn't have the stupid exhausting job five of those seven days. I need to win the lottery.)
But even if I had time, there is no way I would spend several hours a week raiding...because I don't like raiding that much.
(I am not good at it.)
That doesn't make me uber casual, it makes me someone who likes Raid Finder mode and that is about it.
I prefer to level alts and solo dungeons and play the auction house instead.
That said, I don't see why someone who is in a Raiding Guild and casually raids several nights a week can't also be considered casual. They are just a different form of casual than me.
I think it is the attitude of the guild or raid environment that makes the difference.
I also think that it is sometimes hard to be objective when you are in a guild that can't even get normal bosses down and a casual raider talks about downing heroic bosses. There is a bit of envy there that helps push that hardcore-as-an-insult label onto the aforementioned raider.
I know my views are all from the casual side. but I can't really go into what makes one hardcore because I am not.
Shadda Feb 17th 2012 5:54PM
To me, hardcore just means that you devote a large portion of your week to WoW, excel at some part of it, and take pride in your ability. Most people think of hardcore raiders as the hardcores, but someone who spends large amounts of time PvPing, RPing, or playing the auction house are also hardcore in their way. The issue is that "a lot of time" is relative. To someone with a full time job and young children, 4 hours a week may seem like a lot of time. To a kid on summer vacation, 4 hours a day may seem like nothing. It's all relative.
Skyrei Feb 17th 2012 5:59PM
To me You're either hardcore or you're not... There is no casual, no semi casual, no casual hardcore and, no spoon.
Don't get me wrong I'm not meaning that hardcore is better then not hardcore, I just think its simpler then people think.
Also I think hardcore is changing your schedule around the release of content patches and raiding nearly non-stop in the first few weeks.