famousringo said:
You should see the WoW boards. The hardcore vs. casual squabbling for developer attention is legendary. The hardcore are always talking about how they've earned the right to have substantially more powerful gear and deserve more huge raid instances which require massive time investment to complete, and the casuals always complain about how they get left behind and forgotten, with new 5-man dungeons rarely being added and a massive gear disparity between them and the hardcore players. The hardcore claim that they're the "true" WoW players because of their huge time investment, and the casual rightly retort that their $15 a month is worth just as much as a hardcore's $15, even if they spend less time playing. Like all the most successful games, WoW is both hardcore and casual. And trying to balance that kind of appeal in a massively multiplayer environment is a huge challenge. For every teenage male obsessing over the perfect PvP build to get that 2000+ arena rating, there's a 40-something electrician helping his kids level up in The Barrens. I heard of the casual vs. hardcore war in WoW long before I'd ever heard of it in consoles or the wider gaming world. |
In my 62 years I have had many hobbies and interests but I've yet to find one that doesn't have a level of conflict between the serious dedicated elite/ obsessed crazies and the casual newbies/ recreational individuals that have a life. If it's a group activity the tension will often split the group and the war will continue group vs. group individual vs. individual.
When I did Revolutionary War re-enacting there were the Farbs ( fake+garb or far be it from me to criticize but...) and the Thread-counters. One group figured that if you couldn't tell the difference at five feet it was authentic enough. The other group demanded uniforms of 100 wool, the precise color and thread count or it was complete crap.
The debating back and forth can be fun until someone starts taking it too seriously and then each group will end up spoiling the experience for the other and driving them off.
Whether you consider yourself "hardcore" or "casual" you are already in a tiny minority of people in the world who care enough about video gaming to be reading this site, and it benefit's no one to make that group even smaller.
The soap box is now free.
