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Hardcore Vs. Casual Gaming
TheFuriousWombat:
I don't know if there's really a whole lot of hardcore games. A game that requires grinding might require a hardcore gamer to get far in the game but I don't think the game itself is hardcore. The only hardcore games I can think of are the really realistic turnbased strategy games on the PC. The hex based ones inspired by old board games that require all possible aspects to be taken into account from terrain to weather to trajectory. The kind of game where one move might take well over an hour. These games often have manuals a couple hundred pages in length. There are other games on a wider scale, Hearts of Iron springs to mind, that are essentially real time or turnbased recreations of times in history. Here, politics, commerce, industry, and military come together and must all be managed down to the smallest detail. These games make similar games in concept (Medieval: Total War for example) seem like child's play. In my opinion these are the only truely hardcore games. Any one can grind. Most people (and I'm in this majority) could not get far at all in games like the ones above because they require an immense amount of patience, skill, and time. That's my two cents.
ScrambledGregs:
I think that there are hardcore games, and hardcore gamers, just as surely as there are casual games and casual gamers. The difference is that almost any game can be played 'hardcore' even if you aren't grinding--if somebody is playing Solitaire for 3 or 4 hours a day, is this not hardcore?? At the same time, casual gamers can play certain hardcore, grindy games and still have fun with them--even niche stuff like Disgaea 2 is fairly accessible if you ignore a lot of the gameplay systems and options available to you.
TrekkieTechie:
That's a good point, Scrambled. I don't really play many console games (really, none outside N64 and GameCube), but when my friends come over and bring their XBox, we Live it up and play Halo 2. I'm terrible but I have a good time driving the Warthog on suicide missions.
Baggy:
Yeah, you can make a casual game into a "hardcore experience" by doing all of the aforementioned things (ultra-high scores, many hours of play, etc.) but also remember that a casual game may not have been intended to be hardcore. It was built so that it could be completed in small amounts of time without huge commitment, which is what makes it casual. Sure one could put much more time into it if they wanted, but its not necessary to have a satisfying experience.
That being said, I would say that the majority of games aren't designed to be hardcore or casual, but rather to appeal to both crowds. There are a few at both ends of the spectrum (puzzle games tend to be more for the casual gamer, long RPGs tend to promote hardcore gaming), but I'd say that many games can be played casually to at least get the minimum experience, but may be played hardcore to experience the maximum experience.
I'd say the biggest factor is the time commitment when judging hardcore-ness or casual-ness of a game, as a game can be casual and still challenging, or be easy but still take a very long time to complete(thus intended for a more "hardcore" crowd). Calling someone a hardcore or casual gamer (when referred to in industry terms) is not about how awesome a gamer is at playing games, but about how much s/he is willing to committ to a game, be it hours or money.
Kana:
By all means and definition I'm a hardcore gamer. I have little to no time between work and attempting sleep, but those small parts that I get I usually spend gaming excluding social events. The first game to take me from barely playing video games to realizing that when my eyes start stinging in pain from staring at a computer too much was Diablo 2. While nothing in comparison to MMOs nowadays that game was a challenge simply because after your first character makes it through normal you open up Hardcore. I never went back to softcore again and it was even at the time a challenge to make a build that would face Hell difficulty without dying - thats excluding all the crazy patches Blizzard eventually made with the Immune to EVERYTHING, Extra Fast, Extra Strong, Lightning/Cold/Fire/Poison Enchanted, Undead, Stoneskin mobs, which quite frankly were impossible.
My first MMO was Planetside which as it happens to be was a great game that could be played casually or hardcore like any FPS. I quickly left it though for Final Fantasy XI which to this day for me is the most hardcore game I've ever played. Besides all the grinding levelwise, craftwise, and the many more countless hours spent trying to make gil to survive in that game - once you got to end game content the real challenge started with 18 hour window spawns for super powerful mobs camped by 5 linkshells with each having 10 claimers spamming nonstop for 18 hours until their fingers bled trying to claim that monster before it popped. Thats not even including the huge fight AFTER you claimed the damned thing. Multiply that by about 25+ good mobs all spawning on different days, times - it was like clock work and beautiful getting it all managed (although a bit depressing in hindsight seeing that you were up until 6am camping a mob to not get it, repeating it multiple times with same results, and then going to college or work within a few hours after that only to return to repeat). After two and a half years and in my opinion the worst expansion I've seen (Chains of Promathia, I heard Treasures of Ar-whatever was worse but I was gone by then) I took off and swore off MMOs for a while.
I did Guild Wars which is definitely a more casual game than any MMO but has its hardcore parts - but even at best quests run out and while doing repeated runs for better gear is all nice, it was pointless since levels were capped at 20 and you could have beaten the game and every mob in every area with the gear you had previously - you were just hoping to really make those Drok runs go super fast/easy.
Out of the games I played though WoW was by far the best wolf in sheep's clothing I've ever seen. First off and knowing that I'll get crap for this, WoW is an easy game. There is skill, it CAN be played at a hardcore level, but after FFXI, Lineage 2, Earth & Beyond, and even now Lord of the Rings:Online - its simply an easier game. Which I think was intended to lure casual players into becoming more like hardcore players. When you have someone saying how hard WoW is and they're working their butts off for a goal in that game, I'd say its a great time to pull them out from WoW and slap them down with a true grind fest kind of game (Lineage 2 is by far the worst game grind-wise on exp). What's funny is that when I went to WoW, I had been away from MMOs for a year and a half. I started up with some friends from FFXI and was 60 in under 2 months and starting end game content, then the expansion came out which I will say was more targeted to WoW's hardcore audience and I got bored fast. All in all my total WoW experience was 6 months out of my 1 year bought subscription. Just like Guild Wars I had fun with it, but it didn't have the real need/pull that FFXI and other games have had on me where I HAD to do X Y Z and then I could do A B C, and etc etc. (Just to note, it took me a year and a half of serious, life wasting away time to achieve level 75 in FFXI, after that it took me 6 weeks to get my next 75 because of already having the gear, etc. It took me less than 2 months to get to 60 in WoW from scratch...thats was one of its main drawbacks to me. Not to mention I joined right when Rogues got nerfed to crap and it made me sad :( )
Personally I love trying out games. I own a PS2, Wii, and have a pretty nice setup computer-wise. I'll play with my brother goofy casual Wii Sports games for a while (although I can't see playing that game in marathon form unlike SSBB which I am so patiently waiting for). I've played mostly everything from Oblivion to Civilization 4. I prefer the hardcore games because I like the sense of achievement. I realize the gains and everything in it is virtual, but I'm sorry being the nerd that I am - especially in FFXI it was so much fun being a level 75 Ranger and then chasing level 1 mobs to go all out on them.
You know I was going to make a point about hardcore versus casual and this has just gone to ramblesville and beyond. A casual forum poster would just close the window and move on to other things, but being a hardcore kind of guy I'll click POST!
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