I don't understand what that PA comic has to do with this?

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World of Warcraft already has a hard mode for PvE. Its called "PuGs". Seriously, if you think WoW is too easy then get in a PuG for any equal level instance and don't have any over leveled toons or any of your friends and guildmates in the group.

This is how a lot of people experience this game. I'm not saying its impossible. But don't whine if Non-heroic Steamvaults is too easy for you and your Tier 5 geared group of guildmates.

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"he thinks that he's casual, when actually, if you're running higher-level-than-you're-meant-to five man instances with your friends (and theorycrafting a bit), you're actually what Blizzard would consider a hardcore player, and thus of course the game is easy for you."

I thought that the casual/hard core divide was based on time invested/week instead of skill. Seems that you are suggesting that casual = sucks.

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I really think that most people who consider themselves casual, are really casualcore.

I recently got my friends into the game. They sign on everyonce in awhile and play for maybe an hour or two. They are both around level 45 now. They only know the basics, but they have a blast. That is casual.

Casualcore involves commitment. Anything from theorycrafting to making sure you get your arena done everyweek, to grinding mats, to sticking to a raid schedule. To even grinding in general.

Hardcore is an extention of that. Its making a huge time commitment. Making sure you have the 100% best gear possible, including gems and such, consumables, doing AV all weekend just to get a slight upgrade from the new season of honor gear. Raiding, 3-4 times a week and being there, ontime, ready to go, everytime. Speed leveling, and grinding sessions, etc. Thats hardcore.

Thats what i define it as. And I hate to say it, but being one of the few people whose been all three, level 70 raiding is extremly anti-casual. It's great for casualcore players, unlike Pre-BC, where the hardcore ruled the world. The idea of casual raiding is being able to get on when you want, jump in a raid instance, and then leave when you want. Because it requires 10 people and coordination, its near impossible to do it with Pugs (this is starting out, not now that everyone knows the instance and can run it blindfolded). For that reason its really hard to be a casual raider. However, BGs and Daily quests open alot more avenues for casual players. Which is way better than it was pre-BC.

Remember Casual vs. Hardcore is not about how far in progression you are. There are level 30s that are hardcore, and level 70s who are casual. It's about the amount of commitment you have, and how much time you put in each week.

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If you want scalable difficulty then make it yourself. Take bits of your gear off, don't use potions buffs. What this guy is wants is people to suck his e-peen because he is good at "hardcore mode" wow. If you don't play "hardcore mode" like him then obviously you aren't as good a player, don't deserve the same rewards etc.

WoW isn't an around the world marathon. It is a friendly game of golf with your mates.

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wow difficulty really is a laughable joke... back pre-BC there was NAX for people who wanted a challenge, but with BC, the 'endgame raid', black temple, most guilds that get there, clear 1-3 bosses in their first week, and with most raid bosses dropping 3-4 epics per kill, and there being such small increases in gear strength across tier 4-5-6, by the time enough people are attuned to BT, they out gear it already. Doesn't really effect me much, since I wasn't in a really good guild, working on nax pre-BC, (although I had a few rl friends who were), and I'm not in any guild now, the RL friends I have that are in BT are selling off their chars already, cause they've beaten this game, that isn't really suposed to be beatable. Pre-BC there was so very very few guilds that cleared naxx, now, theres 1-2 guilds at least on both horde and alli side on almost every server thats cleared BT. Anyway, enough ranting about how theres no real end game raid for hardcore players anymore...

Heroics were fun when they came out... felt really rewarding the first time our guilds best 5 ppl finally killed the first boss in heroic shattered halls, and we were able to summon nitebane... now heroics are just a joke, theres no heroic you can't clear easily with a decent pug... alot of the heroics, like durnehold and black morase were the most challenging things in the game, certainly more challenging than kara, now theres really nothing thats challenging.

Guess I'll go FPS up some BGs, nothing else worth doing, unless i start devoting 6-8 hours a day to raiding again :P and even then, what am i gonna do, clear BT and get gear almost as good as what i can get for losing 10 arena games? lolz.

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I don't think Wow is that challenging but the notion of having to do outside research to complete the content is not a casual one. Casual games are Wii Sports and Rock Band on the lower settings. They aren't games that you devote at least 10 hours a week and have to spend even more reading up on the optimized way to play that character(s).

If a game requires you to be unable to pause and devote between 30 minutes (if you all have done it and know what to do inside and out) to 3 hours for a raid in an instance unavailable to your family and friends that is far from a casual experience. Unless you play WoW for the fishing or have never made it past 20 I can't see how you call yourself a casual WoW player unless you are comparing yourself to a poopsocker.

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Everyone says WoW is an easy game, but the fact is 98% of people still suck at it.

People with 1400 arena ratings say WoW is easy. So why do they fail at it?

My guildmates who can't crack 1000 DPS in SSC say WoW is an easy game. If it's so easy, how come you are still failing at it?

Being mediocre is easy, sure. It's obviously not that easy to actually be good at the game because very few people are.

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I like to research and ensure my gear is decent through AH or specific quest completions. Maximizes what little time I get to play during the week :)

So yah, casual-core..

~ Quig.

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I like WoWWiki's definition better than "casualcore": http://www.wowwiki.com/Dedicated

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Poorly written article about a poorly written column.

Doesn't WI have any quality control?

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After being bored by hardcore-raiding some friends and me are visiting instances from time to time with a group of alts. Mostly we only have four of our five players online. It is remarkable that we were able to complete every instance so far (till maraudon) with only four players. e.g. clearing ZF with four level 43 toons. And we allways have a blast in doing so. So to my mind blizzard has done a lot of things right with Wow. It is an entrtaining game. If you expect more from it than being a casual entertainment you will easily be disappointed.

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