EVERYDAY when I log onto either MMO'Champ, or even worse - the official US/EU forums, I see constant, and I mean CONSTANT snide, provactive, baseless hate against a group of people Elitists label as "Casual" - as if putting your personal life above WoW is a bad thing!
All the time I see this -
*Casuals only care about gear (FREE EPIX) - Bad generalization. Maybe some do. Maybe they don't. In fact, you see a lot more hardcore players considered with the purplez than casual players.
*Casuals DON'T Care about gear (Can't be bothered to correctly/Gem/Enchant/PvE>PvP gear up ect) - Again nothing but a Generalization. Nothing more.
*Casuals are the only ones who want Pandaren because they are "Childish" (Somehow, being casual = Child-like here) - Again lies, people have wanted to Pandaren since Vanilla/BC.
*Casuals made everything "Easy". - How? I think you'll find Blizzard, if it's true - made stuff "easy".
*Casuals Ruined the game. - A lot of people still enjoy it. Don't like it? Move on. And what basis do you have to blame casuals for your dislike of the game?
*Casuals are just "Bad" (Lamest most untrue insult ever) - Nope. Skilled Casual players exist, who know about rotations/Gear/Stats/Boss mechanics ect ect
*I quit because of the Casuals! (Casuals don't actually care) - Seen this today. Wut.
*Casuals whine about content being too hard. - Hardly ever. Check the forums.
*Casuals don't raid! - Yes they do.
*Casuals didn't play Vanilla! - Yes, they did.
From my experience, as both a Casual, and once hardcore player, ALL of the above are just generalizations - and simply labelled to any guild or player who considers themselves "Casual" - by disgruntled elitist players.
Truly, there are many different types of Casual & Hardcore player. Some fit the above descriptions, some none at all. You get bad Casuals. You get bad hardcore - believe it or not, you do. I have met many, many, Casual players who are nothing like a lot of the elitist community make them out to be, mainly because the're ignorant and no nothing about them!
So basically, all I'm saying is, enough with the childish, snide and unwarranted attack on a very diverse range of players, the life-living Casual. I have had the best time of my WoW time with Casuals - they played for fun, but WoW has never, and I mean never, even in the days of Vanilla, been out of the reach of Casual players who are truly not there to solely mess up the game for others or can't be asked to read 10 mins of tactics. Stats were never hard, Specs were never hard, Boss tactics again, NOT hard, and by hard I mean - it's not rocket science no matter how long you play for! Never was! ;3 if you think that, you have a skewed view of what "Hard" is. Hard in Game terms? Give me a break. DOOM on nightmare is, and forever was, harder. Haha.
Peace