Did casuals ruin WoW and if so how?

[Mormolyce]

Really? You really said objectively speaking it's better than ever? First of all I don't think you can make that statement OBJECTIVELY but even if you could wouldn't the bleed of subscribers suggest that OBJECTIVELY it's not better than ever? I mean nothing what you said is objective, it's hard to take you seriously when you don't even know the words you are using. WoW for many players is obviously not better than it was ever. You can't make the statement that it is objectively better because most of the things you think are better about the game are entirely opinions. Some are unfounded but I'm sure some are reasonable they are never the less all opinions. By what empirical reasoning or measurement can you say that wow is better than ever? That's just a load of horse shit to speak objectively about it..

Objectively as in speed at which content is released, range of content offered, accessibility, class balance, etc. Not to mention more superficial things like quality of graphics and models etc.

Subjective things would be whether you like a raid or a storyline or whatever.

- - - Updated - - -

Thats total rubbish.

Casual players have never felt the need to do both 10 and 25 man modes, because they are casual and play whatever suits them. Also very few casual players did hard modes, because they took more time than casual players could commit to.

It was the whining from the so called 'hardcore' players that got the lock out changed, you know the ones that are willing to sacrifice their own lives and their actual enjoyment of the game for the sake of progression aka shiny epics.

Doing both 10 and 25 on NM doesn't make you "hardcore" lol.

I played in Wrath and I guarantee you, everyone was trying to do both 10 and 25 every week. There wasn't even a question. And I was in a super casual guild back then.

[Deleted]

WoW is still an amazing game and nothing out there comes even close, sadly through time and life restraints I've not been a regular raider since Wrath...doesn't change the fact that I still enjoy and love the game...the game is older, people are older and can't commit enough time to the game...that is why subs dropped, no fault in the game

[Alter Ego Pablo]

They've always been here since the beginning of time. It's not like they randomly showed up in Lich King/Cata and ruined the game..

[TaurenNinja]

No.

What happened is that dumb/uneducated players (whether experienced or not) have ruined WoW *fourms* (not the game) because they create threads like this.

[kurnie]

people tend to look back on the past with rose colored glasses.
the boss fights by design are much harder now than they every where back in van, bc or wrath even.
people forget half of what made the game "hard"was,

playing with 5fps and you were happy about it.
random server crashes and when you did manage to get back it it was were you were 20min ago.
trying to get 40 people online at the same time.
lack of voice comms. try doing strat by typing.
no addons. people forget there was the longest time that you only had the default ui. want hard turn off ALL your addons. Remove all your macro's and keybinds.
no pallies horde side, no shammies ally side.
5 min buffs.
let alone the class balance issues.
omg if you werent a warrior, you couldnt tank period.
resistance gear for hydross. mages changing spec just to do damage.
dual specs.
talent trees.
loot non tradeable. omg the fights over gear that went for over a hour because if it was given to the wrong person it took DAYS to get it to the right person.

long que's just to get into the game for months on end.

the list goes on and on. I love the current game. Its old yes. im glad its changed, the people change. the "hardcore"come, do content and leave. its the regular players that log in day in day out that keep the game going. the game is far from ruined.
people need to learn to respect others and take a spoon full of concrete and harden up. not be a big bunch of cry babies.

[Deleted]

Riddle me this.

I've been playing since the end of Vanilla/ very beginning of TBC. There were a few extended leaves of absence in there, the longest being nearly 2 years.

I have 1 max level character. I've raided in some pretty decent guilds in my time, and I saw a good deal of the endgame content when it was relevant. I did research on the fights, asked questions and advice of people who knew more than me, and did the best I could to improve. But I didn't theorycraft, didn't do any of the math or number crunching (I hates math, precious), and really only played for a few hours a day at most, usually during raid times.

So do I qualify as casual, or hardcore? This is a question that needs to be asked, in a general sense...what defines those two labels?

I think its about perspective. When i started, i played like 12 hrs a day every day thats hardcore, then again if someone plays everyday 2-3 hrs its still pretty hardcore, for some people worldfirst guilds are hardcore because they put 12-15 hrs a day in progress, but then again many of them just log in 4 hrs a weeks for farmraids, seems pretty casual.
I think the community uses the word casual wrongly, because hardcore is all about the time you spend in a game instead in real life. You can absolutley be a total noob, play very bad but wasting alot of hrs in a game youre still hardcore not casual.
Casuals are people who login just for raiding once a week, doing some arena or bgs in a week or lfr, just logging in casualy in general. I think Blizzard knows that most of their players dont play wow hardcore anymore, bacause its getting old. Many just login for friends or just to continue their character progression from lfr.
Today i just login for a normal raid with my guildies and thats it and i feel it is still to much hrs. Its all about perspective.

[nekobaka]

Thats total rubbish.

Casual players have never felt the need to do both 10 and 25 man modes, because they are casual and play whatever suits them. Also very few casual players did hard modes, because they took more time than casual players could commit to.

It was the whining from the so called 'hardcore' players that got the lock out changed, you know the ones that are willing to sacrifice their own lives and their actual enjoyment of the game for the sake of progression aka shiny epics.

/facepalm
Being a raider does not instantly make you hardcore. Casuals have time constraints while hard cores just as you said are willing to make changes in their lives around the game. A hardcore would not have an issue with separate lockouts. The other issue was 10 man players complaining about feeling like a second class despite being rewarded relative on their efforts and feeling punished if they did not run 25 man for the stronger gear.

I think the community uses the word casual wrongly, because hardcore is all about the time you spend in a game instead in real life. You can absolutley be a total noob, play very bad but wasting alot of hrs in a game youre still hardcore not casual.

At the very least makes you a no-lifer like many casuals like to blindly call those who raid. The issue is those no-lifers find it easier to hide behind the name of casuals and have the time investment to be very vocal about their claims to promote the concept that casuals are incapable of getting out of a fire or working together with others effectivly spreading word that casuals = bad. For years the casual playerbase has been fight back against those who call casuals bad only to get bads running around calling all casuals bad.

[Rupenbritz]

vanilla? casual as hell

bc even more fucking casual

wrath casualpalooza

cata? hardcore twist turn fail

mists CASUAL MIS CASUAL GONE MO CASUAL CASUAL @_@

Wait what??
Catac was more casual then anything, we played twice a week and still managed 8/8 HC very fast. (And yes i played Vanilla and TBC semi-hardcore).

[Glorious Leader]

Objectively as in speed at which content is released, range of content offered, accessibility, class balance, etc. Not to mention more superficial things like quality of graphics and models etc.

Subjective things would be whether you like a raid or a storyline or whatever.

With the exception of speed of content those are all subjective criteria. I happpen to think for isntance wotlk was far more accessible for a number of reasons. Blanace was better in cataclysm and the range of content was also better in cataclysm. In any serious meaning of the word range we should include that which people participate in to get rewards out of. Alot more of that in cataclysm then LFR or die which the game has devolved into past a certain ilvl. Models (for original) are more or less the same and the graphics haven't updated all that much. Now add up all the things we lost in this expansion (lack of new dungeons, lack of proper catch up, lack of alternative to lfr and raiding) and you'll see it's not objectively better than previous ones. Your objective nonsense is basically cheerleading for mists. It's fine if you like it but try not to hide and say that it's just plain "better" objectively speaking. The actual objective evidence (the numbers of people fleeing the game) would suggest it's not.

[Mormolyce]

With the exception of speed of content those are all subjective criteria. I happpen to think for isntance wotlk was far more accessible for a number of reasons. Blanace was better in cataclysm and the range of content was also better in cataclysm. In any serious meaning of the word range we should include that which people participate in to get rewards out of. Alot more of that in cataclysm then LFR or die which the game has devolved into past a certain ilvl. Models (for original) are more or less the same and the graphics haven't updated all that much. Now add up all the things we lost in this expansion (lack of new dungeons, lack of proper catch up, lack of alternative to lfr and raiding) and you'll see it's not objectively better than previous ones. Your objective nonsense is basically cheerleading for mists. It's fine if you like it but try not to hide and say that it's just plain "better" objectively speaking. The actual objective evidence (the numbers of people fleeing the game) would suggest it's not.

Ergh, I suppose you could say balance is subjective, I think that's rubbish though. Cataclysm was a half-step between Wrath and MoP in terms of talents and various other things, MoP is better balanced apart from possibly PVP.

Range of content is completely objective. MoP has everything every other expansion had plus Brawler's Guild, Pet Battles, Farming, Challenge Modes. Count 'em.

Same for accessibility. MoP launched with LFR unlike any other expansion, end of story, QED.

In pure gameplay terms, WoW has gotten better with every expansion.

[Vash The Stampede]

Casuals didn't ruin the game, but Blizzard's greed did. It's their attempt to cater to the casuals that has hurt the game. If you're not challenged enough at some point, you'll get bored, cause you feel like you're repeating the same thing over and over. If Blizzard could learn that difficult can be fun then they can improve the game. Historically WoW's famous machinima has been about the challenges players had to face. Leeroy Jenkins was about running into a room and pulling welps. Today we regularly just run into rooms and just AOE everything. The Grind was about defeating Onyxia and finding a dwarf priest for fear ward. You don't see machinima like that anymore because what's the video gonna be about? Long LFR queue times and not getting that loot to drop?

This picture about Dark Souls perfectly explains how I see games today, including WoW. Game content doesn't need to be spoon fed to every player. There needs to be a point where you try and teach your players how to play, which oddly is what Blizzard is trying to do with 5.4. Even then though, the method is more of a trial then actually doing it through gameplay. Difficulty needs to ramp up which forces players to try other abilities and play styles they would have otherwise ignored. Otherwise players continue to sword in the face for as long as it's effective. So by the time players do get into a normal or dear god Heroic raid, the drastic increase in difficulty totally doesn't work for them.

If players have no intention to do normal or heroic raids, then as soon as LFR is out, they would have seen all the content the game has to offer. The loot looks the same, and has the same set bonuses as normal and Heroic. There's literally no incentive for players to ever bother to step into a normal or Heroic raid, let alone improve themselves.

[Deleted]

No offense, but there's a reason nobody is agreeing with you. Time required and difficulty aren't the same thing. If my objective requires me to log in and one shot a critter mob once a day a hundred times, it isn't hard to do. It simply takes a long time.

I don't need anyone to agree with me. Something which is "harder" is something equivalent which demands more from the player. If something asks for more time than an equivalent it's asking for more from the player and therefore by definition harder--it's not a majority vote kind of thing.
WoW is more mechanic focused at this moment in it's life than at any other time it's life, encounter's from bosses to rares are more complex, additional content such as the Brawler's Guild and the upcoming Proving Grounds demand that player's think about their class's abilities in a specific context- by the usual, and your own, definition WoW is "harder" at this moment than it's been at any other moment in it's life and I would agree with you in this respect.
This, however, hasn't stopped many people commenting (to put it lightly) that WoW has become easier, has become some sort of Casual-fest, that it's core experience has changed to appeal the lowest denominator. Now, we can just discount these people as "whiners" or wearing "rose tinted goggles" (which a lot of are), or we can agree that there is some fire behind that smoke; that the game has stopped asking from players something that it once asked, some sort of commitment, and if the game is more mechanic focused now then it has to be something else- something a little more abstract, but to those people just as essential.
Time management isn't hard if it's just asking you to log in and "do something". Of course it isn't. But when there is enough things demanding the most limited and finite of player resource's -time- then player's have to ascertain how and what would be the most productive use of their time.
Like I say, I'm not comparing the difficulty of time management or time intensive tasks to earning Glad or downing a HC boss. What I'm saying is something the same as another thing but more time intensive is harder, especially when placed in a context of being just one time intensive task among many.

[vesseblah]

There actually is though. In fact, part of the definition of the word 'difficult' relies on the length of time a given task takes. Leveling tailoring is more difficult than leveling herbalism, for example.

As I said few pages ago, people should not be using ubiquitous words like "difficult" with multiple definitions when there is an explicit word "time-consuming" also in the dictionary to avoid confusion.

Also, in most cases leveling tailoring is lot easier than herbalism because you can get all required materials from AH in high population realm without doing laps and competing for resources outside. Especially in PvP realms.

[Masochist]

Financially? No.

[sizzlinsauce]

No "Casual player" isn't a special type of player, if I like the game more, I will play more and will be something you call it "Hardcore" and if game is not fun for me, I'll play less and will be what you call it "Casual".
Basically putting a lot of time in game isn't fun anymore that's why blizzard is making game what you call it "Casual" friendly, which is an ok move.

you understand they stated that they see casuals come and go with the updates they've put in. you can't make a game subscription based and expect people who play here and there to pay a monthly fee. they need to step the fuck back and get back to their roots.

[Deleted]

As I said few pages ago, people should not be using ubiquitous words like "difficult" with multiple definitions when there is an explicit word "time-consuming" also in the dictionary to avoid confusion.

When one of the definitions of difficult is "requires more effort" I think its very appropriate in it's usage. "time-consuming" is more of contraction detailing a specific flavour of difficulty rather than being a separate entity.

[championknight]

In pure gameplay terms, WoW has gotten better with every expansion.

5 man dungeons and heroics gameplay suffered during Cata's first patch. MoP improved on it, but is still behind TBC/WoLTK/Vanilla for variety

[Deleted]

Sup everyone so ive been playing WoW since about the start of BC and I know back then it was harder trying to clear content and the game in itself was a lot harder since there was no LFR or group find for anything plus you had to flyout to the actual instance. So basically if you werent in a hard core raiding guild you werent going to see any content. Ive seen a lot of posts on other forums talking about how WoW has been dumbed down to the point where its unplayable now and everyone is blaming the casual player for this. My question is how exactly did the casual "ruin" WoW?

If anything, casual players are the major reason WoW still exists. How did they ruin WoW? They didn't, most players are not even participating in forums, or even reading patch notes, there is of course a vocal minority of casuals here and there and there are of course the "hardcore" players, most of which take active participation in forums on different WoW related websites. If anything, the "hardcore" voice is much more taken into consideration, because of the fact it is mostly the only voice heard on the forums, so in reality who did ruin WoW?

[championknight]

As I said few pages ago, people should not be using ubiquitous words like "difficult" with multiple definitions when there is an explicit word "time-consuming" also in the dictionary to avoid confusion.

Also, in most cases leveling tailoring is lot easier than herbalism because you can get all required materials from AH in high population realm without doing laps and competing for resources outside. Especially in PvP realms.

Actually Tailoring is easier because you can get mats via normal levelling tasks without going out of your way for a resource node. Server AH economies are highly variable, subjective and sometimes very expensive for players

[Glorious Leader]

Ergh, I suppose you could say balance is subjective, I think that's rubbish though. Cataclysm was a half-step between Wrath and MoP in terms of talents and various other things, MoP is better balanced apart from possibly PVP.

Range of content is completely objective. MoP has everything every other expansion had plus Brawler's Guild, Pet Battles, Farming, Challenge Modes. Count 'em.

Same for accessibility. MoP launched with LFR unlike any other expansion, end of story, QED.

In pure gameplay terms, WoW has gotten better with every expansion.

.
What it launched with is irellevant. LFR was in cataclysm so you can't claim it as a mists exclusive feature for your objective critera.

The range of content isn't completely objective. When you consider that most of the content offers little to know reward that would incentive people to do it, the range becomes pretty minuscule. Also to be honest the range of content in and of itself isn't a good or bad thing, your still putting a value judgement on it and saying it's "better". Why does range of content make mists better? Ultimately because you think that content is good (which is fine) but it's still a value judgement i.e not objective.

IN lots of ways cataclysm was far more accessible so was wotlk.

WoW has regressed this expansion far more than that I ever thought possible. None of what you said is objective, if you read between the lines enough it's just your SUBJECTIVE opinion.