I have been reading a lot of these "Casuals versus Hardcore" threads about who is ruining World of Warcraft and there seems to be a lot of anger.
Too much anger for a regular dude like me who likes all the stuff in WoW and doesn't see the problems that drives so many forum people crazy.
First...Thanks hardcore people. You are the people who take the time the figure out all the math behind the game and put websites up to help competetive players and casual players figure out how to maximize their toons potential. I visit your websites, watch your streams and use a lot of your add-ons to improve my raiding experience.
Hardcores are also likely the people that drive Blizzard to fix the odd mechanics or game bugs by playing the PTR, pushing the 99th percentile and understanding the need to maintain game balances. Thank you.
Second...Thanks casual people. You are the people who fill up the world and make it the 3-dimensional space and put the "MM" into MMO. Your desire for quality of life items like pets, mounts, RPG elements, crafting, easy access group adventures and driving Blizzard to work on all the world items add variety and color to a world. I think most of the people I see at Blizzcon are casuals at heart, just trying to make WoW the big party we all know it is. Thank you.
You see..my house has hardcores and casuals, living side by side, having some fun and seeing how both halves live. My wife understands why I care about min-maxing, studying raid tactics, and paying attention to small changes in toon mechanics. And I understand my wife and daughters interest in quality of life items, how they are terrified of raiding, their lack of desire to commit to a schedule and why they both loved pandas (much to my disdain).
You know something, none of us ruined the game. We make it better. And so do most of you.
WoW is still so successful, with such an incredible variety and depth that it allows all of us to have a part of the fun.....maybe we could encourage Blizzard as a community to continue to grow all avenues of the game (hardcore and casual) and spend less time trying to block the game to anyone. Wow is still the one game I would unconditionally recommend to any of my friends or family interested in experiencing the best in online gaming.
Meh....I'm just one dude.