Originally Posted by
Hitei
It's actually not all that hard to explain.
The meaning of "casual" is actually really simple, people just always try to quantify the results instead of qualifying the intent. Being casual or hardcore in wow, like in anything, is about the mindset you have.
A person who pulls their bicycle out of the garage and goes for a 10 minute ride once every few months because the mood strikes them is a casual bike rider.
A person who goes for a bike ride every night on a beat up bike they've had for two decades because they find it really de-stressing and unwinding after a long day is also a casual bike rider.
A person who goes for one bike ride every few months, but carefully maintains a top of the line racing bike, wears high-end cyclist clothing and shoes, owns several varieties of riding goggles, pads and helmets, and a cycling backpack, etc. is a hardcore bike rider.
A person who goes for a bike ride every night because they are really into biking and are trying to get the distance they can go per night as high as possible is a hardcore bike rider.
A person who goes riding every weekend to do tricks and stunts they record and put on youtube is a hardcore rider.
The commonality amongst these is the mental side. The first two are people for whom biking is a casual activity, not because of the specific amount of time spent, or the specific skill level, but because of what the activity is for them. They are just riding the bike for fun, they don't have any particular commitment to it, even the one doing it every night, they aren't trying to accomplish some set goal or reach some level, or put in a specific amount of time, or do the best (or particularly well) at anything. They just feel like riding a bike and ride a bike.
The hardcore people (regardless of the form that takes) are all people who instead view the biking as an activity with a purpose, as a really dedicated hobby, or to master new tricks, or to push themselves, or to get a good workout for some specific amount of time per week. Of course, they might also have fun doing it--they might even be doing it for the fun of pushing themselves or because they like that hobby. But their mindset is not a casual approach, it's a more dedicated mentality that thinks more about the activity of biking. The same is true of casual and hardcore artists, cooks, film and TV watchers, drug users, anything really.
And the same thing is true of wow. Someone who has 50 alts at 60 because they just like leveling stuff so they get on when they feel like playing and level a character is a casual. Someone like DoubleAgent, who is dedicatedly attempting to accomplish one specific difficult goal in leveling a single character is very much not-casual. A guild who gets together on weekends and does some attempts at normal or heroic bosses where they don't worry much about what people are playing or if everyone's DPS is perfect or consumables or whatever, they just have some good laughs and mess around as a group for the night is a casual guild. An individual who only does normal pug raids but is laser focused on improving their parse and ekeing out every last point of DPS they can at their ilevel is a hardcore player.
There is some overlap. Some people do somethings with a casual approach and others with a hardcore, some people are hardcore but taking a break from it. Some people have intents closer to casual but their personal nature as someone who has to do the best they can means that they actually play hardcore. There are hardcore players who play once a week, and casual players who play a lot every day. There are hardcore players who are still just bad at the game, and casual players who are quite skilled. There are hardcore players who only level, or who only do pet battles, or farm transmog, or stick to LFR, and well... it's hard to find a casual who's cleared mythic because the activity itself requires a higher degree of focus and intent, but you could find somewhat casual-y players who do high end mythic+.
Because it's ultimately not about time, or skill, or accomplishment, or the part of the game focused on, it's about whether or not they're mentally approaching the game casually or with a more hardcore outlook.