The real question is: What are the Top 5 Non-Casual MMOs? They don't exist, pandering to the casual crowd became a must in MMO land nearly a decade ago.
Originally posted by doodphace When I was raiding in WoW, I would raid for 2 hours a night, 3 days a week (6 hrs a week total)...and thats the ONLY time I would be in WoW. I was nowhere near world firsts, but we would get through most of each heroic tier before the subsequent tier would be released. On the other hand, I knew quite a few people who would spend 3-4 hours a day minimum on wow, but would only run dungeons and the occaional LFR......which one of us is "casual"?
You are a casual raider and the other person is a lot more hard core. It's not the level of content you are doing that makes you casual imo, it's the amount of time you play.
For instance, I consider myself a casual MMO player nowadays. I play maybe 1-2 hours a day on average. My time is usually spent doing the most difficult content a game offers. But I'm still a casual player. Casual friendly to me just means being able to get something done to further character advancement or my own agenda during that small time frame.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV Have played: You name it If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Originally posted by doodphace When I was raiding in WoW, I would raid for 2 hours a night, 3 days a week (6 hrs a week total)...and thats the ONLY time I would be in WoW. I was nowhere near world firsts, but we would get through most of each heroic tier before the subsequent tier would be released. On the other hand, I knew quite a few people who would spend 3-4 hours a day minimum on wow, but would only run dungeons and the occaional LFR......which one of us is "casual"?
You are a casual raider and the other person is a lot more hard core. It's not the level of content you are doing that makes you casual imo, it's the amount of time you play.
For instance, I consider myself a casual MMO player nowadays. I play maybe 1-2 hours a day on average. My time is usually spent doing the most difficult content a game offers. But I'm still a casual player. Casual friendly to me just means being able to get something done to further character advancement or my own agenda during that small time frame.
I consider myself a casual gamer also. I just have one question you say you do the most difficult content? From my experience putting that amount of time (I'm about the same) does not give you enough time to run the most difficult content. For example in WoW with my time I run lfr, dailies and heroic scenarios. That is not the most difficult content. Same with Swtor...sure I can jump into a hm ops but very rarely are there groups looking for nim ops and very rarely can they be completed in two hours. So how do you manage the most difficult content in your allotted game time?
It's all about your guild and personal community and relationships you make. Do research, find the better guilds that don't have requirements for attendance, but still do the harder content casually as they can. Apply to those guilds. Offer to help players. Run dungeons together. Help new members.
It's not something that happens over night, for people who play a small amount of time like us it can take months, but the community you forge during the time you do play gives you more power over how you play with the time you have.
No, we won't be getting any world firsts or even server firsts playing 2 hours a day, but we can do the same content as someone who plays 4-6 hours a day if we put the right amount of effort into making the game's community work for our schedule.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV Have played: You name it If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
My wow guild is a small family one that is looking to expand or find an alliance to do flex but as of now it's strictly lfr, heroic scenarios and dailies which I am perfectly content with. During Swtor I'm in a good guild that runs 3x week I usually run with them once a week or every other. Even then though not being a full time raider it's hard to get into nim ops with them.
With the amount I put in especially with WoW I'm perfectly happy with my progress and have no desire to do the real raids, just was curious how you managed it.
I gotcha. Just do what is fun. I have to put a lot of effort into the small amount of time I do play to see the harder content, but to me it's worth it because it's fun.
At the end of the day we should all just play what we enjoy and how we enjoy.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV Have played: You name it If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
The words "casual" and MMORPG should never be mixed since any good MMORPG should be anything but casual and it's not our fault that so many bad MMORPGs are made that fail to live up to the MMORPG standard.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
dunno how many of you did test any/all the games in the above so called Top, but i did, and even back then in the pre-* most games sucked arse, just like they stilll do nowadays, after years of wasted time and work, WoW GW2 DC pretty much all of them have stopped creating anything, they just waste money on recycling the old content while the rest of the time they brainstorming new ways to suck you into a new "expansion", meaning a new way to dry your pockets while they dont give anything in return.
thats why Casual players dont go wasting money on subs for crappy games like WoW GW and other crap like that, the casual gamers, if they wanna check some x game, they wont dupe his parents CC to waste it on the above mentioned games for subs, since there are 234923943299 private servers nowadays you gotta be pretty much retarded to do so, plus i believe they having a lot more fun then on the official servers, thats why there are so many....
even RS was fun till the p2p was implemented (after all their servers got hacked), naw mabinogi is not really a simple game thats why im pretty sure any Casual gamer will be uninstalling it after no more then 30mins max 1hour
imho the only game that remained pure to the core gameplay was and still is Lineage2, and its only decline was back in c3 when countless private servers were spawning like mushrooms after the rain, otherwise it was the only game to stay beside WoW and GW when it comes to numbers, but when it comes to gameplay, Lineage1 can pretty much piss on both WoW and GW2 and DC all togheder.... now lets not mention Lineage2, cuz the game is above so many levels.... in so many diff leagues, EoS
Not even going to talk about the list just yet, but to jump onto another point, it's REALLY hard to call MMORPG players CASUAL. Most of them including myself, ESPECIALLY in the Vanilla WoW days could easily put 4-10 horus in one sitting. Playing a game like Call Of Duty would be casual because you can play for 30 minutes to an hour and be ok with what you accomplished. I find it hard to do that in an MMORPG..
By the comments of some of you, I feel like because of the lack of MMORPG's being casual, you guys don't even KNOW what casual is. WoW can be casual because it has a lot of things to offer people that don't care about raiding and time consuming end game content. Some people like getting to endgame, doing one major raid to have that 'Beat the boss" feeling, and then either onto the next character, or next game. Judging by games like GW2, it seems like that is the case as well.
Most likely no one will read this, but I do agree that sub based games should not be on the list. The f2p games are all pay to win and a rip off is a personal predjjudice of those who want to justify their subs, A better canidate is Neverwinter, which many have said is a great game to jump in and out of. My personal favorite is Aura Kingdome. It is very solo friendly but also has a great party finder app. You can join a party in any channel and keep on doing open world quests. When the partyis full it will teleport you to the dungeon. Since dungeon. Since dungeon runs only take about 10 to 15 minutes you can do one even if you have only an hour to play. The game has a lot of other great features. The one problem is the publisher, Aeria Games which does not give the game the support it deserves.
The game takes at least a year before you even start feeling strong unless you decide to pay each week for a character card
Actually, if I remember correctly checking the wiki's "missed content" section of the patch logs, with Culinary Artist they were supposed to change the rebirth system so that you could RB for free every 7 days, and use Pons to get Ace talents, while character cards would become new-character-only. Which leads me to the other thing you forgot to mention - While the game is fun, anyone casual is gonna get driven away by Nexon America's occasional cashgrabbing.
The game takes at least a year before you even start feeling strong unless you decide to pay each week for a character card
Actually, if I remember correctly checking the wiki's "missed content" section of the patch logs, with Culinary Artist they were supposed to change the rebirth system so that you could RB for free every 7 days, and use Pons to get Ace talents, while character cards would become new-character-only. Which leads me to the other thing you forgot to mention - While the game is fun, anyone casual is gonna get driven away by Nexon America's occasional cashgrabbing.
Yeah, they were supposed to. They didn't because this is Nexon NA and they are greedy as hell. They're not going to make it so you can rebirth weekly... They would lose a lot of money because there would be zero need to buy rebirth cards after (they still have rebirth cards in Korea, people can rebirth twice a week now over in Korea, but if you level casually like I do, it will take a week just to level to 100, and most players don't even level to 100 in Mabinogi before rebirthing so I don't think many people would be buying rebirth cards anymore).
I noticed that there is a small discussion regarding changing the rebirth system, so I wanted to share some information on the topic. We are in fact getting these changes to our rebirth system but it has yet to be implemented. You can expect to see these changes soon... There will be posts on our site with details so keep an eye out. Thanks!
I'm disappointed that nobody has mentioned Tera Online yet. Easily the #1 casual friendly MMO on the market. Free to play, action combat, about as much content as DCUO, solo dungeons, PvP with free itemized gear. There's no contest that Tera is #1 for casual players.
I don't think the sub model is good for casual play. If you can only play 10-15 hours a month, I believe you'd be better off playing an f2p title and spending money to unlock only when necessary.
15 bucks for 15 hours of entertainment is VERY good value.
Try getting the same value in a FTP game. You won't. Some poeple will insist on being able to get the same value without spending money, but all they really do is tourture themselves while smiling to make a point that noone believes anyways.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Huh, lots of different definitions for Casual. The problem with discussions like this is few define the generalized terms they use. My definition of casual is less than ten hours a week. Maybe that involves joining friends on a raid or PvP or just re-arranging the furniture or crafting for alts or farming or running quests.
EQ2 is one of the best for this: more choices for brief log-in times than any other game I've played. This is probably what most of the other games I've played are sorely lacking: choices.
While usually I don't meet my own criteria for a casual player, many of my friends do. Theydon't read or post in places like this, by the way.
What does casual or hardcore mean? Most of the people here bitching about games not being hardcore enough probably could not handle playing a difficult game with so called "hardcore" system. To them hardcore is ganking suspecting undergeared players or doing the same boring raid for the 50th time to get that shinies.
all those things don't necessarily make you hardcore. It just makes you especially in the case of WOW someone who can follow instructions which isn't that difficult to do.
wow being a sub game is NOT a casual game,i am not going to pay 15 or so a month to play a game for 2-3 hours a day when i can play free on many more that are more casual friendly.
I noticed that there is a small discussion regarding changing the rebirth system, so I wanted to share some information on the topic. We are in fact getting these changes to our rebirth system but it has yet to be implemented. You can expect to see these changes soon... There will be posts on our site with details so keep an eye out. Thanks!
Thanks for the info Sabina, and keep up the great work! You're the best community manager I've seen in a F2P title and always keep the forums fun :-)
Everyone has their own theory as to why WoW's subs started to drop back to BC levels. All I am saying is the drop didnt start to happen until well into Cata, not WotLK. WoW peaked while it was casual, and dropped as soon as they tried to bring it back in line with its more hardcore days. That may just be coincidental (an prob is), but its an absolute fact.
probably are many reasons but i think it dropped due to the overuse of phasing and linear questing
Prior to Cata - leveling alts was fun for me (i leveled over 40 alts)
After Cata - I no longer enjoyed leveling alts in WOW
-- I did not change, the entire world of WOW changed (except BC and LK)
Yeah, exactly. Cataclysm broke the old game massively - zones, quests, class dynamics, the talent trees, everything. It was so NOT "back to BC" in any way other than the difficulty of the dungeons and raids. In nearly every other way, it was a new WoW, and one that a very great many of us did not care for. The extremely linear questing was just a part of that. The WoW I played since Beta simply no longer exists.
Comments
You are a casual raider and the other person is a lot more hard core. It's not the level of content you are doing that makes you casual imo, it's the amount of time you play.
For instance, I consider myself a casual MMO player nowadays. I play maybe 1-2 hours a day on average. My time is usually spent doing the most difficult content a game offers. But I'm still a casual player. Casual friendly to me just means being able to get something done to further character advancement or my own agenda during that small time frame.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
It's all about your guild and personal community and relationships you make. Do research, find the better guilds that don't have requirements for attendance, but still do the harder content casually as they can. Apply to those guilds. Offer to help players. Run dungeons together. Help new members.
It's not something that happens over night, for people who play a small amount of time like us it can take months, but the community you forge during the time you do play gives you more power over how you play with the time you have.
No, we won't be getting any world firsts or even server firsts playing 2 hours a day, but we can do the same content as someone who plays 4-6 hours a day if we put the right amount of effort into making the game's community work for our schedule.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Just because you are not a casual does not mean it's a flop.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
I gotcha. Just do what is fun. I have to put a lot of effort into the small amount of time I do play to see the harder content, but to me it's worth it because it's fun.
At the end of the day we should all just play what we enjoy and how we enjoy.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
dunno how many of you did test any/all the games in the above so called Top, but i did, and even back then in the pre-* most games sucked arse, just like they stilll do nowadays, after years of wasted time and work, WoW GW2 DC pretty much all of them have stopped creating anything, they just waste money on recycling the old content while the rest of the time they brainstorming new ways to suck you into a new "expansion", meaning a new way to dry your pockets while they dont give anything in return.
thats why Casual players dont go wasting money on subs for crappy games like WoW GW and other crap like that, the casual gamers, if they wanna check some x game, they wont dupe his parents CC to waste it on the above mentioned games for subs, since there are 234923943299 private servers nowadays you gotta be pretty much retarded to do so, plus i believe they having a lot more fun then on the official servers, thats why there are so many....
even RS was fun till the p2p was implemented (after all their servers got hacked), naw mabinogi is not really a simple game thats why im pretty sure any Casual gamer will be uninstalling it after no more then 30mins max 1hour
imho the only game that remained pure to the core gameplay was and still is Lineage2, and its only decline was back in c3 when countless private servers were spawning like mushrooms after the rain, otherwise it was the only game to stay beside WoW and GW when it comes to numbers, but when it comes to gameplay, Lineage1 can pretty much piss on both WoW and GW2 and DC all togheder.... now lets not mention Lineage2, cuz the game is above so many levels.... in so many diff leagues, EoS
Not even going to talk about the list just yet, but to jump onto another point, it's REALLY hard to call MMORPG players CASUAL. Most of them including myself, ESPECIALLY in the Vanilla WoW days could easily put 4-10 horus in one sitting. Playing a game like Call Of Duty would be casual because you can play for 30 minutes to an hour and be ok with what you accomplished. I find it hard to do that in an MMORPG..
By the comments of some of you, I feel like because of the lack of MMORPG's being casual, you guys don't even KNOW what casual is. WoW can be casual because it has a lot of things to offer people that don't care about raiding and time consuming end game content. Some people like getting to endgame, doing one major raid to have that 'Beat the boss" feeling, and then either onto the next character, or next game. Judging by games like GW2, it seems like that is the case as well.
So paying 50 cents a day to play a game as much as one would want isn't casual? Your logic isn't very logical.
Actually, if I remember correctly checking the wiki's "missed content" section of the patch logs, with Culinary Artist they were supposed to change the rebirth system so that you could RB for free every 7 days, and use Pons to get Ace talents, while character cards would become new-character-only. Which leads me to the other thing you forgot to mention - While the game is fun, anyone casual is gonna get driven away by Nexon America's occasional cashgrabbing.
Yeah, they were supposed to. They didn't because this is Nexon NA and they are greedy as hell. They're not going to make it so you can rebirth weekly... They would lose a lot of money because there would be zero need to buy rebirth cards after (they still have rebirth cards in Korea, people can rebirth twice a week now over in Korea, but if you level casually like I do, it will take a week just to level to 100, and most players don't even level to 100 in Mabinogi before rebirthing so I don't think many people would be buying rebirth cards anymore).
Smile
Hey everyone, Sabina from Nexon here!
I noticed that there is a small discussion regarding changing the rebirth system, so I wanted to share some information on the topic. We are in fact getting these changes to our rebirth system but it has yet to be implemented. You can expect to see these changes soon... There will be posts on our site with details so keep an eye out. Thanks!
15 bucks for 15 hours of entertainment is VERY good value.
Try getting the same value in a FTP game. You won't. Some poeple will insist on being able to get the same value without spending money, but all they really do is tourture themselves while smiling to make a point that noone believes anyways.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Huh, lots of different definitions for Casual. The problem with discussions like this is few define the generalized terms they use. My definition of casual is less than ten hours a week. Maybe that involves joining friends on a raid or PvP or just re-arranging the furniture or crafting for alts or farming or running quests.
EQ2 is one of the best for this: more choices for brief log-in times than any other game I've played. This is probably what most of the other games I've played are sorely lacking: choices.
While usually I don't meet my own criteria for a casual player, many of my friends do. Theydon't read or post in places like this, by the way.
TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO,
What does casual or hardcore mean? Most of the people here bitching about games not being hardcore enough probably could not handle playing a difficult game with so called "hardcore" system. To them hardcore is ganking suspecting undergeared players or doing the same boring raid for the 50th time to get that shinies.
all those things don't necessarily make you hardcore. It just makes you especially in the case of WOW someone who can follow instructions which isn't that difficult to do.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Thanks for the info Sabina, and keep up the great work! You're the best community manager I've seen in a F2P title and always keep the forums fun :-)
Smile
Yeah, exactly. Cataclysm broke the old game massively - zones, quests, class dynamics, the talent trees, everything. It was so NOT "back to BC" in any way other than the difficulty of the dungeons and raids. In nearly every other way, it was a new WoW, and one that a very great many of us did not care for. The extremely linear questing was just a part of that. The WoW I played since Beta simply no longer exists.