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"I'm a hardcore raider!" What does that mean nowadays?
Sixli
Member UncommonPosts: 14
Considering we (the mmo community) have not experienced any real raiding, nevertheless any sort of challenge in a long while. Why do people still cling to "I'm a hardcore raider" Isn't that a thing of the past?
Comments
I have always found it odd that the term 'hardcore raider' has been seen as a positive by gamers and the term 'casual' a negative.
Hardcore raiding usually consists of learning a series of actions by rote. It usually confuses challenge with effluxion of time. In short, it involves having too much time on your hands and enjoying repetition. Neither of which seem particularly positive attributes to me.
For me it is someone who is devoid of any responsibility and can afford to spend entire evening organising and running dungeons.
For being a hardcore raider all you need is 'lot' of free time or to be a complete crackpot like the guy we had in our WOW guild who would eat his dinner at keyboard while raiding (he would hurl abuses at his wife in a team speak too if she doesn't bring him what he needs) and sometimes his wife would literally feed him him so that he can continue to raid. (need both hands obviously..it is a serious bizness).
I wont be surprised if he also took a dump in a bucket because he would just not move entire evening.
I pray i never get to meet these 'hardcore' people in real life.
It depends how you define hardcore. I define hardcore as having too much time on your hands and choosing to spend far too much of it on a game rather than a more worthwhile pursuit, such as gainful employment. LOL sort of joking.
I'd define hardcore as an avocado or that music movement
It also means you keep an empty bottle on hand when you go raiding. /nod
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I think there are different groups of hardcore raiders now. You're free to disagree but here's how I see it from my experience.
First there's the modern hardcore raider (or the powergamer), who likes games like post WOTLK World of Warcraft and WildStar. They admire what are known as World First guilds and obsess over world ranking lists of how quick each top guild killed each boss in a new raid. They regard raiding as an esport and probably play their game of choice in bursts, dedicating a lot of time to downing new content, possibly by the means of staying out of school or work, but playing very casually during periods of no new content being available.
Then there's the oldschool hardcore raider, which I think is a little more varied than the latter type. You won't see them that much in newer games due to their design outside of raids and due to raids being "tiered" and new tiers being cleared rather quickly anyway, but occasionally you'll run into them even there. Where you can find them best are forums bitching about recent games or on private servers playing older games. These people tend to not see raiding as the sole reason of a game and play the game of their choice a lot even generally, but if raiding is the pinnacle, so to speak, of the game's PVE experience, they're going to get into it and do it. They don't necessarily go as far as taking off days from work or school for the means of downing new content or anything of the like - they have their set schedules and go by them, but they lack the powergamer mentality of the modern hardcore raider, who regard everything as competition.
I guess the defining factor between the two would be that the is often of the esports and twitch generation, loving the powergaming mentality of playing cool new things in bursts and with a competitive mindset, where as the oldschool raider is rather someone to whom MMORPGs are a hobby and raiding is but one thing amongst others they are going to do in them. That's my view anyway, and as I said, you are free to disagree.
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It means about the same when i say i have been playing MMO games since 1997 and played PVP 90% of the time.
DAOC- HIB 4life!!!
Lol in other words not a darn thing.
Its still the same old server first mentality that existed in everquest and has nothing to do with esports or twitch generation. The reason why the wow-style raider changed to burst raiding is that the game changed, and content don't last that long.
Staying out of school or work for raiding is an extreme rarity these days, because most those players either grew up or burnt out.
To me, that term brings to mind players that memorize other players' gameplay videos and walkthroughs, never figuring out anything themselves. Then, they beat their chests about how "great" they are by being a simple copycat.
Sure, someone has to figure it out first, but thereafter, it is copycats.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Even if they did figure it out themselves, the next 50 times they play it is hardly a challenge.
Holy balls, that actually sad. How could the wife stand him? To make Video game > Real life is rather sad, no matter how much free time you have.
Very well said. The minute any of my characters reach the point of raiding (or whatever else is deemed "end game") is when I head for another game entirely.
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One of those great lines from The Secret World
i could never understand the point of a hardcore raider. I remenber on ff14 alot of free companies would talk about how hardcore they are for doing raids Then they would insult me because they think beating the content first made them super hardcore and pro. I used to ask them well how many times did it take you to beat this content since you Firsted it on a server. Most of the time it was in the high 50-100's I'm like so your hardcore because you firsted content that took you that many times but i'm a noob or w/e because it only took me and my team 3-5 tries to understand the scripted content? yeah ok.. i wish they had randomized dungeons and emenies with random bosses? so to say that be really great but its the same scripted content that depends on internet connection more then anything.
So you are saying that all video games are therefore a waste of time? That is the vibe you are putting off since with your logic, that is every single video game to ever exist. As such, why are you even on an MMO forum? Heck, that can be applied to life itself with your sense of logic on the topic, what purpose does life have besides wasting time?
Raids (and video games in general) are often set up to have randomness, as well as complex patterns that are meant to NOT be so easily done. A good player can learn such patterns, but they also have to learn to deal with the random nature of a game to master it, perfecting their actions. This doesn't apply to just PvE raiding, but also PvP. Sure, there are players in control, but they still act in certain ways with their own abilities.
That said, I never took casual as a negative thing, to me there is a BIG difference between a casual player and just a bad player. Casuals just don't invest as much time in a game, and in some way a lot of gamers are far more 'casual' then they use to be. Many 'hardcore' raiding guilds will only go at it maybe 3 times a week for 3 hours a session, a far smaller amount of time then it use to be.
The negative types are those "I don't care" types, going off about how its a game and not trying, just dragging a group of players down selfishly because they don't want to put effort in at all, and will be quick to mock others about it being 'just a game' seeming ignorant people play games to have fun and that they are wasting valuable time in their life doing nothing. Thats the type of people that most people view negatively, and those people tend to be the ones that throw the tag 'casual' as an excuse throwing the entire group under the bus for a few bad eggs.
Actually, a good majority of hardcore raiders do it to 'progress', to get further and try and beat a harder and harder boss. The whole 'loot' mentality is more of a typical RPG player mentality that can be tacked onto it. Yes, hardcore players do like loot, but thats the same as casual players as well. Hardcore players put a lot more effort to tackle harder content and try and pull all the way through rather then doing it exclusively for the loot like many casual players (not all) go about playing.
Firstly, you put words in my mouth, then you go on to have an argument about these words that never appeared in my post. Since I never said them, who exactly are you arguing with? Or are you just trying to stir one up?
I did not call it a waste of time since how people choose to spend their free time is their prerogative; that said it is a different matter when it starts to have a negative impact on other areas of your life. I do not think that repeating the same endgame raid dungeon over and over is in anyway synonymous with playing an alternative game from start to finish.
I do agree that lazy players who will pull a group down with them are a pain however, and an entirely different category to casuals, although many people confuse them in the endless hardcore vs casual arguments on these forums.
The people who think that "Hardcore raiding" was about gear are the same people who never made it into the top 50 in terms of progression.
It was absolutely about the emergent competition, the spy work, data mining guild info from wws, c'thun think tanks, everything. . . all of which will never be reproduced.
Being a hardcore raider these days means nothing. The challenge is gone, and with it the competitive scene.
Your post remind me the early day of WOW before BC , so call hardcore raiders were people who keep trying to raid the boss after fail so many time and gain big joy when manage to clean the challenge.
They were kind of respectable people who serious try to get pass the challenge just to win the game , not for some shine gears .
40 man raid , not some LFG instances .
A hardcore raider can be in any game with raiding. It would be someone who's online experience revolves around raiding. When they aren't raiding, they are preparing for raiding. Etc. etc.
When I picture a hardcore raider they might be gathering herbs to make potions for the raid, or running lowbies through dungeons to get them raid ready. They would often be an officer and handle things like recruiting. They watch a lot of raid vids on youtube or even make their own. They spend a lot of time on elitestjerks.com
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