Casual Gaming vs Non-Casual Gaming

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One of the great appeals of Guild Wars, I've found, is the lack of grind in order to play through the storyline missions.

But what about Luxon/Kurzick Reputation? Sunspear Points? Lightbringer Points? What about EoTN titles?

My position on these is simply that they are mandatory because they exist as a way to lengthen the game without making the map bigger. In a sense, these titles are just more quest trees to play through, and are quite different from the other more pointless titles like Drunkard, which are the TRUE grinds of the game.

But I digress. Casual Gaming. What is it? And especially in Guild Wars?

Well...to me, casual gaming is something I can pick up, play for a bit, then turn off and do something else. Casual gaming does not require a massive investment in time. If I can play the game for maybe...30-40 minutes, get it done, then do something else, then that's designed for casual play. These days im so busy with work and martial arts that I barely have time for all my games.

If you sit down and time it, theres few missions (if any) that exceed the 40 minute mark. If you play through the game without really skipping around, you will have money and materials to buy max level armor (no vanity armors though).

Max level weapons are easy to achieve, and runes are decently priced. Even in the days when Superior absorption was 100k and Monk superior runes were worth a mint (oh the days when a WHITE Chaos Axe was worth a couple hundred ^-^), I never felt pressured or impulsed to spend money on the super high end runes, because I beat the game even with junk equipment...the ultimate definition of casual play.

To me the "main" areas of the game, the storyline in particular is meant for casual play.

So....what about other areas and modes in the game? What areas of the game do not fall into "casual" category?

PVP - Anything beyond RA/TA and AB, I would consider beyond the realm of a casual player. Tombs, er....HA, GvG and such require a LOT of time preparing, since failure rate is very high (theres always going to be more losers than winners...). Setting up, tweaking builds, changing tactics, configuring your voice chat/mic, and dealing with the inevitable rage after losing (and replacing rage quitters, then rebuilding the team) takes a LOT of time and I feel is a turn off for casual players.

Now we come to the cusp.

PvE and Non-casual play. Some are pretty obvious.

DoA/UW/FoW/Urgoz/Deep - These are the "elite" areas. What makes these non-casual is not the levels of the enemies, or the difficulty, but rather the amount of time it takes to beat them. It takes a while. And you can't simply jump in and expect to beat it on your lunch break. You need some preparation, some knowledge and certainly TIME.

Hardmodes: Vanquishing/Missions - Hard mode introduced a second mode, more difficult mode to all areas of the game. While I feel that this isn't really too difficult, nonetheless, I don't see these modes as modes for casual gaming. The failure rates are higher and the time required is also higher.

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So what is my point? Well, I would like for you talk about this. What constitutes casual play for you? What is non-casual play for you?

If you can sit there and C-space for 30 minutes and beat it, thats pretty casual isn't it?

VS

Keeping your eyes open, paying attention to 10 things and watching the timing of your skills and player position so you don't wipe and waste 2 hours of gameplay.

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Now take that, and look towards the future. What kind of gaming do you want from GW2? How does current changes make you feel like Ursan? Or possibilities of 7 heroes? What changes to the game's design and dynamics do you agree/disagree with?

Casual is not mutually exclusive with challenging.

Something that requires 500 hours of gameplay is not casual (titles, looking at you).

A task that requires skill, and possibly thousands of tries, but only 3 minutes per try is casual.

Tetris is an example of that. Anyone can play it. And everyone has a chance of getting to highest level. Yet it's playable in exactly the same way by someone who has 10 minutes at a time, or by someone who plays non-stop for years.

Compare this to titles, which cannot, by very design, be obtained in less than 300 hours of play and nothing but play. Even if ran by bots, they cannot be completed faster.


Bioshock is the big winner of last year. Is it casual or hard-core FPS? It's very twitchy, very hard-core yet clear winner of casual market, and even commended for appealing story and immersive environment.

Casual gaming is when I can lounge around in my underwear and play.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I play for fun.

Yes GW is the place to be for casual gamers and still be successful. But they also need those long and grinding places ("elite areas") for those hardcore gamers whose dedicated to put their time to this game.

I think GW2 should have the same idea of for casual gamers yet reward those who goes even further.

Yes I do agree with your PvP opinion and that casual gamers will have trouble keeping up w/ them. But i cant give any feedback on this because I dont even go there.

I myself is a casual gamer who got my gold through power trading. and my koabd lv4 title through 6 months by doing the hm mish and stuff little by little. I still have vanq and explore to go but i know someday im gonna finish.
It just takes me longer because of my casual play (college, work and friends)

Now for the future...from what I heard they will have balanced some things so you can go solo or w/ a friend or w/ "companions" so I guess its gonna be a different system. I just hope it works

Weird, i know lotsa casual gamers (2-3h per day or weekend only) that got 6-7 chars, they finished all campaigns, got 10+ titles, lotsa nice weapons and 15k sets, and they never complain. They just have to wait for the weekend to go in FoW/UW/etc

Those SS/LB Titles dont require much Grind

SS: You can get Rank 8-9 just by playing the game, rank8 before evn completing normal
LB: Same here, you can handle even HM stuff with h/h with rank 5+
Rep titles: one book is easily done and rewards 30k points, you can max more than one of those in one weekend

You want Kurzick skills? 100000 points is enough to get em

Casual Gaming is when I can play, relax and not have bad luck 80% of the time.

Hang on....that probably means I'm not a Casual Gamer.

QFT

12345678

I've been playing 2d shooters lately actually, being Gradius IV for PS2 and Contra 4 for DS.

Its pretty casual, easy to play...but actually beating these games and getting anywhere requires some dedication @_@

Casual play is almost as subjective and personal as grind. In WoW I'm in what's mostly considered a "casual raiding guild," but a lot of people wouldn't call 2-3 nights a week with 3-4 hour playtimes pretty "casual."

It's mostly determined by the effort you have to put into it, and it varies between every player (a good example being what Lyra just posted above, I beat Contra easy ;P )

I dont think so Bryant. I think theres very deliberate design for the types of content to appeal to certain players.

I consider "getting anywhere" to beating the game and unlocking everything.

And the time it takes to beat it is certainly longer than my commute lets me (which throws it out of the casual gaming window), where as Puzzle Fighter, i can do without really worrying about time and turn it off whenever.

Did you unlock all bonus content in Contra 4? (ie: Super C)

Not everyone has the same definition of "fun". I like killing stuff, picking up their loot and buying shiny things with it, plus I love learning how to play new builds. It's my kinda fun.

Another's kinda fun is to do a few quests every night and know he'll have a couple more tomorrow night.

And the third person likes to log on, kill people and getting points for winning.

So the same way, casual and non-casual play is different from everyone. The people who do FoW and DoA on daily basis, whose accounts are worth over 1-2 million gold, think someone who logs on 2-3 hours every WEEK is casual...

... While the GvGer who spends all of his day training and doing some side HA or something probably sees the guy who does FoW and DoA as another casual player.

Well that's my 2g. So far. Edits are probably coming.

Something you enjoy, something challenging enough to keep you wanting more and something you can just drop and say "I'll play it later."

Hard Mode in Ninja Gaiden Sigma is exactly that for me. It's hard enough that I need to keep thinking and moving, but not hard enough that I die in one hit and wonder why I bother.

"Hard mode" is supposed to be challenging and take a chunk of time, but it's what I play when I want to "casually enjoy" Guild Wars. Things also become more casual as they become less difficult, and this is where we start to blur the definition of "casual player."

C4? Me and my friend got kind of bored of it, it was too easy. I was referring more to C3, which is where it's at, yo (next to Metal Slug of course (okay no nothing beats SSBB at this point, sorry homie!)).

Casual varies depending on how much time it takes you to do one specific thing and how much skill you have.

If you have a lot of skill, something harder might be casual to you, but require lots of effort from someone less experienced.

Likewise, if it takes you a long time to prepare for something, or you decide to take a long time to prepare for it anyway, that's not exactly casual. Casual would be more like doing something and seeing where you end up, and then trying it again with any info that you've gained.

I don't want to divert too much from what some of my OP intentions were.

As per Hard Mode, i dont consider that as casual play.

I would consider you a hardcore player who finds hardmode casual. ;p

I farm some hard monsters, with a very high failure rate, but doing so relaxes me and is very casual for me, even though its very difficult. I do not consider this as casual content at the very least.

ill play devil's advocate, as my OP intented, how do you think Ursan /possibility of 7 heroes changes these game dynamics that you have about casual/non-casual.

Well my Ryu Hayabusa IS pretty damn hardcore...

Why are people so obsessed with this idea of "casual gaming" lately?

http://www.entrepreneur.com/technolo...cle190914.html

"Whether played online, downloaded to a gaming console or phone, or purchased for a handheld game system, casual games like Bejeweled, Zuma and Luxor are making their mark on the gaming industry. With rainbow-bright and fast-paced puzzles, word and arcade games, these games are keeping folks busy during lunch breaks, while waiting in interminable lines and after the little ones have fallen asleep.

This $2.25 billion industry is growing 20 percent each year, according to the Casual Games Association (CGA) 2007 Market Report. Each month, more than 200 million people play casual games online. And while "serious" gamers tend to be young men, casual gamers are more evenly split: 48.3 percent are male, and 51.3 percent are female. In fact, according to Craig Holland, founder of game publisher Freeze Tag and marketing director with the CGA, "Women account for 74 percent of the paying casual game players," meaning ladies are the ones who pony up the bucks for downloads.

John Vechey, Brian Fete and Jason Kapalka started PopCap--maker of the ubiquitous Bejeweled--back in 2000 after the trio quit their dotcom jobs. "We knew from our prior work in the space that there was an ever-growing market of people with computers who were interested in games," Kapalka says. "They just couldn't find any besides Solitaire and Minesweeper that they enjoyed in the game marketplace at that time." Over the past year, the Seattle-based company doubled its employees and been highly profitable without ever taking outside funding.

Kapalka says PopCap makes games for people who don't like games and since the field is so new, many potential customers haven't found games they like. "They see some violent game for Xbox and think, 'That's not for me,'" he says. "[But] if we can get a self-professed non-gamer to sit down in front of Bejeweled or Zuma or Peggle for 10 minutes, we can convert half of them right there."

The simplicity of casual games is an attractive quality; there's no steep learning curve and players can use devices they're already familiar with, rather than having to adapt to a new controller.

Dave Walls, who started his game production company Funkitron in 2001, says the try-before-you-buy aspect is also crucial for growth in the industry. "It made it really easy for [non-gamers] to get involved--to see the games, to try out the games," says Walls, who creates games based on licensed board game brands like Scrabble, Blokus and Boggle, as well as poker and trivia games. "People can play the game for an hour, make sure it works, make sure they have fun. And that just makes it easier for them to buy another one.""

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casual gaming is srs bizness

Thats like asking why do people buy a weak piece of crap like the 360. The industry is stuck on pleasing the causal gamer right now....the sheep will follow.

I'm casual, because I say so. I post far more then I play.

On a busy GW week for me I might net 10-15 hours. You have some no lifers on here that play that much in a day/

Interesting post!

I would say everyone has their own definition what a casual player is. I know I consider myself one. I don't put 8 hours a day into guildwars, nor do I know every last tidbit of information on the game. Others, though, might say I'm not a casual player because I spend time farming, I have some max titles, and other characteristics that wouldn't fit into someone elses definition.

Grind, I also believe, is subjective. My definintion of Grind is something you must do to advance. Aside from reaching a certain rank in SS and the 10K lux/Kurz for primary quests, which can be easily obtained by doing all the side quests and taking bounties, the rest isn't a must. Sure, the higher the better, but having rank 3 LB vs Rank 6 LB isn't going to stop you, or prevent you, from accomplishing tasks.

EoTN, that's a little more subjective. I will agree, having R5 in a content area that is much smaller than Nightfall, to gain access to armor and consumables is a tad bit high. I didn't have much choice but to grind a new book to achieve a second R5 for Norn. It's been the only time I've run into a must grind. I hope at some point Anet makes the decision to lower those rank requirements.

Other thn that, Max SS, Max LB, Max kurz/lux, Max EoTN; These aren't necessary to advance. They are optional. I've made it to R9 in SS just by questing and some Hard Mode quests with guildies. I have no desire, nor need, to max it and I probably never will.

Take that as opposed to a game like Flyff (if you've played it you'll know and it's just the easiest game I can think of) where the game is nothing but grind. Where if you need x-skill, you must grind to x-level. Where the only way to advance in power, or equipment, or weapons, or a rare new quest, you must grind to x-level.

I would say it's whatever each player makes it. For me, Guild Wars works for many types of gamers, casual and not. I can pick up the game for an hour in a morning, do a bit of work on a quest, try for a masters in a mission, do a farm run, or two, and then head off to work knowing I've gotten something done.

To use Flyff again as an example, in an hour, I can't get much done, if anything at all, except for an hour of repeated killing for maybe 8% on a level at higher levels.

But to players who do want to spend long hours beating away at something for a title, or "level" (in subjective term), the option is there with maxing titles.

I completely agree, but I would add that it's also not in the realm of being impossible for casual players and casual PvP'ers (Like myself who usually only PVP's once, or twice a week). A little bit of planning ahead for a future date with people you know can work.

Again I agree with what you posted. This also might be a good arguement FOR 7 heroes, but that's beside the point. I have chipped away at DoA, but not in awhile. Like you I'm a busy person! But also I have other things in game I prefer to work on. I do, however, wish I could afford more time in these areas.

Agree again! But, I myself do tackle Hard Mode missions on my lunch break quite often. Vanquishing I truly don't care for. It's just not something I'm concerned about. I'm more in love with trying for Guardian. Yes they're far more time consuming, but I guess I'm a challenge junkie. It provides a challenge to me, much like a NM elite area, but without the long term planning stages because I can add my heroes, or go with a partner with heroes, and just go at it. Success, or not, afterwards it's back to work...or bed if it's a night!


I still do both (not the c-space thing! I mean just a quick 30 minute seesion) I can be a perfectionist and I don't enjoy the c-space game at all. I guess that's why I find Ursan completely boring and why I'm constantly developing builds. I'm a believer that as much as your bar has to do with success and failure, so does timing, positioning, approach, and your battle field itself. I openly admit, I take great care and practice often in being in the proper positions, practicing my timing, and taking notice of focus points in the mids of chaos.

Sure, failures after long periods of time are a part of life, but that's how we learn. I've never been one to get pissed over losing at something. I laugh it off, replay what happened in my head, and adjust.

Because none of us really know what to expect in GW2, as nothing truly concrete has been said yet (hopefully soon though!) I, for one, don't have much of a comment except for one thing.

I do like being in open worlds with other players, but I also enjoy the freedom of being in my own map. My own map provides me with peace of mind when I'm sometimes AFK for phone calls, or distractions during the day. It also prevents the common spawn campers from taking advantage of other players.

If there is one thing I hope that comes with GW2 is the option to choose both of those. I can say, without doubt, I would play equally in both. That if I have a quest I want to do without interference, I can choose my own map. Yet, if I want to venture out and explore, meet and greet, discover and adventure with random people, I can do that in a world shared with many.

It's good to know I am not the only one who plays in their underwear.

There's been a lot of this discussion on the WoW forums recently and the general consensus there is "a casual player is a player that cannot dedicate long periods of time to playing the game".

I myself think this is a really good definition. I'm casual (on a normal day I can only play in 40min sessions) but I play HM, have chipped away at DoA, done slavers by leaving myself afk when I had to do other things. Although on a normal day I play about 2 hours, this is spread over a 5-6 hour time span. So a low level of play =/= casual.

A hard-core player is someone who can say for sure "ok, DoA tonight, I'll be there for all 4 hours of it". I'd say most HC players play HM, but then, I had a friend who played for 5 hours a day, never did HM, just c-spaced through old zones. He couldn't react fast enough for HM.

So, imo, I've got KoaBD and 10 lvl 20 chars with 15k armor but I only play in 30min stretches, however it adds up over time. I'd say I'm casual.
Whereas a hard core player might have only 1 character but they play for 3-6 hours a day and in 2-3 hours goes.

i'm a casual gamer with 10 minutes a day if gw is lucky~

Casual gaming is anything but high end gvg =p

I think the difference between casual and non-casual players isn't necessarily in the hours but in how serious they take the game. I wouldn't consider most of you casual simply because you're here on the forums.

Because GW PvP is hard, right?

EVE's PvP is challenging, GW PvP is not.

A casual game is anything you can pick up and play pretty fast without having to memorize a whole instruction manual or keep notes about progress and strategies. Casual games are good for people who don’t have a lot of time for gaming. Games you can play on your cell phone or iPod. Instant gratification.

C-space playing for 30 minutes and beating something is OK once in awhile, otherwise it’s just boring. Having to grind for rank in titles linked to skills is in this category.

I’m not a casual gamer. I want a game that’s going to be a challenge and that’s going to take awhile to finish. That to me is fun, not something that I spent money on and then finished in less than two hours.

It’s like books, I guess. If I have a choice between two books in a genre I enjoy - one with 150 pages and large print or one that has 600 pages with normal print - I’m more than likely going to go for the big book because I like a good read that’s going to take awhile to finish. On the other hand, Harlequin makes a ton of money selling short romance stories.

Word. I'm guilty. A-Net should give us gold trim around our toon's undies.

I've been doing a lot of game research, so that's something that I understand pretty well.

If you're looking for a textbook-type definition for casual gaming, then it's pretty much any game that anybody of any skill level can pick up and understand very quickly. The emphasis tends to be more about fun than button mashing. The games are broken up into short segments, often 30 minutes or less for a round, and there's frequent opportunity to save your progress. If you want an iconic casual game, then take a look at Nintendogs. There's a game in there, but it's not like it's really hard. It attracts millions of players nevertheless, including people that normally don't like the typical "video game".

Guild Wars is a semi-casual game. If you want a game that will get you to max level very quickly and you get to do major campaigns quickly, then Guild Wars will give you that. The antithesis of Guild Wars is pretty much all of the other Korean-based MMORPGs, which are all centered around getting to some character level as a primary goal. You don't have to do a lot to get to max level, max armor, or max damage weapons in Guild Wars.

However, this is a double-edged sword. Because you reach max level quickly, and it's not that hard to just beat the regular campaign (i.e., just finish the game--no bonuses, Master Reward, etc), gamers feel like there's a not a lot to do after you beat the game. As a result, despite that GW was never supposed to be about grind, the whole game has shifted toward a huge amount of it as a side effect, where people are now just farming for rare weapon skins, fancy armor, or maxed Titles. At least, that's for the PvE portion. I have my opinions about PvP, but I don't play it enough to give an accurate depiction.

To me:

When I used to be a hardcore GW player, I played because... I wanted something IG, some object, some title.

Now I play to have fun with builds and experiencing things. I play casually.

Oh right. We all forgot you've played Guild Wars PvP at it's highest level. Sorry.


All of PvE is casual play now with Ursan. The elite areas can now be cleared with ease by casual players. No comment on whether that's a good or bad thing.

PvE is casual, it used to be that it was divided between the Elite zones(non-casual) and the rest of PvE(mission/quests). Now it is all casual.

PvP still has a divide between casual and hard core if I may use the term.

Alliance Battles/Random Arena are both for the casual PvP player.

Team Arena/Hero's Ascent is for those sitting just below hard core and above casual.

GvG is mostly for hard core PvP players.


All this being said people from one catagory can easily move to another for a short period of time then return to thier normal playing patterns.

I'd suspect GW2 will be a lot more of both -- Casual and Hardcore. Allowing casual players access to elite areas with some form of "save game" camping, bivouacking when logging off, mid instance.

Arena Net is by far the king of MMO casual gaming, though I'm expecting some pretty deep stuff for Hardcore in GW2.

/Agreed

Glad you aren't commando....

I always play in my underwear...it helps me focus.

\



thats malice for u xD

If you play while the game is fun and put it down when its not, you're playing casually. The hardcore player is the one that will play regardless of the fact that they've stopped having fun because of the drive to see numbers go up.

You can be a casual player and complete HM, you can be a casual player and complete Elite missions. Heck you can be a casual player and probably go as far a "i have many leather bound books" on the title scale by completing all the fun "gameplay" titles like guardian, vanker, skill hunter and whatnot. If you're grinding out LB titles with endless worms runs or zoning for hours on end for drunkard - then you've slipped into the world of hardcore players.

A casual friendly game is one that that does not penalise gamers for playing casually - Pre-nightfall GW would be the shining example of this in the MMO world. The modern version of the game can no longer hold on to that mantle as the hardcore gamer is going to trounce the casual gamer every time. Take doa for an example - a reasonably competent hardcore player will complete it in around 2 hrs, whereas a casual gamer would be looking at 6-8 hours for the same task.

This topic of casual-ness of MMO players will be addressed in a lecture at the Indie MMO Game Developers Conference:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/03/prweb803694.htm

An interesting read also:
http://www.massively.com/2008/03/07/...-old-argument/

Quotes:

Throwing out my opinion with only having read the OP.

Casual gaming to me is being able to relax and have fun while playing the game. If I'm not having fun, it's not casual, and it feels more like work. It doesn't matter to me if I have 10 minutes to play or an entire day. The point of it is to take my mind off my real world problems for awhile. That's casual gaming to me.