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Q u o t e:


I quite agree with this. There is hardly anything to do in game

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I'm sorry, are we playing the same game? :D

I'm part of a 200+ strong Guild (no this is not my main ;p) who *gasp* hasn't started doing Kara yet. There's a couple of reasons for this, but the main one is the fact we're made up of people with jobs, daily and weekend commitments, what I *thought* was the definition of a casual player. We instance together reguarly, we have fun and rarely hang out in IF/Shatt, because most of us are too busy enjoying the game. Yeah, I know, I sound like a fangirl, but really... questing is fun. It makes GOLD. It gives LOOT.

We're now all getting attuned to Kara coz most of us wanted to quest first, to get to 70 and work on crafted gear and professions. Now we are getting attuned I suspect we'll run the place twice a week tops. Hardly any of us are running heroics either, not because we're unable to, but simply because there's just so much other stuff to fit in and there's only a couple of hours in the night to do it.

This game isn't for hardcore or casuals, it's for PEOPLE. It's meant to act as a diversion and entertainment, and if it's not doing that for you... really, go do something else. Blizz provide the product, it's up to you to actually enjoy it, not them. I've played since just after launch and I think that there's only so much the devs can do to keep everyone happy, so in the end they cater to as many as they can.

I think it's just a matter of perspective.

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Q u o t e:

Do you have any suggestions yourself? Could you elaborate a bit on why you think WoW isn't friendly to casuals? Actually, since there are so many different opinions on what a casual player is, how would you define a "casual player"?

Feel free to reply, the rest of you as well :)

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Well i feel the same as the OP, i was myself a raider since 2 years and start to play far less now.

About raiding during 2 years, i mean 4 or 5 days a week from 18h to 0h or more.

I think myself as a casual now as i log in sometimes (1 or 2 days a week) and don't play from a starting time to an ending time as before. Now i play at random hours for random times (here is the defenition of a casual player for me).

I was a raider cause i like raids. Before TBC it was easy to raid some instance (MC, BWL, AQ) with 30-35 "real" raiders (i mean decent gear + knowledge) and grab a few players who know how to play there char, understand what to do quick BUT don't have the top gear + potions.

Now, with TBC, if you want to raid, you have to be a real raider, i mean here to spend a lot of time in the game. Why?
* run instances, farm reputations to get some "good" gear or
* to be able to have a lot of potions (= farm money or farm herbs) or
* stop raiding.

TBC give to the game a nice steps-progression. You run 5 men, then have to run 10men then start "real" raid : 25men.... BUT to run fully 10men, you have to have gear + (or) potions to end it because you'll have the gear in Karazhan to run Gruul/Mag/SSC... so, what is the point to guild in TBC?
Try to farm Karazhan to stuff people BUT it's a rotation of 12 or 13 players per group and this guild make 2 group in Karazhan. Because Karazhan isn't easy (not really hard at the beginning but..) those group have to be balanced + as good as possible to be succed.

That's mean a casual player who play this game only for raid won't be able to join a Karazhan raid due to his gear, because playing Karazhan with 9+1 isn't succesfull especially because the +1 guy may won't be online when the guild will do 25men... because Karazhan farm run is to gear people to 25men ;)

So here is my point of view about TBC.. but if i look back, it was the same with the "old world", you have to spend time to run old 5men instance, UBRS, start raiding in MC, etc...

This is a RPGMMO and it's damn hard to see taht you won't be able to see content in a game you play not because you're not good... but because you're not able to spend enought time for it.

There is another solution for casual player of course, they can wait that the new content become easier (look MC before TBC) and run this content.... but could it be call High End Game?

I'm sorry about it that any RPGMMO ask people only 1 thing: not to be good, not to know his/her class, not to understand how this game work... just spending time.

I will cancel my account soon because i'm not able to do what i love to do when i log on: raiding because there is no place in a raid in TBC for a casual player.

Alot of good points have been made I'd say, and as alot of others, I left my raiding guild some days ago cause I don't want to be part of the extremely timeconsuming parts of grinding rep/herbs/etcetc. I made this character some weeks back to have fun with. Do things I want to do. Anyways..

A couple ideas I've been thinking of that I'd love to see ingame some day (some are mentioned earlier in the thread also).
- able to do something with appearances
- I dont know about you, but eventually (like pre-tbc), a LOT of players are gonna have the
exact same outfit (gear). Why cant there be something personal about armor/colors etc?
- hair?
- several more instances that :
- offer more variety in gamestyle etc
- a singleplayer instance where you can put yourself to the test (would love that).
You could change the difficulty before going in (Easiest, Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardest, Heroic)
which of course triggered the appropriate loot. Would have to be class-instances though.
- a 'viewing instance' (like a cinema), where you can choose a group already in an instance to
see them in real time action. (I was thinking of you could run around like a ghost in the same
instance to watch progress and kills, would be fun to see raiders on a last boss etc)
- I agree to what many have posted about small amounts of pvp-items offered. Pve-wise, theres
tons of different gear, slight changes etc. Now you have bracers.. shoes.. belt.. a 6-set or two, 3-4
different weapons, a couple gems? I mean, for instance, NONE of the 1 handed caster weapons have
+spell critical strike rating. Whats that about? Anyways, I beg for ALOT more variety on pvp-items
earned.
And heres why I think it should ::: Pve-players can check on thottbot etc to look for gear that fits them
perfectly, and most of the time, they find it, and starts grinding for it. Pvp-players "grind" alot too, but
should they be punished by not be given some more choices?
- ... + alot more, I'm just very tired atm and cant focus :p

Please let me hear what you think.

In my opinion the solution is relatively simple and it has been mentioned a few times already in this thread.

First of all think about all the quest content, hellfire peninsula comes to my mind first.
Loads of quest rewarding good stable rare quality rewards, the only problem here is the rewards dont always suit you.

These quest can be completed with a few friends, 2-3 people maybe even by yourself given you're dedicated enough or clever enough.

So the argument goes the killing of XXquality elite in wow rewards an item of XXquality, introducing quest (and stole this one forgetting the name, Im sorry because it was truely great idea) there will reward you with a badge/mark x of those can be turned in for an item or even better x of those will be turned in to reward you the item needed for your t4 or equivalent.

A turn in quest sytem at 70, allowing you to gain a full epic set, yup epic. which will allow you choices in regards to your spec, as seen on hybrids set from BG/T* is the way to go.


I dont think the difference in rading/casual player gear quality should be significant, after all the raiders raid to enjoy the content, not to two shot significantly worse geared players for kicks?

if the gear quality increase is required for the next raid instances then by all means make the gear instance specific.
The pride of first server kill wont deminish abit!

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Q u o t e:


Lol ! Sorry but, you're a Warlock, tab-dot-tab-dot-tab-dot-dot-dot-dot is NOT skill and don't you dare talk about balance.

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LOL! Sorry, but first play with warlock then talk "dot-tab, bla bla bla". L2p.
I will dare talk about balance as much as i want, i dont care will it be lock nerf or smt, but pvp need a bit balance, not too much (and i dont mean locks, i meant racial and few skills, locks dont have anything to do with it)
Again, l2p.

Ok lets skip this stupid subject. I think casual players would be delighted if blizz make some "instances" for 3 or even solo. Or perhaps some small events or something like that. :D

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Q u o t e:
What do casuals do?
Why do they play MMOs?
Its a real mystery to me.
And I think its a mystery for Blizzard.

I mean they come and say *ffs blizz, we want epics!*

*Yeah.. okay.. erm.. what for?*

Well.. we don't really bother with PvP. Don't bother raiding.. so.. erm...
We need those purples for afking in IF or grinding those mobs faster.

Right... okay...

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I don't know, making progress? Getting a sense of success? Nah, couldn't be it. People only play this game to keep on playing. So, what could it be?
Oh, I got it. The silly casuals must be thinking that they can use the shiny purple loot in real life aswell! Yeah, that's the only explanation.

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Q u o t e:


We're now all getting attuned to Kara coz most of us wanted to quest first, to get to 70 and work on crafted gear and professions. Now we are getting attuned I suspect we'll run the place twice a week tops.

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my guild run it twice a week for about 3-4 hours a pop. we have been at it less than a month and have three bosses down.
Woooo for casuals.


As for WoW not being casual freindly? WTF. if i log in for even half an hour i can find thigs to do. Go grind some motes, do a quest. spam trade with my encahnts or *shock* organise an instance with my guildies for some time when i know i'll be on.
You can do Shadow Labs in less than 2 hours with a good group (not even well geared, jsut skilled, and having skill does not equal non-casual), you can get teh key frag in SV in 30 mins max and the one in Actraz in abotu the same.
BM can be a nightmare, but again, it's not dependent on gear, just on skill.....and boom, you are in Kara.

Ive been playing nealry a year and its kinda annoying how much you need to play to get anywhere! I only hit 60 like 2 days before TBC came out (Sooo annoying!) and ive been playing quite alot. Im taking a year out so I havent got a job or university/school or anything to take up y time so I usually manage about 4-5 hours a day. What really gets me is that since TBC came out nobody bothers with MC etc anymore, just when I reach the point where the raiding fun starts ive gotta grind some more. Now dont be saying stuff like "STFU U N00Bz0rz" an other pathetically childish things! I really think Blizz should have thought about putting a quest involving some of the high lvl dungeons in to alow you to get to outland an lvl past 60. A sort of prove yourself quest. It would mean that lvl 60 sets were still an achievement and would mean that getting to 70 was also something to be proud of instead of just proving you play alot. It also seems that whatever lvl 60 kit youve got after 3-4 days in outland your wearing greens that are better! With a little bit more thought TBC would have been 10/10 instead of the 9/10 it is anyway.

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Q u o t e:


my guild run it twice a week for about 3-4 hours a pop. we have been at it less than a month and have three bosses down.
Woooo for casuals.


As for WoW not being casual freindly? WTF. if i log in for even half an hour i can find thigs to do. Go grind some motes, do a quest. spam trade with my encahnts or *shock* organise an instance with my guildies for some time when i know i'll be on.
You can do Shadow Labs in less than 2 hours with a good group (not even well geared, jsut skilled, and having skill does not equal non-casual), you can get teh key frag in SV in 30 mins max and the one in Actraz in abotu the same.
BM can be a nightmare, but again, it's not dependent on gear, just on skill.....and boom, you are in Kara.

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This just shows you hardcore mentality.
Casual DO NOT want to grind for motes, gold, resistance gear what ever.
They wan't to play for fun the same content as everyone else and that does not involve endless griding for things that you only need in order to do highendinstances.

Anyone saying that I only log for just before raiding and logout after that either buys gold from goldsellers or is a leach in the raidgroup. Even with the old wow you needed some mana/hp pots and bandages.

I would probably come back to WoW if there were more social activities within the game. What kept me playing SWG was the upkeep of player cities. Everyone who was a resident of the city and guild worked towards that city. They contributed, they donated objects to decorate city buildings. They attended meetings they partied and raided. This whole side of MMORPG's is completly missing from WoW.

Lets face it, part of WoW's popularity was timing. WoW was released at the "perfect" time, millions of people just got easy access to broadband all over the world. The game was easy on older computers too. I have no doubt in my mind that this is what drove people to actually try WoW rather than older MMO's like SWG.

I would like to think that Player Cities/outposts/towns at in the works for an expansion sometime. It would keep me playing and paying. I dont see any evidence of that though. I find it hard to see how it could be implemented without using instances to supply more land and even with that, it would be hard to expand the current size of the barrens using instances without having a major change of the map.

I do personally think that the world map is a bit too small. Realistically the whole of the map is the size of a small city in the real world.

I would like to see an expansion that would cater for Casuals, that would be a social expansion, that would implement many of the great ideas the community has.
1 Expansion a year I heard you were releasing. Damn I hope we get some info on the next one soon then.

He's got you there.

TBC post 70 isnt casual friendly, this is what happens when you put hardcore guild leaders in as developers/advisors.

Worry not plenty of releases coming out to cater for the casuals, just keep serving the hardcore and do us all a favour by keeping them out of the new releases and here addicted to WoW.

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Q u o t e:
I would probably come back to WoW if there were more social activities within the game. What kept me playing SWG was the upkeep of player cities. Everyone who was a resident of the city and guild worked towards that city. They contributed, they donated objects to decorate city buildings. They attended meetings they partied and raided. This whole side of MMORPG's is completly missing from WoW.

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That was one of the best parts in SWG.
Or do you remember the Cantinas ? allway something going on in there.
everybody just sitting around watching those twilek entertainers....*dwells in memories*
My Guild ran a Town on Tatooine and it was really fun putting up your house and decorating it with !!*!.
putting laser rifles on the walls and so on...

the way i see it tough this wouldnt work as well as in swg. for those towns to be successfull you need them to be placed out in the open not in an instanced area and the thing about wow is that if player housing comes it will sure as hell be instanced.

Yeah thats why I doubt they can do it in WoW.

I use to spend hours on one of my entertainers, dancing and chatting in the cantina. I loved playing the instruments too. I was never really a fighter in that game. It was very rewarding being Mayor of a great town too. Social activities are what WoW definatly fails in. Even if you are in a big guild and go raiding every night, you have to keep vent or TS clear for the "raid leaders" and you have to keep focused on what your role is. There is never a chance to have a sit down and have a good old natter while you play the bongo.

"" is wow continue to be for hardcore only? ""


No. We have zilion posibilities where you can get eq. fun or whatever and play solo 5 or 10 man groups only.

Imo Op is 1 . blind or 2. is not playing wow.

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Q u o t e:


That was one of the best parts in SWG.
Or do you remember the Cantinas ? allway something going on in there.
everybody just sitting around watching those twilek entertainers....*dwells in memories*
My Guild ran a Town on Tatooine and it was really fun putting up your house and decorating it with !!*!.
putting laser rifles on the walls and so on...

the way i see it tough this wouldnt work as well as in swg. for those towns to be successfull you need them to be placed out in the open not in an instanced area and the thing about wow is that if player housing comes it will sure as hell be instanced.

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EMU SWG out soon :P google it

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Q u o t e:


I'm sorry, are we playing the same game? :D

I'm part of a 200+ strong Guild (no this is not my main ;p) who *gasp* hasn't started doing Kara yet. There's a couple of reasons for this, but the main one is the fact we're made up of people with jobs, daily and weekend commitments, what I *thought* was the definition of a casual player. We instance together reguarly, we have fun and rarely hang out in IF/Shatt, because most of us are too busy enjoying the game. Yeah, I know, I sound like a fangirl, but really... questing is fun. It makes GOLD. It gives LOOT.

We're now all getting attuned to Kara coz most of us wanted to quest first, to get to 70 and work on crafted gear and professions. Now we are getting attuned I suspect we'll run the place twice a week tops. Hardly any of us are running heroics either, not because we're unable to, but simply because there's just so much other stuff to fit in and there's only a couple of hours in the night to do it.

This game isn't for hardcore or casuals, it's for PEOPLE. It's meant to act as a diversion and entertainment, and if it's not doing that for you... really, go do something else. Blizz provide the product, it's up to you to actually enjoy it, not them. I've played since just after launch and I think that there's only so much the devs can do to keep everyone happy, so in the end they cater to as many as they can.

I think it's just a matter of perspective.

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just wanted to let you know that i want to bear our love-child.

Since TBC is here, WoW has already become more for the 'casual player' imo.
But what is a 'casual player'? Its different for everyone.

But there is shorter pvp now, think about arena.
And most of the instances aren't that long anymore. Many only take 1-1.5 hours. Before TBC, they were like 2-3 hours.

To become really good, you maybe need to spend more time in WoW than an average player, but with 1-2 hours a day, you can come far too :)

I played the trial of AD&D Online a few months ago - and while I used about 10 minutes of my 10 day trial , there was a feature where when you went into an instance, you got a bunch of options before you went in asking you how you wanted to run through it, Solo, Group and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head

I think if WoW was to implement something like this for non raid dungeons it would quiten the casuals about epix and not take away the acheivement of the raiders

It would also be perfect for when lvl'ing your alts - need VC but can't get a group, do the dungeon solo and get slightly worst rewards but get rid of the quest from your log.

Or in the case of end game make the dungeon a solid 1 man instance where you have to be on top of your game to finish it. The rewards are tokens like the tier 4/5 stuff but with different rewards - that aren't as good as the raid rewards but are a set reward that

a) gives decent set bonuses and decent gear for the time spent

b) gives a sense of acheivement that johnny casual is actually a decent player and can solo these places to get these rewards.

c) Means johnny casual can make progress with his limited play time - ( maybe have solo reset's so you can carry on from where you left off.)

Obviously yes the argument for - but it's an mmorpg, why don't you get a solo game if you want solo play is there, but leveling an alt on some servers is like playing solo anyway, you don't see anyone for hours at a time in some zones.

Besides - I love WoW and love the social aspect of it, but sometimes I wanna progress on my own, this would be a perfect way to do that.

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Q u o t e:


This just shows you hardcore mentality.
Casual DO NOT want to grind for motes, gold, resistance gear what ever.
...
Anyone saying that I only log for just before raiding and logout after that either buys gold from goldsellers or is a leach in the raidgroup. Even with the old wow you needed some mana/hp pots and bandages.

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Ok, but they can still go do a quest or something. Blue Arcane resistance gear is relativly cheap since it's craftable.

At level 70 you can get 8-12g per quest that you haven't done. I use about three major mana potions , 3 super mana potions and maybe a few healing elixers if i feel like it in a kara run. that is no more than 30 mins of questing on a bad day, on a good day i can make 70g in an hour easy. if i hadn't spent all my gold on enchanting and tailoring levelling i would still be rolling in cash (i had about 1.5k gold when i hit 70 only doing quests), so don't say that in TBC people have to buy gold or leach off their raid group to raid for 3 hours twice a week.
get a grip dude.