A new definition for hardcore: the swift pursuit and killing of dragons

Apparently it’s a big no-no to use words like “hardcore” or “casual” when blogging. Readers and bloggers alike seem to get so caught up over these labels that they completely disregard the actual argument!

The term “hardcore” has become a dirty word. No one wants to be labeled as a hard core player; in fact everyone will do what they can to twist the meaning of casual just to make sure that they seem to fit into this category and no one could ever accuse them of being a hardcore player. Forgive me if I stop to roll my eyes.

I really loved a post written a while ago by Euripedes at Critical QQ which gave an interesting perspective on the whole casual and hardcore debate (if you can call it a debate) and highlighted how there is no real definition for what constitutes these two play styles. And if there is no definition, everything is open to interpretation.

I’ve decided to steal a page from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and am rejigging his Time Management Quadrant (you know, the one that is shown is every business course your office sends you to!) to come up with a fail safe way to tell if your casual, hardcore or something harder to define. I’m basing these on 2 factors time spent playing and your gaming attitude.

The problem is that there are two grey areas: Success-driven players who play very little (that’s me) and Fun-driven players who commit a lot of game time. In my opinion, Gaming Attitude is the stronger factor of the two. After all, if I had more time to play World of Wacraft, I probably would. So I would argue that Success-driven gamers with little play time shouldn’t be afraid to be labeled Hardcore. Time-poor, yes, but Hardcore nonetheless.

And fun-driven players who spend a lot of time in Azeroth? I would argue that if you put yourself in this space how you label yourself comes down to priorities. If you log off the moment that you’ve run out of fun stuff to do? You’re definitely qualified to proudly bear the “casual” label.

The average MMO player spends 21 – 22 hours a week in game. That statistic comes from information collated by Nick Yee who did extensive research on MMO’s in society. Was that a surprise? Seems like a lot, doesn’t it? Well Nick Yee also did some comparison to MMO players and the average TV watcher.  Did you know that the average American adult spends 28 hours per week watching TV?

I think of myself as a casual player in terms of the amount of hours I spend a week. I’m definitely coming in under the average, even if I attend each of our four raid sessions every week. And that’s usually all I have time for. It’s what I do and it’s how I spend every second of my 15 hours of game time each week. Then I log off. And try and scrape time out of my lunch break to write for Hots & Dots.

Yet I play/raid with a hardcore mentality. I know what I’m doing and I don’t want to fuck around waiting for people who consistently have net issues or must go have dinner and AFK for 20 minutes in the middle of each raid. I’ve raided in those guilds before, hell I ran one of those guilds and while I have no problem with people who want to play that way – go enjoy be merry, it just isn’t my cup of tea.

The only reason that hardcore has become a dirty word is because it’s based on an unflattering stereotype. It’s the player who sacrifices their social life in order to succeed in a game. It’s the player that condescends to less experienced players. The player that boasts about their achievements and gear. The player that thinks casual players are ruining the game.

I’m surrounded by people who approach raiding in World of Warcraft with a hardcore mentality. And guess what? They’re not like that. They take time off from raiding to go to parties, to celebrate birthdays, to go on holidays. They try and get along with other people and make friends – after all – at the highest level of success, World of Wacraft is a team sport and nobody can succeed on their own. Most of these players have no problem with casual players as long as they don’t try and raid together (raids are not a good place to mix mindsets).

I know that I’m not the mean anti-social stereotype described above. So call me hardcore. I consider it a compliment. A testament to my achievements and my success. I’m not offended.

I actually clock up less hours online and less hours in raids than I did when I played casually. Crazy, I know. Don’t believe me?

Less hours in raids: In a casual guild there was always that “just one more attempt please” attitude and while we raided less days we raided for a longer period. The time between attempts was drawn out as we waited for people to answer the phone, restart their computer, or replace a player that needed to log off to do homework. I definitely get more bang for my buck in a more extreme environment.

Less extra duties: I’ve been both a GM and an officer in different casual guilds and I’m now an officer in Vitare. The work load is a hell of a lot less in Vitare where the only aim of the guild is to raid and you’re either along for the ride or you aren’t. There is no scheduling, no loot complaints and no time spent persuading members to join the raid because they feel like doing arena/BG/leveling an alt.

So fellow readers, where do you fit on the quadrant? Do you think this is a fair view of how to determine where you sit in the gaming community? Do you think hardcore has become a dirty word?

Or do we need a new, lighthearted definition for hardcore play in World of Wacraft? More dragon-slaying, please!

When a guild disbands: It's not pretty.

On Sunday night while Vitare was bashing their heads against Heroic Northern Beasts, we got some pretty shocking news. The #2 Alliance guild on the server was disbanding. These were the players chasing the leading Alliance guild for fastest progression on the realm – and sometimes winning.

I normally take this kind of stuff with a grain of salt, but seeing I have some friends in this guild, I thought I would try and find out what was happening. It didn’t take long for confirmation to come through – the GM and 2 officers were quitting the game. This had left them short of their GM, Main and Off Tank, cornerstones of a stable raiding guild, so things were looking pretty shaky.

This is not the first Barthilas guild that has fallen since patch 3.2 either. Another Alliance guild that consistently ranked in the top 5 on the server changed their goals and pace from “hardcore” to “semi-hardcore”.

I think the reason for these disbands all stem from the completely unreasonable and terrible server instability raiders are experiencing on Barthilas since Trial of the Crusader was released.

Disconnects and Demoralised Raiders

It took us 30 attempts this raid lockout to get Heroic Northrend Beasts. We tried perhaps 20 attempts the week past before giving up and returning to Ulduar.

Each attempt we had at least 1 (more often than not up to 5) players disconnect during the first phase of the encounter. After the third disconnect, people started being replaced. When you’ve played with these same people for months and never seen them disconnect before, at some point you can’t keep blaming their ISPs (or as our GM always claims, their low “upload speed”).

Disconnecting frequently or experiencing 5 second casts times for your instant spells only inside Trial of the Crusader is not normal. At some point you realise the problem is bigger than yourself and your raid and, whatever it is, it’s at Blizzard’s end.

When it comes to heroic modes, you need everyone to be performing their best. When 3 people are dead before phase 1 finishes because they lag or DC during fire or a Snobold drops on them, you have next to no chance at completing the encounter. Just losing 1 DPS temporarily to a disconnect will set you behind the enrage time.

Disconnects and lag impacted a good 90% of our attempts.

We found that the lag spikes occurred in both phase 1 and phase 2 for Northern Beasts. The biggest problem with this was that healers couldn’t reactively heal Impale and we experienced plenty of tank deaths.

Progression Cycles

While Vitare chose to persevere, I have mates in other guilds who have instead elected to work only on Ulduar Hard Modes because wiping due to lag is simply too frustrating.

I think Vitare probably shocked quite a few guilds by downing Heroic Northern Beasts – this pushed us into the top 5 guilds of the server. We are lucky, Cass and I joined after quite a few of their core players left/stopped raiding with the release of Ulduar. The healing team was in tatters. And many other raiders were trials during those early Ulduar weeks.

Sure, this probably slowed down our Ulduar progression, but now for Trial of the Crusader our core group of players (especially the tanks and healers) are strong, experienced at working together and we are determined. If there were players or officers feeling the slightest bit “over it” or negative I’m sure things would have gone very differently in the Trial of Crusader.

A guild will have lows and highs, progress quickly then hit a roadblock or suddenly struggle for numbers. Be confident that you will pull through it. And if you have a dedicated officer team, agree on what your goals are, chances are, you will pull through.

The Last Straw

The guilds that have disbanded on Barthilas in the last couple weeks were used to competing for server firsts. They were the hardcore of the hardcore. The type of players that you would invite to a PuG run of anything and they would (usually silently) kick ass and pull out some weird tricks on a boss fight.

How can you manage a serious attempt at a boss when your long term raiders keep disconnecting? You know your players have the skill, but you are forced to remove them from the raid because they do more harm than good if they disconnect.

Do you recruit more players? Do you keep only those whose connection seems to cope better than others? How do you evaluate their skill when everyone is affected by lag and are performing worse than usual? What if Blizzard fix the server-side issues tomorrow?

At the end of the day, the current server lag issues are outside of our control. Until they are fixed I expect that many guilds with players of great skill will see little progression. And the officers of those guilds will have to perform a difficult juggling act to keep their raiders happy. I can completely understand how, at some points, the urge to quit becomes incredibly strong.

The Fall Out

Vitare are recruiting at the moment. As with any major content release the officers have been evaluating who stuck around when things got boring in the previous patch, and who didn’t.

Many of our new recruits will not make it through their trial period. And not because they are bad players. Because they disconnect.

I expect we’ll see an influx of applications from members these guilds who have disbanded. But I don’t quite think Vitare raids with the same mindset or intensity as these other guilds did. Many a raider has been kicked from the guild for what essentially boils down to loyalty (or lack thereof) and many an applicant has been turned down for questionable behavior in their previous guilds/realm.

I hope to see a new “hardcore” guild or two start up in their place on the server. There ought to be a stepping stone in skill and dedication between us and #1. Or am I just arguing that there are degrees of “hardcore”?

I hope that Barthilas guilds don’t server hop to try and find a more stable raiding platform, there is already such a select pool of players and guilds to choose from at the progression end. I hope Blizzard fix whatever is causing the problem/s before it gets to that point.

Lathere and I came somewhat late to the raiding game in Burning Crusade, dipping our toes into Karazhan several months later than the serious raiding guilds on Barthilas. We were pretty noob. We wiped, oh man, we wiped. But, in our casual two-nights-a-week way, we understood we would be forever playing catch-up, and we didn’t mind. We kept raiding and trying to kill bosses at our level.

Greater rewards for more difficult challenges? Nah.

At the near end of the Burning Crusade, Blizzard created a ton of purchasable items for players using Badges of Justice, the precursor to Emblems, in order to bring newcomers and recently turned level 70s up to Tier 6 item stats (the items were equivalent in stat level – not actual Tier armor pieces) and therefore have a chance to participate in Mount Hyjal and Black Temple raiding. They also removed the attunements so you didn’t have to complete the Tier 5 raids – a significant challenge on its own.

Well at the time I can tell you that I was absolutely a “casual” player. And I ran Karazhan over and over again for Badges in order to upgrade my gear. Did it push us to do Tier 6 raiding as a guild? Not really. All we did was spend more and more time collecting badges.

Sunwell Plateau, the final raid instance of the expansion, was released at the same time as all this new Badge gear. I knew that I would never be skilled, geared and committed enough to enter Sunwell Plateau. Guilds who cleared Black Temple each week impressed the heck out of me. But I thought, if we could just get a bit better and wipe less, maybe one day we’d be good enough a group to gain entry into those raid zones.

Let me repeat, when the rest of us were clawing our way to Tier 6 equivalent items, the leading guilds were given a shiny new raid zone with depth to experience. We’re not talking just one or two bosses here completed in a hour or two.

When Wrath of the Lich King was released it only included one Tier level, Tier 7, implemented in the game. Naxxramas, whilst having a ton of bosses, was simply too easy/quick to complete. Obsidian Sanctum and Eye of Eternity are both really really short – 1 boss. You could do the three combined within a few raid nights per week.

Ulduar has satisfied me as a raider (and as a semi-serious raider at that). The early fights are easier than the last bosses. There are unusual challenges along the way. The instance itself is a good length to clear in the space of a lockout week once you’ve downed each boss. Friends who have beaten some of the tricky hardmodes earn my respect.

We’ve been in Ulduar for about 4 months. In that time our casual friends from Burning Crusade have talked about doing 10 Ulduar on and off but it never seems to happen. Doesn’t really surprise me, because they tend to organise events on the spur of the moment based on who’s online. You could have 8 people ready to go and then one person will change their mind and say they’re going to log off to watch some TV.

In comes Patch 3.2. Theoretically I knew that Emblems of Conquest were going to be made freely available, instead of limited to Ulduar bosses, but the reality is much more disturbing than I thought. Two points of view:

Option A – Miss Dedicated

• “Experience” Ulduar as soon as it is released
• Attend as many of your guild raids as possible and be patient when you wipe. Make time to do 10 mans as well because Emblems of Conquest drop there too and it takes weeks to get enough Emblems for a Tier armor token.
• Consider splashing out gold to get Runed Orbs to upgrade your belt and boots… nah too expensive
• After 4 months be content with your gear – it’s not the hardmode stuff, but it’s good, and sprinkled with Naxx 25 items anyway

Option B – Mr Patient

• Know that eventually you and some mates will go check out Ulduar when you’re ready
• Run raids when you feel like it, DC when you’ve had enough
• Consider splashing out gold to get Runed Orbs to upgrade your belt and boots… nah too expensive
• Hope you’ll get lucky and get the BiS Naxx stuff – Torch of Holy Fire ftw!

After four months. If only WoW were a fashion parade...

Now, 4 months later, all Mr Patient has to do is run alot of heroic instances (something he finds pretty darn easy) and he too can get Ulduar equivalent gear and three pieces of Tier 8.5 armor. If he got those BiS Naxx/OS/EoE stuff, well his gear models might not match as prettily as someone wearing 5/5 Conquerors, but the stats will be as good.

I’m not being stereotypical here. Mr Patient is my brother. I live with him. When I’m up 4 nights a week to dutifully complete my raids and not leave before raid’s over, he’s watching TV. On the weekends he’ll make an effort and PuG Naxx, but after a couple wings he’ll DC and take a break. In the last few days he has earnt more Emblems of Triumph than I, does daily dungeons while I raid, and has already gotten his Tier 8.5 helm.

He has been running the new dungeon – the 5 man Trial of the Champion – on normal and heroic and has picked up several great epics including the tanking one that my guild’s main tank – in full Ulduar gear – is desperate for. Even I swapped out Cosmic Lights for a new neckpiece from the heroic for my healing set. And the heroic wasn’t hard.

It’s as simple as this. You can’t compare the difficulty of Ulduar and Heroics and give out the same rewards.

This is a complete turn around from Blizzard’s stance at the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. When it was announced that each raid instance would be tuned for 10 man group (normal) and 25 man groups (heroic) they made it clear that the item level of dropped loot would be different, just as the Emblems would be different. And the rewards would be commensurate.

People are not jumping from Tier 4 to Tier 6 here. They’re going from the easiest, entry level raid (Naxx – Tier 7) to the next tier of gear (Ulduar – Tier 8). Is this the way of the future? Wiping the slate clean with each new patch?

Has nothing been learned from the Badges of Justice days?

So my brother, Mr Patient, can close the gear gap now. That’s true. Is it going to open up “doors” for him and allow him to experience Ulduar and other end-game raids? Nope. He’ll just keep running heroics and Naxx 10. Why not?

I wouldn’t be so disappointed by this if it weren’t for the new raid instance: Trial of the Crusader. We’re being given 1 new boss per week. And if that doesn’t satisfy you, you can’t try it on Heroic mode until you’ve cleared the whole place on Normal. The Northrend Beasts encounter was fun. But it took up 1 hour of our time. Then we headed back to Ulduar, uncertain if it was worth pursuing Ulduar hardmodes at all. Trial of the Crusader is where our next Tier upgrades are after all.

So, other than Algalon, I’m pretty confident that I’ve experienced all the end game bosses available in Wrath. Yet I have nothing left to strive for. Blizzard can dream up a new boss and drip-feed it to us each week in the Trial of the Crusader and until they believe it’s gone on long enough. And then they can open up Heroic mode.

In the days of Burning Crusade I knew it was my skill that held me back. Now there is no boss/raid to anticipate and strive towards implemented in the game, Blizzard will give it to us when they’re ready, not when we are.