Originally Posted by
Peregrine
Hardcores lost the war for the leadership position in MMOs almost 5 years ago. This isn't even a debate any more. Even when they're grossly over-represented on forums they still are the vast minority. Again, if you look at the like responses to casual players fighting against hardcores on this forum, it's not even close. The casual players are liked. The hardcore players are not liked. The number of hardcore likes usually equals the number of hardcores fighting. The number of casual likes far exceeds the number of casuals fighting.
They're just testing the waters to see if they can make a comeback and take the genre again.
Their only role is merely one of association. Hardcore players tend to push for challenging content, and keep the level of challenge in the game more acceptable than if only casuals had a say. This is not to say that hardcores want things hard and casuals want them easy, just that as a group, there's an association there.
If we could get the casual players together who like challenging content that is convenient, there would be no role for hardcores and we could just dismiss them as irrelevant to the genre.
Challenging content that is convenient to play. That's the goal. The hardcores will say "design us content and design you content." As if they deserve higher-tier challenge and loot than anyone else. The hardcores need to learn that they'll not be getting content that's "theirs." Every aspect of the game belongs to the player who plays in 1-3 hour blocks of time. They paid for it.
By challenging we mean you have to think. Plan. Coordinate. Not you have to get 6 archers. Not you have to fight 10 shells and their pathetic juvenile drama for a shot at a shot at a drop. Not endless weedout after weedout simply because some idiot wants to feel like they're specia when NOTHING in this world can support that lie.
Shoot the idiot. The world becomes so much more bearable.