Wonder if anyone here feels this way?

[Calyanare]

the casuals are the me me generation and want everything handed to them with zero effort put into getting it.

It's not that casuals don't want to have to work at something, they just don't want to have to spend several hours a day playing in order to accomplish a goal within a reasonable time frame. Like it or not, casual players are a larger proportion of the gaming population than hardcore players, so any game that wants to be financially successful will cater to this "I want to be able to do all the content, but I can only play for 1-2 hours every couple of days" type of person. Whether they should cater to these people is another topic. The truth is that they do.

Disclaimer: I am a proud no-life elitist etc. etc. but I understand where casuals are coming from.

I added this to my earlier post as well, but just in case:

Why can't we have both?

Because the sandbox-lovers immediately start the wailing and gnashing of teeth as soon as they see a quest indicator over an NPC's head? I personally love quests, and I also love being able to tell which NPCs will give me one without having to talk to them and hear their life story first, but apparently some people think that a quest indicator is the most horrible thing in the world and that players should be forced to talk to each and every NPC to find them. That's just one example of why we can't have both. The list goes on: minimaps, regular maps, tutorials, etc. There's plenty of stuff a person like me considers to be essential that someone who likes immersive sandbox games considers to be anathema.