Hardcore... How would you define it?

[Vantol]

Hardcore - skilled player, who accomplish a lot in game. Who is ready to sacrifice his social life, family, job for sake of progression and being best of the best, who understand value of gear and achievements and is taking game as primery job.
Casual - unskilled player, usually taking game as game and nothing else, troll, not ready to put hours to learning curve or put aside social life. Person who plays for fun and doesn't understand realy value of mmo.

[Espon]

You don't have to spend a lot of time in the game to be hardcore. These types of people usually strive for challenge and try to complete everything while it's still relevant. This requires a bit of a commitment, but by no means does it say you have to play 24/7. While they might more time when new content is first introduced, but after they got the place on farm they really only need to play a couple hours a week.

I used to consider myself as being a hardcore player when I played WoW. My guild only raided 4 hours a day, 3 days a week for a total of 12 hours (when learning), however we put in our best during that time and cleared all hardcore content first or second on the server; content that 99% of the population couldn't do through an entire patch-cycle.

[Lucke]

I tend to view hardcore/casual in terms of difficulty of content.

Hardcore content = content that is difficult, takes many runs to master, one mistake and the raid wipes, requires alot of tactics, thought, and strategy to complete, and content that takes longer than 30 minutes to complete. People who like this high difficulty content are "hardcore" to me. EQ1 was hardcore, requiring 72 (I think) person raids into a dungeon that lasted 6-8 hours.

Casual = easy mode. Sorry. Casual content is easy content that takes 30 minutes to accomplish, usually requires very little if any, tactical thought, and "hardcores" can steamroll through this content in a few hours after it's released.

I think most 30ish year olds were around in EQ1s heyday. They know what hardcore is. Now, with this new generation, they have no idea what hardcore is because they we're around when MMOs where hard as hell and required more thought than what is common today.

[Remilia_Nightfall]

Hardcore - Someone who's life is the game. They are always logged in, always doing the hardest content, has the crazy amount of achievements and the best gear.

Casual Hardcore - Your people who play only at certain times, but when they do play they go "balls to the wall". They are hardcore only some of the time.

Elitist - People who's attitude is about being the best and only if your the best can you accomplish what you need to do. Often confused with hardcore, but hardcore don't thrive to excluded people the way elitist do.

Casual - The people who are just passing the time. They might enjoy progression but rarely have the time to do it.

Newbie - someone new to the game, but willing to learn.

NOOB - someone who just doesn't want to learn, or someone who is a completely ignorant.

This is actually pretty accurate.

I stand in the Casual Hardcore category :P

[Jinrya-Geki]

Hardcore = Dark Souls

[Tazo]

Hardcore - Ridill / Ebody +1

[Arkghyom]

Rough, naughty, lustful, and addictive.

[Xatsh]

Hard core honestly is a mind set. It is when someone consider it to be more then a game. They look at something and find out how to maximize the outcome. They put in huge amount of time. Some aspects of real life no longer take priority over the game. The game is no longer about just being fun. They want thier hard work to be rewarded over those who do not put in the work.

Casuals: They treat mmos like any offline game. They just want to have fun and socialize in a multiple setting. Life > Game in almost all aspects. The do not want to invest a lot of time into the game to get the most out of it.

[Ryuko]

We are in a time of transition -- where MMOs are trying to find ways to cater to both the casual player who doesn't have a lot of time to play and the 'hardcore' players who demands more and more content with each passing week. The definition of 'hardcore', for me... is different from what I would have considered it ten years ago, or particularly with regards to the FFXI world (camping HNMs nonstop, for example).

I play FFXIV many hours a day, and pride myself at being good at all endgame content... but I do not consider myself hardcore. There is something that sets apart hardcore players from the people who are skilled with a lot of time to play. Hardcore players, to me, are the people who beat their head against new content immediately after it comes out... until they have completed it. The Free Companies that spent hours upon hours fighting Twintania in an effort to figure out how her mechanics work... those are 'hardcore' to me. The players who get server firsts and create tutorials to teach the rest of the FFXIV player base how to do a fight are 'hardcore' to me. Hardcore players are not necessarily elitist; they just have more stamina to figure out fights that haven't been figured out yet.

[-d-ky]

Hardcore - Someone who's life is the game. They are always logged in, always doing the hardest content, has the crazy amount of achievements and the best gear.

Casual Hardcore - Your people who play only at certain times, but when they do play they go "balls to the wall". They are hardcore only some of the time.

Elitist - People who's attitude is about being the best and only if your the best can you accomplish what you need to do. Often confused with hardcore, but hardcore don't thrive to excluded people the way elitist do.

Casual - The people who are just passing the time. They might enjoy progression but rarely have the time to do it.

Newbie - someone new to the game, but willing to learn.

NOOB - someone who just doesn't want to learn, or someone who is a completely ignorant.

i am the newbie casual