What makes a hardcore gamer?
The conflict between hardcore and casual gamers has never really stopped, as I have argued before the divide between hardcore and casual player in WoW got blurred with WOTLK. Now more and more of the playerbase is raiding, epic quality gear is easy to obtain and the average player knows more about the game then ever. It made me wonder: What is it that makes a hardcore gamer now?
When trying to define hardcore I find myself in a mindset of “before and after”, though I am not sure exactly when the before ended and the after started. I do know that the “before” was sometime during vanilla WoW. If I was asked to define a hardcore gamer 2-3 years ago I would have put up the following points:
- A hardcore gamer was someone who raided. Raiding in this context is only referring to 40 man raids, as 10 man pugs were quite regular to places such as Stratholme and Blackrock Depths without getting the tag “raid”. Also these did not provide epic quality gear.
- A hardcore gamer had good gear, including epic quality gear. Since epic items were only available in 40 man raids, this was a easy tell tale sign of who was actually raiding.
- A hardcore gamer knew things about the game. Not only would a hardcore player know what specs were good, they would also know how to solve quests, what items dropped from various bosses and what abilities certain bosses had.
There was also other hints that could tell if someone was hardcore, like having an epic mount, but all in all hardcore gamers were quite easy to pick out from the crowd. Today that isnt quite as easy.If looking at the same traits in today’s playerbase we find that:
- The majority of players have engaged in raiding. Numbers from sites such as WoWJitsu confirms this.
- Epic quality gear is now trivial. It is so easy to obtain it has become a standard.
- Being knowledgeable about the game is expected. If you don’t know what spec is best, what glyphs to use, what enchants are good, where loot drops, how to solve quests etc. you are more likely to be labeled “noob” then “average”. Knowledge is highly revered in WoW. The game will through its design reward players who understand the underlying mechanics (the theorycraft) so to best utilize what abilities they have, but the culture of the game also encourages those who want to learn. Be it how to make money or how to top the damagemeters. This drive has lead to the average knowledge level to be quite high, and concepts like spell coefficient, weapon speed, procbased and diminishing returns are all commonplace in game. Its quite a step away from “What is a talent point?”
Are we dealing with a new kind of hardcore?
Just cause the old definition of hardcore no longer applies, don’t mean that there are no longer a “hardcore” user group. Hardcore players today will still be raiding, have good gear and be knowledgeable players. It simply seems that these traits have been assimilated by such a large proportion of the player base that new traits needs to be picked out.
However, herein lies my (and probably others) problem. Hardcore guilds are quite closed, and with few exceptions they play with their cards close to the chest. We can theorize about what makes them different, but few of us can actually say if its actually the case.
My research project deals with hardcore gamers, and I am very keen to get in touch with someone who plays in a hardcore guild. I am currently looking for informants to better understand what it means to “be hardcore”. See here for details.
Even though I cant say I have a definition of hardcore gamers that is deducted from actual data, I clearly have a vision in my head of what it means to be hardcore today:
- A hardcore player is fighting for world-firsts and server-firsts
- A hardcore player is in a top ranked guild in the world
- A hardcore player is taking part in developing strategies (as opposed to reading them on the internet and then copying them)
- A hardcore player puts the game over other commitments
- A hardcore player aims for professionalism in the game
Fighting for world/serverfirsts is to me the most defining feature of what I see as hardcore today. What do you think?
Hmm Good points.Arguably the most discussed subject on mmo’s today.First of all i think the whole thing was what moved Blizzard in case of wow to input Achievment’s and feats of strength in the game to clarify/point out who’s been here for a while and who’s not.Having it easy in getting the gear nowdays sure made it hard to point out the elite in the game but nowdays new ways of showing a bit of your self and state what you represent have been found,nowdays ppl would stick on forum more,blog more and use irc channels in their efforts to shine of even find out those who do so yes we are talking about a new more complicated era.
Without a doupt those with a guild to make a world’s first boss kill are considered hardcore but isnt that too much ? Back in the days simply having the rank 14 just automatically make you top in server,Not only the title but everyone knew that you had to spend 14 hours a day for 3-4 months in order to obtain that title even if you had no clue at first,only playing that much simply makes you good at worse.
To be fair we are entering an era of competition and challenge and of restless effort for a proof of each individual player and his capabilities,no wonder wow movies and aoc movies have become a site of millions to view per day,since every single player at least attempts to make a movie in order to gain some fame.
I admit, I’ve always felt leery of the explanatory value of the hardcore/casual divide. “Hardcore” has always been a colloquialism with a nebulous definition. Leaving aside any discussion of the difference which occurs on message boards (a discussion that helpfully ignores any middle ground player who is neither hardcore nor casual), Hardcore feels like a relative term: someone is hardcore compared to the observer.
When I first played WoW, my friends considered me a hardcore player. This mostly came from my relative play time investment and my tendency to think about WoW a lot and in depth. But as far as I was concerned, I was just..playing the game. I play to play well. I certainly wasn’t hardcore: that honorary went to some of my other friends who were raiding most nights a week.
Your list of properties is very community oriented, which is interesting. Can someone be quietly hardcore? Can a hardcore player not be imagined who isn’t going for server or world firsts? That’s an awfully restrictive definition, wouldn’t you think? Even allowing for that, what if the first player to reach 80 in the world wasn’t in a top-ranked guild (I don’t recall whether that lock was or not)? Would they be hardcore?
It seems to me that hardcore is more of a mindset that manifests through available activity. My first inclination is to view hardcore as being people who think WoW is “serious business”. It has become something more than simply a relaxation activity (though it may still be that). But that doesn’t mean that the group of people with little time to play the game due to work and other life commitments might not take WoW as a serious commitment, insofar as they can, making them “hardcore”.
I would note that if a hardcore player is striving for server firsts, assuming the world first is completed, it’s likely they are reading boss-fight strategies. To do otherwise is to give up a competitive advantage.
Thanks to both for intriguing comments
I have a deep facination of what I so far have labeled “hardcore”. I agree with Bilsybub that my current definition is very community based, and I think I am scewing towards a kind of player I want to know more about: the player that figures out what a boss does, then makes a strategy. Mostly cause thats one type of play I have never experienced, and I think only a minority know how to actually deduct bossevents into coherent strategies.
Though rereading my post, and your comments, I also agree that it is perhaps not right to label it “hardcore”. Perhaps “progress raiders” might be a more fitting term to use. Cause beeing hardcore is admittadly more about mentality then time spent or possibly even achievements, atleast if hardcore is conceptualized in terms of “powergamer” (which in large were derived from the hacker stereotype). A powergamer is someone who search for underlying mechanics (opening the black box of the game), caring less about lore or storytelling and has a more instrumental approach to their gameplay.
Admittadly, the hardcore gamer I described above will probably have a instrumental approach to raiding, but there are many aspects of the game that can have a similar approach. You can have a very instrumental approach to professions for example, or PvP or questing.
Fame is another aspect I havent taken into account.
All in all, I think I need to write another post to differentiate more properly between “the progress raider” and “hardcore play”.
In the top guilds “hardcore” is mostly used to describe effort, and less how good a guild is. An example is the chineese guild Stars, who spent over 2000 wipes learning Yogg Saron with 0 watchers. I think it was Mek (co-gm of Ensidia) who said “now, that’s hardcore!”. Likewise, that dude who just passed 10k achievement points is most certainly hardcore. It has some connection with doing everything in your power to complete certain tasks, putting in as much effort as possible. My guild is certainly progress-oriented (we ranked top 150ish in the world on wowprogress before we took a summer break), but we are far from hardcore, that’s something else completely.
@ST
“In the top guilds “hardcore” is mostly used to describe effort, and less how good a guild is. ”
I would agree with this point, but I would still uphold that success has something to do with hardcore. Regardless of attitude and ideals, a guild (or player) that is struggeling in Naxx I would have a hard time labelling as hardcore. Its not just about what mentality you apply to the task, its also the ability to complete them.
I am perhaps not trying to find out what “hardcore” is in general, but what it means to do “hardcore raiding”.
“”My guild is certainly progress-oriented (we ranked top 150ish in the world on wowprogress before we took a summer break), but we are far from hardcore, that’s something else completely.”
Think this is a very good point. You can be successful without considering yourself as hardcore. In such it is not only achievements (referring to completing tasks here, not the half arsed ePeen system), its also about specific practies and ways to relate to the game.
Food for thought. Thanks for the input
In order to get to hardcore, I think you need to recognize that there are at least two dimensions associated with successful raiding in WotLK. There are dimensions for cutting edge success (world and server firsts . . . kills and later achievements) and general progression (emphasis on gearing up the raid). I think “hardcore” has shifted to mean the elite of the cutting edge guilds. If you think about it, Blizz is actually recognizing these dimensions in the 3.2 content patch.
Guilds with a stronger progression emphasis will probably spend significant time in the non-heroic 25 toon instance, and then move on to heroic mode when they have the gear to make up for any deficiencies in the raid. Cutting edge guilds will be into the heroic modes from day one, especially after the world firsts are done in the non-heroic mode.
Where does hardcore fit in? Especially early after a content patch, world and server first achievements are generally reserved for the hardcore. Accomplishing world and server firsts appears to demand active involvement in the beta. In addition, it requires a level of commitment (time and money) that is similar to serious competitors in any sport or hobby. We are talking six plus hours a day, 7 days a week leading up to a release (intensive involvement in the beta) and for the weeks following a release (until there are no more worthwhile honors to be won). At least that is what I hear from players in the top raiding guild on our server.
Why did I mention money as a component of the hardcore? If you don’t have a reasonably fast and reliable gaming rig, you are not going to be competitive. Likewise, flaky or slow Internet is an auto-boot from even the mildly hardcore raid.
It is possible for a raid to be fairly highly ranked, and not be hardcore. However, that may say more about the ranking system and Blizz’s content than it does about how cutting edge the raid is. Ranking systems that emphasize hard-mode achievements may be more reflective of the true cutting edge raids. The number of world or server firsts that a guild garners speaks to hardcore commitment.
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