Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
1849
   |
Posted - 2012.11.15 20:54:00 -
[1] - Quote
Casual gamer outside of the context of a specific game is someone who doesn't play games much, and usually someone who plays more casual games - ones that hardcore gamers think of as "EZMode" games. Within THAT context, total time spent playing during a week isn't necessarily relevant, but games are typically played in short bursts - one level at a time, or one playthrough in a short or simplistic game. Often this will be as short as 5 - 15 minutes, but it can easily extend to an hour (or three) depending on the game. Casual gamers can also be defined based on the difficulty levels they play single player games on - Easy or Medium is the "Casual" option in many games - again, depending on the specific game in question.
Hardcore gamers, by this definition, are the ones who play more "hardcore" games - things that test twitch reactions and reflexes as well as requiring strategic thought. Many hardcore gamers are willing to drop one or the other of those two requirements - there are "hardcore" games which are all about reaction times, and hardcore strategy games where someone with more patience can beat an otherwise "better" player. Also, they're often found playing several missions in a row in a game - or a series of games over the course of a couple of hours, rather than just sitting down for short gaming sessions. If a person has the right mindset, a couple of 2 hour sessions over a weekend could qualify as "hardcore" by this definition. Also, hardcore single player gamers, unlike casuals, will often replay a single level multiple times in a row, just to try and achieve some specific requirement - either for an in-game reward (like a system/network-based Trophy/Achievement) or simply to prove to themselves that they can do so.
With those definitions in mind, I'll bring that into the context of DUST.
When you sit down to play, do you:
a) Sit down, actively playing through a series of battles, quickly moving from the end of one into the start of another?
b) Agonise over fittings or SP allocation for hours at a time without even entering a single battle?
c) Sit down, play a match or two, maybe change channel to watch TV if you hear something good is on, take a food break between matches without quitting, stop for snacks between battles, then check your SP and/or fittings in under 20 minutes near the end of your session - or put it off for the beginning of your next round of DUST time?
If you're able to spend long periods looking at stats and thinking about personal experiences with different types of gear, carefully planning out strategies then building Dropsuits and Vehicles around those tactics, or conversely slapping together whatever fits on a suit then crefully planning devious ways to make the seemingly random loadout provide some kind of synergistic awesomeness you can exploit, then you're hardcore into the design/assembly side of DUST, even if you aren't hardcore into the shooting elements themselves.
If you slap together whatever you can fit based around one core element, then rush into battle without really worrying beyond the basics, obviously, not so concerned with the assembly side of things. But a player like that might still push themselves to really do well on the battlefield - working with other players, out-twitching people, pulling off intricate strategies you come up with in the heat of battle...
There are, in the current state of the beta, those two core elements to the game. It's possible to be "hardcore" in one element and "casual" in the other.
In the full game, part of the assembly/customisation aspect of the game will also be a separate game in its own right - playing the market in a financial/resource management metagame. You'll probably find players, like you do in EVE, looking at valuable trade routes, buying or harvesting gear somewhere they can get it cheap, then delivering it somewhere else to sell for a profit.
In EVE, and on these forums (although to a VASTLY lesser degree here than in EVE), there's also a HUGE political metagame which will be carrying over into DUST at some point in the future. Corporations will be fighting one another, making deals and alliances, non-aggression pacts and declarations of war, running mercenary work for one another, spying on each other - either for themselves or someone else.
It's possible for SOME of these elements to be completely - or at least mostly - bypassed/ignored by many players. It's also possible for players to be into any of them on a casual or hardcore level. |
Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
1849
|
Posted - 2012.11.15 20:58:00 -
[2] - Quote
Sorry... that was longer than intended... TL;DR version incoming.
DUST, even now, has lots of elements which players can be hardcore into SOME of while being casual players in other parts of the game. By release, that will have expanded in several ways, so until then, and until we have more information than just an amount of times spent playing each week, it'll be impossible to answer whether you're a hardcore player, casual player or somewhere in between. |