One of the most arduous tasks for a World of Warcraft player is being a casual. It’s hard logging in each and every day and doing your T1 dailies then logging off, but with this guide I’m going to hold your hand and help you become the world’s greatest WoW casual. This works even outside of WoW, wow!

Before we begin, I need to let you know of a TRIGGER WARNING, this guide contains a lot of casual talk, so if you get mad really easily, you’ll probably need to take a step back and read “U Mad? How to get unmad” before continuing.

This is a seven step program to become the world’s greatest casual. This guide normally retails for $59.99, but today only we’re giving it to you for free. By today, I mean, right now, as in whatever day it is today. So today it’s free. Tomorrow isn’t today yet, we’ll get there, don’t worry.

Step One: Acknowledge You’re a Casual

This is the hardest step and it’s going to take some work to get there. You have to look at yourself in the mirror, virtual or real life, either works, and you just have to say to yourself: I’m a casual.

Admitting to it is the first step and you can’t go any further until you accept the reality that you’re a casual. Once you’ve come to terms to this axiom, let’s move on to being the best casual you can be.

Step Two: Don’t Login

A casuals goal is to login as little as possible. The general idea is that there is any excuse to actually play the game. Stomach feeling queasy? No problem, don’t login. Got a surprise charge on your phone bill? Yeah, no point in logging in today guys.

Did you agree to show up to a raid? Best excuse ever to just not show up. Don’t show up for sure if you agreed to something.

Step Three: Alts

It’s critical to have as many alts as possible to keep from having to do anything other than leveling in the game, which is totally fine! Play however you want. You need to make alts to be a real casual. The general idea is about three alts, one healer, one DPS, and one tank are required of every casual. The tank needs the least amount of gear and the healer the most, with the DPS being mediocre and never played in a raid because when you actually are allowed to come it’s to always heal, sometimes DPS, and never tank.

Step Four: Complain About the Wrong Things

The hardcores are the jerks who keep ruining things for you, so it’s important to let whatever company know that their game sucks and you’re leaving for something new any second. Be sure to quote things that aren’t relevant for why you are dissatisfied or just in general blame the company for catering to the hardcores. You know they are. All the updates are content you can’t access, since you don’t login to show up to a raid.

Step Five: Login, do your T1 dailies, logout.

The instructions above are self interpretive.

Step Six: Complain on Skype about Being a Casual

Whine to someone on Skype about how you can’t go anywhere at all in the game and its frustrating, but also comment how you’re at a coffee shop now and you just don’t feel like logging on to a game right now.

Step Seven: Quit Using Labels

Because labels are stupid and in this modern era of gaming we’re all stupid casuals because the hardcore elements don’t exist anymore. I’m a casual because I login to Destiny and play the game laying in bed for 30 minute increments, do a mission, do a match or two, then get up and do something else.

We’re in a world of bite sized chunks of content that can be completed at any time and games that try to cater to the hardcore have lost touch, the only MMO that truly fulfills the needs of a hardcore populace is WoW, which worked through expansion after expansion trying to find a mix between letting players see content and letting players finish content.

Games like WildStar thought if they build it, they will come, but the hardcores didn't. The hardcore audience wasn't the carrot the game needed, because no one is aiming for it anymore that isn't already there. Hence catering to the hardcores isn't a thing anymore, we're all impeccably casual players and games need to work within the niche of "casuals" now to appease the players that are going to spend money and play the game versus catering to some elite group of 50 people who will waste the time each week grinding content for little to no reward.

You need an audience for prestige to work.

It's a complex ratio of people that are doing super awesome things that you want to do, a road to get there, and adjusting the length of the road to where the end is out of everyone's reach, but getting to the last mile isn't that hard, it's just time consuming. With fewer people wanting to get to the end of the super long roads, developers are going to need to tune the road to where dedicated players continue to receive prestige (i.e. the phat loots) while players who are less dedicated still have a long road to go on to keep themselves amused.

As we move forward and look at games on the horizon, we’re going to forget the word casual and hardcore. These are going to be monikers of the past. I think the new terminology is going to align more with gamer and professional. The hardcore players I think have all but moved onto to the idea of eSports and professional streaming, where they’re more about the monetization elements of gaming.

Then there are gamers, players who play the game, they may stream, but at the end of the day they’re looking for enjoyment out of a game. Their effective skill or prestige in the game is irrelevant to the idea that they want to have fun.

That’s the world we live in now. Bam, you just got respawn’d. See ya tomorrow where I’ll talk about Brad McQuaid.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 18, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

Comments