Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

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Giftstoff
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Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Giftstoff » Wed Oct 11, 2017 10:58 am

Now, this will be a bit controversial, but what is said about Destiny 2 is nearly the exact same thing thats had a lot of things changing on Arelith, and I don't believe many of them are going to be best for the long term.

The video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQrb7nR7IQY

In short.

The core say: "I want deep interesting complex games with lots of replay-ability, and I want my time and skill rewarded."

While the casual argument is: "Games, all games, should be made to be more convenient to fit into MY life, because I don't have a lot of time" topic comes up.

Do watch the video because he puts it into words far better than I can, and civilly speak your minds. I welcome devs as well here.

With so many recent changes implemented to make things faster, easier, harder to mess up, less patient. I feel we're slowly losing these things, and they should be kept in mind anytime a; "Make this change because I don't have time"

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Nitro » Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:33 am

I don't think there has to be some artificial divide between "Casuals and Cores" (What's core even supposed to mean?).
We're all gamers who play the same collaborative game. We can all agree that some things are irritating (Bugs, glitches, blatantly broken mobs ETC) and sometimes we don't agree on matters of balance. But it's not like there's two firm camps agreeing on every matter. Some people like the changes to one class, others like the changes to another class. Some people want dungeon X to be easier, others want dungeon Y to be harder.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Mr_Rieper » Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:49 am

While I can see the point being made, and it's definitely something to consider, I don't have much to add to this except to say: NWN is a rather niche game at this point, due to age and how the game has matured from that age. Arelith and Sinfar are pretty much the main two servers still standing. Both offer two additional niches within the NWN niche.

I think it's fair to say, to actually get into roleplaying on Arelith, you need to be interested in it, and invest a fair bit of energy. While some of us are more casual than others, nobody on this server is a true casual player. We're a bunch of roleplay nerds. Niche players within another group of niche players. It's important to acknowledge that. Maybe even work out how we can advertise to and convert players from other games.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Seekeepeek » Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:54 am

it's an okay Youtube link and well worded. after NWN been out in 10+ years.. i don't really think we have casual players since they all been core at some point.

i know a few players started to play again cause of new paths and such after being away from long. i also seen player leave cause their build was messed up by a core class changes.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Iceborn » Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:58 pm

I'm not sure if the same can be applied to Arelith.
Arelith after all, is something of an RPing game that sometimes have some MMO-like systems and feel to it.

Beside of the adventure XP change, which benefits casual just as much as hardcore players (I play a lot and I still manage to drop every now and then below 200 adventure XP), I don't really see anything that has been changed recently to benefit more casual players.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Cortex » Wed Oct 11, 2017 1:58 pm

Arelith has never been as casual player friendly as it is today.
:)

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Dreams » Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:06 pm

I think Arelith is pretty casual friendly. There are a lot of nice functions to cater for casual style of play. There are also benefits for people who spend a lot more time in game also. At the end of the day, the people who learn about the game and understand how to build a character will 'do better' than those who don't. When I say 'do better', I'm talking only about mechanical aspects in PvE or PvP, maybe have an easier gameplay in general or end up with slightly stronger characters.

In RP, the world is your oyster. Build and understanding the game really doesn't matter if you're a creative writer and bring your character to life in the world.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by susitsu » Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:06 pm

The idea Arelith players aren't casual on the basis of this game and the size of the community is flawed for what really matters in this discussion.

Casual vs. Core when it comes to Arelith is more a matter of playstyle, but there are ups and downs all over the place from one update to another.

One example being the latest death update. On one hand, I'm still more likely to log out on every incident of death and rez, and just not even play, nor an alt, and just go do something actually fun.

But at the same time, the other night I died twice doing the same grind and from respawn, buffed up and ran off to pick it back up because I'm a high level wizard. Anytime a group gets wiped, find a nearby shrine (though when there aren't any, this is a mechanic that makes entire parties want to go screw it, rez, and logout because of how much of they're just not interested in waiting when they could be having fun with their limited time.)

The vast number of crafting and ore additions/changes from the last few months of updates (mostly the crafting) are and aren't an update that helps and hurts casual players, because as I said, that falls back to playstyle.

I know a player who would just like to be a support character cleric who never gets into any fights, prefers not to grind, and wants to craft and roleplay with their time because at any point, they need to afk without warning for the next twenty minutes to tend to their baby (entirely understandable.)

Now this is all well and good, I could just collect stuff for them, except they do have to get massive amounts of levels to make anything actually notable.

Ores being unpredictable affects those players without a faction or support group, who can guide them along their path and help them slowly get where they want their character to be.

But in the end, there's a certain balance, and I think Arelith is catering alright to casual and hardcore players. Really, due to how long events run, the only thing casual players really miss out on is those, and that is absolutely the last thing required to experience and enjoy Arelith.

It really is just all about playstyle. There are still many systems that don't do a single thing for providing roleplay to me, and only inconvenience, but as long as it's not made too difficult to login more briefly and get stuff done, it should be fine.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Ambigue » Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:49 pm

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is this:

Was logging in and playing on the server fun enough to be worth the investment in time? For many of us, the answer is probably "Yes." Arelith offers a lot of different kinds of play (interesting video on this concept here), so lots of different types of player can probably find something engaging to do.

Personally, I used to be more of a core player and still think that way, but parenthood and long work hours have forced my actual playing habits into more casual territory. I like building interesting, wonky, semi-broken characters and trying to play them, but the lack of time I have to invest in them means they take forever to get anywhere. It's an odd and uncomfortable place and it makes being on Arelith feel really tedious at times. When it works out, though, it's a lot of fun.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Ozzy.nl » Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:56 pm

susitsu wrote:The idea Arelith players aren't casual on the basis of this game and the size of the community is flawed for what really matters in this discussion.

Casual vs. Core when it comes to Arelith is more a matter of playstyle, but there are ups and downs all over the place from one update to another.

One example being the latest death update. On one hand, I'm still more likely to log out on every incident of death and rez, and just not even play, nor an alt, and just go do something actually fun.

But at the same time, the other night I died twice doing the same grind and from respawn, buffed up and ran off to pick it back up because I'm a high level wizard. Anytime a group gets wiped, find a nearby shrine (though when there aren't any, this is a mechanic that makes entire parties want to go screw it, rez, and logout because of how much of they're just not interested in waiting when they could be having fun with their limited time.)

The vast number of crafting and ore additions/changes from the last few months of updates (mostly the crafting) are and aren't an update that helps and hurts casual players, because as I said, that falls back to playstyle.

I know a player who would just like to be a support character cleric who never gets into any fights, prefers not to grind, and wants to craft and roleplay with their time because at any point, they need to afk without warning for the next twenty minutes to tend to their baby (entirely understandable.)

Now this is all well and good, I could just collect stuff for them, except they do have to get massive amounts of levels to make anything actually notable.

Ores being unpredictable affects those players without a faction or support group, who can guide them along their path and help them slowly get where they want their character to be.

But in the end, there's a certain balance, and I think Arelith is catering alright to casual and hardcore players. Really, due to how long events run, the only thing casual players really miss out on is those, and that is absolutely the last thing required to experience and enjoy Arelith.

It really is just all about playstyle. There are still many systems that don't do a single thing for providing roleplay to me, and only inconvenience, but as long as it's not made too difficult to login more briefly and get stuff done, it should be fine.
Dude you said it all and way more then I ever could.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Tetra » Wed Oct 11, 2017 6:04 pm

None of us are getting any younger and the ability to spend 30+ hours a week in a video game isn't sustainable for most people. (Nor is it very healthy in most cases, but that's a different topic.) I would hope the game stays as "casual friendly" as it is now.

I am fine that as someone who can't play as much as others I have to watch what responsibilities my character agrees on (like taking a leadership role is a bad idea, and maybe even quarter ownership.) I can still go to faction meetings and mix things up, or go out and wander and advance the character a little or get drawn in to some random town RP. I think it's in a decent enough place all things considered. The only thing I don't want to see relaxed (and that I doubt ever will be) is the demand to stay in character at all times, allowing OOC chat is the one "casual" element that would destroy this beautiful thing.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by MoreThanThree » Wed Oct 11, 2017 6:33 pm

Guldorand is run by casuals.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Opustus » Wed Oct 11, 2017 6:57 pm

Without meaning to cause controversy or needless polarisation, as a player who defines oneself as a casual, there is an important social aspect to take into account: the more you play, the more friends you will have to play with due to the time invested in those relations, whereas as a casual your choice of friends can be more narrow and the relations less maintainable or deep due to the respective lack of time invested in them. This can lead to a sort of "casual vagrancy" where the casual players, very naturally, are either guests to an existing group or their encounters tend to be based on more random factors than those of the established "core" player.

I think there is a lot of middle ground between these two stereotypes, but I can easily assign myself to the "casual" side of the casual-core spectrum.

The real question, I think, is how these different roles relate to the players in terms of their playing experience, enjoyability, etc. I personally enjoy being a bit "outside"; I think it liberates me from a lot of the messiness involved with social life and makes it possible for me to act with different people, with every environment feeling novel owing to the different people involved in every encounter.

The possible downside COULD be that people are not as inclined to speak with you if they don't know you well from before, or that you might not be invited to as many RP occasions. The latter stands to reason as an IC situation: if your character is not a part of something, it's very hard for the players to construe reasons to involve you in something more "arcane" and/or immersive. What I personally wish from all of my encounters, however, is for other people to take an active interest in the casual (myself in this case) and to be inventive with the ways of involving new people into their schemes. As a casual, I feel grateful to be noticed if other people only see the effort to fit me in their busy schedules for even a small chat. This kind of environment, or an atmosphere, of inclusion and "carebearing" can definitely make an impact, and I think Arelith has it well-covered already.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Xuuldar » Wed Oct 11, 2017 8:03 pm

I don't know that the casual vs hardcore argument has much viability are Arelith. That's the beauty of Arelith, you can play and have fun no matter your play style or play time. You can be an aspiring fantasy novelist that wants to paint a picture and create vast story lines, You can RP like chess where you are trying to gain power and take over. You can just wanna hang out and socialize. You can play the game to explore and play the PVE game. You can play as the character building that toys with the builds to try to make powerful characters. You can engage in conflict RP and PVP. Or you can do several or all of these. None of these play styles are wrong and in fact most can live together happily feeding off of each other. And anyone can jump in, even with limited playtime, and start RPing with people.

The devs do an amazing job of balancing all of this and making updates in every area. I took a break for a few months and when I returned there were new areas, new mobs, new crafting recipes, new settlement changes, mechanical changes, and class balance changes. Not everyone will agree with every change, but overall there have been a ton of awesome changes spanning every aspect of the game, not just changes targeting any one play style, casual or hardcore.

I feel that argument can stay in Destiny and the other big games as it doesn't have much place in this small community.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Tetra » Wed Oct 11, 2017 8:04 pm

Re. making friends in game, I think it comes down to the player and their choices as must as anything, casual or no. A player with limited time can make a level 3 character who's shot out of a cannon RP wise if they are imaginative even mix things up with epics at least in the safety of towns. Though one thing a veteran does have over a beginner is knowing the quirks of the community, like what groups are most welcoming and what to play to jump right in to RP, or how to make someone who fits right into existing lore and storylines.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Opustus » Wed Oct 11, 2017 8:13 pm

But not every player can be expected to be imaginative and smart in order to enjoy the game and feel included, which is partially my point for why the carebear/inclusive mentality as a whole is called for. (EDIT: And based on my own experience with several people, Arelith seems accomplished in this.) I don't mean that the casual, as it were, could not be expected to be nice to others and try to actively seek to others' company; I'm merely saying that it is the job of everyone as a player to accommodate other people into their roleplay, insofar as it is possible without making your own experience unsatisfying.

But I completely agree that a level 3 can be associated with epics, I can think of several people on Amia who had played for a long time and were deeply involved in all sorts of RP without ever getting their character to epic. Generally, I guess, they had a distaste for the mechanical stuff and fighting, and wanted to focus on the social/textual-creative part of the game.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Wed Oct 11, 2017 9:20 pm

Cortex wrote:Arelith has never been as casual player friendly as it is today.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:00 am

This is nothing but an opinion based on personal taste:
(Also, this is a wall of text...where I ramble a bit aimlessly.)


The less Arelith overlaps with mmorpgs, and the more it aproaches pen and paper D&D the better.

So far as I can see, throughout the work of the different Dev teams, a balance between these two realities has been one of the toughest part of their work.

Most mmorpgs are designed with casual play in mind, in the sense that you can log out, not play for a month, return, and just pick up where you left off without much consequence. The game wants you to return because it depends on your subscription / time investement to remain in the business. Moreover, even though you can be playing on servers with tens of thousands of other people, you can play for hours on end without exchanging so much as an hello with a single one of them.

PnP requires a lot more involvement on all levels, and every action you make, from the smallest to the largest, can have consequences on other peoples experience and the overall outlook of the server/game.


Arelith sits in a somewhat odd middle ground. We must be averaging, somewhere between 120 - 180 players online every day, with 1000+ active accounts monthly. While this is not big money, AAA, off the shelf fantasy mmo fare, that is still a lot of people...specialy for a place that has aimed for Role Play as its main focus for over a decade.
It is small enough that it still feels cozy and familiar, but large enough for someone to put several hours a day, every week, into it, and interact directly with only a miniscule fraction of its playerbase.

With these dynamics in mind, it is easy to understand why a casual playstyle has been made more accessible and rewarding. I speak from experience, as someone who used to dump 5-12 hours of play time a day when I first started, to someone who of late was averaging just one and half to three at most, that it is very welcoming indeed.

However, and this might be where crotchedy old me comes into play:

I still log on to Arelith for the roleplay. For the ability to realize the fantasy tropes I have always read in the books and dreamed about, and then interact with others doing the same. The mechanical, the xp, the class balance and mob difficulty? It is only a secondary interest. A support or a framing for the important part: meaningful interaction.

With this in mind, and for me at least, so long as I can still log onto Arelith and get, at least partialy, that feeling that I am sitting around a table with friends and rolling some dice to kill dragons inside dungeons, then I am happy.

If not (and this has happened a few times over the past few years), if all I am getting out of it is a mouse-smashing click-fest with only bursts of interaction in between, then I rather go play something else, because that's not Arelith for me.


TLDR:

Arelith has always had one focus, one main goal, but has also been designed in a way that you can aproach this goal from different angles and different levels of commitement. That trumps all. Casual or Core, noob or veteran, what matters (to me at least) is that Arelith does not try to be something else other than Arelith.
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Bashagain » Thu Oct 12, 2017 7:08 pm

Mr_Rieper wrote:While I can see the point being made, and it's definitely something to consider, I don't have much to add to this except to say: NWN is a rather niche game at this point, due to age and how the game has matured from that age. Arelith and Sinfar are pretty much the main two servers still standing. Both offer two additional niches within the NWN niche.

I think it's fair to say, to actually get into roleplaying on Arelith, you need to be interested in it, and invest a fair bit of energy. While some of us are more casual than others, nobody on this server is a true casual player. We're a bunch of roleplay nerds. Niche players within another group of niche players. It's important to acknowledge that. Maybe even work out how we can advertise to and convert players from other games.
So, what you’re saying is... that we’re the nerds amongst nerds? Are you calling me nerd?! But, I made a RAP song... about my role playing character... Oh god! I’m a nerd!!! :o
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Black Wendigo » Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:35 pm

Whether someone is casual or core doesn't matter much to me. I consider myself more casual, even though [people who have played with me might see me as core. The reason for this is that while i rp heavy, when it comes to builds I really don't give a hoot (I'm way too old to care about anything anymore :P).

What matters to me is attitude. If you are going to go around whining about how hard something is, or the balance is never right or you just want to buff your char and nerf everyone else"s you are not going to get much love from me for that. Being selfish or self centered or demanding isare the kinds of things I object to, not whether or not someone is casual or core.

There are lots of games made for casuals and lots made for cores. There is room for both. And incidentally, I don't care what level I am or whether or not I'll "catch up to my friends. Anyone who I'd be friends with would not chide me for being "behind" in levels, gear and so forth. I have noticed on Arelith people will help you catch up in that sort of thing. Most of us are here to have fun, whether it be by grinding and killing stuuf or by intense emotional drama in rp, or anything in between.


OH one last thing: Being a nerd is cool now. So if someone is calling you one consider it a compliment. :)

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Frostaspella » Wed Oct 18, 2017 6:45 pm

I have been playing these MMOs for a long time. I used to play on Arelith when it first open (Spring of 2004) before the Split and some time after the split. ( I still remember all my characters that I played) When WoW came out, I left NWN for that game. I will say this this server is a more funner then WOW... And cheaper...so I came back. Like anything, it is the people that make games like this fun! Arelith has a group of great players playing together almost like a guild.... Yah we all have are own way. But think of it like a community.... They must be doing something right because people keep playing...:) Also I am glad to be back!
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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Peppermint » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:29 am

I didn't watch the whole video, but if it's saying what I think it's going to say, then yeah, honestly, it boils down to this: Casual vs. Core is a pervasive, stupid myth. Any developer that cleaves too strongly to that dichotomy is absolutely stupid.

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by BegoneThoth » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:56 am

Balance around the top 5% skill bracket. Anything less and you end up with a shallow pool that's boring to swim in.

If you wanna see casual D&D vidya go look at new neverwinter, where you can play a 'control wizard' or 'great weapon fighter.'

Skill gaps are important. Here's a good (and actually entertaining) breakdown that isn't a cartoon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSgA_nK_w3A
\

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Re: Gaming: Casuals vs Core, and Arelith

Post by Giftstoff » Mon Oct 23, 2017 8:05 am

Peppermint wrote:I didn't watch the whole video, but if it's saying what I think it's going to say, then yeah, honestly, it boils down to this: Casual vs. Core is a pervasive, stupid myth. Any developer that cleaves too strongly to that dichotomy is absolutely stupid.
The video boils down to devs catering to the casual crowd and destroying their game due to lack of depth. Very reminiscent.

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