Use of the term "Casual" (No inflammatory thread titles please)

"Casual" is the most horrible category ever invented in the world of videogames. It immediately conjures images of Angry Birds and Farmville, kids waving Wii remotes around in horrendously looking pseudo-games, journalists who can't be bothered to play a game for more than an hour tops, "indie" walking-forward simulators with higher Metacritic scores than Civilization and Deus Ex, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, I am 36 years old and have been playing videogames since Pong! I've been building my own PCs since the days of the Ad Lib soundcard, since before there were 3D accelerator cards! I was paying $300 per Neo Geo cartridge in 1990, I quit my PhD because of playing Red Alert 2 against Koreans, I've written hundreds of videogame reviews and published 400+ page books on videogame criticism and theory. I am not a frigging casual! I merely suck at the game because I only started playing a few days ago!

So I refuse to use the label "Casual" and so does the rest of my clan, and the result is that we get curbstomped practically every single game. So can you please get rid of this disgusting dichotomy? Nobody who plays Planetary Annihilation is a casual for god's sakes! Some people are merely beginners because they just started playing. Granted, many of them will forever REMAIN beginners, but that still doesn't make them casual. A beginner/intermediate/advanced distinction will be much more dignified, and more people will choose to use it properly, resulting in better balanced games.

And if I've managed to get your attention with this deliberately provocatively titled thread, let me add my voice behind Brian Purkiss' demand that 1.0 feature a ladder. Not matchmaking, necessarily, but a ladder with a player's rank next to his name, so that each player can evaluate his potential opponents and choose whether to play with them or not. I am also not a casual basketball player, but I am a 1.87-tall 75kg white guy so I would never walk into a court with a 2m-tall 100kg NBA player. The game would simply not be fun for me, so please don't allow the equivalent of this scenario to become the regular style of play on the PA servers when the official release goes live. I would never quit PA even if I got curbstomped 10,000 times in a row, but that's because I am the most HARDCORE of the HARDCORE. Most people who will try experimenting with multiplayer on release are not like me, and they will quit when they realize they can't win a single goddamn game (and by the way, I'll be there curbstomping them along with everyone else, by the time 1.0 comes in -- I can't wait for the influx of fresh meat so that I can finally start winning).

tl;dr change Casual/Hardcore to Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced and add a Ladder with the player's rank next to his name in 1.0, please.

Love you loads,

A Hardcore Planetary Annihilation Clan Leader

And PS. we need 3v3, and 4v4 etc. ladders just as much as we need 1v1 and 2v2 ones. PA was built from the ground up for team games, and I entered the game specifically with the goal of playing 5v5 and up forever. We need ladders for all team sizes (and why are they not in in PA Stats already?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamer#Casual_gamer

aw please.

that article needs to be rewritten. expressions can't have stable definitions, their usage is constantly being changed by the masses.

In anycase in the RTS scene a "casual" is someone who comes on a couple times per week, not daily (and most definitely not yearlong), doesn't have a "team" of friends he regularly plays with and doesn't give each match he plays his 100% (meaning being willing to give up his teeth and nails (maybe even his eyes) if a genie were to propose he take them in exchange for the victory)

at least in the current urban definition.

I don't know who's even calling you a casual.

don't listen to them if it bothers you.

You are an *****. But that only means you are smart, because expressions can't have stable definitions, their usage is constantly being changed by the masses, and ***** means smart today (and who knows what it will mean tomorrow).

1. Ladders don't work until you reach a critical mass of players so that at most, if not all times, you can be matched with someone of pretty much equal skill within a few minutes. This would require at least a few thousand concurrent users at most times. PA does not currently pull those sorts of numbers, since most people play AI games.

2. adding additional types of matchmaking options further splinters and fractures that already small player base, League of Legend's AU server doesn't offer 3v3 format, why? because AU doesn't have enough people to afford splitting players off from the standard 5v5 formats. PA would need to have a significantly larger playerbase active in multiplayer than currently for any ladder to be of any use.

3. Casual is a commonly used tag between most multiplayer games. Casual as a tag means just that, un-ranked, not playing for super serious casual games. You are conflating the term 'casual' as it is applied in an entirely different context, and you are the first person I've ever seen who has not understood that distinction apparently.

A ladder is not the same thing with matchmaking. I guess you must be a casual gamer if you don't understand this.

Casual, in the context of our game labels, simply means playing for fun with no competitive tracking.

I'd highly not recommend getting worked up over the phrase casual. It's not a pejorative. While I have played "hardcore" occasionally in my life, 99% of the time, I'm a casual player, despite taking my play seriously. I'm playing purely to have fun - not worried about ranking or stats in general.

I definitely get where you're coming from, but you're shooting yourself in the foot with all this almost-hate-speech against "spastic kids" (nice jab at people with mental illnesses) and normal people who enjoy mobile games in their limited spare time.

Your time would've been better spent calmly illustrating the differences between a new gamer and a casual gamer.

EDIT: and ninja'd regardless

So you are implying that ranking and stats are not fun.

Very good points. And yeah, a ladder is not the same thing as matchmaking. I would also like to see something simple like a mouseover popup on the usernames in the lobby to show at least some sort of skill level.

Not to me they're not, but hardly the point. In the sense of our use of the word casual, it's not about ranking and stats - those are typically more competitive elements.

But seriously - you're getting very worked up over a commonly used, and popular, label that the large majority of gamers don't appear to mind. Except for the ones who throw around the word "casual" like it's an insult, and everyone else rolls their eyes.

Surely ranked and unranked would be better terminology.....

Unless they are both ranked of course. In which case we could go with core and hardcore.

Is this serious right now? Are we actually censoring the word "casual?"

There is a difference between playing a single match of a game just to enjoy that one game and playing for the satisfaction (and yes, fun) of being a part of a competitive community and tracking your statistics over time.

@tatsujb Was right that words can mean different things to different people, but to most of us here "casual" means you are playing a single game for fun without any bigger concerns about your status in a ladder or tournament, or your reputation as a player.

I think most competitive players also play a lot of casual games when they're feeling a little burned out.

Who made you the English commissar?
Language is an emergent order created from the spontaneous and free interactions of mankind, just like an economy.

The issue here is not the casual/hardcore dichotomy, rather, it is that either group may take an arrogant or elitist attitude towards their label.
It is also true that labels are often dumb and only serve to hinder discussion.

Okay, roll your eyes at me then and keep calling me and my friends casuals. I guess I got my response then.

As we roll out more competitive focused features, I'm sure those labels will evolve. For the purposes of helping people find the type of game they want to play, this was a first pass at trying to help that.

Seriously, this is major mountain out of molehill topic here. Keep on at it (though continue to follow the rules). I need to get back to work, but I'd seriously urge folks to relax about commonly used game labels.