This fell sergeant...

Julius Caesar, Act II, Sc. II
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

- Shakespeare


Oh dear, Darren's quoting Shakespeare....he's finally lost it. No, no I haven't, I've just ascended to a higher plane of blogging. Well, not really, but it sounds cool, doesn't it? heh...

Anyway, a couple of things have come across the tcsgamer newsroom here (...don't ask for a job in the newsroom please, I only pay the monkeys with bananas. Thanks). First up is DDO and details of their upcoming changes for Module 4: Reaver's Bane. Some of the highlights include:

• Level cap increase to 14.
• More enhancements to customize your character with.
• New Outdoor areas

....damnit, why couldn't they have had all of this at launch. Blows my mind. I still think DDO is one of the best MMOs that people don't play. Any game that makes a Rogue useful in a group gets high marks from me. If they finally get the level cap up to 20 with even more outdoor areas, I may take a peek again.

More news on Vanguard and death penalties. Seems that they changed the way death was to be handled:
- You will no longer leave a corpse when you die; instead you will drop an essence.
- You no longer leave items (Soulbound or not) on your essence.
- Essences will return a large amount of experience upon retrieval.
- Your essence will decay after 70 hours.
- Altars will still allow you to summon corpses from before the patch on 3/30/07 (Build 1799), however, you are unable to summon essences.
- The amount of experience lost when you die has been decreased.

After some feedback they pulled the changes since they were just "experimental" to begin with. It's interesting how the whole subject of death penalties becomes a "Hardcore vs Casual" debate. I've mused about death penalties before, so I'm not going to rehash it...but I haven't talked about the so called "hardcore vs casual" element in the MMO world (...at least, I think I haven't).

So let's start with definitions. What is a hardcore player, what is a casual player. These are my own definitions...and don't you dare whip out Webster on me.

Generalization Warning...repeat, satire ahead. Oversensitive gamers who can't handle a little truth wrapped in a joke stop here...it can only end in tears if you don't.

The Hardcore Player (Geminus Hardicus Obsessivous Maximus)

A Hardcore player of MMOs, from my point of view, is someone who borders on the obsessive compulsive. They will explore and know every corner of the of the game and it's mechanics. They will know the perfect build of every class and every obscure piece of equipment that you would need to be leet. If you want to know the difference between a +4 sword and a +5 sword, he'd know and then tell you how much you're gimping your character with the +3 sword.

These types are fueled by pure emotion and tend to go ape-shit on things that would make most go "meh". They take great pride in what they've done online, but have no clue on how little it really means. They're on a quest for the best stuff and they'll spend as much time as necessary to get it.

They are also the core of most guilds. They are the ones that get things done in terms of progression. They will be helpful to others in terms of advice, however; they won't group with you if it's at the expense of their own progress.

The Casual Player (Geminus Softicous Erraticous Maximus)

The casual player wants to experience the whole game at their pace and nobody else's. They're quite happy with the +3 sword, thank you very much. They usually have a family, kinds and a job. They need to balance all of that and have a hobby as well...enter the MMO game. They know the game, they just don't care that there is a secret passage at the end of Thull Mountain and if you start this chain quest you can get a +1 bonus to Reaver faction which will then open the access to a +2 enchant for gloves....after that, a recipe will drop for a +4 sword.

Casual players tend to group up with they're own kind as they usually feel pressured to stay on until 3 am to finish getting weed-root off of this 2 hour spawning mob. They love their character but have no problems rolling an alt when they get bored or want to experience different game play. They want to experience all the content but know that will probably never be the case due to the time constraints they have.

Some casuals will form the core of a guild, but in a social way, not in a content progression way. They will help others, even at the expense of their own progress. They appreciate the hardcore people around them but wish they would calm the $%#@ down.

D out.