PoP = The Death of the casual/semi-casual player

[Zhaun's_Shade]

This is one of the funniest threads I have ever read.

[DefensivePractice]

Sheesh, when an asshole meets an asshole comin through the rye...

I'm a casual gamer, I'm not leaving anytime soon.

It seems like you believe that casual gamers and powergamers or ubers or whatever play for the same reasons.

for me, being a casual gamer permits me to relax a little, get in a group with some friends and figure out what we can accomplish with what we have. If that means that I (a level 59 warrior in shitty gear for a 46 warrior), my warrior friend and my wizard friend group in M Letalis killing rockhoppers for hides so we can tradeskill or whatnot... then that's EQ for me.

Would I like to have great gear and be the envy of every warrior that loses aggro? Sure. Why not. Do I NEED that crap to be pleased with my EQ experience? Nah.

Excitement for me is still at the point of hurrying to Neriak to get Verina with 6 of my friends so that my friend can get one step closer to his epic.

If I get bored, I make an alt and enjoy fast exp till someone in guild or chat comes up with something interesting to do. I don't feel like I am wasting my time at all. I don't feel like I am paying more for the local gods to play EQ 40-60 hours a week.

Casual gamers know little (and care little) for the powergamers world. I read this messageboard because it's fun to see another method of playing the game. I also admit, it was great to see that Furor was as frustrated as I was about the Monk vs. Warrior damage mitigation issue a while ago.

EQ is NOT just a game, I understand that. I can see how it can make a person upset, I've been there, too. Now stop trying to "win" it.

Ok, all done, back to the personal insults. I need to go tank some UBER Dervish Cutthroats.

[Nurtalbik]

I used to play a 61 Warrior on the Bertoxxulous server. I sold my account Nov. 26 2002 because of a lot of the reasons Rthen listed, and some reasons that others have listed here as well. I wanted to post here to give anyone reading this post an outsiders view on things, someone that doesn’t know any of you. I love what FoH does on this server which is why I troll around sometimes and I just happen to be reading the boards and the title to this post caught my eye. If anyone cares, here is my story.

I had a very nicely equipped warrior, and was proud to be a part of a guild for 2 years, raiding, grouping, had friends. But then it all came crashing down. The guild broke up, half went to one uber guild, and the others went to another uber guild. The few of us that had just got 60, were aaexping, still trying to catch up to the many people with 30+ AA's before the PoP expansion came out. Stupid me, went out and bought PoP and ding to 61 the same day. Little did I know that when I dinged 61, that would be the end of my "easy" aaexp days.

See, I had a second account with a 55 druid on it. I used to level us both in OS for aaexp for the warrior, and regular exp for the druid. When I hit 61, everything but a few mobs was light blue. So I moved on to grouping in places like CT, but then CT was nerfed. A few other zones offered duo exp but it was rather slow and wasn’t worth the time invested for so little aaexp. So, now the only places I could get nice steady aaexp was gone. I tried to duo in PoP zones but they hit so damn hard I could keep myself healed with just a druid. I needed to lvl the druid more...but couldn’t unless I just played the druid only. But that would just have put me further behind.

So I started LFG in PoP, and after 30 - 45 mins, sometimes longer I would get a group with just my warrior. Then after learning about the flags, I tried to get a group to get my flags. I never got any flags because I couldn’t find a group that needed a warrior. It was nothing but uber guilds, and semi-uber guilds doing the trials at that time. I wanted to stay on top of things because I had a chance to join an uber guild but didn’t have the AA's to secure a spot yet. I was working on getting AE Taunt at the time.

I tried for 4 days, 3 or 4 hours a day to get groups for flags until I gave up. I could see level 63's and 64's popping up day after day, as I was sitting there, doing nothing... I tried, and I tried hard to get flags. I sent tells to everyone, friends, non-friends, uber guild members, etc. I did everything I could to get flags. On the 4th day after not getting any exp or flags, I posted my account up for sale on player auctions. Not having a guild, and not being able to get groups was more then enough reason for me. I just couldn’t stand the fact that after finally catching up with the uber crowd and looking forward to the "end game", this PoP expansion had set me back another damn year if not more. I could see my road, and it was dark, long and not fun. It was like everything I had been working for had been thrown away when PoP came out. I felt like I was starting all over again, and when or if I finally caught up with it again, another expansion would come out and I would be doing this all over again.

I couldn’t see myself playing for that long. Real life was calling my name, and for once in over 3 years, I heard it loud and clear. I am so happy I did, because I forgot how fun real life could be. Life, It is what you make of it.