Have you ever seen the word “Casual” inside the menus, title screens or box covers of any Halo game? Have you ever heard any developer from Bungie or 343 mention the word “Casual”?
Does anyone else feel like the whole cataloging, tagging and classifying of people between “Casual” and “Competitive” is nothing but an excuse to boost self-esteem?
Am I the only one who finds odd how many people consider the majority of the population to be “Casual”, yet the majority of current Reach players are all playing under the “Competitive” slot of playlists like Team Slayer, Infection and SWAT?
Don’t you find it odd how the MLG playlist isn’t even in the “Competitive” slot, but in the “Community” slot?
Have you read the word “Casual” in any Official Halo piece of information, or is this all just a community-ingrained therm, created to promote discrimination between players?
MLG is in community because it is just that: community gametypes.
The fact that you list SWAT and Infection in “competitive” is kinda funny, actually.
> MLG is in community because it is just that: community gametypes.
> The fact that you list SWAT and Infection in “competitive” is kinda funny, actually.
I list them as competitive because they are under the “Competitive” slot of playlists, according to the Official developers of Halo Reach, Bungie.
You’re confusing casual with bad, and competitive with good.
> > MLG is in community because it is just that: community gametypes.
> > The fact that you list SWAT and Infection in “competitive” is kinda funny, actually.
>
> I list them as competitive because they are under the “Competitive” slot of playlists, according to the Official developers of Halo Reach, Bungie.
That’s just a title for anything that isn’t Community, Anniversary, or Cooperative.
Are you going to tell me Score Attack is cooperative? With one player?
In Halo, there isn’t “Casual” and “Competitive”.
It’s actually “Social” and “Competitive”. Or atleast that’s how I think it should be. But yes, I see your point, it is about making one lot of people feel better about themselves. In Halo 3 I loved both social and competitive games though. I preferred social for the bigger teams though, I think.
> Have you ever seen the word “Casual” inside the menus, title screens or box covers of any Halo game? Have you ever heard any developer from Bungie or 343 mention the word “Casual”?
>
> Does anyone else feel like the whole cataloging, tagging and classifying of people between “Casual” and “Competitive” is nothing but an excuse to boost self-esteem?
>
> Am I the only one who finds odd how many people consider the majority of the population to be “Casual”, yet the majority of current Reach players are all playing under the “Competitive” slot of playlists like Team Slayer, Infection and SWAT?
>
> Don’t you find it odd how the MLG playlist isn’t even in the “Competitive” slot, but in the “Community” slot?
>
> Have you read the word “Casual” in any Official Halo piece of information, or is this all just a community-ingrained therm, created to promote discrimination between players?
It’s not Casual X Competitive. It’s Casual X Hardcore. Competitive players are mostly from the Hardcore base, but some are also casual players, mostly because they don’t have enough time.
Casual X Hardcore are terms mostly used in marketing to categorize the audience.
As in what classifies as Casual or Hardcore, there’s no clear difference and has been debated on this thing called Internets many times over.
The most common conviction is that casuals will be willing buy lot’s of useless stuff just to play around with it but less likely to buy lots of games, while Hardcore players are more likely to buy 20+ games and a ton of DLC for each, while not buying all those silly accessories. Although even this doesn’t make really make the real difference.
For example me. I’m not really that competitive anymore (after over 11 years of gaming). For me, it’s all about the game and players. But I dare you to call me a casual with 73 titles on the shelf.
Competitive, for me I consider People who play MLG playists are pro’s or closely follow the pro scene.
These people are not the majority of Halo fans.
You forget Forge makers, people who do not even play MP, Firefight fans, Infection players (one of the biggest players)
Do not believe that competitive players are the majority, but of course their view point is still worthy.
> Have you ever seen the word “Casual” inside the menus, title screens or box covers of any Halo game? Have you ever heard any developer from Bungie or 343 mention the word “Casual”?
>
> Does anyone else feel like the whole cataloging, tagging and classifying of people between “Casual” and “Competitive” is nothing but an excuse to boost self-esteem?
>
> Am I the only one who finds odd how many people consider the majority of the population to be “Casual”, yet the majority of current Reach players are all playing under the “Competitive” slot of playlists like Team Slayer, Infection and SWAT?
>
> Don’t you find it odd how the MLG playlist isn’t even in the “Competitive” slot, but in the “Community” slot?
>
> Have you read the word “Casual” in any Official Halo piece of information, or is this all just a community-ingrained therm, created to promote discrimination between players?
Play Doom, Perfect Dark or any other shooter made before 2001, and then you can tell me Halo isn’t for the casual crowd.
I do believe that what many people consider to be “Casual” is playing the game for fun. Casuals aren’t as concerned about winning or losing.
Does that mean casual players don’t try at all? Absolutely not.
Does that mean all casual players do is play infection and shoot themselves in the foot? Nope.
Does that mean that all casual players are terrible at the game? I have many friends who can prove to you otherwise.
Casual is just a word created to encompass a large fractions of players who enjoy the game for what it is: a video game. I consider a casual player to be someone who, for instance, only plays Campaign or someone who only forges maps. It can be used to define a player like myself who will go into Matchmaking with the intention of winning, but not care at all if we lose. We are the ones who will say “good game” no matter how the game was played. You win some, you lose some. We understand that.
Now personally I will never accept a 1v1. I don’t like that form of forced competition. I’d rather play alongside someone than against someone.
The term casual should not be taken as an insult by any means.
It was disquised in Halo 3 as social, and it ran rampant in Reach as everything except maybe Arena until that was dismantled. I consider myself as casual but then again others may disagree. I strive for the best possible K/D each game but I’m not crazy about it I just try to make sure I kill you and not vice versa. I’m not a try hard who uses power weapons to try to get an advantage, or gets my team to control the map. I don’t do those things because I don’t need to. I’ll grab a sniper in BTB but I don’t get mad if someone else gets it before me. However I got my first untouchable the second week Reach was out in Invasion Slayer with a sniper rifle. I don’t care if my team wins or loses however, I mean its a game. My success in life isn’t riding on whether I plant the bomb in assault. However if you got the core then I got your back, and if I fail you then I’ll kill the -Yoink- that killed you and do my best to cap that core. I support my team from afar unless I’m right there and can help. I’m not kill or objective crazy and to me I’m casual.
You need some way to discuss the patterns of the community, if you can’t take a sub set of a group that all share similar motivations and discuss their relationship to the group as a whole, or to another subset, then any community discussion would be worthless. Sure, you could be more specific every time you mentioned casual players, you could say “players who enjoy the game, but dont care about winning or KD, they traditionally play a variety of game types, often with friends” but that is kind of wordy.
> In Halo, there isn’t “Casual” and “Competitive”.
>
> It’s actually “Social” and “Competitive”. Or atleast that’s how I think it should be. But yes, I see your point, it is about making one lot of people feel better about themselves. In Halo 3 I loved both social and competitive games though. I preferred social for the bigger teams though, I think.
Problem is, Halo 3’s ranked playlists are unplayable now since it’s filed with nothing but de-rankers. Now I only play Social Slayer or BTB.
Just because a game is competitive doesn’t mean you can’t play it casually it is all about the person playing the game not the game itself. Just my opinion.
I am impressed in how you guys keep up tagging people.
> Does anyone else feel like the whole cataloging, tagging and classifying of people between “Casual” and “Competitive” is nothing but an excuse to boost self-esteem?
I recommend Edward O. Wilson’s the Social Conquest of Earth. In it he makes a pretty good case for how our evolution has been shaped by group selection, a process of differential fitness between population segments which has crafted behaviors in us to readily form inclusive and exclusive groups. Ex. competitive players and casual players, with each one serving as the other’s whipping boy and scapegoat in order to give it’s members a sense of drive and superiority.
> Have you read the word “Casual” in any Official Halo piece of information, or is this all just a community-ingrained therm, created to promote discrimination between players?
Exactly.