#30 - May 4, 2009, 6:56 p.m.
People use "casual" in a couple of different ways. One is the more traditional way, specifically someone who is relatively new to the game or just not as obsessed with the minutae as many of us are. They may not reach level 80, or if they do, they might not participate in PvP or raiding.
There are also players who are hardcore in mindset, but just don't have the available time to play often or for long periods of time because of other obligations (family, work, school, sleep, active social life, etc.).
Part of our design goal in Lich King was to offer raiding content for that second type of more casual player. You probably don't need to farm for flasks or the best enchants and gems if you want to run Naxx. Even Flame Leviathan and increasingly the earlier bosses in Ulduar in general are relatively easy compared to our older raid content. You might not be able to participate in the entire raid, but you might be able to come for a boss or two. If even that is challenging to orchestrate, the Vault of Archavon and Obsidian Sanctum are very short raids and designed to be pug-able.
The BG situation is slightly more complicated. Raids have lockouts, which guarantees that players who play often and for longer periods can earn gear faster, but not a whole lot faster than players who play less often or for shorter periods. But you can play an awful lot of BGs in one night, so if we let players earn gear after a relatively small number of BGs then players who play a lot will be drowning in items. We also don't like the idea of locking out BGs or otherwise restricting access.
Now one possible solution is to make the rewards for the daily BG quests even greater so that someone who doesn't play often can focus on that, while still letting players who play more often earn additional honor.
It's definitely a challenge in MMO design to strike the right balance between "playing an hour a week is rewarding" and "playing four hours a night is rewarding." If the latter is so much more rewarding, then the former feels lame by comparison. On the other hand, if the latter doesn't provide some additional reward then it's easy for players to run out of stuff to do even when they really want to play.
