So means they (and we) are stuck with them making a game that will appeal to as broad a base as possible. I doubt that BC or WotLC would have been possible to develop without the infusion of dollars that all the new players (like me) bring in.

Where would WoW be without those expansions? People complain (loudly) that the challenge isn’t there as we are now. I can only imagine the hue & cry we’d have without (or, more likely, dead silence because the veteran players would have left)

So, we’re left with a TRULY “vanilla” WoW that does its best to appease the widest audience possible, and still keep things relatively fresh, new and challenging. I have my share of gripes with Blizzard (and with Microsoft with XBOX live) but for the money, there aren’t any better options (IMHO). The bottom line is that most of us still are happy enough, dummies and all. After all, we’re all still playing.

“Social” means “hangs out with friends” and seems a better fit for “slowly level up, pick flowers, chat, do 5-mans”, whereas “casual” means “not serious”.

Since the complaint is about a class of players who want all perks of raiding (loot, rep, titles) while putting “non-serious” effort into it, it seems like “casual” better describes this group than “social”.

My personal choice of name for them would be “entitleds”, as they feel like they deserve boss-kills just for dinging 80 and finding the raid on the map.

The other problem with using “socials” to mean “people who don’t want to try” is that you’re judging based on motivation, which isn’t relevant. It doesn’t matter why “entitleds” think they need to be able to one-shot Ulduar in 2 hours, because that same “I want to have a hot title and good loot when I AFK in Dalaran” mentality probably drives a lot of progression raiders. The difference is that they’re willing to work for their title/loot.

Of course the people who played Bioshock had the option of cranking the difficulty settings all the way up to the top, which WoW players don’t have (except through things like Hard Modes which a lot of people don’t like).

Agreed… which is why I write about level-less MMO design on occasion, or at least a short level ramp with a narrow power band, and plenty of horizontal progress.

I’m genuinely not sure what I think about “challenge” gaming having a natural end-point.

Most games of a particular type use a particular set of skills – chances are if you were good at Quake you’ll be good at Bioshock, if you’re good at Warcraft I you’ll be good at Starcraft II. There are plenty of people out there who have been playing – say – FPSes since Wolvenstein, and continue to find them challenging even though, when you get right down to it, circle strafing is circle strafing.

The more I think about it, the more I think it’s a problem with the nature of RPGs. “Hardcore” players will – paradoxically – tend to do things the easy way (in the sense of always having the optimal group configuration, having everybody properly geared, making sure everybody has food buffs and flasks up) while casual players will do things the hard way (stumbling into Naxx in quest greens). It’s this, I think, that makes it impossible to cater to both parties.