Hellgate:London

[Monkey]

WoW really had a beautifully created world (which I loved) and a huge amount of content --- I'm sure all the more now with the resources available from it's success. It also presented real challenges and a sense of achievement in overcoming them. But its problem, from my perspective, was not so much that it wasn't casual gamer friendly: more that it (and any other similar MMORPG) made any kind of solo gaming pointless (except beyond collecting stuff to use in a later group effort) after a relatively brief start-up phase, and that any progress required huge investments of time. So, if by "casual" gamer you mean someone who doesn't always want to play in a group, and who doesn't want to block off 5 hours on night x to go on raid y (or, perhaps, engage in prolonged drama about who gets loot z, or even worse managed to wipe raid y), then for sure I'm a casual gamer.

'Casual' should really be determined by the capability of a player to drop into (and out) the game easily and without preplanning. "Oh, hey, my business trip got canceled, I'll play some [foo]" or "My [appropriate gender]friend has to work late, I'll play some [foo] until they call and then meet them at the restaurant," or (like I did last night), "Well, I'm not tired yet, I think I'll play some [foo] before I go to sleep,"

WoW's complex dynamics (which can be a LOT of fun) make this very difficult for anything other than solo play out in the 'world'. The LFG tool has improved this, making it easier to put together teams, but you still handicap your team if you need to leave before they're done.

Conversely, if you signed onto D2 and your friends were already running, you could drop into a dungeon with them and the game would adapt. If you need to leave a group early, you can drop out without adversely affecting the group you're leaving.