Hellgate:London

[Thecla]

'Casual' should really be determined by the capability of a player to drop into (and out) the game easily and without preplanning.

That's certainly one way to define a distinction between "casual" and "hardcore" games, and by that definition, clearly Diablo is "casual" and WoW is "hardcore". But to me, anyway, "casual" also carries with it connotations that a game is somehow not very interesting or involving, and can't be particularly challenging. Now perhaps you could also argue that WoW, or EQ, is more challenging than Diablo; or perhaps you could argue that anyone with enough time and guild support can grind their way through the game eventually and it's less so.

Now, I'm not trying to say one thing or the other about WoW vs. Diablo ---- they're clearly both great games on their own terms. But personally I think it's a great pity that Blizzard followed the MMORPG template so closely and made WoW so "hardcore" in its time and multiplayer components. I don't think it had to be that way.