SWTOR: Lacking in appeal for the casual gamer?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-leaving-game

Upon reading this, I became a little disenfranchised with the way management is treating SWTOR. As a company, any business that involves customers should take the stance not to blame customers, ever. When you blame the consumer, you end up with a dead product.

Moreover, I do believe that SWTOR needs more features to appeal to casual MMO players. An MMO is a hard thing to make. You need to appeal to a wide audience, from most casual to most hardcore. The wider the appeal, the more popular the game will be. What do you guys think of this?

And here I thought that this was a game for casuals and the hardcore players were the ones to leave.
My whole guild full of hardcore players was gone, and then we got some more hardcore players, few weeks later - also gone.

All I see sticking to the game are casuals.

Yeah, I'm having trouble understanding this one as well.

This is the most casual MMO of this type ever made. The fact that people still think it's not casual friendly proves the point that pandering to them is a waste of time, they will never be happy with anything and thus should be completely ignored and instead, go with the original vision of the developers.

You never played WOW or Guild Wars, or Rift, did you?

Yeah I'm also not understanding this article. I've always had the impression that this game was far more aimed at the casual player. It certainly doesn't seem to be designed for hardcore PvPers and Raiders.

Most players I have seen gone were not satisfied with how casual the game was, sure I have also seen casuals go, but it felt like mostly to hardcore gamers have left.

Hardcore content turns casual players into hardcore players. This is why WoW exploded. Hardcore means learning curve. Once you learn the game it's easy to do the "hardcore" stuff on a casual basis.

Moreover, when a casual player sees a hardcore player in the best gear in the game riding around on an awesome raid mount, he or she is likely to say "I want that."

Some of the features that would have been perfect for casuals were somehow put into the game in a way that they will be mostly inaccessible to them in the long run (legacy, appearance customization, etc.). That's what I think mostly puts Rift and WoW above SWTOR in casual-friendliness.

False.