High Casual?

[SailorMoon]

Why do people make Roleplays and list it as High Casual Only when they are going to roleplay on par with Advanced Standards? o.O I find it so strange. Like, I understand Mid and Low Casual because low casual isn't exactly at the level of free, and mid casual in MY opinion would just be regular casual and beyond but not yet Advanced. So, why do people say High Casual then instead of moving to Advanced? Is it because Casual has more people? Every time I see this the writers are writing at advanced levels, and then sometimes more than what the average Advanced writer will put in a post as far as length goes. It's the same elevated standards that the Advanced section is held to.

[Feed]

Quite frankly, in my experience the current levels as defined by the administration if off-par from what people associate with personally. The one exception is probably free. What do we see in free? A lot of one liners, a lot of illogical nonsense, and what not. Perfectly fine for a lot of people and especially beginners. Casual is also okay listed where it is at. Low Casual perhaps requiring a few coherent sentences that are somewhat related to a mid-depth character at hand. Casual itself having the pre-understood requirements and high-casual being for all extensive purposes advanced.

In my experience over the years, most advanced threads require a post of no less than one page anyway. Of course this is not because of some explicit requirement but the understood conception of what an "advanced" role play entails requires it. The important thing to understand about the distinctions between the three models is that post size is relative to the players. However, it is the quality of writing not the quantity in which I believe truly dictates the level of role play. Free role play might as well be l33t speak or all joking aside, grammatical gibberish that is about as deep as a puddle as most characters may be static in nature.. Casual role play requires a better grasp of the English language and with characters perhaps trapped somewhere in limbo between static and dynamic. Interactions may be based more around the characters as created rather than the players personal experience as with free. Finally, we have the advanced level which truly requires a more dynamic character role as well as a sense of understanding with regards to the setting. Personally, I have always found the advanced role playing section a little problematic because the posts between characters don't necessarily flow in a matter in which one might assume would be advanced. It really ends up being "high casual" on steroids.

So overall, I think it just happens to be that the Guild's definitions of the levels might be a little outdated rather than the players misuse of terms or what have you.

[Alkeni Synair]

I use High Casual because I want the depth of advanced and the seriousness of advanced without the post length that comes with it. At times, huge-ass posts are warranted. Often, they aren't, and they often (to me) feel artificial.

[Nightlock]

The term "advanced" can be intimidating to people who have yet to dip their toes in the pool. "High casual" requires some aspects of advanced but is still beneath the level enough to not scare attention away with people who are intimidated.

[Tick]

As most everyone else said, a lot of it is people avoiding the sense of pressure of Advanced, while going toward Advanced standards more (or completely). Technically, in Casual, you can still post by the actual standards there, it doesn't have to be Advanced - where in Advanced, you have to meet its standards always.

It's also "cultural." Advanced has the expectation of veterans that have RP'ed often for years, and well. Casual's got a broader range of types of players, or there's less of an expectation. Even though Advanced's standards are surprisingly low, the infamous length requirement being some two paragraphs, the standards look higher because players feel the pressure to meet the same level of work as other players.

High Casual implies stricter policies and more effort than "anyone who can put together a few sentences," a small standard, but takes off the expected pressure of Advanced. Or, that's the idea. It generally ends up having the same expectations because of the same vicious cycle that Advanced gets, where some players do long posts, and other players want to meet that same amount of work.

[Kestrel]

Because people associate sections with a status quo. They obviously can't be 'low-casual plebs' or 'advanced novel writer nazis'. Because like, if you don't call your RP 'high-casual' in casual, it will have to me a werewolf romance highschool RP, no exceptions.

[Nyxella]

SailorMoon said
Why do people make Roleplays and list it as High Casual Only when they are going to roleplay on par with Advanced Standards? o.O I find it so strange. Like, I understand Mid and Low Casual because low casual isn't exactly at the level of free, and mid casual in MY opinion would just be regular casual and beyond but not yet Advanced. So, why do people say High Casual then instead of moving to Advanced?

Think of it as porridge; some like it hot, some don't. If you want to be able to take it by the mouthful without paralysing your tongue, you go for warm. And there are varying degrees of 'warm', just like casual. So in that sense, I see 'High Cas' not as a set caste but more a term used to communicate temperate preferences, often unique to that particular story.

[Nevermind]

To me, High Casual is just a very good standard of Casual in terms of consistency. I have seen lots of RPs where the quality varies, where one post will be a single paragraph, the next will be five or six. High Casual, for me, weeds out those who only post 1. Also, the quality of characters are better as there are fewer generic apps.

[Ichthys]

Frankly, I don't know. At all.

The reason has to do with the differences between Casual and Advanced than with the actual term "High-Casual".

Usually, I see "High-Casual" when the RP requires longer posts, but I don't see why that makes it more advanced. I mean, I'm an advanced RPer, and quantity actually means less in Advanced than it does in Casual. That isn't to say that posts in Advanced are often short - they usually aren't; they are usually quite lengthy indeed.

Simply, I don't believe length makes it Casual or Advanced. I think its the quality that decides whether it is Casual or Advanced because I have honestly read whole walls of textual crap in advanced but then also five sentences of written glory. I reference to the RP "Blight" that I'm in right now, which has had a couple posts that are pretty short that are from the GM himself, yet the whole of the RP seems to fit the standard that has been created for Advanced RPs.

Therefore, I'm not sure why people use "High-Casual". I mean, if we think about it critically, it probably isn't one, simple reason. It can be a multitude of reasons. Maybe they wanted to reach a specific pool of people? Maybe even a smaller or larger pool? Perhaps they have their own beliefs as to what constitutes an Advanced or a Casual RP and have decided that their RP is between the two? Maybe they just like flinging the word around? Who knows?

I just don't think that this topic is simple enough to answer correctly.