Any guild that raids 5am PST / 8am EST to get flags does not fall in the casual category, sorry. There are few people willing to do that.
I am glad they kept the maximum raid size at 54. Monkeying with the max raid size just weakens guilds. It works for one expansion, but when the next expansion returns with a larger max raid size, some guilds end up in trouble. The one issue I have is the one lock out with both the raid and group content in Plane of Fear / Hate. There are times when a group or two groups will want to break into those zones and kill for trash for faction or just go after the groupable named. The way that was handled in the past, in the original hate and fear, was that trash would respawn in about 12 hours and named had their own respawn or about 3-6 days. My recommendation is to have similar lockout timer mechanism implemented for Hate / Fear. DBG if you want to keep the lock outs to prevent over farming of the raid bosses, that is ok. When a mini raid gets Hate / Fear, they get a 18 hour lock out on all the group content. Once the prerequisite number of mobs are killed, have an NPC spawn in the zone, requesting assistance killing the raid bosses. Give the raid an option to talk with the NPC to activate the raid bosses, and obtaining an appropriate lockout (probably 4.5 day) lockout for the raid bosses. If someone in the mini raid has a mini on lockout, the NPC activating the raid bosses does not spawn. Given how easy it is to acquire spells and group gear in this expansion, I am not concerned at all concerned with even more spells and loot entering the game at this time. Most who put some effort are already fully geared or close to being fully geared.
What's the confusion? http://elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/encounter.php?id=223 Look at the time. 5:18:03 PST.
I am LOL inside that someone referred to RoI as a casual guild, not your post sir, unless there is a another RoI that im not aware of.
Time spent =/= Guild type. It's the manner of which the progression was done which has a larger factor. You had people log in instantly as servers allowed and powered through progression as fast as possible using every possible way to shave as much time off as possible. They are obsessed with doing things first and ranking first at all times. This is the complete opposite mentality of a casual player. It's as hardcore as hardcore can get. There is no doubt in my mind that when able to RoI and most likely MS, Triton, RoV, and IL will sometimes change raid days to maximize their efficiency to progress as quick as possible. Actually, RoI and MS are probably more like definites. I wouldn't be surprised to see them raid on Christmas Day if it meant getting flags done to enter T3.
Shrug look at tier 1. We waited a long time to get raids started and even lost all the events in tier 1 except the last one. We won't raid in the middle of the day on a weekday. People have lives
You raided ~3 hours after the servers went live. It's not like there wasn't any progression requirements beforehand. And the one other guild who beat you by minutes each was another hardcore guild. I'm beginning to wonder if you understand the concept of casual vs hardcore.
On launch day maybe. We should of been first but we waited for people. But we raided at our raid time start when decay was fixed. It was the evening. Ms was the guild who was looking at the event at like 1 pm. Do you? Raiding two nights a week isn't hardcore. It's boring.
A fair number of guilds raid one day a week or choose to spread it out over two days when they enter farm mode. For those wanting to raid more...we resort to participating in pickup raids doing older content. Which btw turns out to be sufficiently rewarding for casuals, family guild members, or the lone wolf who gets involved. Yep, there's PLENTY of content and rewards for casuals without diminishing the honor found by beating current raid content by creating Pro, Little League, and T-Ball versions for real raid guilds and those who can't be bothered to be in one. (Just hit the ball that's sitting on top of the post! Yay - you get a trophy. You get a trophy... [best Oprah imitation]). Want to raid current content? 54, not 40. Not 33. Not 20 and not 10. Bbut what about the family guild with 20 members??!!! Merge, make an alliance, do pick up raids, and/or do older content. There's plenty of raid opportunity for non-raiders without having them sup at the current content raiders' table.
The amount of raids nights is hindered by amount of worthwhile events. If there were more events, I'd bet 90% of all my wordly possessions (with that 10% just in case) that'd you see a lot more guilds in the 5-day raid formats of the past. The problem with raiding now is that it only takes 2 nights to clear all the events. Raiding 2 nights isn't by choice or guild standards, but rather an artifical limit due to content amount. Based on your guild website your official raiding schedule is : Sunday through Thursday, 7:30pm EST to 12:00am EST (5 days). I fully expect if there were enough raids to fill this time, you darn sure would be raiding those days or if an event wasn't beaten within two nights that you'd be raiding until the event is won.
I raid nightly, poor fridge gets sacked nightly! Though I'm causal about my approach. I slowly walk up to it, open the door, and bam! Loot the corpse. Loot is always better after the wife has done shopping but who am I to complain. Ruven
sorry man I m not basing it on how many nites a week you raid, or any of the top guilds for that matter. Casual to me is not a progressing raiding top tier guild etc.
