Raiding and family life...mutually exclusive?

[Thunderthyze]

<p>Elsewhere on these forums there is a thread discussing the average time to complete various raid zones. The concensus is that barring things like EH4 most zones can be cleared, with practice, in under 2 hours. That being said you DO have EH4, as well as the practice run throughs, as well as pick ups. Anything from 4~10 hours it would seem.</p><p>My question is this. Who out there has time to devote that amount of their life to the game, perhaps many times a week? Are we talking purely students, teens, single people with no life outside of EQ2? In other words..are there any "hardcore raiders" out there with a wife/husband/donkey/significant other/children/job (delete as appropriate)?</p><p>How do you do it guys?</p>

[Tokam]

<p>I doubt that the disso et al folks spend much more time in the game than a lot of people. It is more that they have chosen to / are able to devote the majority of their game time clearing trash in emerald halls and camping contested.</p><p>If you want an honest (and likely not verbose) response to your question matey go and join <a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2flames.com</a>, or post on the npu/second dawn websites.</p>

[Maryk]

Very good question.  Aside from OOB and COV, I simply don't do raids for this reason...I can't tell the family I'm going to spend the next six hours playing a video game so by chance I can pickup a fabled forearm piece.  Hence, I'm still wearing 62 armor.  Ridiculous.

[kenm]

Being that you admitted EH is the only zone in the entire game that takes more than two hours to complete, I'm not sure I see the point of this topic, but I'll bite. Most of our guild very much has a life and yet we still clear EH.  It's just about putting raiding as high priority and managing yourself to give you ample time to do it.  It's really no different than any other hobby in the world, but it's clearly a better choice than hanging at the bar all night. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And to the poster above me, OoB and CoV aren't raids.  Anyway, let's look at real raids, shall we?  Lab takes an hour to clear, Lyceum takes under an hour to clear,  HoS takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Deathtoll takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Chel'drak takes 15 minutes to clear, Clockwork Meance takes 15 minutes to clear, Freethinkers takes an hour to clear, MMIS takes maybe an hour and a half to two hours to clear.  EH is the *only* raid zone where anybody may expect to spend 6 hours straight in it, that's no excuse to wear level 62 gear. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Pelda]

<p>Six hours of raiding?  I have not once raided for that long in EQ2.  I run raids and we do it 4-5 times a week.  We have a large guild of many casual raiders but we can always fill the raid and move through things.  Granted we are not as far along as many but we are working through EoF now and doing just fine.  We raid 3 hours a night and some might get pushed to 4 depending on what we are doing and if we are close to killing the last mob.</p><p> We have alot of families and many husband/wives or boyfriend/girlfriends.  We also have their kids in the guild that join us as well.  Personally I have a good full time job and 3 kids that are very active in sports.  I coach all of their sports and attend every game.  I spend plenty of time with them and still run all of our raids.  Its all about balance.  Granted I don't do much else besides raid but that works for me.</p>

[Wingrider01]

Holymoly@Runnyeye wrote: <blockquote><p>Elsewhere on these forums there is a thread discussing the average time to complete various raid zones. The concensus is that barring things like EH4 most zones can be cleared, with practice, in under 2 hours. That being said you DO have EH4, as well as the practice run throughs, as well as pick ups. Anything from 4~10 hours it would seem.</p><p>My question is this. Who out there has time to devote that amount of their life to the game, perhaps many times a week? Are we talking purely students, teens, single people with no life outside of EQ2? In other words..are there any "hardcore raiders" out there with a wife/husband/donkey/significant other/children/job (delete as appropriate)?</p><p>How do you do it guys?</p></blockquote> 3 kids, 4,6,11, full time job, wife, still raid without a problem. Time Management for the win

[Femke]

Living together, 1 child, full time job, horses (of which one young and needs a lot of attention), 2 dogs... and still able to play at least 3 or 4 evenings per week (my partner works in the evenings and I during daytime... so the evenings are mine!!!!  <img src="/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) Femke.

[Dasein]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>Being that you admitted EH is the only zone in the entire game that takes more than two hours to complete, I'm not sure I see the point of this topic, but I'll bite. Most of our guild very much has a life and yet we still clear EH.  It's just about putting raiding as high priority and managing yourself to give you ample time to do it.  It's really no different than any other hobby in the world, but it's clearly a better choice than hanging at the bar all night. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And to the poster above me, OoB and CoV aren't raids.  Anyway, let's look at real raids, shall we?  Lab takes an hour to clear, Lyceum takes under an hour to clear,  HoS takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Deathtoll takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Chel'drak takes 15 minutes to clear, Clockwork Meance takes 15 minutes to clear, Freethinkers takes an hour to clear, MMIS takes maybe an hour and a half to two hours to clear.  EH is the *only* raid zone where anybody may expect to spend 6 hours straight in it, that's no excuse to wear level 62 gear. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote>You're lowballing the times it takes for those zones. Any raid that could clear Labs in an hour won't be raiding Labs, and a raid that still benefits from raiding Labs will take substantially longer than an hour. You need to factor in things like setup time, loot distribution, AFKs, LDs, and so on. More realistically, Labs is about 3-4 hours, LoA is about 2 hours,  HoS about 3 hours, Deathtoll about 3 hours, Gorenaire/Talendor about an hour each, ToS/Harla Dar is about 1.5-2 hours.

[Malkosha]

<p>Much of it has to do, IMO, with how seriously you take the game. I would imagine that with a family, you could raid and do very well at it. All you would need to do is adjust your lifestyle to compensate for the uninterrupted time needed to pull as raid off. For people who can make this a priority there is no problem. </p><p>The problem seems to be people who don't see playing a game to be as valuable, or at least equally valuable, as spending time in RL and as such consider various time management techniques to deal with it to be a little overboard. We might even consider some of these raidiers "basement dwellers" or some such nonsense. I think the truth is that everyone has their own priorities in life and trying to impose your worldviews on them (not referring to the OP at all, just people in general), like some seem to do, is misleading and wrong. If raiding in a game is that important to you then you will arrange the time to do it. You may have to sacrifice doing other things but that decision is ultimately yours to make and yours to live with.</p><p>The same of course is true with those that put other things ahead of raiding only to find the raiders giving them grief because they are not will to sacrifice their RL time to do it.</p>

[TheBu]

<p>This is me wife, 3 kids 6,4,1 and a full time job and i am able to raid 3-4 nights a week( 4hours).  i am the solo provider for the kids 3 day out of the work week.. wake them up, school, feed, bath, bed.</p><p>First the game is my relax time... I dont watch alot of tv. I play on the computer in stead.</p><p>second the kids need a be on a schedule and routine. This routine has kinda gone out the window a little as its summer time now..</p><p>Raid is on a schedule, times and days of the week. And well to be honest wife/and i need to be on a schedule as well. </p><p>but basicaly u need the respect of the spouse to be able to do this. Just if u went out of the house to do something sport, workout, pool, or friends. They need to allow u the uninterrupted time to allow u to focus. </p><p>as far as raids i think we clear all the zones in less than 2 hours, except mmis and EH. the raid guild i am in might be one notch below hardcore. Wer raiders with a life. we spent 4 hours in eh and in the past have camp fo rthe next day. But when i t come to the 11:30 ish.. time is up The time up thing has its positives and negatives.</p><p><b>hunderthyze</b> u raiding? </p><p>[edit] about the pick up raids  and what not. The time can be sucked away when the raid not in sync or well formed... aka many runs on  names or trash. I have done lab raid that never completed the zone and took 4 hours. so the group really make a diffrence. If someone wanted they could have a raid guild and raid(eof/kos) for just 2 hours a night 3 to 4 times a week if they wer on the ball. </p>

[kenm]

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote>Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>Being that you admitted EH is the only zone in the entire game that takes more than two hours to complete, I'm not sure I see the point of this topic, but I'll bite. Most of our guild very much has a life and yet we still clear EH.  It's just about putting raiding as high priority and managing yourself to give you ample time to do it.  It's really no different than any other hobby in the world, but it's clearly a better choice than hanging at the bar all night. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And to the poster above me, OoB and CoV aren't raids.  Anyway, let's look at real raids, shall we?  Lab takes an hour to clear, Lyceum takes under an hour to clear,  HoS takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Deathtoll takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Chel'drak takes 15 minutes to clear, Clockwork Meance takes 15 minutes to clear, Freethinkers takes an hour to clear, MMIS takes maybe an hour and a half to two hours to clear.  EH is the *only* raid zone where anybody may expect to spend 6 hours straight in it, that's no excuse to wear level 62 gear. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote>You're lowballing the times it takes for those zones. Any raid that could clear Labs in an hour won't be raiding Labs, and a raid that still benefits from raiding Labs will take substantially longer than an hour. You need to factor in things like setup time, loot distribution, AFKs, LDs, and so on. More realistically, Labs is about 3-4 hours, LoA is about 2 hours,  HoS about 3 hours, Deathtoll about 3 hours, Gorenaire/Talendor about an hour each, ToS/Harla Dar is about 1.5-2 hours. </blockquote>That's a load of crap, I was being generous with the times as it was.  Last time I <b>two grouped</b> LoA it took about an hour.  How the heck would it take anybody two hours?  Gorenaire and Talendor an hour each?  Maybe 5 minutes to clear trash or train up to the dragon, another 5 to spawn and kill it.  KoS content is incredibly easy, even for poorly geared new raids.  I don't even wanna know how anybody would spend 3 hours in lab, a 5k dps raid would clear it faster, and that'd be like one grouping it if possible.

[Kellin]

<p>Learning a raid zone can take 6 hours, yes, if you've got a raid that'll stick around that long.</p><p>I'm in a casual alliance that raids 3 times a week.  We generally do Labs, HoS and DT.  Labs is a 2 hour raid, usually.  Often, most of the raid force will go to Lyceum right afterwards, but those of us who don't have another 90 mins - 2 hours to do that just drop out after Labs.  HoS, we generally get done in about 3 hours.  Don't always get Venekor, since the way that encounter is set up, if you don't get him first crack, your out of luck.  DT we do in about 3 hours as well, though we aren't up to doing Cruror yet.</p><p>Fitting raiding into your own schedule is for you to figure out.  The only real restriction I see is the commitment I make to the alliance that I will be there on certain days at certain times.  Kind of messes up the spontaneous night out once in a while, but I can cope.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Jal]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote><cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote>Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>Being that you admitted EH is the only zone in the entire game that takes more than two hours to complete, I'm not sure I see the point of this topic, but I'll bite. Most of our guild very much has a life and yet we still clear EH.  It's just about putting raiding as high priority and managing yourself to give you ample time to do it.  It's really no different than any other hobby in the world, but it's clearly a better choice than hanging at the bar all night. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And to the poster above me, OoB and CoV aren't raids.  Anyway, let's look at real raids, shall we?  Lab takes an hour to clear, Lyceum takes under an hour to clear,  HoS takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Deathtoll takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Chel'drak takes 15 minutes to clear, Clockwork Meance takes 15 minutes to clear, Freethinkers takes an hour to clear, MMIS takes maybe an hour and a half to two hours to clear.  EH is the *only* raid zone where anybody may expect to spend 6 hours straight in it, that's no excuse to wear level 62 gear. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote>You're lowballing the times it takes for those zones. Any raid that could clear Labs in an hour won't be raiding Labs, and a raid that still benefits from raiding Labs will take substantially longer than an hour. You need to factor in things like setup time, loot distribution, AFKs, LDs, and so on. More realistically, Labs is about 3-4 hours, LoA is about 2 hours,  HoS about 3 hours, Deathtoll about 3 hours, Gorenaire/Talendor about an hour each, ToS/Harla Dar is about 1.5-2 hours. </blockquote>That's a load of crap, I was being generous with the times as it was.  Last time I <b>two grouped</b> LoA it took about an hour.  How the heck would it take anybody two hours?  Gorenaire and Talendor an hour each?  Maybe 5 minutes to clear trash or train up to the dragon, another 5 to spawn and kill it.  KoS content is incredibly easy, even for poorly geared new raids.  I don't even wanna know how anybody would spend 3 hours in lab, a 5k dps raid would clear it faster, and that'd be like one grouping it if possible. </blockquote>Kenman not everyone is in a raid guild with the right classes and high DPS.  Go on an average labs pickup raid sometime and itll easily take 2+ hours.

[katalmach]

<p>I love raiding, especially as a healer, and was in a raiding guild for a short while. It didn't last long though, because it's just too restrictive for me. A raiding guild has a schedule and expects you to keep to it. I can't do that - my family isn't on a schedule, we do things together a lot but we do them whenever we get the opportunity and when we feel like it. If my boyfriend wants to have dinner and watch TV together with me, that is far more important than any raid that might be going. No matter how trivial the activity with my family is, spending time with internet people killing monsters in a game will never be more important.</p><p>If I lived on my own and had nobody else in my life, yeah, I might have been a hardcore raider because I do love raiding. But then, I also love my life and my personal freedom. To me a game is something I log on to and play when I feel like it, not when some schedule tells me to (that would be too much like work). So yeah, to me, regular raiding and family life IS mutually exclusive. Still love doing pick up raids though!</p>

[EQ2Playa432]

Yeah, it doesn't take that long to do those zones.

[Harvash]

<p>Kenman@Najena wrote</p><p>You're lowballing the times it takes for those zones. Any raid that could clear Labs in an hour won't be raiding Labs, and a raid that still benefits from raiding Labs will take substantially longer than an hour. You need to factor in things like setup time, loot distribution, AFKs, LDs, and so on. </p><p>There are many reasons to do the KoS zones.  The guild I am in now is a raid guild, we do it for status - guild is somewhat new and still getting to 60 - and beyond when RoK hits.  In the month I have been here, I have put on 150k Guild status, pretty good imho. Secondly, you'll always have people that are looking for something specific in those zones, or new raiders that need to fill out gear, etc.</p><p>Dont discount the old zones, they are still very much used. The times given are for a more or less casual guild that knows the zone and strats.  Hardcore guilds do them MUCH faster.  I think we have Labs/LoA down to 40mins, DT is an hour, etc.  Just means we get it done faster and we usually stack raids in one night  do Cheldrak/DT for example (which is tonights run..lol)  or CWM/FT or even Labs/LoA</p><p>As for how its done, I raid with my wife, we are carefull to prepare here for the needed couple hours - dinner plans, homework, etc all taken care of, also, we were carefull to choose a guild in which the raid times jived with our personal schedule. As far as EH, yeah its long, no question about that - we leave people in zone to hold open so we can resume where we left off the prior evening - seems to work quite well.</p>

[kbrigman]

Possumu@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote><p>A raiding guild has a schedule and expects you to keep to it. I can't do that - my family isn't on a schedule, we do things together a lot but we do them whenever we get the opportunity and when we feel like it. If my boyfriend wants to have dinner and watch TV together with me, that is far more important than any raid that might be going.</p></blockquote><p>"...but basicaly u need the respect of the spouse to be able to do this."</p><p> These quotes are key for me.  I have a good full time job and I am also an engineering student...I can have enough time to commit to raiding at night with only a little time management.  However, my boyfriend is just not the schedule type guy.  He plays EQ2 with me, but doesn't raid because he hates guilds that "force" attendance.  I have spent a couple months in a raiding guild in the past and he would pout all the time about my attention being on the game and not on him.  You just have to have a willing spouse/family...even if you have the time to raid.</p><p> If only I could find a true casual raiding guild that fits both our play style and personalities... <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[YummiOger]

<p>Well honestly, having a substandard Raid force OR Casual players that are not equipted as well as dedicated raiders both lead to longer Raid times. </p><p>7 months ago my former guild, Casual raiders with many members that raided 3-4 days a week, /random loots and NBG (No DKP) often was in labs for 3-4 hours, took 1-2 hrs on the BS Dragons, 2-3 hours in LoA, all night in HoS/DT. Thats just the way it was. We did not know any better. Then i joined my current guild thet Raids 6 days a week and has 36 very raid experianced, knowledgeable players. Now we Rock thru labs in 1 hr, LoA 1hr, DT 2 hrs, FTH 1.5hrs, MISS in 2-2,5hrs, ect .... See thats what it about IMO. The raid force as a whole directly impacts the length of time needed. </p><p>But back to the OP. Full time job/ married/ 2 kids/ house work/ 2 dogs/ ECT .. <b>Its all about time managment</b>. i decided to look for a Raiding guild that fit MY time .. 4-5 Week days, 9-12pm EST, DKP bid System, established leaders with a good raid force.  Thats after the kids get to bed and 12-6 is enough sleep <img src="/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. and i spend the week ends with family.</p><p>the FIRST question u need to ask urself is .. Can I dediacte the amount of Time for Raiding? If Not i would not suggest persueing it. I set aside 3-4 hours for Raiding but was discussed with my wife cuz of the downtime needed (kids / house/ food ect). I do Realize that there is MANY players who can not set aside time like that and their play time is very dynamic. </p><p>Time my friend .. all about Time.</p>

[Cathars]

The average raid takes 2-3 hours.  Thats the length of a movie or a baseball game.  "Sports fan and family life ... mutually exclusive?"

[SenorPhrog]

The average raid NOW takes 2-3 hours....  Sure you've been running FTH, MMiS, and EH for 6 months of course its easy now.  I can remember hearing about guilds camping overnight in EH and for a long time CWM/FTH was a 4 hour event with the guild I raided with.  Now that the strategies have been worked out, it's easier.  When you consider raiding, you have to take it as a whole not just farming runs.

[Decad]

Kallarn@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote>Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote><cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote>Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>Being that you admitted EH is the only zone in the entire game that takes more than two hours to complete, I'm not sure I see the point of this topic, but I'll bite. Most of our guild very much has a life and yet we still clear EH.  It's just about putting raiding as high priority and managing yourself to give you ample time to do it.  It's really no different than any other hobby in the world, but it's clearly a better choice than hanging at the bar all night. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And to the poster above me, OoB and CoV aren't raids.  Anyway, let's look at real raids, shall we?  Lab takes an hour to clear, Lyceum takes under an hour to clear,  HoS takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Deathtoll takes maybe an hour and a half to clear, Chel'drak takes 15 minutes to clear, Clockwork Meance takes 15 minutes to clear, Freethinkers takes an hour to clear, MMIS takes maybe an hour and a half to two hours to clear.  EH is the *only* raid zone where anybody may expect to spend 6 hours straight in it, that's no excuse to wear level 62 gear. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote>You're lowballing the times it takes for those zones. Any raid that could clear Labs in an hour won't be raiding Labs, and a raid that still benefits from raiding Labs will take substantially longer than an hour. You need to factor in things like setup time, loot distribution, AFKs, LDs, and so on. More realistically, Labs is about 3-4 hours, LoA is about 2 hours,  HoS about 3 hours, Deathtoll about 3 hours, Gorenaire/Talendor about an hour each, ToS/Harla Dar is about 1.5-2 hours. </blockquote>That's a load of crap, I was being generous with the times as it was.  Last time I <b>two grouped</b> LoA it took about an hour.  How the heck would it take anybody two hours?  Gorenaire and Talendor an hour each?  Maybe 5 minutes to clear trash or train up to the dragon, another 5 to spawn and kill it.  KoS content is incredibly easy, even for poorly geared new raids.  I don't even wanna know how anybody would spend 3 hours in lab, a 5k dps raid would clear it faster, and that'd be like one grouping it if possible. </blockquote>Kenman not everyone is in a raid guild with the right classes and high DPS.  Go on an average labs pickup raid sometime and itll easily take 2+ hours. </blockquote><p>Guild I'm in has been trying to finish labs for months now. My guild is filled with pretty much what you would realistically would have to call "casual" gamers.</p><p>Well with that said, my guild has finally put Vyemm down a couple weeks ago, and it's taken us 3 hours to do so since then. We haven't even tried Deathtoll yet, don't even think anyone has access to be honest. I think we've been able to take down the wolf in EH in about 2 hours. Freethinkers, we get our butt handed to us to be honest.</p><p>TBH, I don't know what raids are so long. Raids even for us basically come down to a time sink getting through the trash mobs, and then the fun part of the strategy in taking down the named mobs. Raids for the most part, or in my opinion come down to figuring out and executing the take down of named mobs. There's a reason trash mobs are called trash mobs...</p><p>If I were to design a game, I'd have more raid zones, with each zone being drastically shorter. Each map has one named, and a handfull of trash mobs between the door and then the named. Leave lock out timers the way they are now. Have a progression, ala access quest to get to the harder "instances".</p><p>So Labs would be at the same zone-in door it's now. New raiders would only have Slavering Azid as an option to zone-in. Once he's down, the raid exits the instance, and say the Vakrizt instance will be available. Once he's down, then perhaps the Predd instance is available. So, all told at the current Labs door, there would be a grand total of 13 instances available to unlock. So you must be saying, "great you just made the raid longer due to zone changing delays. Well that's why I would be cutting out a lot of the trash mobs (in fact I'd probably try to incorporate the trash mobs into the named fight a little more, kind of like how teh old Everfrost access quest worked perhaps), and I'd look into...</p><p>Rewarding raiders for killing the named Mobs in some manner such that in the future they could bypass certain, or all instances.  Essentially "think" access quest/reward to start at door #2 instead of door #1.</p><p>How to allow that could be a big debate, but I think I would go with one of these. Probably the last one...</p><ul><li>every raid member must have killed the named at least once. Might be too lenient</li><li>every raid member must have killed each named at least x amount of times. Can be a problem in raid pick-up groups, Casual guilds with a lot of churn (ie; roaster changes) will end up seeing the same stuff over and over without a chance to bypass (good thing? bad thing?).</li><li>Perhaps a raid tally of x kills (say 25 for Azid for instance) by the combined raid force to bypass the instance. Would probably lessen the blow on pickup raids, if the core raid group looking for pick-ups has been through the raid content more than a few times.</li></ul><p>I don't really think this would change the raid experience all that much (aside from roleplaying aspects). I far as I see it, it's chopping the current maps up into smaller ones. Remove some yard trash, and program in an "instance" progression that rewards the more successfull raiders with a tool to bypass content. </p><p>I'm also quite sure that it wouldn't do much to help my guild get through new raid content we come across. We'd still die over and over and spend 2+ hours trying to figure out how to kill Named Raid MOBs (even with the walkthroughs). It's not going to really let us get to more names I don't think. If yard trash in EH is going to kill us the way EH is now, then I'm still providing the same chances (just a little less).</p><p>I do think something along these lines though COULD as least give more people the PERCEPTION that more raid content could and would be available to them. That I think could be a BIG plus for the community. ALA, less fight between raiders and the "casual" crowd.</p>

[rubels]

<p>RE : OP </p><p> I work third shift US. I get off work at roughly 3 AM raid til 8 - 9 ish before kids , wife the world on this side of the planet wakes up .... Then again its a good thing im on a Oz server <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p>Seriously whats there to do at 3 am (bars closed <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) ? Besides raid <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>- Krov</p><p>Level 70 Guard 100 AA really [Removed for Content] they changed my aa lines </p><p>Naj Server</p>

[liveja]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>That's a load of crap, I was being generous with the times as it was. </blockquote><p>For YOUR totally uber, everybody-fabled-&-mastered-out guild that's been there & done that, yes, you maybe were generous.</p><p>Not everybody is so godlike.</p>

[Mirishka]

<p>It all really depends on the kind of guild you are in and the kind of raid atmosphere you have. If you've been farming instances for a while, everyone is comfortable with the zone and knows the strats it doesn't take that long to clear most instances anymore. Learning new targets is more tricky, tends to take longer obviously and can be a huge consumption of time. Most guilds have a set 4-6 day a week raiding schedule for atleast 4 hours on those specific days. With smart people and a good raid leader(s) it's not hard to pick out a good strat and learn how to execute it. Pick up raids always take longer, unless it's a set raid of people that you've raided with often. </p><p>Juggling a set raiding schedule in real life isn't hard, if you're lucky enough to have a very understanding and respecting spouse/significant other. Finding a good guild that works with your work schedule helps a lot too. You just need to be able to balance family time with EQ time and everything kinda falls into place. Not that the OP was saying this, but just to put it out there..Not all raiding guilds are filled with single people, students, or people that have no lives. You happen to find many people who work 40 hours or more a week that still find time to juggle their schedules enough to give them time to play the game on raids, you just may not see them much out of raid times, but then at lvl 70 with 100 AA and in a good raiding guild, there isn't much else to do during your offtime if tradeskilling and rolling alts isn't your thing.</p>

[Maryk]

Possumu@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote><p>I love raiding, especially as a healer, and was in a raiding guild for a short while. It didn't last long though, because it's just too restrictive for me. A raiding guild has a schedule and expects you to keep to it. I can't do that - my family isn't on a schedule, we do things together a lot but we do them whenever we get the opportunity and when we feel like it. If my boyfriend wants to have dinner and watch TV together with me, that is far more important than any raid that might be going. No matter how trivial the activity with my family is, spending time with internet people killing monsters in a game will never be more important.</p><p>If I lived on my own and had nobody else in my life, yeah, I might have been a hardcore raider because I do love raiding. But then, I also love my life and my personal freedom. To me a game is something I log on to and play when I feel like it, not when some schedule tells me to (that would be too much like work). So yeah, to me, regular raiding and family life IS mutually exclusive. Still love doing pick up raids though!</p></blockquote><p>Well said.   I think this is what I tried to say earlier.  Raiding is not that important to where I put it ahead of the family.  </p><p>For all you people that claim to have a spouse, three young kids, a dog, a cat, a mortgage, a full-time job, and still go raiding three nights a week...ummmm...I'm impressed...I guess.  I couldn't do it. </p>

[Alienor]

I have a full time job and an epic gf at home and I do not raid <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> EQ2 or any computer game is not raising wife faction in any way.