Ding 60! Any casual/semi-casual raiding guilds?

[Evia]

Hey all!

Ive been on the server for around 5 years and I've never been in any serious guild. I app'd to my fair share of them but never felt strong enough about any to attempt to be a full member.

I have nearly no raid experience but i have collected a MR suit of gear and aquired the raid clickies (gobbie ear, midnight mallet, reaper, da idol, halfling hat ect) and now I'm looking for suggestions on a good guild for me? Seems like we have super hardcore guilds or super casual and I'm seeking something in the middle...

Id love to start gearing myself with non ec tunnel stuff!

Suggestions? 60 Rogue.

[feniin]

Kittens Who Say Meow is probably the most active of the semi-casual raiding guilds.

There's also Blood Guard and The Second Sons who are at roughly the same level, give or take.

[Baylan295]

Hey all!

Ive been on the server for around 5 years and I've never been in any serious guild. I app'd to my fair share of them but never felt strong enough about any to attempt to be a full member.

I have nearly no raid experience but i have collected a MR suit of gear and aquired the raid clickies (gobbie ear, midnight mallet, reaper, da idol, halfling hat ect) and now I'm looking for suggestions on a good guild for me? Seems like we have super hardcore guilds or super casual and I'm seeking something in the middle...

Id love to start gearing myself with non ec tunnel stuff!

Suggestions? 60 Rogue.

Hi, I’m the recruitment officer for Paradigm Shift, which I think fits the bill exactly for why you are looking for. We are a middle ground for people looking to do endgame content without staring at walls for 16 hours at a time. We regularly compete in a ToV, VP, and do our best to balance the craziness of the p99 endgame with keeping sane.

Shoot me a tell in game (Baylan or Baelen, usually). And check us out at p99ps.com

[loramin]

There's a lot of good guilds on this server, and you can find a summary of all of them here (http://wiki.project1999.com/Guilds:Guild_List). If you're looking for casual raiding the middle group will probably be what you want, although not every guild in that section would consider themselves "casual".

Personally though, as a casual raider myself, I'd recommend taking a look at Anonymous. We use a DKP system and raid every week on Wednesday and Friday, 5pm EST. Wednesday is Plane of Sky night (melee haste belts and some other good items) and Friday is HoT night (get yourself a full suit of Dragon armor (http://wiki.project1999.com/Shadow_Armor)). We also raid other targets on other random nights.

Every raid is 100% optional: you'll never be forced to come. We do have an attendance requirement to get loot though, so if you stop coming for a month or longer (which is totally allowed), you won't be able to earn loot when you come back ... for your first couple raids back (and you can still earn DKP on those raids). Also, while we're not the biggest guild on the server, we're in the Aegis alliance. This is nice because we're small enough that you can get to know everyone, big enough to raid a lot on our own, and for the even bigger stuff we'd normally miss out on we get to raid with Aegis.

You don't need to know how to raid at all (we'll teach; eg. every week we re-explain how to do Sky), but we do use Discord and expect people to listen (you don't have to talk). If all that sounds appealing check us out; we'd love to have you.

[Rainik Stormseeker]

There's a lot of good guilds on this server, and you can find a summary of all of them here (http://wiki.project1999.com/Guilds:Guild_List). If you're looking for casual raiding the middle group will probably be what you want, although not every guild in that section would consider themselves "casual".

Personally though, as a casual raider myself, I'd recommend taking a look at Anonymous. We use a DKP system and raid every week on Wednesday and Friday, 5pm EST. Wednesday is Plane of Sky night (melee haste belts and some other good items) and Friday is HoT night (get yourself a full suit of Dragon armor (http://wiki.project1999.com/Shadow_Armor)). We also raid other targets on other random nights.

Every raid is 100% optional: you'll never be forced to come. We do have an attendance requirement to get loot though, so if you stop coming for a month or longer (which is totally allowed), you won't be able to earn loot when you come back ... for your first couple raids back (and you can still earn DKP on those raids). Also, while we're not the biggest guild on the server, we're in the Aegis alliance. This is nice because we're small enough that you can get to know everyone, big enough to raid a lot on our own, and for the even bigger stuff we'd normally miss out on we get to raid with Aegis.

You don't need to know how to raid at all (we'll teach; eg. every week we re-explain how to do Sky), but we do use Discord and expect people to listen (you don't have to talk). If all that sounds appealing check us out; we'd love to have you.

100% vouch for <Anonymous> - great people in that guild. We also happen to be allies, but that's obviously why I can vouch for them ;)

[kjs86z]

Paradigm Shift

[Supaskillz]

There are a number of semi-casual guilds that raid. Azure Guard, Blood Guard, PS, Kittens, TSS, anonymous are the ones coming to my mind right now. The first 3 are probably a little more raid-centric than the others, but all raid some.

Only AM and Tempest are in the hardcore bucket imo, but even those don't have strict attendance requirements or anything like that to my knowledge.

[mefdinkins]

So one difficulty of raiding as a rogue is the lack of mobility. Sometimes you'll park out for things that don't materialize. For example, you run over to Kael in hopes that Statue will spawn soon but he ends up going really late in window while you're asleep.

For me, it was nice to have alts so I could park my rogue at a target and then play another char or take care of other things in game -- sometimes you will wait around with your guildies other time you'll be antsy to do things while you're on. Raiding on a porter or gater is a little bit easier in that regard but I think it's better to play a class you love. With TL's and WC Caps rogues can be relatively mobile so it's not the end of the world for every encounter but you will be waiting to be engaged sometimes.

For some of the more casual guilds - they may have some "scheduled raids" which are nice for someone who doesn't want to play hardcore. That means Thursday from 6-9pm you're in sky or HOT or something and can get the most out of your few hours on. Some guilds are disguised as casual but really play more than "hardcore" guilds, they just are a little bit smaller, or prioritize different content. Some of the casual guilds really are very casual and capitalize and have the potential to take down the majority of game content so you can still see everything and get access to most loot.

For some of the more hardcore guilds - they may be raiding nearly 24/7 in a week. Meaning they're around TOV, they do things like ring wars, ST, VP, plane of growth, etc. In a 24/7 hour guild, you can play 24/7 (if u crazy) or you can just hop on when you're around and still prioritize the events you want to experience and probably maintain active raider status -- you really only need 10-15% attendance in the top guilds to be considered active. Some of the hardcore guilds will ask you participate in ways that make the game less fun -- you can't do this or do that and you have to play our bot or you suck and you need to play 24/7 and we have to kill ourselves over every encounter, others will realize that the game is really about experience and maintain a professional, efficient, and fun raiding environment. Not everyone defines that the same way so you'd have to dig more to see what guilds fit that description.

Don't be intimidated by raiding in this game. This isn't like WOW with limited rosters and a need for everyone to be addicted and insane 24/7. If you play this game long enough you'll support a lot of players when you're available and others will support you when you're not around -- also the DKP and loot policies will reward players who contribute more to the guild's success. As a rogue there's many ways you can help. If you want to play very hardcore and really master the game there is a huge ceiling and you could invest a billion hours. However, if you want to start as a strong damage dealing class -- you can still be an asset to any small/midsize/large guild on the server.

Best of luck to you!

[Danth]

You aren't going to get actual casual raiding on P1999. The game environment, with its lack of instancing, is not friendly to guilds that want to operate on a fixed schedule of their own making. If you want to do more than the low-end raids, the best you can do is join guilds that tolerate casual players.....which frankly is most of them because few guilds have the luxury of being overly choosy.

At the middle tier, there are guilds like Kittens, Paradigm Shift, Anonymous, Blood Guard, Second Sons, and others....all of which are pretty much exactly the same as each other except for the names. They want their pixels, they use DKP loot, etc...you might call them semi-casual if you're feeling generous. At the top tier you have Aftermath and Tempest, which are both basically pointless for a casual player to join (they'll take you, but casuals tend to burn out quick in those guilds). Azure-Guard occupies a spot in the middle where it's not quite top-end, wants to be but won't quite go to the lengths the others do. It's a common landing spot for players who want to get the best pixels they can without totally devoting their lives to EQ.

Pick your poison. If you want to obtain pixels beyond lower/midrange stuff in this open-world game, you'll have to make at least some dedication to do it.

Danth

[Legidias]

Join core, attend a raid or 2 and get the raid bug out of your system, then be raid suspended for a few months and youll be in tip top raid form again.

[Arcler]

I'll say this, a lot of guilds portray/think of themselves as "casual" (it's sort of like how every American says they are middle-class), usually because raiding isn't mandatory, or only that you only need to make a small % of raids to be considered a full member and collect loot.

This is how I think of it - can the guild summon a kill-ready force to a zone in under 5 minutes in order to engage/kill a competitive FFA target? If the answer is yes, then it's a hardcore raiding guild (this is definitely how such a guild would be seen on live during EQ's heyday). In order to do that, the guild must have a few things: 1. a raid capable force that is parked in the zone or can quickly mobilize to said zone, 2. an alert system ("batphone"), that tells members to log in even when they are not in game or at their computer, 3. the infrastructure (CoTH mages, factioned toons, clerics, well-geared tanks/pullers, etc.) capable of competitively FTE'ing said raid target, pulling it to camp and successfully killing it and 4. some sort of voice communication software to expedite planning and organization.

Casual raiding guilds generally don't compete in that way, and their raids are generally confined to less contested content (rotated sky, raid targets that have been left alone by other entities, planar clears, epic encounters, etc.)

If you define those as the opposite ends of a spectrum, then virtually every raiding guild falls somewhere along this spectrum, and all of it is a matter of degrees. In other words, how many scheduled raids a week do they have, what days/hours do they compete for FFA targets in a given week, what infrastructure do they have to compete for which targets, etc. People point out that most raiding guilds only require 10-15% RA for loot, but there's a huge difference in the number of raids that is and what that sort of commitment really means, depending on what guild you join.

So, if on one side of the spectrum we put a hardcore raiding guild that competes for any and all raid targets in every zone (and can mobilize and kill all of those target competitively), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, then they are having about 300-400 raids a month, the 10-15% RA they expect of you is about 30-40 raids a month, or 1/day. It won't be every day, as the current earthquake system will keep 7 day targets confined to a 2-3 day span for the most part - but if you join such a guild, expect that you'll be keep your rogue buffed, logged out in a raid zone waiting on a spawn (or you'll be logged in and helping with pull, etc.) When there's not a raid target in window, most of the guild is generally logged off and not doing much in game. This guild will have all 4 of my points - they'll require voice comms, a batphone, pre-parks, and they'll have guild infrastructure for every raid target.

On the other side, you'll have a casual raiding guild that will have 2-3 scheduled raids a week (usually Plane of Sky on their rotated time, and then some form of velious armor farming (Kael Arena or HoT/West in ToV), chardok royals, Plane of Hate/Fear, scheduled/spawned epic fights, etc.) but otherwise, you'll be on your own to make your own fun. However,the guild will likely have a lot of people on, and a lively small-group non-raiding content (Velks, SG, DN, etc.) scene. A truly casual guild won't even have a batphone (it's not needed), or use it only to communicate a schedule. They won't require voice comms, won't ask people to park toons, and won't have an infrastructure capable of engaging high-end targets.

No guild on this server is 100% on either side of this spectrum (though a few come close, in both directions) - and certain guilds prioritize parks, infrastructure, etc. in different zones or for different raid targets. Beyond that, there's guild culture and mefdinkins made a lot of good points for how different guilds tend to operate. Talk to members of many of the guilds that people indicated above, and see where they fall on this spectrum and what makes the best fit for you.

A few of my guildmates above tried to steer you to Paradigm Shift - so I'll give you a rundown of where we fit on that continuum. PS has 1 scheduled raid a week (Sunday AM sky), but we usually organize HoT in ToV once/week and announce it well in advance (usually Saturdays but sometimes on a weekday evening - it depends on FFA spawn windows). We generally ask members of the guild to pre-park their mains for FFA targets 2-3 days a week, and we usually set hard time limits on when we'll try for a particular FFA target, that our members know in advance (so can make informed decisions about when to park, when to be available to play, etc.) We don't go after every raid target on every cycle, and pick targets strategically based on spawn windows, what people want to do, and to ensure we're keeping things variable and fresh. In addition, we'll often rally to help guildmates with epic fights, kill Vindi in Kael, etc., several times a week. We average around 60-70 or so raids a month, however, as pointed out earlier, a lot of those can be in the same day for different targets (earthquakes, "repop" day(s), etc.) We have many people who generally only log on for raids, and many who organize small-group content almost every day. Generally speaking, on any given US evening night, they'll probably be something organized to do, though it might just be a quick kill and the night is otherwise organized by guildies doing small-group stuff.

So my plug for my own guild is this - PS is a raiding guild capable of going after every single raid target in the game, but we don't feel the need to park characters and mobilize for every raid target, either. We have tight-knit community of players that organize and do things together whether there's a raid target in window or not. We are also a friendly bunch, and not going to berate you because you made a mistake, though we'll do our best to inform/teach you in advance so that you'll not make the mistake in the first place. You'll see and engage every high-end encounter with PS, but you won't be outfitting your character in every dream item within a year. On the other hand, you'll be able to enjoy and play your rogue outside of raids, because you won't be consistently parked every day for some FFA target. We compete seriously but we prize fair play, sportsmanship, and fun above all. If that sounds like the right fit for you, feel free to reach out to me or Baylan (see above).

[Evia]

Really helpful responses from everyone! Thank you!

I think I'll look into PS and Anonymous first. Both sound like they could fit what I'm after.

[tycohunden]

Dawn Believers is the best guild! Join Dawn Believers! Lots of progress lots of fun!