We have all done it.
Your running a raid, top of your game. Your putting out numbers, and the boss is going down, everything is flowing smoothly. Then, the doorbell rings, or a small voice next to you lets you know that someone has just woken up with a nightmare. It's OK you call an AFK and step away from the computer and take care of what you have to. Most raid teams will understand.
I am the father of three wonderful children, which is part of the reason I raid at night, after they have gone to bed. This way I can minimize the distractions that might take me away from the keyboard. Now, normally that works out fine. But like all kids, sometimes someone gets sick. Or my son, (who is high functioning autistic) will have an issue and it might take me a bit before I can talk to him and convince him that things are all right, or that he can go back to sleep. This rarely happens, but it has happened. I have never had to take more then 10-15 minutes to handle things, and even then in 5+ years of raiding it's only been that long once or twice. 10-15 minutes doesn't seem that long, but when we raid 4 hours a week, that is an eternity of time lost.
Now everyone has their different issues. Mine obviously are a parents, someone else may have to balance school. There are girlfriends, jobs, power outages, parents, and many other things that can have an effect on your raid schedule. Obviously you have to plan your raiding around such things, or burn away everyone else's time unnecessarily.
Now, i'm not going to tell you I never play when my kids are around and up. I'm human. My kids sit in the front room after homework, watching a show, or relaxing after dinner I will log on and get some dailies etc.. done. I will not however, do something that I can't walk away from. I can always drop from LFR, and wait an extra hour to get back in. Instances, as well. I normally run those as dps, and if I leave there is always someone waiting to fill my spot quickly. I won't drop during a boss fight unless there is an emergency, and I give people a heads up that something happened and I have to drop.
Let us get to the unacceptable. Telling the raid, you need to leave to eat dinner. Telling the raid that you forgot a date, and that you have to leave halfway through. Dropping with no explanation or reason and just logging off. Let's be frank. 90% of us know what hours the raids run if we run then consistently with our guild. If you know you are not available at that time let people know in advance so they can plan around it. It is easier to plan around someone not being in the raid for a week if you know in advance, rather then at the time you are putting a raid together. If you can't make the raid time consistently, then you either need to discuss being a stand in for the times you can be there, or find a new raid team that fits your schedule.
I know, this is all common sense, common decency. But even smart decent people can overlook this stuff once in awhile. That I can live with, its when people consistently fail to let me know ahead of time my patience starts to stretch. When I have moments, like in wrath, when someone AFKS, (on a farm run for the weekly JP quest) if they are still gone in fifteen minutes after they said they were going to get pizza because the delivery person was at the door, that I kick them from the group. Not because I need them there and needed to replace them, it was face roll at the time, but because they didn't have the respect for everyone else in the raid to get on for five seconds and say, "Hey, I have a problem, I will be back when I can." I found out later that he was on the phone with the pizza place because something got screwed up in the transaction, and he was out a bunch of money over it. That was fine, he had to take care of it then, that is groovy too. But the fact he couldn't let us know? that was ridiculous.
We all have stories. I am not here to point fingers or call anyone out. I don't do that in raids, and I don't do that out here. I just want to make sure, that next time you are raiding, and something makes you step away, or something comes up pre-raid, and you need to prioritize it, you keep us in mind.
You know, the Ornery Raid Leaders.
Lag
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