Long Boring Intro:
I have a secret. A long time ago, I was a “casual” player. For about a year I had a real life priority that took enough of my time to prevent me from raiding with any regularity. In that time I was part of a pvp team (where I met my partner in crime! Mikedabutcha) and then part of a real life friend guild. (You had to know someone in real life who was in the guild, A la Kevin Bacon). Once my real life priority had passed, I found myself too bored to play casually and sought out a raiding home, but I’ve always stayed in touch with that real life group of friends. Recently one of those members e-mailed me and let me know they were considering “raiding” and wanted advice. What is “raiding” and where might they find a good home? I e-mailed them back a specific response, and then upon re-reading it decided some of the advice I’d given him could be generalized and may be interesting to others.
The better player myth:
Intrinsically, dedicated raiders aren’t any better or worse than their casual counterparts. Rather than a reflection of skill, dedicated raiding is reflection of effort. Most people do become better with time and effort, but I’ve seen some really terrible players in some really good gear. In fact, in some cases I’ve been responsible for putting some good gear on bad players.

The “raider” mindset:
In another post, I’ve already talked about how the commitment to raiding, alters a players view of the game, so I won’t rehash that here. The advantage of this mindset is that you feel more involved in the game, you are able to see more things and the encounters do challenge you to master your class. The disadvantages are the you have to make raiding a priority in your life, you may end up playing with people you don’t necessarily enjoy outside of raids, and gaming time becomes a little more stressful.

Defining your commitment:
Often times in discussions we’ll put players into boxes: “Casual,” “Hardcore,” “Elitist,” “Scrub.” But in reality it’s not that simple. Rather than black or white there is a grayscale of levels of commitment to raiding and ability. So while considering raiding, consider realistically how much time do you want to spend playing this game? How much time can you spare from your everyday lifestyle? Remember that you are committing to more than just raiding, but also to being prepared for raids. A good rule of thumb to consider is that you’ll need about 15 minutes of preparation time for every hour of time you spend in a raid.

Finding a guild that matches your expectations:
This isn’t always easy. In fact, it was so hard for me that I ended up making my own guild. One of the easiest tricks to finding a guild that raids when you want to is to just type “/who Serpentshrine Cavern” (Or whatever zone you’re interested in raiding) and note the guilds of the people who are in that zone. Do that for a few days and make a list of the guild names you see. Once you have your list, do a search on the internet for “GuildName WoW Servername” or ask a member for the guild’s website. The first thing you should check is that their raid expectations match up to what you want to commit. Second, check their available information and see if their culture seems like the kind of culture you want from a guild.

Impressing the guild you want to join:
Once you’ve decided you want to join them, you have to explain to them why they should want you. Take a look at their raiders who play the same class/spec that you are playing in the armory and see how they have gemmed or enchanted their gear. Take a moment to evaluate your own character and used the “find upgrades” button to see if there is something easy you can do to make your character stronger. If this guild is killing bosses you haven’t seen yet, read information about those bosses. Remember in an interview, the recruiter is checking you to see if it’s worth making a time investment in you. The more things you can do to show them that you are investing time in yourself and your own progression, the more likely they are to feel that time invested in you and your progression is worthwhile.