Dad guilds: fewer hours, same standards, no farm nights

In brief. "Dad guild" is a claim about your schedule, not about your standards, and mixing those two up is how the phrase got a bad name. The good ones raid six hours a week and use all six; the bad ones use the label as cover for turning up unflasked. The whole difference is preparation done before you log in — which is conveniently the one thing a short-hours guild controls completely.

I have been in a guild that raided twelve hours a week and cleared less than the one that raided six. The twelve-hour guild spent forty minutes a night rediscovering the trash route in Serpentshrine like it was an archaeological dig. The six-hour guild started at 19:30 because it started at 19:30.

That gap is the entire subject of this post.

What does "dad guild" actually mean?

Two completely different things, and people keep using it for both. One is a claim about the schedule. The other is a claim about the standard. They are not the same and they do not imply each other.

The two claims:

• The schedule claim. "We raid two nights, we start on time, and we stop when we said we would, because some of us have a 6am alarm and a small person who does not care about Kael'thas."
• The standard claim. "We do not expect much of you, and you should not expect much of us."

The first is a constraint someone is working around. The second is a decision someone has made. A guild can raid six hours a week and be ruthlessly organised inside them; a guild can also raid twelve and waste all twelve. I have been in both, and I know which one killed more bosses.

The phrase doing the actual work is not "casual". It is "respects our time" — and note that it is a promise about the end of the raid at least as much as the start.

Casual, dad guild, hardcore — what is the real difference?

Hours and preparation, and they move in opposite directions. Fewer hours means more prep expected per person, not less.

The interesting box is preparation, and it surprises people. A dad guild asks more of you per hour than a casual guild does. That is the trade: bring your homework, and you get your evenings back. Nobody is asking you to farm Primal Waters on a Sunday. They are asking you to have already bought the flask.

What does "respects our time" actually look like?

Invites at 19:15 for a 19:30 pull, and a raid that ends at 22:30 even when you are one attempt from a kill. Everything else is decoration on those two.

In a guild that means it:

• Invites go out before start time, not at it. If the raid starts at 19:30, the invite is at 19:15 and the first pull is at 19:30. Not "19:30 invites, pull about eight-ish".
• Trash is routed and boring. Somebody worked the path out once. It does not get rediscovered every week like a lost civilisation.
• New boss explanations are three minutes, before the pull. The two things that kill you tonight. Not eleven minutes covering a phase three you will not reach until next month.
• People arrive repaired, flasked and enchanted. Nobody is at the auction house at 19:28. Nobody needs a summon from Shattrath because they logged out at the bank.
• Someone has watched the video. Ideally three someones, so the explanation survives one of them disconnecting.
• The raid ends when it said it would. Mid-pull, mid-phase, boss at 4% — it still ends. This is the hard one, and it is the promise every other one rests on. A guild that runs forty minutes over "because we're so close" twice a month does not have a 22:30 finish. It has a 22:30 suggestion.
• A wipe produces a change, not a repeat. If the same mechanic kills you three times, something in the plan is different before attempt four.

How do I tell if a guild is faking it?

Watch the start time drift, and ask what they changed after the last bad night. The failure is never a blow-up. It is a slow slide that nobody names.

The recognisable version:

• 19:30 becomes 19:40, then 19:50, and nobody says anything because saying something feels rude.
• "We're casual" turns up as the answer to a question about preparation, which is the two claims collapsing into each other in real time.
• The same mechanic is still killing people in week four and the plan is identical.
• Nobody has opened a log, so there is no way to know whether anything got better. The only available measure is "did it die", and on progression that is "no" for a month.
• The raid runs long "because we're close", and it happens often enough that people stop planning around the finish time.

Individually none of these are fatal. Together they are exactly why someone with two free hours stops spending them with you.

Why does a short week need more preparation, not less?

Because you have no slack to absorb the waste. The same forty wasted minutes costs a six-hour guild almost three times what it costs a hardcore one.

Run the numbers. Forty minutes lost to a late start and a rediscovered trash route:

• In a six-hour week, that is 11% of your entire raiding year.
• In a sixteen-hour week, it is 4%.

Same forty minutes. Wildly different bill. And it applies to wipes too — a guild with twelve hours can afford to learn a fight by throwing bodies at it. A guild with six has to turn up already knowing it.

So the short-hours guild is not the one that can afford to be relaxed about prep. It is the one that can least afford it.

The good news is that most preparation is gold, not talent:

• Enchants and gems are bought once and pay out on every pull forever.
• Flasks last two hours and survive death, which is the entire reason to use one over two elixirs on a progression night — you are going to die, and the elixirs are not coming back with you.
• Meta gems need their colour requirement met to do anything at all. An unmet requirement means the gem is simply switched off, silently, and I promise someone in your raid is running an inactive one right now.
• Watching a seven-minute video costs seven minutes, not a raid slot.

None of that asks anyone to be a better player. It asks them to have done something before Tuesday. That is also the honest pitch for auditing a night: it will not teach anyone to play, but it will find every free thing nobody bought, and in a six-hour week free things are the whole game.

What should I ask before I join one?

Ask what time they stop, then ask what they changed after the last bad night. In that order. The pauses are more informative than the answers.

1. "What time do invites go out, and what time do you actually stop?" Hesitating on the second half is the tell. Everyone can answer the first half.
2. "When were you last one pull from a kill at the end of the night, and what did you do?" You are finding out whether the clock is real or decorative.
3. "What do you expect me to have done before I log in?" A good answer is short and specific. A vague one means nobody has thought about it, which means it is not enforced.
4. "What did you change after the last night that went badly?" If the answer is "nothing, we just need more DPS", you have learned a great deal for one question.
5. "Does anybody read the logs?" Not "do you log" — everyone logs. Whether a human ever opens them is a completely different question and a much better one.

Then go and look yourself, because recruitment posts are marketing and reports are evidence. How often do they actually raid? Is it the same 25 people or a rotating cast? Are they where they say they are? The guild directory is built from guilds' own logs, so what you see is what they did rather than what they typed.

How do I write the recruitment post for this?

Lead with the times and the prep, and do not lead with "casual". You are advertising the schedule claim, so say the schedule claim.

What belongs in it:

• The hours, precisely, including the finish. This is the headline. It is the thing your target reader is scanning for.
• The preparation you expect, because that is what makes short hours work, and the right applicant will be reassured rather than put off.
• What you do not ask for. No farm nights, no attendance spreadsheet, no fifth hour. To the person you want, these are features.
• Not the word "casual" in the first line. It recruits for the standard claim when you are offering the schedule claim, and you will spend three weeks working out why the applicants do not fit. "Two nights, on the clock, come prepared" filters correctly on the first read.

The short version

• A dad guild is a schedule, not a standard. The label tells you when they raid, not how well.
• "Respects our time" is mostly a promise about the end time. Test that one first.
• Short hours need more prep per raider, not less. There is no slack to absorb the difference.
• Forty wasted minutes costs 11% of a six-hour week and 4% of a sixteen-hour one.
• Most preparation is gold, not skill — enchants, gems, a flask that survives death, and a meta gem that is actually switched on.
• Judge a guild on how it starts, how it stops, and whether anyone reads the logs.