How Punctual Are Your Raids?

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t do a lot of raiding before the expansion came out.  I’ve been in MC (never cleared), ZA (never cleared), AQ20 (came close to clearing), and that’s about it.  I’m not counting back in the day when Stratholme and Scholomance could have 10 people in them… they were mostly zerged anyway.  Even UBRS post the 10-man rule implementation wasn’t really raiding, since most casual could and had to complete it in one night.

But there’s something about the multi-day instances that are different than your average PUG.  It’s probably because you want to have the most time possible to get in as far as you can without running an all-night instance.  Whereas if you started UBRS late, it just means it would take you an hour and a half after anticipated start time vs. the hour it normally takes.  (Honestly, it’s been so long, I don’t even remember how long UBRS took at 60.)

At any rate, it seems that in general there’s a lot of waiting around in raiding.  I’ve had a few times where we’ve literally stormed the castle in Karazhan, even on a last second whim, and there was little to no waiting around at all.  I’ve had other times where not only does it take forever to actually start the raid, but then the group has to sit around talking about strategy before every single pull, stretching the instance into a never-ending situation where you just pray for your Internet connection to go out so you can go to sleep.

I’ve waited for groups for people to get out of other instances.  I’ve waited for players to sign online.  I know some people are more punctual than others, but I can’t believe that we’re the only guild that can’t seem to start on time even though we’ve continuously said that first pull is at x.  Sure, sometimes it’s the officers trying to figure out the best group strategy as well… it’s not like we’re always waiting for the same person.

I’d say on the average, we start about 15 minutes late.  Sure, sometimes it’s right on time, sometimes its way late.  So, 15 minutes isn’t bad, per se, it just starts to irritate me it’s on the later end of the average.  And I don’t think I mind the wait too much, it’s more that I know there’s 23 other people that are waiting for that 25th person as well.

So, today’s question is this: how punctual are your average raids?  (And Primogeniture folk, feel free to answer and disagree with my 15-minute estimation.)