What is the best excuse you have heard for a player missng your raid?

[Fus Ro Yay]

best one was raiding kara, suddenly one guy who never spoke said : g2g, helping grandma out of tub
needless to say, raid cracked up, didnt kill anything else that night.

never got to know if he was serious or not.

[Keny]

Imagine a 13 years old child voice "Grandma fell off the stairs and i need to drive her to the hospital "

[Deleted]

once had someone who went AFK in the middle of the raid to make pancakes.

[Xsy]

In the start of MoP I was still in the army in some remote base. I was in charge of a small technical squad , so I would usually be able to clear 3 hours on our raid nights to do some raiding. One day in the middle of the raid I get a call from my Officer , telling me that there is a tank stuck in the middle of a drill , unable to fire a round. I sent of my guys, who was on call. 30 minutes later I get a call again, the tank fired the round but the round never left the barrel. Long story short , I wasn't raiding anymore on that week ( No one was killed , though some were injured ).

Also, quiet recently we had one guy, who is quiet reliable, disconnect from the game and TS right before starting a fight. We waited for him for a while , finally when he returned he explained that his mother who got slightly drunk thought it will be funny to stick a fork inside an electrical plug , shorting the whole house and 'blowing' up their fridge. He did not raid for a while afterwards :\

[BHD]

Never really had any funny excuses in the guilds I've been in, people just didn't show ;_; Only good ones I've heard are from sites like mmo-c.

About RL vs. Gaming, whenever I'm raiding and friends show up unplanned, I let them wait while I finish up. But most are ex WoW players so they completely understand, the rest knows how much I love this game and wouldn't bother with trying to reason with me. The later rarely shows up unexpectedly anyway, probably because of that reason. But it's rather fun when the first ones come around, they don't play anymore but they still like the game, so they find it interesting and entertaining to see how we do. Guess I actually try and make friends that have the same hobbies as me, instead of having friends who's only hobby is "going out for a drink". Future alcoholics everywhere, I'm telling you

[Raelbo]

I am sure there are some really good ones

Back during WotLK our raiding group was going for our second Lich King 25 kill, and as I was benched for the first kill, I was super excited about it. That afternoon we had a work function playing action cricket. Although I was expecting a wipe or two that evening, I did not expect that I would literally "wipe" at the cricket game and break my collar bone.

Late last year I had a kidney stone and landed up in hospital.

Among other raiders, one evening over vent we could clearly hear some sort of domestic argument happening in the background. We were pretty understanding when he needed to go. Poor guy

[Manabomb]

Back during the early parts of Dragonsoul, I had a raider that was always sort of late to the raid and never really offered any excuse or reason as to why. One day he was a whopping hour and a half late for raid and I went off on him.

According to him, and I kid you not, he was busy planting and watering a baby cactus farm. I finally was able to convince leadership at that point to allow me to replace him.

[Niley]

mid raid a shaman went to see tropic thunder and never came back.

[Freia]

My second job is on call. Until roughly, 11:30 pm, 7 days a week, if I am not at work. Being a Sous Chef and a Personal Chef is rough business.

So, because I'd have to break a commitment, then I don't do anything unless it's cool that I might have to dip. Boss is throwing a drinking party after rough day? Guess who is called to make Salsa and Queso for 20 people?

I get paid for what I do, don't doubt. It's rough business, and I am supposed to be able to commit? LMAO, sorry, a hobby is something you do for fun with spare time.

Raiding requires commitment with is more a kin to competition. Why are you competing, in a video game, with people that are supposedly on your team?

Competition with a Commitment = Job or Sport
Hobby is recreational = No commitment and pick up and left off at whims

Which does Raiding on WoW fall under the most? JOB.

I used to work shift work and didn't have the same days off every week. You know what I didn't do? Sign up for a raid guild that has set times for raiding. If you can't commit to the days, don't apply.

[alturic]

If you think me missing a raid, on a hobby, is somehow screwing other people over. Then you need to reevaluate your priorities in life homie.

Hey OG, I think YOU are the one who needs to re-evaluate LIFE if you somehow can't comprehend not showing up without any sort of warning isn't screwing over other people. You have 9/24 other people who all took their commitment seriously and showed up prepared at the instance and then 5 minutes before the raid they start wondering if Joker is going to show up. Raid time, no Joker. "We'll give him 10 minutes guys...", 10 minutes later "Sorry guys, Joker no-showed so raid is called. I really would have loved to get past that last 20% we've been working at, but better luck tomorrow night guys!"

Do you REALLY think people aren't going to be a little pissed they set the time aside because they value their word enough to show up to a prearranged commitment and you just walked all over them?

Then again, I'm guessing a bunch of online strangers can never be considered a "friend".

[Maxilian]

Well once the tank of the raid missed one raid and we were super mad until a friend of him gave us an excuse for that raid and all the others that will come... "He died"

[Deleted]

Yes it is a team, of course. Yet there's still a difference which cannot be overlooked. And that's that there is no real bond existing between a team of random strangers that make up a raid team within a guild, and any other event irl.

I strongly disagree with this. I've been in the same guild since Vanilla, and I rank some of the people in there as my closest friends - even though we've never met each other irl. If you're guild-hopping a couple of times each expansion, then I understand the lack of connection to your current guild, but that doesn't mean that all members of a raid team are "random strangers".

My second job is on call. Until roughly, 11:30 pm, 7 days a week, if I am not at work. Being a Sous Chef and a Personal Chef is rough business.

So, because I'd have to break a commitment, then I don't do anything unless it's cool that I might have to dip. Boss is throwing a drinking party after rough day? Guess who is called to make Salsa and Queso for 20 people?

I get paid for what I do, don't doubt. It's rough business, and I am supposed to be able to commit? LMAO, sorry, a hobby is something you do for fun with spare time.

Raiding requires commitment with is more a kin to competition. Why are you competing, in a video game, with people that are supposedly on your team?

Competition with a Commitment = Job or Sport
Hobby is recreational = No commitment and pick up and left off at whims

Which does Raiding on WoW fall under the most? JOB.

With that kind of reasoning, why don't you call it a sport? A job is something you get payed for - everything else is a hobby. If I go fishing with my friends, there will definetly be competition on who pulls up the biggest fish. If I go to soccer practice, there will be competition on who can run the fastest. If I go to a wine tasting, there will be competition on who can come closest to guessing where and when the wine came from. And I'm pretty sure we can agree that not all of these examples are jobs or sports - even though there is competition involved.
Obviously your real job comes first - and I'm not saying you should tell your boss to "stick it where the sun doesn't shine cause I have to raid!". But if that's the conditions for your life, then you probably shouldn't agree to join a guild that has three set raiding-days per week, without stating how your life/job works and what is expected from you. If they let you stay and accept the random days where you can't attend then more power to you and the guild. However you can't agree to raid "monday/wednesday/friday 19.00-23.00" and then just not show up without a reason while expecting that to be all right. Or expect that if you log on the day after and say "IRL comes first!" that everybody will just be fine with that unless you have told them something in advance.
Most of these situations can be overcome by clearing expectations before the situations happen - obviously this can't always be done, but in Jokerfiends example it can be talked about. 99% of all problems like this comes from different expectations from the members of a guild/raidgrp/group of friends. You might say that it's possible to cancel arrangements with RL friends and that they will understand and you will still be friends - but if you do it too many times, eventually they will probably stop inviting you. You might still be welcome if you actually show up, but they will stop arranging things and expect you to be part of it.

Anyway - back on topic...
While he didn't really miss the raid, one of the best lines I've seen was during progression in... maybe tbc or something. A guy from the raid says "brb vodka" - he did come back, but I couple of us kept a closer eye on him just to see how much vodka he had actually picked up It became a standard quote to use in the guild if any of us had to do some stuff for a short while.

[Bonsaii]

If you sign up to be there, you're committing your time. If I agree to meet you for coffee, play on your recreational sports team, or any other social engagement and I don't show up, you very much have the right to be angry with me. If you are agreeing to spend time with other people and you not showing up can cause a large waste of time to the others, you have an obligation to notify them as soon as possible. Shit happens and things get in the way, but unless you're knocked out, it's pretty easy to get a message to someone in this day and age.

My Disc/Shadow priest had the most legitimate excuse not to raid this weekend that I have ever heard. His wife had miscarried that day and he hadn't eaten since before raid the day before, since he'd spent the day in the hospital. He showed up and told us he'd had the worst day of his life. He then proceeded to kick my ass on DPS meters and we got our first heroic Will of the Emperor kill. If he hadn't been there, we would have completely understood, but that didn't happen.

I once told a raid that my cat was on fire and I had to go mow it.

The best I've heard before that was my liquid cooling broke, which was literally like an hour after he was trying to convince us all how great liquid cooling is.

[threads]

Few weeks ago one of our healers in a 10 man group said he couldn't raid because "his brother logged on his toon and cleared everything". He wasn't in the guild much longer.

[glowpipe]

Back in vanilla. Way before those "brb cat on fire" excuses became popular to use. We had a dps that said" I gotta go. My mom is bleeding" and promptly left the group

[Elite Peon]

Best ever for me was " sorry guys my GF is really horney ....so going afk for like 10 mins " .....back in vanilla 40 mans .....we where like " woooooooooo go man go " ...nothing has compared since !

[ripponesan]

We had a raid member who showed up later for like every raid. Altho it was always just between 5 and 10 minutes.
We talked to him and told him that when we are waiting with 24 people for one person for 10 minutes it is 240 minutes in total and not 10.
He understood and agreed to try to come in time.

Next raid he showed up 1.5 hours too late...
and his excuse was hilarious: "Sorry the train took the wrong way". He could have mentioned everything. Even tho a ship or a bus taking the wrong way is highly unplausible, but a train??? It drives on rails, so how the heck can a train go the wrong way? All i can think of is "Sorry i took the wrong train".

[femur68]

I had two happen in the past three months with a couple of my raiders that were interesting.

One guy was gone for a week because he got stuck in an avalanche in Canada somewhere.

The other was gone for about 2 months because he had to take care of his ill father. Then, when they finally took his dad to the hospital they realized his father was an illegal, so they deported him and our raid member had to go with him back to Mexico to try and get him back in the United States. Customs took his phone for some reason too when he went to Mexico, so we didn't hear from him for awhile.

Both of these guys are now back and raiding with us, though.

[xfreeder]

Raiding on WoW is still a GAME. WoW is a GAME.

For me, my real life is more important. I have only ever had a few people that I would consider friends in the years I played WoW. If you have a whole raid full of friends, and that's what you enjoy, fair play to you. Enjoy it. Do what you want. It's your life.

This is my life, and if I decide to go out/do something that interferes with the raiding schedule then god help them, because I literally couldn't give a poop.

[please don't post image macros. thanks]

I always treated my WoW-Guild as the Soccer-Team i was a member when i was a teenager. Sometimes my parents would take me to grandparents and shit so i missed the game, there was something at school or something else so i missed train and so on. I always let the Coach now and everything was fine.

But just saying "nah Coach i'm drinking booze with my bras no train for me this evening" would get me benched for next game or something worse. There were ~15 other people that rely on me.

WOW-Raiding with my guild is the same for me. When i have other plans i let the guildleader know, he can get a stand-in or someone else and everything is fine. But show up online 5mins before raid and say that i go drinking with ma bras or completly not showing up so i steal 9 other players time and make the life of my raidleader worse? no way.

[Rhoe]

Heard quite a few silly, weird and outrageous excuses over the years. So many trials who claim they were in a traffic accident when they forgot to show up.
But a few stand out in my mind:

Older woman showing up late, claiming it ended up being that late because her daughter's boyfriend was paying for dinner. (Made us all wonder why that would cause you to come late... boyfriend had no money so he had to pay by washing dishes?)

Same older woman cancelling raid because she was helping her daughter put together a bed from IKEA. (Because there's no chance to do this before the raid starts, right?)

Guy cancelling because he put a screwdriver through his hand. (Is that even possible?)

Guy not returning from raid break, came back weeks later saying he was arrested for fraud and the police took his computer. (Yeah, and I'm sure the police also deleted everyone in the guild from his RealID so they couldn't see him playing his off-server characters.)

Female cancelling because she nearly chopped off her fingertip while chopping wood.

Guy cancelling because of being too drunk... with all the grammar/spelling errors and a drunken admission to make it believable. (I guess this one had to be seen.)

2 guys, 1 female cancelling for different made up reasons, but everyone knew it was because guy 1 finally found out guy 2 had a thing going with his girl.

Guy (the strongest healer) had to go midraid to play arena to make gladiator. (He didn't even get the second best rank.)

Female leaving 20 minutes into the raid because her husband was trying to kill the cat. (Nobody even knew she had a cat... or a husband - half of the male raiders were distraught)