As I stated in the original post nothing would be formalized until around now. We've done well to this point. The best thing people can do is to continue to schedule their availability in the weekly threads. When people can't make the times they've committed to, they need to let the raid leader know as soon as possible that there will be a vacancy in the run. Don't assume that somebody is going to be there to fill in for you.

You can put me down as committed to continuing at least one 25 man raid a week.

Farscry, I know you are a cheerleading, and that's great, I applaud your efforts. I do think the guild membership, each individual, should take a moment to think about what they expect from the guild and what they want to put into it. The ones that are interested in pushing forward should know that it takes some commitment and it should be viewed as a real life commitment. No less than telling your buddies you'll meet them every Wed afternoon for a brew at the local pub. In fact, it's probably a bit more of a commitment than that, isn't it? That's not to say that to play this game in this guild takes commitment of any sort. It's perfectly beautiful to want to log on and play around for a few hours with no expectations other than that you will see people online that you like to chat with and have a good time. It's another thing to log on and want to get into that 25-man raid you've been looking forward to. For that, we need a minimum 25 of the right-specced, right class, like-minded people that are willing to make that raid part of their weekly real-life schedule.

For me, I'm still on the fence, and I regularly jump that fence to see if the grass really is greener on the other side. My highest level character, Juturna, has nothing left to do other than pursue the end-game content. However, I still have a great time playing my alts. So, while I'm happy to help other people get to the point of helping me pursue end-game content, I'm just as happy to not worry about all of that and play one of my alts, experiencing easier content from a whole new perspective, completely uncommitted to any sort of plan for progression.

So, while the raid leaders will do what they need to do as far as progression, each one of us needs to decide what we want from the guild, and what we expect from our time on WoW. There is no wrong answer to this question, everyone just needs to be honest with themselves about it.

Edit: Cope's wisdom rings true again, I should change "minimum of 25" to "minimum of 35". And this is why I'm sorta thinking that to push end-game content and keep the spirit of GWJ intact, we might need an alliance with a like-minded guild. But, time will tell.

Not at all.

I definitely want to be involved, and should be able to commit to one night a week without much problem, although I am one of the folks who has the timing issue. I don't get home until a little after 6 server, and our kids go to bed 7-7:30, which is why I can't reliably be on earlier than 7:45 or so. On Saturday or Sunday I can probably arrange to be on earlier at least once in a while, maybe a couple of times a month.

Kam should be geared for at least Gruul/Mag at this point, and if I keep getting the drops I have lately, it shouldn't be too long before I'm scrambling to put together resist sets for SSC I'm guessing (very nearly up to 14k/13k health armor at this point). I've also got my enhancement shaman and priest (intending healing) coming along, but they're farther away, but I'd be happy to use them if necessary instead, as I love playing all three.

I would be willing to commit to one 25 man raid per week. Sunday nights have worked out okay for me and we seemed to have been doing well with Gruul and Mags.

During the week if a schedule is posted I can try and adjust my schedule to meet it. If we want to say Tuesday is the night for 25-mans then I'll use that as my WOW night during the week, just need to know what day so I can left the family know when I'll be locked in my room for hours

As far as an alliance with another guild goes it seems to me that seeing the content with another guild is better than never seeing it. I would rather it be all GWJers but if we can't get the numbers then running these other 25 mans with another guild seems logical. It would be worth a try anyways. If it doesn't work out and people aren't enjoying it and getting their fair share of loot then we wouldn't need to continue with it. I haven't been in the guild long enough to know what went down before but to me this is still a fun game and I try not to take it to seriously.

Also when WotLK comes out I too would expect the 25 man raids to slow down due to everyone wanting to level to 80 and roll Death Knights as well as run the new 10 mans.

I think this is the most important point getting overlooked. To declare failure this early is wrong imho. Yeah, I'm testing AoC. But you can count me down to raid one full night a week, and most likely a second. And now summer is around, you can add Adon Jr to that...I'm hoping Fars post will get us back on the tracks. If there is some other guild that we can absorb (damn, I wish I'd approached ToF a couple months ago), then I'm for that - but if we do go the route of alliance, the one thing I'll push for that I tried back in the SGA days unsuccessfully is...that we are in the drivers seat. If we are providing 15-18 of the 25 weekly, we make the rules - what has been my concern is when we let someone else drive our raiding schedule...and that leads to disaster. Just my opinion, granted...but there it is.

Knowing our sense of fair play and just rewards, I'd expect anyone we partner with to come out just as well as we do. But again, my concern then become the cap - when we have to hold at 15 Goodjers on a raid, and we have 5 sitting on the sidelines, frustration comes out like a freight train - SO - the way to fix that...get out and sign up and lets put the DEATH back in SUMMER...eh?

Pigpen

Cinster will still be around, Memorial day weekend wasn't good for me but I should be available most weekends and maybe even some weekdays. You can't keep a good gnome down!

Zel can be available most evenings, and I enjoy raiding very much. We've been developing a lot of tanks lately, so I've also transferred in a mage; he's at 67.5, and I imagine I can have him ready for early raiding in another few weeks. He doesn't have good gear at all right now, but that'll change.

Two nights a week would be fine with me. In practice, I'll often end up raiding two 'big' ones and a Kara run. I like Kara, and need badges, as I also plan to keep improving my resto set. (1618 +heal now.) So you can usually tap me for Karazhan, if I'm not already saved or scheduled.

I'll definitely be able to continue raiding with you folks through the summer, but it is likely that I'll probably only be able to swing one night a week (weekends being the best for me) due to changing schedules and work commitments. You give me skulls, me and my precious will put arrows into them -- simple as that.

As for me, for the majority (80% or more) of the summer, I can commit to being able to raid twice a week for progression.

I'll be honest, and I don't mean to sound harsh, but given how alliances have turned out in the past, I'd rather lose a few people who'd rather run with a true hardcore 3-4 night raiding guild and deal with the setback in 25-man raids that would ensue, rather than endure another big alliance mess with our community and the drama and hurt feelings that would result and take weeks or even months to sort out and move on from. Especially since, if past history is any indication, we'd end up losing those very same hardcore raiders from the fallout of an alliance crumbling anyway.

I also would rather see us focus on progressing with new content as much as possible rather than overfarming content that only offers marginal benefits. For example, yes, the DST is an awesome, awesome item. But, if trying to get that is keeping us from being able to progress before the expansion comes out, and we're sacrificing the potential of a lot of T5+ drops from progression content as well as actually progressing to the top content to spend that time on working to acquire a single specific non-guaranteed drop that will be outdated in the expansion anyway, well... that doesn't really seem to be a good way to pursue the goal of moving our way into new content. Ask ourselves this: is the DST or any other Mags/Gruul drop necessary to continue pushing on, or are we holding ourselves back by not spending that time on T5 content and skipping on a single upgrade here or there? Last couple of Mags/Gruul runs, we've practically had to beg people to take stuff, because very little has been needed as genuine main spec upgrades.

That's the real question: are we trying to farm for specific goodies, or are we trying to progress to see all the content of TBC that we can before WotLK arrives? I'm pursuing the latter. I've wanted to play through the Black Temple since we learned that it was going to be in the expansion, but I never expected to actually get to see it. Now, we have a chance, and I'm really hoping we get that. I want to see Illidan downed by GWJ. Sunwell and Kael'thas (The Eye) would be cool too, but downing Illidan is my real desire!

[edit]
By the way, if it comes down to it, why couldn't we continue 25-man Sunday nights to finish off the TBC raiding even while we're starting into WotLK? It would lose a little of the challenge as people start to level past 70, but wouldn't immediately turn into a cakewalk.

Just FYI - Cinster's a warlock

For taking down Illidan after WotLK comes out, two things occur to me. First, it's possible, but the rewards other than satisfaction would not be as good as those lvl 71 quest greens that will be present on Northrend. Second, how much satisfaction would one get going back to ZG now, or Ony? Cuase I really don't see as much in that.

As for DST, if we're running with a 20% or more melee dps, or physical dps (hunters for instance), the DST is priceless. I'd put money on the fact that it's an unofficial key for some dps to get into Sunwell, due to the dps race that is Brutallus. Unfortunately I'm unaware if it is a necessity before that point, and based on it's drop rate, and our current time goal, it's not likely everyone who needs it would have it before WotLK comes out.

Duckilama is right, we did make some GWJ raids into the level 60 dungeons when BC originally came out. There was the nekid UBRS run, some ZG fun had and even a couple Ony groups. A nice thing on those were that we were able to bring in not only the level 70 characters, but also those who were on level for those instances for the loot pinata.

Actually I remember mucking around in ZG, as it was one of those runs I got invited to the guild

Unfortunately it was just that - mucking around. I did it both as an on-level toon and a 70 gone back, they were okay, but it didn't seem to have much to offer. It just served as a break from real raids (like when ZA gave us a spanking).