Was somebody bleeding? It's one thing to say, "I can't make raid tonight because I'm going out to dinner with my sister"; it's another to say, "Oh yeah, I'll come raid, and take on this important role that needs to be done or everybody dies," and then turn away from what you're doing to talk about last night's episode of Lost. If you were in a volleyball league and the ball, just served, was heading right for you, and your sister leaned over the stands to ask you a question, would you wander over to talk to her, or would you hit the ball back and tell her you'd talk to her after the game?

Assuming that there WASN'T an emergency, your RL was right and you were wrong. Not about the avoidance RNG badness, obviously, but about the need to focus on raiding when that's what you're doing. Unless there's an issue that needs to be addressed right that second, your sister can wait until after the raid--or at least until after the boss is dead or you're in the middle of recovering from a wipe.

I think we know who Mop+Bucket's Raid leader is.

No kidding! Folks, when you think that real life has less priority than the game, it's time to step away from the keyboard.

@bmiller:

Raiding is a commitment. If you can't set aside the time, DON'T JOIN THE RAID. It's that simple. It's possible that there was an emergency that M+B's sister wanted him to help with, but he didn't say that--from what he wrote, she probably just stopped by to chat. "What do you want for dinner?" maybe. An emergency needs to be dealt with, but in ALL OTHER CASES, it's unspeakably inconsiderate to the rest of your raid to NOT tell someone else to please hold on for five minutes, and you'll get back to them after this attempt.

There's nothing wrong with being a casual raider, UNLESS you want the benefits of being a raider (gear, titles, mounts), but don't want to put the effort in. Which INCLUDES setting time aside to actually raid, when 24 or 9 other people have done the same thing. Your sister is a real person, but so is everyone else in your raid, and they deserve the same consideration. Which means honoring your commitments, or not making them if you know you can't keep them.

Maybe I am just too casual - but if my RL/GM had this attitude I'd just have a giggle and call 'Lag'.
Comparing Raiding to any kind of sport makes me LOLMAX.

*sigh* and this is why i dont raid anymore.

Hardcores... Go out side and get a life, sample some other games if you are too scared/addicted to wow to do it.

Sorry, I'm with Sleutel.

Let's try the real-life context again: if friends and family appear in the crowd while you're playing a ball game, do you a) abandon your position on the field to greet them, or b) realize they'll understand that you're occupied and greet them when you can be substituted or the inning or game is over?

This has nothing to do with hardcore or casual, M+B, and shame on you for name-calling to justify letting 9 or 24 people down. My guild is full of players in their 30s and 40s with spouses, children, and valued extended family. When there's company, they communicate that they can't make the event.

If you're not raiding anymore, then things have been put in their proper place.

It has nothing to do with WoW being "just a game" or raiding being serious business or not...it's about the fact that you're playing with other people, and making people sit around waiting when you don't have to is rude. The context in which you're doing this doesn't really matter.

I'm with Sleutel on this one. Successful raiding depends on 10 or 25 people paying attention to their computer for 10-15 minute increments.

Think of it this way: Are you all right with wiping because the tank suddenly has to go help his wife carry in groceries and leaves in the middle of the fight? On the next fight, are you going to be ok if the healer starts talking to her husband and doesn't get a heal off in time, causing a wipe? If you are completely content with wiping over and over because every single person in the raid puts RL first, then go find 9 or 24 other like minded people and go raid with them.

However, if your guild has the expectation that you will be paying attention for the next 10 minutes of your life, then you have two choices. You can either not raid, which I suspect would be doing your guild a considerable favor; or you can explain to your family that in order to be considerate to other people you need to be able to pay attention to the game for short periods of time but would be happy to pay attention to them once that period of time is up.

It's fine to say that you don't put WoW first EVER, as long as you don't expect anyone else to put WoW first when it benefits you.

I'm with Sleut, and tyler, I think you're looking at this the wrong way.
Raiding is similar to sport in that it requires teamwork; all members of the team have to commit to the fights (at the same time) for them to work. Much like a rugby team would be f***ed if half their back line decided to go have a smoke or a chat halfway through a play, a raid gets pwned if a tank, healer or (though not so certainly) a dps stops paying attention or goes AFK during a fight.
That's the analogy, and there are a million others; plenty of things require teamwork and commitment. While raiding MAY require less commitment, particularly if you raid casually, the fact that you're engaging in a group activity, with an objective that requires concentration from ALL involved, means that going AFK for no good reason, unannounced, in the middle of the boss fight, is terrible manners and highly inconsiderate. Again, by analogy, if the fullback's child was choking on the sidelines, I'm sure neither team would scold him for attending to that child, and the same is true of raiding.
By saying "LOL HARDCOREZ GET A LYF", you're ignoring that there are real people with real feelings at the end of every WoW 'toon. This is (more or less) exactly what trolls, flamers and most other inconsiderate WoW stereotypes do; they can show people the less... classy... sides of themselves without embarrassment or shame, because they don't have to face the people they're trolling. D'you really want to be like them, guys? Really?