Raids, Your Way

Flexible raids that scale 10 to 25

Not sure if it is a 10 or a 25 tonight? Flip on Flex when you create a raid and pick a minimum to run, and Hootus stops nagging "20 more needed" and instead frames it as a flex run, how many are in and how much room is left. Fixed-size raids work exactly as before.

Experimental: post raids as forum threads

A new opt-in toggle under Settings, Features lets a server post its raids as Discord forum posts with tags instead of plain channel messages, so each raid is its own tidy, searchable thread. It is off by default and still being trialed, so everything keeps working the normal way until you flip it on.

Promotions got clearer, and they stop nagging about ghosts

Each rank now shows how many members are sitting on it from your live roster, so you can tell at a glance which to watch, and you give each a friendly label. Best of all, Hootus now holds back anyone offline too long (default 30 days) so the daily nudge only lists owls who are actually around, with the quiet ones tucked under On hold.

Raid creation only asks what your guild uses

Soft reserves is now a per-guild switch under Settings, Features, so guilds that do not use softres.it can turn it off and the softres fields vanish from raid creation. The "Also doing tonight" note also steps aside when you build a playlist, since the playlist already lists the runs.

A cleaner raid command, twin raids on demand

The twin-run options came off /raid create, so the command is tidier for everyone. Guilds that run the same raid twice a night can flip on Split raids under Settings, Features, which adds a Second run time field, left blank for a single run.

Flex and playlists are now per-guild switches

Flexible raids and the single-or-playlist step used to be tied to whether you were a MoP guild. They are now plain on/off switches under Settings, Features, so any guild can opt in and one that wants the simple flow just leaves them off.

Clearer when Hootus cannot clear PUG access

When removing a PUG role from a channel fails, Hootus now names which channel choked and why, instead of a vague "some changes were rejected". If it is a permissions problem he points you straight at the fix: give him Manage Roles on that channel and make sure his role sits above PUG.

Raids get fresh trash talk every week

Each raid now has a deeper bench of boss-flavored one-liners and Hootus stops repeating himself, so running Black Temple or Siege of Orgrimmar week after week serves up a different jab each time instead of the same one. Raids without their own pool fall back to lines that still fit the expansion, so a Pandaria run never gets an Outland quip.

Hootus found his personality

Raid messages got a proper dose of owl. Instead of one flat line repeated forever, the start call, roll-call, prep nudge, sign-up nags, loot summary and farewell now each pull from their own pool of cheeky, raid-flavored lines, so nothing reads the same twice.

Fewer, smarter pings before a raid

The two-hours-out "sign up" DM now only goes out when the raid actually still has open seats, so nobody gets pestered about a full run. The separate soft reserve DM is gone too, that nudge rides along inside the start message now, so signed-up raiders get one clean ping near pull.

Prep reminder grew a sense of humour

The prep nudge fires about two hours before pull, so telling everyone to "get to the stone" that early never made sense. It now reads as a get-ready heads up, repair, flask, clear the evening, and signs off with a rotating famous quote, saving the stone talk for the lock notice closer to start.

The "get to the stone" nudge stopped lying about the time

The prep reminder used to say "ICC pulls in 2 hours" and then, hours later, "pulls 5 hours ago", because it leaned on a live countdown. It now shows the actual pull time so it always reads right, with fresh owl-flavored lines instead of the same flat one.

A friendly nudge if your welcome times out

If a new arrival never taps a welcome button and the greeting times out, Hootus now sends them a quick DM instead of tidying it away silently. If a raid is live it points them back to the run, otherwise it nudges them toward /verify or an officer.

A warmer hoot at the door

The welcome greeting got more owl and less robot, with fresh random lines so it never reads the same twice. And if you wander in while a raid is live, Hootus reads the room and greets you raid-first, "here for the run?", instead of assuming you want a guild tag.

Private raid threads work without handing Hootus the keys

Raids and LFG posts set to a private thread now work on a least-privilege install, because Hootus asks for Create Private Threads up front instead of needing broad powers. Invite tracking also got tougher, carrying on quietly if Manage Server is missing, which is now an optional perk for guilds that want invite attribution.

Member cards now show real activity instead of always saying today

The activity clock on a member card used to read from when we last wrote their record, so almost everyone looked online today. It now uses their real last in-game login, so you can spot who has gone quiet, and the raid line only shows for your raiders.

The test raid flag is dev-only now

The test option on raid create was only ever meant for development, dropping a raid in the test channel with no pings. It now does nothing unless you are a bot super admin, and anyone else who ticks it just gets a normal raid with a small heads-up.

Pick Normal or Heroic (and Flex) on MoP raids

Creating a Mists raid quietly locked everything to Normal, with no way to say Heroic and no Flex toggle. Now MoP raids ask for size, difficulty, and Flex up front, before you choose single or playlist, so a Heroic flex run is finally a couple of taps away instead of impossible.

Forum channels show up for raids now

Got a forum channel you want raids to land in? It finally appears in the Test raids and raid channel pickers, tagged so you can tell it from a text channel, where before Hootus quietly hid your forums. Forum raids still need the Forum raids experiment switched on to post.