5 years ago and longer static groups for challenging content were the norm and I haven't seen that change at all since. People made guilds around them. Such people came to FFXIV and are doing the same thing. As a matter of fact those static groups were much larger back in the day. WoW 40 man raids, you didn't take pick ups into the 40 man Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Quiraj or Naxx. EQ the raids were even larger and if you wanted to participate you made a commitment to a guild and joined one of the much maligned (in this thread) static groups.