A "static party" or "set party" is a group of people who always party together. The advantage is that you never have to spend time seeking a party. Whenever you decide to level, you gather up everyone you've agreed to party with, and head out together. The disadvantage is that most set parties work on the assumption that people won't level up outside of the set with other parties (unless they need to catch up for some reason), and the more people you have in the set, the more difficult it can be to manage everyone's schedules to ensure that everyone is online and ready to party at the same time. Often what causes set parties to fail is when one person becomes impatient and levels ahead of the rest of the group, or when the group becomes impatient and levels without someone. Eventually, the set falls apart. Loyalty to the set is the most critical thing, and being in a set with people who level at the same pace and are online at the same time is also vital.
Personally, I prefer small sets. What's worked best for me so far is a set of about 3 people. With 3 people, you can usually cover most of what a party needs. You can then pick up 3 random people fairly easily to fill in the rest of the party. And it's a lot easier to manage 3 schedules than it is to deal with 6 schedules.
Edited, Thu Dec 2 10:39:36 2004 by Seryn