Sometime in the middle of Naxx, our guild decided to move to a two-pool system. There are "primary" DKP points that most people know and love and then there are "secondary" points. All items have a set cost based somewhat on ilevel and some other factors. When an item drops, the "bidding" is handled by an internal mod. Those that can use the item are allowed to press a button to "think" about taking it. Once the timer runs out, those that are in the bidding pool are allowed to bid secondary points or pass. Once you pass, you're out. If someone with more secondary points than you bids, then your only choice is to bid primary which always trumps secondary. The points awarded to the raid is paid out in whatever pool the final bidder used.

This has been working great, even in Kara. As a healing priest, I've been able to collect quite a bit of DPS gear using secondary points without affecting the purchasing power of my primary pool. Of course, the way Kara works, almost everything is secondary DKP for everyone, but if someone really wants something, they can bid primary. This serves the same purpose as giving off-spec items for free but still dolling them out based on participation.

Honestly, when it was first proposed I thought it didn't make much sense. I thought if people wanted something, they should just bid on it. Now that we're using it, I don't think I'd ever want to go back. The one contentious thing was how the split in points was going to initially be done. I said that all previous dkp should stay and secondary should start at zero. Others thought 50/50 or 75/25. I can't remember what we did, but really it's non issue that only affects the initial seeding.

Might be nice if you would be able to share that mod. You never know if some other guild might benefit from it as much as you have. Automating all of these processes is something that would really help out in guild management - the new guild bank is a "good start" but I think there should be more tools available for such things.

If Blizzard put in-game DKP tracking I think I'd crap my pants. That would be ten times as useful as built in VoIP, at least for raiders.

Not that they would ever do such a thing, but why not just have raiding become like honor points. You kill a boss everyone in the raid gets points, you could even make trash worthwhile by giving some. Then you just talk to the vendor for that zone and loot your items. Of course this would screw people on waitlists and such but it would totaly eliminate any need for dkp.

Is 35ish players online roughly the number you aim to have for a healthy raid night? Or is that just the number you happen to have?
I'm just curious how much of a bench most groups are running with these days.

Checking DKP for recent kills, it's been 32, 33, 35, 32, 33, 34, 32, 35, 35, etc. So yeah, about that. It basically never goes below 30 (if it did, that'd be a problem, because that means we're too close to being shorthanded if one or two people have an emergency come up), and I think 40ish is the highest I've seen in the past month.