Have you considered auctioning off the buyer slots, and putting the proceeds in the pot? Or if that's too much trouble, you might sell the slots, but put the cash in the pot.

Another possibility is to take 5-6k in 'trust' - They give you the money in advance, but can still spend it on loot that run; it all goes in the pot whether they spend it or not. That ensures they spend some reasonable minimum amount of money, and has the side effect of causing them to bid things up that they might not want as much.

Selling slots for purely your own profit seems inappropriate to me - one of the selling points of gdkp is that it's symmetrical; everyone makes the same amount of 'dkp'.

The problem with selling or auctioning raid spots is that it favors those who are "rich" which will probably generate a larger pot but poses issues for the raid composition if they are not geared or good players. In the case of an auction, unless you only auctioned off certain raid slots, you might end up with a group that is not ideal for the instance if the main selection criteria is how much they are willing to pay to enter the raid. Doing an auction for raid slots would be complex in any case. If you were to maintain a good amount of raid buffs and class balance you would need to auction off each role separately, which at the very minimum means 3 separate auctions for DPS/tank/healer roles. Managing an auction for 16 DPS slots would be interesting though. Do you have everyone send in their maximum bid secretly and take the top 16 bidders, but do they pay their bid or the lowest amount needed to get into the raid? Or would an open auction, like how the loot is auctioned off in a raid, be a better idea?

I really wasn't planning anything that complex. I was planning to just say "1,000g reserves you a spot in raid until 30 minutes after posted start time". And that's the extent of the guarantee. If you fail to meet the expectations in the raid rules, you get booted like anyone else.

If I get too many people wanting to pay 1,000 gold, that's a 24,000 gold problem I'm willing to deal with.


But seriously, if I had more than 3-5 people paying to reserve spots, then I would consider upping the price. I agree that this method would tend to favor the rich players, but I don't actually have any problem with that. The entire raid structure and looting system favors rich players.

Again, this would NOT gimp the raid. If someone is not geared adequately for the raid, I return their money. I agree that it would be totally inappropriate to do anything with the raid that's detrimental to the other raid members purely for personal gain. However, once gear & talent checks are enforced, I'm struggling to see why there's anything wrong with personal gain when it actually benefits the raid as a whole.

Hm... if everyone were to put in that 1,000g, and it was all split up at the end, then it's a no-op in terms of cash flow.

Which is not to say this isn't a useful idea. It pretty much serves some of the same purposes as an ante in poker. That makes me think that maybe this is the right way to explain it to people and maybe even the right way to refer to it. "The first n people to ante up are guaranteed slots in the run."

In fact, think about having a pre-stated ante of varying sizes would impact the run. If people put 5,000g down just to sit in, that's a clear signal that it's a high-stakes run, and it might attract a completely different set of people and have a completely different dynamic than a 500g-ante run or a no-ante run. I mean, we can be pretty darned sure that with a 5,000g ante, people are going to be very motivated to perform well and stick it out until the end, can't we?

I'm not saying that well-progressed realms can't be converted to GDKP, I'm just saying that on a realm where there are already plenty of successful raids, GDKP runs can't as easily take advantage of the fact that they over-perform /roll PUGs in terms of player willingness to stay and ability to attract good players. They obviously still have the "can buy loot with gold" thing going for them.

This is how GDKP came to my less-progressed server. The guy who runs the most successful PUGs on our server decided to run them as GDKP for a week.

mmm. Yeah... well I wasn't planning to actually put the money in the pot. That was kind of the whole point of my first post about it.

My thought is that if everyone were to put in 1,000 gold then I'd be 24k gold richer and I'd have a raid filled with dedicated, motivated, rich players who really really want to be there.

No, your raid will be filled with 24 retards who think they will be handed loot because they paid you 1k gold, and then you'd be accused of scamming because you wouldn't kill shit. No sane person would ever join your raid, unless you're someone really e-famous guy.

Inspired by this thread, my guild has recently started to run GDKP ToC25 runs for the past 3 weeks. For the most part they have been very successful, and I've noticed that interest has definitely been growing. However, we did run into some trouble last week, and it's related to what Dandz mentioned. A player who had gotten into the 2 previous GDKP runs wasn't able to get in due to the overwhelming number of people who wanted to go. He took this rather badly, and proceeded to talk mad trash about our guild and our GDKP runs in trade chat.

In the end no real damage was done, as I think we had already established that everything we were doing was legit and it was pretty clear that he was just disgruntled that he couldn't get in the raid, but it still bothered me quite a bit. Has anybody else had to deal with something similar, and how did you handle the situation?

On the slot buy-in theory I think I can see this working to a certain level. I can see running them on the philosophy of "If you want a guaranteed raid slot, send me 50g and I'll hold your raid slot until X:XX." I don't see this being a large fee at all, and I see this being a simple spiff to the raid leader for not filling the slot until a specific time.

I've been running my raids on the philosophy of Raid @ 7pm or viable raid is formed, invites @ 6pm. I normally have a viable raid by 6:30 or 6:45... rarely do I have to wait til 7pm. Now I'd be happy to manage the overhead of putting people on standby to fill the slots of those who don't show for 50-100g each...

Wow.com just ran an article on GDKP which may, due to their reach, affect the number of people that know what GDKP is all about. Overall their review is positive although it lacks a few important points. It also provides an interesting insight into what people think about the concept when it's first introduced to them.

Here is the link.

I've recently started this on my server and I have a few questions, to try and improve my run. My server doesn't have that many skilled raiders (it's an rp server, and despite the high population a lot of people just rp) so it is hard to find or create a good pug. Last week, despite having about 30 people show interest, we still had to fill spots last minute. Is there a way to ensure people come? Like a deposit or something? I don't want to tax people, but filling spots at raid time when 30 people sign up is not right.

Also, I used the addon linked on the first page (GoldRaidManager) and it was great! However, I can't figure out how to add in values and get them to stay. When things didn't sell at the minimum we set (300g minimum with 50g minimum increase) I decided to just auction them for whatever and tried to add in the amount. For some reason, it wouldn't work. Is this because it was less than the minimum I set? Or for next time should I just have someone disenchant them and then "auction off" the crystals?

I don't think anyone would seriously imply that you should run a GDKP raid with a fee if no one knows who you are. Charging a fee is a good way to compel attendance from people who you don't know otherwise. I wouldn't recommend charging a flat fee to all 24 participants or whatever, but if you have 10-15 people who form a solid "core", and then 30-40 other people who you don't know that well and will probably have to drag through or whatever... might as well make them pay up to narrow them down. If nothing else, it'll grant further incentives for people to make their own GDKP raids.

So you're right to say that, yeah, one shouldn't run with 24 death knights in quest greens if those are the only people who pay the fee. But beyond that, it's perfectly reasonable. Hell, I'm sure you could even come up with a neat formula based on gear score and expected revenue generated from the player if you want. The interesting thing, of course, is that once the practice becomes standard (like GDKP runs themselves), charging deposit fees will be considered a no-brainer.

Like I believe I said a while back, the real next step for GDKP is for someone to make an addon where people are allowed to pre-commit to bids beforehand, and then organizers are allowed to access that data in order to determine entry to runs. You want to do whatever you can to maximize revenue... not just because gold is nice to have, but because not maximizing revenue probably means you're letting items rot or going to people who don't really need them, etc.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Alliance GDKP ToC 25 - Just starting one up. Intresting to see the /w's comeing in FAST. No trolls yet. I tried to make the forum post as clear as possible to decrease the questions I get in game. Copy if you want. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

If you fill your raid with 24 retards, that would be more a sign that you fail as a raid leader and you shouldn't be leading raids anyway.

You seem to equate someone paying 1,000 gold to join a successful ToC 25 run with being a retard. That has not been my experience. My experience has been there's a lot of people with well geared alts or mains that miss guild raid that *want* to do ToC25, but really don't want to join a fail group and waste their time or worse, get saved to just 1 or 2 bosses. Paying 1k gold to ensure a spot in a raid that's going to be a fast full clear doesn't strike them as a bad deal.

I don't think I'm really e-famous, but my raids have a reputation for generally being successful and that helps a good bit.

No, I did not. My response was to someone who had the "brilliant" idea of gathering 24 people who all had to pay 1,000 gold to join his raid, to fill his pockets with gold. I said you would have to be a retard to join under those conditions. There's a big difference between that and buying a spot in a raid where 2-3 spots are reserved for buyers

Let me know if you can find 24 people to pay you 1K gold to let them INTO the raid and still have to pay for Loot... cuz I need to do a server transfer to the land of rich stupid people.

A token amount I could see, but I don't know of anyone who considers 1k gold a "token" amount, and I pull that much off the AH daily for less than an hours work...

This is an update on how GDKP is being received in Llane.

My fourth run paid out 3,900g to each player despite lacking any trinkets or weapons. For the first time we then went on to Onyxia, which proved to be a mistake. Many players understandably wanted to switch to other characters, which upset the class/armor-type balance I so carefully build into my GDKP runs' rosters and held up the whole raid. In any case, the class-specific helmets seriously limit upside potential for bids; both helmets sold for the 1,000g minimum someone had wisely suggested I implement for the boss. Amazingly, even [Head of Onyxia] went for the minimum 1000g! While an extra 240g per person from Onyxia isn't bad it certainly wasn't worth the extra hassle, and my runs won't be going to her lair again.

I am glad to report that three more GDKP groups appeared last week. Two are sponsored by Alliance guilds and are run by players who came (and/or come) on my runs, while the third is on the Horde side. One of the Alliance guilds is small and is using GDKP as incentive to fill out 25-man runs. (It is a good recruiting tool as well, of course; I know of at least one person who joined as a result of its first GDKP run.) The other Alliance run began because I could not fit a player into one of my runs. He took the initiative to start one of his own, with very satisfactory results. I continue to encourage others to follow these groups' initiative and start their own GDKP groups.

One of the Alliance runs I mention above (which I participate in as a player, thankfully letting me to only have to run one raid of my own per week) had a bad night in its second run, this week. Multiple wipes occurred on Beasts (six tranquilizing shots (!) needed on Icehowl on the successful attempt), Faction Champions, and Twins, resulting in the raid being called off after three hours and three bosses. That said, I point out that:

1. Only one person left during the three hours.
2. A replacement joined within a few minutes.
3. The payout was still more than 1,200g.

An ideal conclusion? No. Would retention and raid morale have been far worse without the GDKP carrot? Yes. On a personal note, I (paladin tank) was miraculously able to purchase [Justicebringer] for 4,900g; a colossal bargain compared to the 12,000g it sold for in one of my own runs. I would normally have never paid even that much for a non-tanking item, but the bargain was irresistable.

I remain convinced that when advertising GDKP runs, avoiding the mentally-defective inhabitants of Trade and, instead, using General (typically Dalaran or any capital city one happens to be in at the time), LFG, and any preexisting GDKP channel is the way to go. I set GoldRaidManager to post on these channels every 15 minutes when seeking players for the next run. It was gratifying to see, during that ill-fated run mentioned above that I participated in, players on the General channel for the raid instance immediately defend my runs' merit ("They clear it every week . . . and are typically 2500-4000 richer for the experience") to a skeptic.

I never seem to be able to find any Holy Paladin / Paladin in general interested to bid on those plate healing items, resulting in those being sharded / going for the minimum bid.

How do you handle that, do you invite 2 Holy Paladins per raid?
Atm i personally would be happy to find even one, so the items are not getting sharded. My theory is, that due to successful pugs being very common on my server, like several each day, that holy palas rather get their gear for free there.


Btw one tip for linking to your forum post in your in game advertisements: Use TinyURL.com - shorten that long URL into a tiny URL to create a shorter url, that ppl can type easily even if they can't copy&paste in game chat

After having participated in six GDKP runs (four run by me), and having two consecutive pots reach 97K in size, let me offer some preliminary suggestions on how to maximize the pot. As background, the typical member of my runs is an alternate character belonging to a wealthy member of one of Llane's better-known raiding guilds, and there is always a sizable waiting list.

Balance the raid. This goes beyond making sure there are both rich-but-undergeared and poor-but-overgeared players. Balancing armor types is more important than classes, but both criteria are important.

I always plan for a raid consisting of three tanks/eight physical DPS (including hunters)/eight caster DPS/six healers, with at least one tank and one healer able to also DPS. Let me use the roster I posted yesterday for my fifth run, this Sunday, as example:

• Seven plate wearers. If given a choice I'll take a paladin over others because of spellpower gear; although I could not arrange it this time, any ideal GDKP group will have at least two paladins interested in holy plate. Like other servers Llane is completely overrun with death knights and, as can be seen in the standbys, I could have taken many, many more than just two. Warriors have always been hard to come by in my groups; I presume that it's because most players interested in creating a plate-wearing tank or DPS alt will simply create a DK instead.
• Six mail wearers. Shamans are very desirable due to their versatility (i.e., they are willing to bid on a lot of gear); an early version of this roster had six shamans. One is enhancement; I chose him specifically for that despite signing up relatively late. Despite jokes about "hunter loot," from a gear-bidding perspective hunters are no more or no less desirable than other AGI-based physical DPS. There is only one ranged weapon in Crusader 25 and it would be a mistake to build a raid with it primarily in mind.
• Five leather wearers. Druids are, like shamans, very desirable due to being potentially interested in a wide variety of gear.
• Seven cloth wearers. From a bidding perspective mages and warlocks are more or less fungible. Priests are supersets of both and--like paladins--are thus more valuable than others of their armor types, all else being equal.

Again, while class balance is important, armor balance is even more so, and within each armor type some classes are less desirable than others. If I had no rogues in my raid I'd probably take one over another moonkin, but I'd certainly take a druid of any type over a second rogue. It's not as important to have at least one mage or one warlock as making sure there are enough cloth wearers to satisfy the likely amount of cloth that will drop.

Track bidders as well as winners. An earlier poster mentioned that the #2 bidder on an item is as important to bring to your next run as (if not more important than) the winner. Until GoldRaidManager is enhanced to record unsuccessful bidders' names along with winners', I use /chatlog to store this data for future reference.

Mention the pot. Post the current "Gold Log" (as GoldRaidManager calls it) after auctioning the last item from each boss (and after a couple of wipes); doing so also before the first item from each boss might not be a bad idea, either. Certainly do so before auctioning off Anub'arak's loot; reminding players of how much they'll be refunded at the end is a good way to loosen purses.

Sell the auctions.

• If an item up for bid is particularly desirable, don't hesitate to point out that [Bastion of Purity] is best-in-slot outside Grand Crusader 25 for caster shamans and holy paladins, or that [Wail of the Val'kyr] is amazing for pretty much any caster, or that [Lupine Longstaff] is arguably the best feral staff and is pretty darn good for hunters, too. Even though [Solace of the Defeated] is less coveted on average than other trinkets, don't fail to mention its immense virtues for healers; a retribution paladin or enhancement shaman or feral druid with no intention of ever healing might still prick up her ears at the phrase "best in slot."
• Even a "superitem" like [Justicebringer] or [Death's Verdict] can still use selling. Make a spectacle out of the auction. Say something like "And now, the moment you've all been waiting for," or "Who will be the first to bid five figures for this item?" or "Let the madness begin!" When someone immediately bids 2,000g, say "________ doesn't waste time!" Congratulate the winner (who is probably both excited to have won and slightly horrified at having spent so much) on making such a wise choice, and wonder aloud "Who knows what amazing loot the next boss will drop?"
• If an item is bind-on-equip, remind players of this so everyone, not just those who can use the item, can bid.

Sell the auctions in the right order. Trinkets and weapons get the attention but trophies are the backbone of any GDKP run as they are the one item that any player can potentially use. A couple of weeks ago I wondered whether it made sense to save trophies until the end. I decided it wasn't, but after experimentation would like to suggest the following strategy:

Sell trophies first in each round.
However, sell them last when

1. there is an item likely to sell for more, or
2. when on Anub'arak.

It makes sense to sell trophies first because they are likely to cost more than other items. You don't want to risk a player spending too much on a 1-2K item and then not be in position to bid a trophy up to 5K from 3K; just as bad is the player who husbands his gold and refrains from bidding on an item he'd otherwise be interested in in order to buy the trophy.
However, when there is a superitem (trinket, Justicebringer, etc.) that is likely to sell for more, those items should be sold first for the same reason. In this situation, a trophy makes a wonderful "consolation prize" for all those who failed to win the superitem. (Arguably the trophy should be sold right after the superitem, but I'd argue that unsuccessful bidders need a moment to recover from their disappointment.)
By the same token, having Anub'arak's trophy be the very last thing sold in the run makes it the ideal consolation prize for everyone disappointed that "their" überitem didn't drop and feeling thousands of unused gold burning a hole in their pockets.
NB: When varying the order of items sold, be sure to say so so no one is caught by surprise and fails to bid on a trophy because she's expecting it to go last.

What do you do with an item that doesn't get a bid? I assume you DE it, but then if the shard doesn't get a bid? Who gets the item and/or shard then?

People won't usually fuss over a shard. Depending on your server, it'll be worth anything from 60 to 80g, which is to say nothing next to the pot. On my server's 1st GDKP run, we had a fairly small pot - nothing shocking for a 1st run, especially one with no weapons and just one trinket - and even then people didn't care about the two shards. You can either /random them, either just leave them to the RL for having bothered to organise everything. I really doubt people will really get worked up over something with so little worth.

I wouldn't worry about the 15 emblems all that much, especially if they have to go through the same gear checks as everyone else. The only reasons you would need emblems are:

a) one of the emblem non set epics, because for some reason it's Best in Slot for a class/spec - but in that case, they'd have either bought it early on if they don't need anything else from ToC or they're in Ulduar/ToC 10 gear and they're likely to find a lot more items that would be upgrades for them, and here's where temptation comes in

b) a few more emblems for a tier piece, but then it's either their very last piece they need to attain a set bonus, and then it's likely that they'll not pay for a second run, (which is what you want, anyway,to filter spenders from cheapskates)
or it's one of the first pieces of tier, in which case they'll need more upgrades

c) offspec gear is really a no-brainer; if they pay 1000 gold to gear up a spec they might not use all that often, then they're loaded and willing to spend

d) pvp gear - not sure what to say here, but it depends on how good they are at PvP.
Hardcore PvPers might not need emblems for Furious gear; still, they might consider a weapon with more stamina or a trinket that can be help them in an arena. Casual PvPers might still be willing to bid on the weapons, if they don't have access to the current tier.

What it comes down to is that basically there's always something people will be willing to spend their gold on, if they have enough of it, or if it's within their possibilities. Also, people might actually be paying just for the emblems, but they can still be tempted to at least raise the bid for the others, if the going is slow.

EDIT: I can think of a second CON for you, though; people who pay the fee and are unfortunate to get nothing might feel cheated (granted, they get their share of the pot back), but that doesn't make the feeling of paying for 'a chance at a chance' an easier pill to swallow for some.