Hello to all GDKP fans and leaders related! I have taken the motivation from this thread and turned it into a 12/12 5/12 heroic ICC25 GDKP run on our semi-progressed server.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> (12/12) (4/12H) Ramboli's GDKP Central

This is not a complaint thread by any means, but a warning to all of you of what CAN happen to you.

I have never and will never:

1. Buy gold
2. Coordinate my efforts with anyone would does buy gold
3. Knowingly contribute to helping gold spammers.
4. Break any of the ToS.
5. Been banned or suspended for anything before now.
6. Run a bot, talk to bots, work with bots, or anything of the kind.

Things I do do:

1. Play the auction house daily. No bots, no level 1s. My main characters on an account that is 3 years old.
2. Buy things from people in trade chat/auction house and resale them for a profit.
3. Run GDKP on my server. I have never had one complaint and we post all rules and cheat no one.


This is retarded on an epic level.

"Account Action: 72 Hour Suspension
Reason for Action: Terms of Use Violation -- Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy

This suspension happened because one or more characters on the account were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for ""real-world"" currency. This exchange process negatively impacts the World of Warcraft game environment by detracting from the value of the in-game economy.

Even if this behavior is the result of a third party accessing the account instead of the registered user (for example, a friend, family member, or leveling service) then the account can still be held responsible for the penalty because of the impact it had on the game environment.

We've found the above behavior is many times directly related to groups responsible for compromising World of Warcraft accounts; we take these issues very seriously. To better understand our position against exploitative activity and the risks involved, please review this article: WoW -> Support -> Gold Buying

The exploitative activity that took place on this account violates the World of Warcraft Terms of Use. We ask you take a moment to review these terms at WoW -> Legal -> Terms of Use. Note that additional Terms of Use violations may result in more severe actions against this account, up to and including permanent closure.

For any disputes of this action or further information on Exploitive Activity, please visit the Exploitative Activity FAQ and contact page here: Blizzard Support

Regards,

Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment"

Out of curiosity, did you hand the gold out in zone or did you mail it out after? A fellow guildy had a similar thing happen to him after mailing out 24 equal sums of gold.

He phoned them up and they reversed the ban. They claimed it tripped the algorithm since the gold was mailed out and that they flagged his account so that the algorithm shouldn't pick him up again.

I received an identical suspension on an account holding toons that organize & participate in the two major GDKPs on my server. Contesting the suspension got it overturned within 24 hours, so no longterm harm.

Oddly enough I never mail gold to or from that account since my 'banker' is on a separate account and I just dualbox ingame trades since they are instant.

Around two months ago, there was only one ICC25 GDKP running every week on Mal'Ganis. Thanks to a suggestion from Aagi in a terrible PUG I had organised, I decided to give GDKP a try and haven't looked back since.

It is by no means a one-man show and thanks to support and co-raid leading from Jaydlyn, Blackz, Xandrine and Thor we do 12/12 every week and in terms of progression we have upped from eight to nine hard modes. In addition, we do Ruby Sanctum immediately after with a few replacements for those who can't stay. It takes us at the most 4 hours and a half to do all this.

In addition to my run there are three others on Mal'Ganis - Daekon runs two and Vigil another, and they have all adopted the same system I have set up and currently use for sign-ups and/or recording drops and bids. I sometimes have people asking about this, so I figure instead of repeating myself endlessly I could write something here not just for the benefit of those who ask me but also for others who come to this thread to read more about GDKP runs.

I basically use Google Docs like Arakan above (<3 Google). People sign up using a form and all the input data is then put into a spreadsheet for the raid leaders' convenience. For example, the form would look like this (feel free to use it, you will be able to see your submittance in the sample spreadsheet: Sample Sign-Up Form and the spreadsheet will then look like this: http://goo.gl/Qfri

We then send out calendar invites to those who have made it onto the list.

One of the downsides to this method is that people have to sign up every week which a few lazy gits have complained about BUT I believe it is beneficial to do so because they may have more or less money this time round, or gained more experience/gear, etc. And although this has not happened to us, I can imagine you may also have a couple of smart-asses who think they are being funny by submitting troll applications.

As for recording the drops and winning bids, Blackz has kindly sorted out the formulas in a spreadsheet so that it:
1. Allocates and adds what each person has spent (which is incredibly useful in determining if they are a spender)
2. Tallies up the total amount of gold
3. Divides it equally between all 25 players

Our record spreadsheet, unlike the sign-up one, is publicly accessible and I post the link at the beginning of the raid so that everyone can look up all the information as and when they like. Here is ours for the month of July: http://goo.gl/Nl9w

I don't hold this system out to be perfect but I love it! It is easy to set up and to tailor to however you want it to be. I'm sure there can be improvements made, and would be happy to hear any comments, suggestions, and even criticisms. Also, if you have any questions feel free to ask

Looking at the added drops from a more negative standpoint, depending on the loot tables, item drop rates may be quite high in 25m.

Take Marrowgar for example(no reason in particular, just the first non-end type boss that came to mind). On 25m he has 15 potential drops. Now currently he drops 3 items per kill which would give each item a 20% drop rate. Now I know that different items have different drop rates but just going to use round numbers for simplicity. Now say they up the drops to 4. Now the drop rate for your item is ~27%. Instead of a 1 in 5 chance it's now 1 in 4. This could easily lead to people spending less since there's a 1 in 4 chance of that item dropping again next week. Also it will likely lead to a similar situation that we're(or at least myself and the other GDKP runners on my server) running into now which is far less sellable loot. People will gear up quicker and therefore will spend less money in the long run.

As much as I love these runs(they're the only raids I'll even be a part of now) I think they're going to be done when cata hits. I really hope I'm wrong though.

People have predicted this every step of the way, and it never did eventuate, if anything GDKP just became increasingly popular. GDKP was 'done for' during Naxx, Ulduar and Icecrown - as people considered them either too hard, too long, too complex. With regards to the raid format changes for Cataclysm:

- There will always be a market for Alts and Casual players, and people who have recently returned to WoW (From a break, quitting or rerolled etc)
- There is always a good market for 'previous-tier' raids.

Both of those will likely ensure GDKP remains very popular. I'd imagine at the very start of Cata release, most people will be too busy chaining heroics and sinking time into current content on their main, and not worried about GDKP. Why would someone goto a GDKP run fresh at 85 on release for maybe one super expensive upgrade, when you could get 15 slots easily upgraded for free with heroic items instead? However after a while, these people will eventually get bored of current content, finish getting all the heroic ilvl 300 blues - and start levelling alts.

Then once the second tier of raids for Cataclysm comes out (lets say 6 months after release) many guilds move on and abandon the first tier: A large amount of mains are freed up, to go back and GDKP this content for items they never received (trinkets), offspec items, or simply go for the gold.

Well made GDKP runs will be immensely profitable when they do start up in Cataclysm. They won't be common right away, not because they are necessarily done for, but because they need the Cataclysm server community to mature first (more active alts being levelled, more mains finished with heroic upgrades who need raid upgrades, more guilds abandoning previous-tier content - none of which will happen immediately at release). Just think how many people are currently sitting on piles of gold now, acquire even more during Cataclysm levelling and heroics, and have nothing major to spend it on.

Even if the odds were a '1 in 4 next week', we all know first hand from GDKP runs that when people see an item drop - they can easily forget things like that and start bidding because they want that item now. Furthermore, next week the odds might still be 1 in 4 - but there could be twice as many people in the raid who want it. Or just one other new person who happens to be way richer than you.

I actually disagree with you a bit on this. I think the scarcity of GDKP's at the start of Cata will be limited due to the number of 85's yes. For instance, right now I run four GDKP's each week, but if I only have one level 85, clearly that won't work. However, I remember very clearly when Naxx came out for WoTLK that the "hard-core" folks who took a week off work were level 80 in less than a week. But they were very lonely. After two the three weeks, many guilds were running raids, but almost none were "guild-only" runs, most had to pug in a few players as the rest of their guildmates continued to level.

I think there may be a surge of 25-man GDKP's at the start of Cata because there are many folks (such as I) who really don't pug 25-man's any more unless they ARE GDKP runs.

My concern mainly is, I think many people are going to try to pug 10-mans because of the almost in-grained belief that 10 man raiding is easier than 25-man. If most people end up preferring 10-mans over 25-mans, then that will affect GDKP runs' popularity. If 25-mans actually ARE more rewarding in terms other than loot power and it's attractive enough that people *want* to do 25-mans, but just don't have 24 others, then GDKP's are just going to rock. Because there's no better way of pugging a 25-man raid. But GDKP just doesn't do so hot at the 10-man level.

TLDR: I think there will be a lot of pugs at start of Cata due to variance of leveling rates. If those pugs are 25-man, GDKP will probably be unaffected or will in fact surge. If most people are pugging 10-mans, then GDKP runs will be negatively impacted.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not. The serious guild members with 25 (or 10 in cata) level 85's in 2 week's will not be the primary customers initially. It will be the members of the less serious guilds who resort to PuG's. If they choose to PuG 10 man's, then GDKP's will be less prevalent. If the 25 man's are attractive enough that someone would rather PuG those, then GDKP's are going to rock.

I would mention though that GDKP runs are not as dependent on all participants having experience. This is because you can set very clear priorities and objectives for each raid member and if they don't meet those objectives in two or three tries, you remove them and bring in someone else (as long as it's not first boss... then you have same risk here as a normal PuG). It DOES require the raid leader to understand the encounter and set assignments appropriately, but you could pretty much say that about most raids.

I'm also going to be curious if the single raid ID lockout for 10 & 25 man will increase or decrease the GDKP customer base. It will remove from the customer base those folks in 10 man guilds who pug 25 mans. However, it may increase the availability of those folks like myself who just didn't have time in their schedule for running guild ICC-10 and guild ICC-25 and then all their alts through 10 man and 25 man.

Do you think the single Raid ID will increase or decrease the GDKP customer base? (Over the course of the expansion, obviously it will be a huge decrease initially.)

The longer it takes for Cataclysm to be released, the more people will be nerding it to 85 because it's going to be longer and longer since new content was available.

I myself won't be doing GDKPs right away but will almost certainly be levelling my GDKP-centric alt up as soon as my guild is settled on what format and how much raiding will be necessary in Cataclysm.

Many people such as myself will be at gold cap on multiple toons rolling into Cataclysm and we will have vast amounts of gold to unload in GDKPs should gold not deflate in value drastically. Relative values for items at the end of BC and WOTLK are not dissimilar, but the gold cap will almost certainly need to be raised in Cataclysm or else it will quickly become nearly worthless.

One addon I have seen mentioned a lot lately is GDKPd.
I haven't gotten to use it a lot yet, but from what I have seen so far, it seems to be very functional and does not enforce bidders to have the addon. However, it still offers a dedicated bidder interface for people that do decide to install it.
It's bidding methods appear to be very easy to understand for new members too.

Has anybody else had experience with this addon?

I have had some experience with it, only two or three times, but still enough to say that it is a very nice addon to have. Makes bidding quite easy. And also since the author is a member of the guild I am in, it is used for every raid.
The author is also very active in improving it and certainly listens to feedback.