I weekly run 3-5 Totc-25 pugs with just a /random loot system on Frostmourne. I Honestly havn't heard of GDKP until one of my friends mentioned something about it on the Elitist Jerk forum. When I first read it I thought it was a fantastic idea and I will try and impliment one this week. I do have a few questions though, that I am hoping someone can answer.

Given that I think 99% of my server population, including the 150 or so regulars that I take to my runs, will never have heard of GDKP it seems to me this is going to be one huge marketing exercise. Does anyone have any good tips on the best way to approach this? I don't like to spam trade chat, as it's over-used already.

To add one more, GDKP would have a deflationary effect on BoEs and raid-level craftables. BoE raid drops and craftables are attractive to people without regular (non-PUG) 25-mans because they're obtainable with dealing with FailPUG and /random. I'm not going to blow 10k on Merlin's Robe if I can spend half that on Skyweaver Robes or a Trophy for my T9.245 chest. Ditto with the Wizard's Bracers and Bindings of Dark Essence. That pushs down prices on things like Spellweave and Crusader's Orbs.

I haven't tried running GDKP run (because I'm no where near qualified to lead a raid), but my advice in terms of marketing would be to split your message. GDKP offers different things to different players, as others have made clear in this thread.

With 150 regulars, you can probably find a dozen who have a lot of what they need from ToC25. To them, emphasize the "hey, you can make a few thousand gold trying this" aspect.

Then look for people who you remember as desperately wanting a few specific pieces who you think probably have some cash on them. Emphasize that putting the most money down on the table will let them eliminate the competition from the other half-dozen raiders who might roll on their item.

The "get geared up for gold" message will attract some other people.

Once you have 1 or 2 of these under your belt, the buzz will build so that you don't need to worry too much about marketing. Enough "Holy Crap, I finally got Death's Choice thanks to Udalan's GDKP run" and "I PUGged ToC25 and got 4k gold for it" reviews will quickly turn public opinion.

Wow, I came here to post that my first GDKP run was a success and see that I've already been listed as running one... After reading this a second time earlier last week I decided to see how it goes. Started spamming an advertisement to Trade on Tuesday last week. Initial responses were "WTF why buy naxx loot", "SCAM!" and a few "Enjoy the ban!" reported comments... of course I wasn't banned.

By Friday I had about 30 people interested, I overbooked on purpose to ensure we had the manpower, I had about 35-40K gold from interested buyers available, and I didn't expect to take in nearly as much as we did.

We had a tolerable Naxx run, 5 hours overall, a few wipes, but mostly the problem was running loot was slow and tedius, I'll be changing how I do that next week. We also had a 30 minute dead spot since our tank went linkdead and I had to replace him... I figure I can easily cut 1.5 hours off the raid doing loot better, and another 1 hour just from better planning... that gets us down to a 2.5-3 hour Naxx which is great. We also only had 23 in raid...

We had some pretty decent drops, a grim toll and a snazzy ring off Kel'thuzad (sold for 2600g) along with the 1h tanky axe from Kel'thuzad (sorry for technical terms!)... all said and done, 17K gold and 750G split.

How I prepared?
Advertised my ass off... I made a macro to advertise. The advertisement was as short as possible, said I was running a GDKP run, all loot sold and pot split at end, PST for details... I've been a guild leader on Blackhand since retail day zero, we've raided since June the first year of WoW... I'm well known, yet people still insisted I am a scammer and a thief... no one reputable did though. People said it was stupid, blah blah... By Friday I was done defending myself, others had picked up the gauntlet and were defending the concept for me.

Prepared macros for rules - the macro I made for raid rules stated pretty much everything I did in my forum post, loot rules, how it would split, clarified it all... if a GM wanted to fry me for breaking any rules and scamming folks, I gave him the ammo to do it. Made sure that everyone knew.

Verified funds on all buyers - I let one guy in with 750G and everyone else was over 1k, the highest was 20K gold... each and every buyer dropped their gold in a trade window before we raided.

Got as many on vent as I could. Just makes things easier.

Lessons Learned?
Disable KSK (Guilds Suicide Kings) mod next time, was a huge PITA.

Loot will be better handled while killing trash and being very patient on bids... I can speed things up by looting all items to myself and running the loot while I stay with the raid.

Download a tool designed for this. I used DKPSystems GuildRaidSnapShot mod, GRSS worked fine but it's not as smooth as I'd have liked. I'll be finding a better tool (like the one listed here?)

Do gold split in town... I started trading /kicking and people wanted an invite back to get a portal... if we portal first, no problem with that.

Last thoughts
I'm running another GDKP this week, another guilds sponsoring another run on Sunday, and an alliance guild is hosting one as well. The idea is catching on like wildfire. I personally have 5 level 80 shamans, one geared to the teeth and four in mixed epics, as soon as I get a 2nd one geared enough I'll change venues from Naxx to ToC and see about getting some real gold flowing...

I read about your Naxx earlier this week Zanthor. 17k pot / 750 g split for a Naxx run is very impressive, even compared to servers like Blackrock that do this weekly. I think your diligence in verifying players wealth really paid off, that was a very successful run. I expect you will start finding it much, much easier to make future runs and word-of-mouth will start kicking in with a vengeance. Are you starting to get whispers, such as "Hey whens your next run" or "Can I come next weeK" or "Hey are you the guy organising GDKP runs, did u really make 750g in Naxx" friom people you may or may not even know?

Interesting to note that "Blackhand" is not really among the top few progressed servers, yet this didn't really seem to affect the success of your run. So people thinking "My server isnt in the top 10, this wont work" maybe shouldnt discount themselves so quick.

Firstly, realise that you are the perfect sort of player (in the perfect position) to start leading GDKP runs.

- Start off by explaining the concept privately (maybe during your next couple /random runs) to your regulars. You said you have 150 of them, thats plenty. These people are probably regulars to your runs because they trust you, like you, and presumably - they will listen to you. You dont have to randomly say "Hey we are doing GDKP this week everyone, surprise!". You could talk about it during your normal runs for a couple weeks: start introducing people to it, start getting them excited about it.
- Consider making a realm post such as this one: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> GDKP ToC25 Run Monday 7PM Server . Notice how Ness confidently explains GDKP and why you would be in good/safe hands by going on his run.
- Use trade chat. Its important for word of mouth. Yes you will get trolls initially calling you a scammer, saying the idea is stupid. However, its 'your regulars' who handle this. They will help explain it, defend you. Its not your job to convince trolls that GDKP is great. Your only job is to offer a clear explanation of the concept to people - and let them decide whether they with to embrace it and come on your run. Let your friends, regulars, fans do the rest. Rucvv's post on page 2 goes into more detail on this. Dont get personally drawn into debates with trolls over the merits of GDKP. Thats not really your job. Lets other people handle that.
- Link people to the OP of this thread. Encourage them to read it if they dont 'get the concept'. It will explain everything they might be apprehensive/confused about.
- Share leading the first GDKP raid with 1-2 coleaders. Let those people help deal with things like verifying wealth, checking armory, dealing with questions people have etc. This lets you focus on building the right types of players for the run to be a success.

Basically, as a regular raid leader with pre-existing raiders who like your runs, you are already set! You've already done the hardest job (get a good reputation, regular players who like your runs, and knowledge on how to lead raids successfully). Now just apply your knowledge, with help from your friends/regulars - to the GDKP concept in the OP, and you will be surprised how easily it will fall into place.

Many players will read about GDKP and love the concept: Irrespective of whether 99% haven't heard of it before. You can see examples already of other people introducing GDKP to servers unfamiliar with it, and many people are demanding a spot immediately after reading about it!

Troll responses such as "This is stupid" are nothing but amusing to read, most of the time. The best discussion i've seen about GDKP effects on the server have been in the previous couple pages of this thread. Does it encourage people to be better players? Does GDKP encourage more people to raid overall on the server and how does that affect the economy/culture etc? All very interesting debates.

While Blackhand may not be zomg progressed we have a very high count of end game guilds. With over 15 guilds regularly clearing TOC and 5-10 working on ToGC we have a lot of well geared and often bored powerhouses sitting about.

People are already seeking me out, I started advertising for next weeks run and immediately realized I need to have people e-mail me for now, trying to sort it out on paper like I did for the first run won't be viable since I have about 300% more interest than I did last week! (Word does travel fast.)

Our second run on Mal'Ganis:
Total: 55,000g. Highest Item: [Death's Choice] for 12,500g.

Quite an increased pot, along with increased interest.

Why do people who spend money get money back at the end? Seems to be it'd be better to cut people out of the final split who purchased an item. It'd be possible to buy an item, then get that money back at the end should a high enough value item drop.

That sounds pretty fail, especially since it isn't even listed in the explanation section, and people seem to be overlooking that in terms of actual item cost.

12,500g - 2200 from the pot split at the end = 10300 actual cost.

Well, speaking personally, it would be better if the gold wasn't split with any of the other raiders at all and I went home with the entire pot. The problem is, I have to convince 24 other people to raid with me under those conditions and I suspect that will be difficult.

Ultimately, you can set the rules however you want provided you can find enough people who buy into it. Its been mentioned here before that well-progressed guilds used to take people on MC and BWL runs and the entire pot went to the guild's bank; my guild used to do it ourselves. That worked fine at a time when the only way most people could ever set foot in those instances was being hand-held through it by 35+ hardcore raiders. I think the rules stated here are in recognition of the fact that you'd be harder pressed to find people willing to accept those terms these days when there are so many groups pugging the instances.

Because that would be a dis-incentive for people to spend, Emmi. You don't want that. Would you buy an item you want for 500g, if you stood to be cut out of the pot worth thousands of gold? It's just creating unnecessary rules. It's fun making gold, regardless of whether you spend it on the run. You don't want to have a big, ominous cloud of 'if I spent anything, I get cut!' hanging over your head - then having to weigh up the options of whether to spend. That doesn't sound very fun.

It's just easier the way it was presented: Anyone can spend. It's encouraged. People will some of the money back they spend, congratulations!

Theres a very common cliche that can be used: "KISS = Keep it simple stupid". Could you do a run like that? Sure. Has it been done in the past? Yes. But it's just an unnecessary rule-set to apply to this particular model. It might have worked better during Molten Core days, when running a big instance was quite a prestigious thing. In modern WoW days however, anyone can raid/group and you don't need those rules.

Even the people who spend money for loot gave their time, effort, and repair costs to the raid to make sure it happened. The player who bought an item also spent his/her gold so the rest of the raid would be funded. Why should they not get a cut? Yes, they got an item, but they paid for that item. At the end of the run, everyone should still be considered on the same level.

On a side note, I mentioned this to a few people and tried to start it on my server. It has thus far failed. I'm assuming this is because our server is quite literally the bottom of the barrel (lowest server in progression, and only two or three serious raiding guilds), and all the people who would be classified as "high rollers just looking for a specific piece" are already running the raid with their guild. I was flooded with requests from people wanting to gear up an alt, that had the gold to spend, but that wouldn't make for a smooth run.

Look at it his way: If a boss drops 1000 gold and 3 items the gold is evenly divided among all players who killed the boss. All gdkp does is converting these 3 items into gold. So in the end it’s like the boss dropped ~10.000 gold instead of 100 gold and 3 items.

That’s way I like the idea of gdkp. I get my share of every item that drop and not only those items I could use myself.

Because you want every 25 people to stay until the end.

If I only need one item from Naxxramas and just bought that, I would leave. I wouldn't leave a PUG but with your rules I would have paid the others for the item by excluding myself from the pot. Why should I stay?

I can see the advantage for a lot of different people. But in the end it doesn't generate gold, it distributes it. The higher geared people will probably not be able to spend their money completely back. So, which type of player looses with this approach?

I assume that a large amount of people who attend PUG raids today wouldn't be able to attend a GDKP run. They aren't geared enough to carry the buyers and they don't have enough money to buy the items and therefore pay the carriers.

This system changes the "need 3k dps for Naxx 10" into "need 5k dps or 10k gold for Naxx 10", doesn't it?

If there wouldn't be rolling pugs here, wouldn't that shrink the size of the raiding population?

First things first,

About the "all split" rules, and "non-looter only split" rules,
Both of them are useful, but in different circumstances.

When the pot is small (like 10 men), you'd rather use "non-looter only split" rule.
This actually makes raid population size bigger because,
this system exclusively draws attention to a lot of highly geared people,
carrying people so called "customers" (people who needs a lot of gear upgrade), and the people who just needs 1~2 loots.






Actually, gdkp is the only way for the new fresh 80s to join the new content.
Nowadays, naxx and ulduar gears are very outdated, and many of the gears go for the minimum bid.
So hence, you don't need too much gold to spend to get geared enough for toc10/25 - especially if you are a healer.
(if this was rolling, you would take ages to get geared enough to join the latest content unless you are very lucky)


One more thing, unlike US pugs, Kr pugs do not require achievement for an invite.
Instead, they use modified "non-looter only split" rule.
The basic rule is "all split", however, the customers (undergeared rich) do not qualify the split.
And also, the people who fail to meet certain standards (eg. 5k dps) are considered as "customers" and do not receive the split.

This obviously draws huge attention to overgeared players, who will be carrying the raid,
and makes "just on the line" players to work their ass off to be not treated as customers.

(I think you can only apply these rules when gdkp pugs are really really popular)



I personally don't like non-looter only split rule because the ones who didn't get the split can complain and ruin the reputation.
And more, people will leave if there are no more loots to loot in further bosses.

Question about GuildRaidManager for anyone who's used it: Is there a way to force items into it for auction? I haven't run it on a raid yet and don't want to be blindsided by not being able to get loot into it properly...

My ideal situation is to /masterloot all to self then run loot while we move on with trash (Naxx). TOC I can see this being a very non issue.

You mean GoldRaidManager?

When you install it, you'll now have a new button every time you loot above the loot box called "Announce" (or "Announce loot", I can't remember).
This button announces the loot on /rw and also records the loots automatically on the loot table in grm.
If this was what you were asking...

I wish I could hide the GRM minimap button. It's the only button on my minimap and it's slowly driving me insane :-/

More seriously, I can see the point of looters-don't-get-a-split, but I don't think it's applicable ToC25 where there are still items that "carriers" still want. Even in Naxx, items such as Grim Toll still exist. I think looters-don't-get-a-split is a slightly different run -- it isn't GDKP -- it's more selling loot per se. GDKP is more, well, a gold-based DKP system.

We did a run on our server last weekend and it went very well. The one problem we had was Pally/Shaman healing gear went for very low amounts. We have been tossing around the idea of increasing the bid minimum above 100g to counteract this. Do you guys feel this is a good idea or should we just work harder to balance the raid with more Pally/Shaman healers?

While balance is obviously ideal, think of it this way, if you didn't include the pally/shaman in the run, the item would have just been DE'd and the pot wouldn't have increased at all (or negligibly). Were they taking them as offspec pieces? If so, then raising the min bid may have discouraged them from taking the items as well.

Yes, but of the tens of thousands of people viewing GDKP related threads (especially this one) economics is not their forte, nor something they really need to be concerned with anyway. From the POV of the average player, they get more gold in their pocket at the end of their run - gold was generated for them.

If this was an economics forum, i'd have written the OP differently. However I am trying to mass-explain the term to a very broad range of people - and it's not necessary to use scary sounding terms such as 'GDKP operates as a means of wealth re-distribution' instead of simply 'GDKP generates gold for you'. I welcome the discussion here, but understand that the OP was written the way it was for a reason. I actually made a thread on GDKP in the raid forums here:

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> GDKP Raids - A Better Way to PUG?

Look at some of the responses and you will repeatedly hit your face hard. You need to be very careful drawing the line between explaining things to people like that, in the most accurately possible context VS doing it in a way people can easily understand and embrace - given that this is totally new concept to many people.

It's still a great discussion to have here on EJ, though! On established GDKP servers, I tend to believe that more raids will take place. Especially more geared players who come out of the woodwork to raid. How would an increased quantity of raiding affect the server and its economy? Do GDKP runs help encourage people to be 'better players'? And if so, how does this affect raiding, the economy and the server overall?

I find alot of the talk about GDKP and Gold Buying very hypothetical. In my experience it does not encourage people I know to buy gold at all. Alot of people who complain at the "Jesus, epics mounts cost FIVE THOUSAND" are the same people who imply that these runs force people to buy gold. I'm sorry, but having a respectable amount of gold these days in no way means you bought it. And the best news is: Making gold is easy, unless your lazy and simply don't want to do it.

I know from personal experience, most of my friends have between 5000 - 50 000g. They dont buy any of it, and GDKP runs doesn't change this. They know how to make money easily (farm ores, play the AH, run instances and sell Crusader Orbs). GDKP however, will encourage people to generate gold ingame: by doing dailys, being more active in the game, raiding and running more instances, taking more interest in the economy. We don't live in the Vanilla days of WoW anymore, where gold is difficult to amass for the average player. I'm sure people still buy gold, but I think it's vastly overstated and greatly exaggerated as to how much it is related to GDKP runs, in modern day WoW.

However, hypothetical "What if" games have great dramatic impact, and people love to play them. I also noticed in this thread the following comment: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Du's GDKP 25 ToC *10/20/2009*

Personally I would avoid going to GDKP runs that use hidden or anonymous bids for whatever reason, like these. Of Dozens of realm posts i've read that explain their runs very well, ones like this stand out. The second thread is referring to a slightly different system setup (similar to what was more common MC days: Only splitting gold with 'workers'). However WoW has evolved over time and people will find that methods of raiding also evolve.

Two runs, one is GDKP and one is "Gold Run", slightly different - which would you go on? World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> GDKP ToC25 Run Monday 7PM Server and the other option World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> 【ToC25 Gold Raid】 (Sunday Oct 25) (Updated) Alcaras and Riot are both Horde side Mal'ganis, so it'll be interesting to see what happens and what the general populace gravitate to.

The popular choice will vary between server, region and at what point in WoW you were playing. Gold runs were very popular earlier in WoW's lifespan (Vanilla and early TBC) on US servers, but not so much now, whereas GDKP is coming in relatively recently and growing in popularity. The closest I see (personally) to gold runs these days: are guilds selling the OS/Ulduar achievement drakes, and letting you have the loot along the way included - which isn't quite the same thing.

If China and Korea still do them currently as Rucvv implies: Well it's interesting how the Western Capitalist countries have altered the model, and/or prefer to use it, isn't it? (Geez, that comment could open a can-of-worms debate)

Theres no need to do to hidden/anonymous bids in GDKP, it only introduces unnecessary elements and concerns. People can make raids however they like, but you have a choice whether you want to accept the rules. Look around and find people who lead runs with rules you think are transparent and fair.

GDKP should be about fun, good-spirited, transparent and competitive bidding. You dont want to worry about whether the raid leader is accepting 2k privately for an item, but announcing that 1.5k is going into the pot and paying out that person a split to keep quiet. Although that threads state they will still announce the winner/bid, and it might 'seem fine', its still not good practise.

Some people try to rationalise the idea of hidden bids with a "Its not fair to bid people up" notion, implying that you should only get one chance to state how much you're prepared to pay for an item. But this is capitalism and it's a public auction, if you don't like them - don't go. The whole idea of these auctions is: The item is encouraged to go for as MUCH as people are prepared to pay, with everyone watching.

You don't want to put a dampener on that spirit. You want an environment where people can bid reactively and competitively, to whatever value they desire. Thats half the fun!

I'm pretty shocked how quickly some realms are embracing it. Look at Blackhand, they're way ahead of the pack: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Blackhand . Theres about 5 runs on the first page, and comments like:

Amazing! I've also got a few PM's asking for permission to translate my OP into other languages, for other communities and countries to read. Please feel free! We would love to see more players around the world get exposed to the GDKP concept, the more languages the better. Please link to this Elitist Jerks post URL in your translation, as your original source or reference.

We're also very interested in reading responses to how your community/country reacts to GDKP, so feel free to post the links to your translated Blog/Forum posts here on EJ, or sent in a PM to me.

Hmm.. China and Korea guilds selling loots for certain amount of gold you mean?
Have I mentioned this? I don't know.

I'm not sure about China, but this does not happen in Korean servers.
I think I heard 1~2 guilds in my server doing it back in vanilla wow --- but lost huge reputation,
and those runs disappeared once pug MC started.

In fact, guilds (or so called raid teams in Kr) are breaking down because of gdkp.
Why would you join a guild for raid while you can do the same anytime freely with gdkp pug?
(I have also heard recently that gdkp pug did 50 tries left on Anub in togc25)

I don't see guilds breaking down in the future over GDKP even if it did become increasingly popular overall. Keep in mind Bliz has stated they may be implementing a new guild ranking system which (depending on mechanics) could make guilds very exclusive and difficult to get invited to if you don't have the right achievments, etc.

People still want to raid with adequate and intelligent people who aren't going to make a run hell to get through even if a good share of gold is involved.

Has anyone had any sucessful runs on low population servers?

I would concider myself lucky on my server to find a pug that could clear 25 naxx much less 25 Uld. ToC would be an option if we combined a few of the strong 10-man guilds on my server, but overall pugs are just downright painful in alot of cases. However, I can see this system helping to filter the scrubs and get a full 25 Naxx/Uld to last.

I couldn't see this happening much in Western Countries, due to cultural differences in how people play MMORPG's.

I can't too comment on Korea/China WoW behaviour, but perhaps the fact that so many people play in netcafes there is a part of it. It might not matter much what guild your in, or whether you're in the same guild - if so many people physically play together in a netcafe. You're friends are still right next to you. Maybe they are more competitive about playing the game just for the gear, and the social concepts of 'being in a guild' - are simply not as important/necessary as they are in other regions. Being part of a guild is a big part of how Western players like to play the game, and no loot system really is going to change that.

I can't really articulate my thoughts on this, but I just can't see USA servers having this problem. Can anyone else think of reasons why US servers wouldn't really experience this?

Cythen, check out this link. Simply click on the various servers (many of them might be low pop) and you can review how their introduction is progressing: site:forums.worldofwarcraft.com gdkp run warcraft - Google Search