You could possibly ask people interested or those with questions to join a specific chat channel such as "GDKPInfo" where you can spam the information for anyone/everyone present. This seems to be one of the few solutions that I know of that prevents replying to each tell separately.

Right under the Auto-Advertise-Frame there is a rather large "Memo" area for notes and such.
In there I wrote down answers to common things and when someone asks a typical question I just copy and paste the stuff from there.

Along with Zanthor, I've helped to bring GDKP to Blackhand-US. I did a 25ToC last week that was lackluster, mostly my fault - poor raid composition and rather poor dps. This week however was a great success; I learned a lot from my first mistakes. All bosses down and no wipes. Unfortunately Twins and Anub didn't drop any stellar loot so the end split was 1600/person. Trophies are going at about 2400-3000 which is a tad low. We'll see whether the prices pick up or not.

Last week the Dual-Blade Butcher went for 5k; this week's highest was Sabatons of Tremoring Earth for 3600. Hopefully next week the loot tables will treat us better!

Something we've tried has been setting minimum bids for items based on their value. For example we've started Trophies off at 3k, and as a result we are seeing about 1k more per trophy than we had been before we had a minimum bid.

We've talked about doing the same with Death's Verdict/Justicebringer and other high demand items, if we could actually get them to drop.

Just thought i'd give an update on how Frostmourne is going. My runs are extreamly popular. Doing 3x 25 totcs + 3x 25 onys starting at exactly 1pm and finishing exactly 6pm for all 6 raids with pots ranging from 30k-55k for 25 totc, and without even advertising in trade they fill up in a minute or less through word-of-mouth + guildies. In fact it's now reminesecnt of sitting people out of guild-raids, which is a downside because I always hated doing that.

However I have only seen 1 or 2 other advertisers for gold dkp runs, 25 totc only, and as far as I know no run has started gold-dkp without me around, which is kinda a bummer.

A few notes for other people starting it on their servers, if you do plan to start it, deciede why, if you want the system to become widely accepted on your server so you can often find gold-dkp runs then don't "brand" your runs as heavily as I did. If however you want high demand for your runs in particular, then brand away, just be prepared for the constant whispers!

EDIT: Few additions

Trophies steadly going up in price from when I started a couple weeks back, they were 1,500 now 2,000-3,000.
Minimum bid of 500g or DE is a good level for items.
Trying to get 2-3 undergeared but cashed up players is plenty to have healthy pots.
Players are here for gold, but they are here because it's an effeciant time for gold investment, my runs are quick, fun, no fooling around and people can net some good gold + maybe items they are after, try to keep your focus on making runs successful, rather then huge pots.

As a follow-up on this point (that's from my GDKP run), it did work out very well. The next week RotD dropped again, and Death's Choice. Both sold in the 10-15k range, a very nice improvement. The price list both attracted folks who had alts who needed everything, and some big spenders on just the trinkets. It also made setting price expectations a lot easier. If we see a RotD again this week, it'll easily go for 15k.

We're going on week 3 of GDKP runs on Frostwolf, and I'm hoping more start sprouting up. I'm turning away 10+ people per reset after just 2 weeks. It's been a great success so far, but it has yet to spread beyond my run.

Just as a PSA, can we keep this thread more about questions and tips, rather than just having people drop in and say this worked great on my server, items X and Y dropped and we split a Z pot. It'll help keep the thread more focused. Thanks.

I posted Tyrian's introduction to GDKP on the WoW realm forum (with permission) for my low population server to see what kind of reaction I would get. People were suprisingly receptive and one of the more prominent guilds took it upon themselves to start one up. Here is their posting of the auctions for their first run:

They ran 25 ToC.

Started at 8pm server ended at 10pm server.

Break down for the 5 fights (pot size in gold):

1>1850
2>11500
3>7625
4>10475
5>8375

total pot for the night:
----
39825
----

1593 per person in the raid

Auction Highlights:
Death's Head Crossbow - 6600
Death's Choice - 6100
Hellion Glaive - 4100
Trophies were all 2100+

Will be running it again next saturday night at 8 pm server.

Good to see this can work on a low population server with a fairly limited population of competent raiders.
It's a shame he had to schedule it right when I work. Perhaps once my schedule changes.

Keep up the good work Tyrian.

Alright, so finished my second run, was successful beyond all hope.

Had Solace, Death's Choice, and Reign of the Dead all drop, each going for 13-14k. So was a phenomenal run loot wise.

After only my second run though, I'm struggling to really keep track of all my potential customers. I've been running these on my alt, so I actually nuked my friends list (didn't have that many since I recently server transferred that character) and have been using my friends list as a customer list. I've found however, that the Blizzard notes are quirky, and like to overwrite each other if someone logs on or off while you're filling out the note.

So my question is really, how do you guys keep track of your customers? Do you just wait until raid time and try and sift through a thousand whispers? Do you keep an excel spreadsheet? Is there some sort of mod that's great for this that I haven't heard about? (really hoping for the last one)
If anyone has any useful tips, or possible suggestions for this, please let me know.

I've been working up to a GDKP run, in terms of putting my name out there, getting a decent group of respectable players who keep the Raid ID open during the week, and generally working on my PuG-Raidleader relations. So far some of the things I use to maintain a list of who wants to go/regulars is a combo of things: Firstly, In-game friends list for my repeat or VIP's (Players who will stick with a raid, know their class, and are responsive to the pug atmosphere and can maintain themselves) A note-pad for people who message me during the week expressing interest in my run, and a spreadsheet of everyone that I modify on a weekly basis with loot information, stats(dps), I have a cell for competency too.

In general I think I most rely on my note-pad to get what i need done. There is also the option of the in-game calendar to send invites at the beginning of the week.

First, the in-game calendar is a great tool to organize runs. As suggested many times in this thread, advertise (with a specific date/time) a few days in advance, and add properly geared/achieved/funded players using to the calendar event. I have a response that I copy paste to everyone, along the lines of "Thank you for your interest, you should recieve a calendar invite soon. If you "accept" the invite, your status will be changed to either "confirmed" or "standby" by monday evening. In either case, please be online and prepared to raid at start time".

Then, identify your backbone- tanks, healers, and top DPS, and "confirm" them ASAP. This should be about 10-12 confirmations, leaving about half of your spots for likely buyers. I might suggest sending them an in game mail letting they know they're confirmed, and reminding them of the date and start time.

Next, spend a bit of time using tools such as TrackWarcraft.com and the armory, and confirm players for the remaining slots. I try to confirm exactly 25 members, and put everyone else (who accepted, of course) on standby.

When it's raid time, review your invite list, and make sure that your top 25 are confirmed, and everyone else who accepted is on standby. Then, just use the "invite members"feature. hopefully, all 25 of your confirmed raiders are online and ready. if not, give them a few minutes, then start inviting from your standby list. Fill in missing tanks and healers first, then fill in dps based on class distribution.

While your raid is running, try to keep an eye out for exceptionally good players, and more importantly, exceptionally bad players. Saving combat logs (/combatlog) for later analysis (World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis) helps, as well. I strongly suggest using the GRM mod mentioned throughout this thread- not only because of how well it manages the auction process, but also because of the loot log that it saves.

When the raid is over, before you hand out loot, Go to the calendar and copy the event, then paste it for the following week. When you copy/paste the event, most of the information comes along- the start time, message, and invite list. Un-invite anyone who was particularly bad or problematic, and then tell the raid to "check their calendars, and accept ASAP if interesting in coming again next week".

After your first week, you can Confirm your backbone a bit more confidently, because you have a weeks worth of actual performance data to review. Check output (damage, healing), deaths, cooldown usage, buff/debuff uptime, etc. Look at your lower performers, and see if they were spending to improve their gear. Contact your big spenders, and see if they still have items left that they want to buy, or if they have alts that they want to gear up. Feel free to "confirm" a few more players, especially if you were keeping track of folks who *lost* high bids... the person who lost deaths verdict for 19k is just as valuable (or even more!) as the person who won it for 20k

repeat this for a few weeks, and you'll have a wealth of information that you can use to put together the most successful, most profitable runs.

in regards to in-game calendar: it's crap. :S There are a half dozen features that I wish it had, that would make it 200% more efficient- but, even in it's current state, it's been a lifesaver for me. A few months ago, practically no one on my server used it... but with the rise of multiple non-guild, regularly scheduled pugs, and more recently, GDKP runs, it's gained some traction.

I'm at a point where I couldn't live without it. It's equally valuable, if not more valuable, than the GRM mod. I used to do the whole notepad/excel thing, and I still keep a bit of info in a spreadsheet (longer term spending patterns)... but now, I couldn't imagine managing the 60+ people that I have lined up for totc25, Ony, and totgC10 raids without using the calendar.

also:I forgot to mention this earlier. Remember that you can access your calendar from the armory. this makes it super easy to, for example, copy and paste the entire list of attendees into a spreadsheet.

First run on Argent Dawn (EU) horde side took place saturday, in Naxxramas 25.

Due to me being rather inexperienced as a raidleader (first timer, yay me), I managed to get too many people who didn't really need the gear and too few of those who did. Not to mention that they all seemed to lack something mentally when it came to applying tactics. Ended raid after Gothick and continued on sunday with greater success. (Replaced some idiots and got a overall better raid setup with people who actually needed gear (and got it).)

Long story short, 21 items sharded, 400 gold for each in the pot after shards were auctioned off and I had to split the raid into two days. No huge value items dropped, but I had people who said they were willing to place a few thousand gold if certain items dropped as starting bid. (Grim toll for 550g and spelldamage necklace from KT for 700g worth mentioning. Wands sold for 3-400 gold each as well.)

Next run will hopefully be a lot smoother, as I now have a list of core members, as I like to call the overgeared ones, as well as having a better understanding of how to get a proper raid together.

(On a sidenote.. Using WIM for handling whispers is a nice thing. But your screen tend to get flooded, hehe)

So, aside from a report of a messy run, what did I learn that I would like to share?

1: Gold Raid Manager is behaving odd at times. While I had not set it to increase bids to 100g after 5 or 6 bids in a row, it did, which caused a lot of confusion among those who where bidding. Be aware of this and you'll save yourself some headscratching.

2: Don't be afraid to ask for help leading the raid. If you are inexperienced as a raidleader, the amount of whispers you'll receive might be overwhelming. Personally, I had 25-30 windows open with WIM when I was inviting people who was supposed to come to spend gold on gear, which caused me to do silly mistakes.

3: Don't tolerate crap from the raiders. They may be willing to pay a lot of gold for items, but if they make people leave the raid due to their behavior, they are not worth the effort. Be strict, but fair.

4: The core group, or the overgeared ones, should be invited before you invite anyone else. Once you got that section of the raid arranged, it is a lot easier to weed out people who you do not need or do not want.

5: People in the pug got friends, but that does not mean you should invite them because they say you should. Have their friends come to you, so you can do a proper check of their reason for joining the raid. If they belong among the overgeared ones, put them on standby.

6: Be diplomatic. I found that it helped much, much more than being a prick towards people.

7: Always wait with announcing loot until after the emblem spam is over. Saves issues with people scrolling up to see what the items were and missing out on the bidrounds due to that.

8: Take your time. If you need to spend a few minutes longer than you're used to in raids with loot distribution, do so.

9: If going to an instance with many bosses, make sure your backpacks are nice and tidy before you go. Leave all [Abyss Crystal]s and offspec epics in the bank. By doing this, you can simply loot the boss, have everyone continue clearing trash while the bidrounds are going on. Trade the winner the item as you go.

10: BoE items: Set starting bids to minimum 50% of listed AH price. And make sure you mention that the items are BOE. They tend to go for a -lot- more than the normal minimum starting bid, as people can sell it off on the AH or in trade chat after the raid is over. (You can, of course, treat it as a normal item and bid on it yourself.) [Torn Web Wrapping] was sold for minimum bid to me, since all 25 of us somehow managed to miss the BOE part of the item text. The item was going to be sharded.

11: By having a channel people can join, such as GDKP, you can direct people to that channel for explanations of what GDKP is, saving you a lot of typing. When 4-10 people whisper you, wondering what it is, people may be lost in the flood of tells.

I find my "customers", although I really don't like that word because I am not selling a product or service, I am merely leading a raid with a differant loot system that has differant benefits and flaws, anyway my raiders keep track of me. As someone else stated it's only really important to remember the really good, and really bad players.

I agree, I'm not liking the word customers so much, but I have a hard time referring to them as puggers, since these runs feel like the farthest thing from a pug. Anyway, semantics aside.

I found a mod called HoloFriends. Now this won't work for everybody, but since I dedicated my friends list on my alt to these runs, this has been fantastic for me.
The mod lets you create groups in your friends list, as well as remember what class everyone is. This allows my notes on each person to be specifically about their competence as a raider, and wealth.

I combine this with an old trick I used as a GM, and I have a separate chat window that has nothing but private whispers in it. The in game history is more than long enough as long as it doesn't get chewed up with trade chat, general, or even raid spam.

I've found that using these in combination lets me keep track of people very well, and fairly easily.

First thank you for this method. Its amazingly better than /random for a pug.

I turned my weekly toc/ony 25 into a GDKP run this saturday. At first there were alot of skeptics: "I dont want to buy loot", "I like /random", "You're just trying to steal all the gold", etc. Of the people I had been bringing for about a month of clearing this place only one refused to come under GDKP. Their loss.

From toc we made about 1100g each. Notable drops were Justicebringer, Fordragon Blades, and the BoE caster cloak.

The run took maybe 15 minutes longer than the /random roll runs I was doing - most of that time was dealing with distributing the gold.

After ToC we briefly reformed the raid for Ony (two people were saved and one just didnt want to go) and went in and killed her.

The Onyxia mount dropped.

19,500g later Ayama of the KT server walked away with a gorgeous new mount and we all made about 850g from Ony.

The mount may have gone for more but I was not allowing people to bid with gold not on the character in the raid.

Again, thank you so much for posting this method its simply amazing.


----

Some things i learned from this run:

1) The mod that is attached doesnt total the gold *I* spent in the total, it tracks it elsewhere. I had asked three specific people to keep track of bids to check my math and at the end of the run my total was like 1064 for everyone and theirs was 1094. The difference being my bids. Not a problem for future runs and no one was really upset. This was caught BEFORE the gold was distributed.

2) I needed 2-3 more "carries" than I had. Although this run was not meant to generate tons of gold, maybe 2-3 people who needed more upgrades would have been nice. Nothing was sharded though so I am not really upset.

3) Even the biggest skeptic comes around when you hand them 2000g for a run they were going to do anyway.

After doing some successful ToC 25 GDKP runs for a few weeks now, we went to TOGC 25 after doing our normal two runs of normal ToC 25 this week. Just for the record, we normally get 1700-2k pot splits for ToC 25.

We handpicked the group pretty specifically, taking alts of people from mostly the top 10 guilds. We wiped 7-8 times on beasts, but got to Icehowl on nearly all of them. We had the standard trample and bile/poison fail that's destined to plague a PuG at least a couple attempts. After 2 hours, we had beasts down, then surprisingly one shot Jaraxxus and Faction Champions. It was midnight by then so we called it, but we had a very healthy pot (2400 split) at the end, with no Solace/Satrina's dropping. We had 4 items go for 10k+, with the Blade of Tarasque going for 20k.

When putting together a ToGC, I wouldn't be concerned about bringing cash cows - bring competent players so you are successful. The items will sell themselves. You need to have your core tanks/healers/top DPS though that you know personally that are reliable. If you've been running these GDKP ToC runs, you've probably run into some competent players. Analyze logs, figure out who the strong and experienced players are, and invite them to fill up the rest of the slots.

I double checked too, what I SHOULD have said was "when subtracting my starting gold from the pot, I need to remember to also subtract the money I spent".

EX - I go into the run with 10k. Pot gets 20k, 1k of that being mine.

"my gold" is at 29k, but 20k of that is the pot rather than 19k of that".

Momentary downs on my part. Just something I learned from doing it once.

Llane's first GDKP run of Crusader 25, this past weekend, went from a forum post to a great success in less than 48 hours. A recap:

Background
Llane is a launch-day PvE server and is almost precisely average in terms of progression. After reading the Elitistjerks thread and finding the idea enormously clever, I researched other servers' experiences and saw how almost uniformly positive they were. I wasn't sure, though, that I was the right person for the job of organizing the first run. I have led many pickup raids but am not guilded so would not have the imprimatur of a large, well-known raiding group backing me.

Announcement
I began by several times bringing the idea up on General and LFG chat channels, with zero response. I then tried whispering people in the LFG queue for Crusader 25, again with zero response other than one demanding I "not spam [him] again"; in retrospect I suspect a few people saw the word "gold" in my whispers and immediately reported me as a gold seller (although I never heard anything from the GMs).

The next step was to post to the Llane server forum, very late Friday. In my announcement, I

1. briefly explained what GDKP is
2. linked to this thread and threads on other servers' forums
3. gave the requisite disclaimer of why players' gold would be safe
4. requested interested parties describe their gear and how much they'd bring to spend

I also added to the thread, and frequently updated, a roster of those interested. This way, potential raid members could see for themselves that others on Llane found the idea intriguing; no one likes being the only one at a party, after all. I started getting whispers and in-game mail (especially since my announcement coincided with an issue that prevented many Firefox users from logging into the forums). That players from almost all of the server's top raiding guilds expressed interest surely helped in recruiting others. By frequently updating the roster as needed the thread stayed at the top of the first page without my needing to "bump" it.

After starting the thread I was now able to announce to the LFG and Dalaran General channels that those interested in a GDKP run could read the details on the Llane forum. Note that I did not "spam Trade"; I have never used Trade for anything non-trade related and I didn't want to start now. A bonus is that this way none of Trade's numerous mouth-breathers mocked the idea; in two days of posting ads to these channels every 15-30 minutes when I was logged in I think I saw exactly two comments along the lines of "lol gdkp run," one of which another player quickly refuted. GoldRaidManager proved invaluable; while I did not use its automated ads I was able to post my ad with one button whenever I wanted.

As the scheduled day and time (Sunday 8pm server, less than 48 hours from the forum announcement) neared the interest snowballed, with some toward the end more or less begging to be included. I had intentionally overbooked the roster expecting the inevitable no-shows, and that's what happened; fortunately, due to the standbys and a couple of other last-minute substitutes we got started only about 15 minutes late.

The raid
After duly killing Icehowl, the moment of truth arrived and players began to bid. The player who had agreed to serve as the raid strategy leader while I worked on loot (a huge help) suggested everyone join the GDKP channel to keep raid chat clear. Players quickly got into the fun of bidding and were very understanding of the process being slow due to my unfamiliarity with the GoldRaidManager addon. (I set the timer in GRM to 3 for the first auction, but found it too slow and quickly reset it to the default 2.) Although loot kept me busy the entire run, the brief snippets I was able to glean from chat indicated that players enjoyed following the loot process and prodding bidders to raise the stakes.

We one-shot each fight; after Faction Champions I noted to the raid that the pot was already large enough for a 1,100g payout to each player--the amount I knew was typical for a server's first complete run--which was very promising. After 90 minutes Anub'arak was dead; for payday I had everyone line up in front of me (I took some great screenshots and should post them somewhere), /traded 2,220g with each, then kicked them from the raid.

I have heard nothing but compliments from those who attended and have received many requests to be included in the next run, which is very gratifying.

Observations

• The prices for trophies rose steadily during the run; the last one, in fact, went to a player who hadn't won anything else. As has been observed in this thread, it's human nature for one to want to come away with something from a run.
• Class/armor balance is important. Despite my best-laid plans the final raid roster was slightly cloth-heavy due to no-shows:
  • Six plate
  • Five mail
  • Four leather
  • Ten cloth
  The raid had every class except one:
  • Death Knight 2 (DPS)
  • Druid 3 (feral, moonkin, tree)
  • Hunter 2
  • Mage 5
  • Paladin 4 (two tanks, one retribution, one holy)
  • Priest 3 (one shadow, two healers)
  • Rogue 1
  • Shaman 3 (one elemental, two resto)
  • Warrior 0
  • Warlock 2
• While a 55,600g pot was more than I'd dared hope, due in part to the above-mentioned imbalance it could've been much higher had the bosses dropped a) more cloth items, b) a trinket, or c) more-desired weapons. [Lupine Longstaff] went quite inexpensively to one of the two hunters as the feral druid turned out to already have it. The latter bought [Leggings of the Broken Beast] for minimum bid as another rogue and feral druid did not show up. Similarly, [Cord of Pale Thorns] went to the one moonkin for minimum bid.

Conclusion

1. Make it clear that GDKP isn't just a theoretical exercise on Elitistjerks by showing that other servers are actually implementing the idea.
2. Avoid Trade and stick with General and LFG.
3. Post and frequently update the roster.
4. Overbook.
5. Balance classes and armor types.
6. Have raid members join a GDKP channel to keep raid chat clear.
7. GoldRaidManager is, despite its idiosyncracies, invaluable and anyone who runs a GDKP run without it is crazy.
8. Delegate; assign someone else to handle strategy, certainly in your first run or two.

Question
16 of 25 raid members bought at least one item. What is the typical ratio in your runs?

It's a pleasure to read of your success, and observe reactions from various members who went to the raid on the Llane forums. Your post exemplifies the reasons why many people view GDKP runs as "superior PUGS" - and why GDKP runs are extremely popular and so successful on many servers. This is because there is a considerable amount more thought, effort, planning and research put into creating and managing the raid - compared to 'a typical trade chat PUG'.

All this helps achieve the two main objectives of GDKP raids: Successful, smooth full clears and making tons of gold whilst doing it.

A lot of players read things like realm forum posts, and even if they are initially skeptical about GDKP, notice/appreciate the effort of the raid leader enough to take a leap of faith and go on their run. Most (mature) players know that good PUG raids don't make and run themselves, and that someone has to be driving them - who is focused on making the run a success. As others have noticed (and explicitly stated in the OP) alot of this work falls onto the Raid Leaders shoulders, and it can easily be an overwhelming or intimidating task at first.

A few questions that I have been mulling over as I prepare for GDKP runs #2 and #3:

• 16 out of 25 members in my first GDKP run (as recounted in #197) bought at least one item. What has been the ratio in your runs?
• From the perspective of maximizing the pot, does it makes sense to hold all trophies for sale at the end? Trophies are, as mentioned in this thread, the one type of item that every player in a GDKP run is almost guaranteed to be able to need at least one of. On the one hand, waiting until the end would permit those who haven't seen any interesting drops through the run to spend freely due to the "I don't want to leave with no loot" phenomenon. In my first run, the first trophy sold for 3K and the last for 6.3K; perhaps they'd each have sold for 6K if held back. On the other hand, doing so might very well depress spending, both for other items sold earlier (because players are saving up for trophies) and for trophies themselves (because anything available in quantities of five at once loses the perception of rarity).
• Assuming a solid nucleus of competent Crusader 10/25-geared (not Grand) players--in other words, 25 of which who likely could clear Crusader 25 without incident in 60 minutes, +- 15 minutes--how many rich-but-fresh-to-80 others can this nucleus carry through a successful Crusader 25 GDKP run? Let's define "success" as killing Anub'arak within two to 2.5 hours from start (i.e., a few wipes are permitted), and that those being carried are performing DPS roles only and do not stand in the fire too often.

You are dealing with human beings with different needs and different purses. It will not be easy to dertermine if one if better than the other, other than actually trying it.
Potentially the pot can increase considerably, however the previous loot might make trophies a lot less interesting. Especially if you are dealingwith people on their wellgeared alts.
If you want to stack chances in your favour for this 'hold em' version, then I suggest you bring classes with strong tier bonusses. For instance Hunters have a pretty crappy 4-piece on T9, while other classes not only want the 4-piece but all five pieces are pretty much the best they can get. Especially classes with poor 2-piece bonusses would be good for this as you might end up with them trying to get more than one trophy.