WoWphiles: World of Warcraft WoW Blog & Podcast giving you WoW News, tips, strategies, lore and more. » Featured

How To: Run a GDKP Loot System

Jason Z — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:49:38 +0000

Thanks to Malekai for the original email for this post.

GDKP, which stands for Gold DKP, is a loot system in which players bid gold on items that drop in a raid rather than rolling on it. The item then goes to the highest bidder and all the money that was bid goes to the raid leader and stays in the virtual pot. At the end of the raid the pot is split amongst the raiders.

These tips are based on experience with GDKP from the server Dark Iron [US] Horde side. GDKPs are generally run by guild that have raid content on farm status and can be a great option for those that have a little extra gold, or would like to make some gold.

How To Run A Successful GDKP Raid:

The host guild of the raid should first put up a post in the official realm forums and clearly state the rules and spots needed for the raid.

Since people are running this raid to buy items, you want to take down as many bosses as possible in order to maximize the amount of money in the pot and give people a chance to bid on as many items as possible. Therefore the host should require that everyone know the fights, even if having only watched the videos on TankSpot.

In addition to knowledge of fights, the players joining the raid need to be sufficiently geared. Like all raids, you want everyone to be able to contribute. The difference with GDKP is that people have more at stake should the raid not be able to kill bosses. For an Icecrown Citadel Raid, a Gear Score starting at 4800 is an average place to start.

Since you want people in the raid who are there to bid on items and not simply pick up gold at the end of the raid, raid leaders can require that each player have at least 3000 gold on them to get in. The Raid Leader will open a trade window and have players show them you have enough gold to qualify.

There are no replacements in a GDKP Raid, unless someone drops before a boss is down. If someone drops from the raid they lose out and the pot gets split between those remaining in the group.

As an option at the end of the raid, the Raid Leader cane take a 5% cut off the top of the pot for putting the raid together and hosting the event. This is their incentive for getting a good group together and pushing as far as possible. This should be mentioned before starting the raid so everyone is aware of it.

Once the raid is formed the rules need to be clearly stated up front in the raid chat, NOT just over vent. This way it is written out for everyone to see. This is a must because if the raid leader (or person collecting gold) tries to skip out with the gold, the GMs will intervene; but ONLY if everything was stated in raid chat.

This includes minimum bids, raid leader cut, payout dividends, what is to be done with BOE items and Primordials (if it’s a 25 man and generally 25 man is the preferred format for GDKP), and shadowfrost shards. Generally everything is just auctioned off.

There are GDKP add-ons that will automate much of this and keep track of the gold accumulated and who the highest bidder is.

GDKP in Action:

Once you down a boss the loot master opens bidding at whatever the preset price is, for us it was generally 500-1000 gold (some more popular items start at 2000). People bid in whatever increment they want until no one bids for 5 seconds and the raid auctioneer declares the bidding over and then they exchange the gold for the item.

Generally the groups push on as far into the raid instance as they can. A well put together GDKP run should now be able to do at least 10/12 bosses in Icecrown Citadel with the 30% buff.

The amount of gold bid on items can be quite high. Bidding on some items can go as high as 23,000 gold and there have been reports of items going up to 70,000 gold. (Usually the hosts of the GDKP always post the previous weeks results in the realm forums.)

An average GDKP run on this server grosses around 200,000 gold for anywhere from 8 to 11 out of the of 12 bosses in 25 man ICC, which generally ends being around 7500 gold per person.

Some of the benefits of GDKP

If you really want an item but always seem to get beat when rolling, or you aren’t on top of the list in your guild (using a look system such as Suicide Kings) you can essentially buy the item if it drops.

If you bid but don’t win anything you still make a few thousand gold for your time raiding.

The group is probably going to be a quality group, so there’s a good chance it will clear more more bosses than a regular PUG and be more of a fun raiding experience.

Some of the Cons of GDKP:

If someone has a tremendous amount of gold, you still may not get the item you want.

The run is done all in one night, which can be a longer night of raiding than some are used to.

There is potential for a headache if someone is a scammer who is trying to steal gold (though if someone has a reputation for running GDKP raids, chances are very slim you have to be concerned.)

A true PUG as a whole will not go this route because you need to have a group that is going to push through a lot of content. There are often people in PUGs who want to reserve something (in my opinion this is worse than a GDKP run). GDKPs are generally only going to be conducted by the best guilds on the server.

For anyone who’s playtime is limited and sporadic, or is in a smaller guild that hasn’t been able to successfully raid, GDKP can be a great way to go. GDKP runs give you a solid chance to get the gear you want, with a much slimmer chance of dealing with a fail PUG.

It is common to be skeptical when you first hear about GDKP but by following the proper guidelines it can be a successful loot format for everyone involved.

WoWphiles Podcast Show #39

Jason Z — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:18:49 +0000

Beware Deathwing’s Nephew: Deathy

Get a FREE copy of the Stormrage Audio Book and a free trial of Audible courtesy of WoWphiles. Sign up now.

Jason is almost Salty
Guess who won the Kaluak Fishing Derby? This Guy…

Weekly Blues
Blizzard Does a Q&A regarding the revamped Azshara in Cataclysm. They also tell us what cool pet we get for buying the Blizzcon pay per view.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon:XtoLevel

The Community Speaks
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week and read reviews.

LoreDucation with Evinrue Modem
Modem talks about the origin of the Twilights Hammer Cult

WoWphiles Podcast Show #38

Jason Z — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:40:48 +0000

Me Want Pretty Drake

Get a FREE copy of the Stormrage Audio Book and a free trial of Audible courtesy of WoWphiles. Sign up now.

Cataclysm Beta Experience
Modem talks about his impressions of the Worgen starting zone.

Weekly Blues
We look at blue posts and talk about some of what Blizzard is saying regarding upcoming changes to the game. Guild leveling, Guild experience, Dark Phoenix mount, Cataclysm Collector’s Edition and more.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon:Healbot

The Community Speaks
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week and read reviews.

Strategy
Inside the Ruby Sanctum we go for some strategy.

LoreDucation with Evinrue
Evinrue comes on the show to discuss the lore related to The Ruby Sanctum

WoWphiles Podcast Show #37

Jason Z — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:51:49 +0000

Hot Goblin Secretery

Get a FREE copy of the Stormrage Audio Book and a free trial of Audible courtesy of WoWphiles. Sign up now.

Where the heck have we been?
We give you guys a quick update as to what we’ve been doing during our break.

Cataclysm Beta Experience
We talk about some of the things we’ve experienced so far playing in the beta.

Weekly Blues
We look at blue posts and talk about some of what Blizzard is saying regarding upcoming changes to the game.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Leveling Guides

The Community Speaks
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week and read reviews

LoreDucation with Evinrue
Evinrue comes on the show to discuss some issues the Horde and Alliance are dealing with leading to Cataclysm.

Cataclysm Beta: Skills, Trainers and Professions

Jason Z — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:45:38 +0000

My first action in the Cataclysm Beta was to create a Goblin. I wanted to create a Worgen but as of a few days ago the Worgen character creation is broken. Therefore I’m starting with Goblins, then going to Worgen, then to the new high level content.

In my next post I’ll start talking about my thoughts on the Goblin starting zone and the quests. (The area definitely has a unique feel to it and there are some interesting things Blizzard did with the questing. ) But for now I’ll focus on some of the changes that I noticed right away for regarding Skills, Trainers and Professions.

First, I opened up the Spellbook and was greeted with a fresh design of the Spellbook. The new window features skills that you haven’t learned yet, which are grayed out, and tells you which level they become available to you. (The screenshot below was accidentally taken of the General Tab and not one of the actual talent trees. When the Beta Realms come back online I’ll be able to update this screenshot.)

Next I went to the Professions window and was pleasantly surprised to see that it too got a face lift.

Finally I stepped outside and saw my Class Trainer. I talked to her and found out that now your trainer shows you the skills that he or she will teach you and what level they become available.

What I really like about these changes is that you no longer have to wonder what level you will train certain abilities. We now get to see everything before it becomes available and it takes the guess work out of training new skills and abilities.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts where I look more into the Goblin starting area and showcase the talent trees and specializations and much more.

My Cataclysm Beta Experience

Jason Z — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:39:53 +0000

I’m going to start blogging about my experience in the Cataclysm Beta. Since I have been fortunate enough to get access to the beta, I’ve decided to share my experience with all of you beyond just talking about it on the WoWphiles Podcast.

I’ll be bringing you my experiences and opinions, as well as screenshots and possibly video. I’m still not sure if I’ll do the video, but short video snippets might be fun.

My goal is to provide at least two posts per week devoted to my Cataclysm Beta experience. We’ll see how well I do keeping up with that–so it will be your job to kick me in the butt if I get behind.

So stay tuned for my first official Cataclysm Beta blog post coming this week.

WoWphiles Podcast Show #36

Jason Z — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:57:07 +0000

Voice Enhancing Steroids

The Pros and Cons of Real ID
We look at positives and negatives regarding Real ID.

Talents and Specializations
Blizzard announced a complete overhaul of the talent system. We discuss.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Lightheaded

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LoreDucation with Evinrue
Evinrue discusses the first couple volumes of the World of Warcraft comic book.

WoWphiles Podcast Show ... Related posts:

WoWphiles Podcast Show #35

Jason Z — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:13:57 +0000

Path To Nowhere.

Get the Stormrage Audio book Free Courtesy of WoWphiles and Audible

Cataclysm Features Update
We recently got word from Blizzard about some of the features of Cataclysm being changed and/or removed. We discuss.

Cataclysm Raids
We bring in Evinrue to discuss Cataclysm raids and bosses and the lore surrounding them. We start off with the new Caverns of Time: War of the Ancients raid.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Auto Emote and Auto Profit

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

WoWphiles Podcast Show #34

Jason Z — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:07:30 +0000

Ooh, Cataclysm Talent Trees

Get the Stormrage Audio book Free Courtesy of WoWphiles and Audible

Cataclysm Talent Trees
MMO-Champion has links up to Cataclysm talent trees for Priest, Druid, Rogue, Shaman. They are up over at their new site Wowtal.com

How To Make Fishing More Interesting
Our listener Kurg brought up the idea about how to make fishing more interesting: let’s discuss.

Pay More Get Less?
We discuss a topic that came up about a player who believes that Blizzard is charging us more and more and giving us less and less.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Arkinventory

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LorEducation with Evinrue
Evinrue joins us to talk about the lore behind Queen Azshara

Cataclysm Suggestion: How To Make Fishing More Interesting

Jason Z — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:21:19 +0000

This post comes to us courtesy of our listener Kurg from the Kargath server. He has some ideas on how to make fishing more interesting.

I have noticed a big question lately has been: how can blizzard make fishing more interesting? One suggestion might be to make fishing more in depth like a crafting profession. For example, fishing lures could be created by recipes. A player could make certain lures with recipes and those lures will have an effect on their fishing such as: an increased chance at catching a certain type of fish or an increased quantity of that type of fish, catch special fish that give you abilities such as: water breathing, faster swimming, water walking, etc.

There could also be epic lure recipes that can drop from dungeon and/or raid bosses. The epic fishing recipes could do things like give you the ability to fish faster, fish with greater accuracy, fish up artifacts associated with archeology, or other items that are vendor trash but sell for a lot gold so that fishing can be a viable way of making gold other then putting fish on the Auction House.

Some lures could be shallow lures that will fish up certain fish and items, and other lures could be deep running lures. With this idea fishing will be more in depth and a potential way to spend time advancing your character with archeology or some other trade skill tie in, as well as catching larger quantities, fishing faster, and making gold.

As far as the fishing mechanic Blizzard could give more control over the cast. Blizzard could allow you to control the strength and accuracy of the cast. Perhaps when you begin to cast, a small slider bar pops up with moving markers; one marker moves up and down the slide scale, and one left to right, each controlling the strength and accuracy of the cast. The closer you get these marks to land in a small identified range the more accurate your cast is and the better your catch is. The Epic lures could affect this mechanic also and could slow it down to give you a better chance to get the mark to stop where you want, or make the margin for error a little bigger to obtain the perfect cast.

With the addition of more water in certain zones in Cataclysm, more water mounts could be introduced. Players would also be able to fish from the backs of these water mounts. Fish pools may spawn only in areas accessible to people with water mounts.

It’s possible that some or all of these ideas will either make or break fishing for people. If the process made less people fish, fishing becomes more valuable seeing as the fished up items that could be sold on the Auction House would be rare and most expensive. The downside to less people fishing is that Blizzard would probably not like this–seeing as how they like to get as many people involved in as many facets of the game as they can–and would want to find a way to get more people involved..

Fishing does however, need some sort of makeover to help make it a more rich and rewarding experience. In it’s current state it still feels to much of a grind without enough fun and variety to make it worthwhile.

WoWphiles Podcast Show #33

Jason Z — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:37:31 +0000

Can You Spare Ten Silver?

The Gathering
The WoWphiles official guild for friends and fans has been created. It’s called The Gathering and it’s on the Lightbringer server. Get your level 1 alts ready.

News
BlizzCon tickets are selling out and Gnome and Troll quest lines not going live 3.3.5

PvP Class Balance
Blizzard again tackles the topic of how to balance classes in PvP

Stefon the Travel Correspondent
We are joined by Stefon who gives us some places to see in Azeroth.

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LorEducation with Evinrue
We discuss what would be a good Caverns of Time instance in Cataclysm and also the theory of whether or not Elune is a Naaru.

WoWphiles Podcast Show #32

Jason Z — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:12:57 +0000

Murlocs are for realz!

Murlocs are real!
Handfish species of fish that look like murlocs.

Remote Auction House details
Thanks to a comment from Hiruu, we got to the bottom of what the charges are for in regards to remote services.

Healing in Cataclysm
We look at how healing is changing in Cataclysm.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week with the addon RaidBuffStatus

Evinrue’s NPC of the Week
Evinrue is back with her segment to tell us about Keristrasza

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Staying interested until Cataclysm
We talk about some things we are doing to stay interested and keep the game fresh until Cataclysm comes out.

WoWphiles Podcast Show #31

Jason Z — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:48:30 +0000

Listen To Your Mother.

Mobile Auction House
The Mobile Auction House is coming soon: is it worth the money?

Female Worgen Screenshots
Are they killer werewolves or sexy foxes?

Putricide Strategy
We give you our tips on the Professor Putricide encounter in Icewing Citadel

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Predicting the Bosses of Cataclysm
Evinrue joins us to talk about what bosses we might be facing in Cataclysm

WoWphiles Podcast Show ... Related posts:

WoWphiles Podcast Show #30

Jason Z — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:05:54 +0000

Good Cop / Bad Modem

Cataclysm Professions
Blizzard officially released information regarding Cataclysm profession changes. We put our two cents in on the subject.

Good Cop / Bad Modem
Blizzard flexes their NDA muscle and we discuss

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium #21
Icesnake is back this week with the addon SkillScore

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Ruby Sanctum
We give our thoughts on the upcoming Ruby Sanctum.