Kree's World of Warcraft Guild Leader Blog: WoWInsider

Dave said...

DKP has always struck me as another of the bizarre trends among the untrusting nerd-dom of the internet. Instead of gearing for the benefit of the whole, you have to put artificial rules in place to maintain order. Kree's post is especially absurd when he talks about collusion, as if DKP were some reality TV show where people made backstage deals, always aware that their partners may be stabbing them in the back for a chance at "phat loot"

Then again, I run in a group that just does 10 mans, with basically the exact same setup every week, give or take a PuG. Whoever it's the biggest upgrade for gets it. Hunters don't roll on leather unless there's no rogues/druids around (or it's a marginal upgrade for them). I imagine things could get hectic in a 25-man setting when maybe 5-10 of your guys rotate out every week and no real sense of camraderie is built up. If that's the case, then they can have it. I'd rather be in a tight 10 man where every drop benefits the whole than a loose 25 man where people are scrambling over each other for scraps.

This was from the Wowinsider comments. Dave is coming from a 10 man only background where DKP systems really don't necessarily need to be involved (if they are an extension of your larger raids you may choose to include them in the system). In a larger groups such as 25 man raids (which often need to have as many as 50 people to function regularly) a simple need vs greed system doesn't always work. Often times that system backfires on the progression of the raid team because the people who do the least work are the ones with the most need consistently.

What gets me the most here is that both Dave here and Mike Schramm who posted the WoWInsider post took my talk of collusion and focused in on the purposeful malicious part and not the more prominent occidental version. The majority of collusion in DKP is the loot itself (remember my example of the "Curse of Kree"?). Sure I talked about the "Survival" type collusion but like I said before, not everyone you play with is your best bud, you need to know that there is a possibility of people trying to work your system to their favour.

But Dave, that is the beauty of WoW, you can do whatever you want. And now that everything is also in 10 man form you too can see the content without having to deal with a larger raid force.

Having larger guild does not mean there is no sense of camaraderie. The camaraderie is formed between people over time, it doesn't matter if it's a 5 man or a 40 man. Some of my raiders have been with me for a very long time and we've developed a great gaming relationship with each other. It is when you add in the unknown newer members that a basic mistrust can happen, especially if newer members don't try to earn their spot into your close knit team.

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Yesterday my DKP posts were featured on WoWInsiders main blog posts. I had gotten a lot of positive feedback from my usual readers and this was the icing on top of the cake. And I'm not even done with my series on this topic! So far I've gotten 1500 extra hits on this blog overnight.

However, with the amount of people coming to the site not all the feedback could be positive right? Well lots were (a lot of people were excited to see the pitfall image).

I followed the comments on the WoW Insider post and tried to keep up with the comments that came in under my posts here. Rather than reply to each and every one of them (I did reply to a few on WoWInsider) I figure I'll interrupt my regularly scheduled blog post for today and answer some of the feedback via another blog post. This may get long, but then again you're used to that by now I'm sure anyways.

Shamad writes:

As a student of economics I'd say you're wrong, inflation is inflation, and dkp inflation is inflation. All it means is an increase in the supply of whatever we use to barter with. More dkp, people are willing/able to pay more for stuff, limited amount of stuff, prices go up. It's called inflation.

Now, the real reason I reacted to seeing this on wowinsider was the implication that it was a bad thing that active, veteran players who've put in countless of hours earning their dkp actually be rewarded for that with an advantage in terms of getting the best loot when it finally does drop. To me, that sounds about how it should be. Mind you, if a new (less geared) person joins the guild, he'll prolly be able to pick up a good 5-6 epics in his first raid with the guild, all for minimum bids. Why? Because those veterans sitting on those tons of dkp waiting for one of the rare missing drops that they need are in effect boosting the new recruits or less active raiders. They're running a raid where almost every drop is not of interest to them, meaning what used to be worth several hundred dkp is picked up by the new guy for 10dkp.

I never admitted to be a student of anything but some WoW research. Economics are not my hot suit and must of my blog posting on this topic is really just trying to simplify the basic ideas of things. I write enough as it is so putting full detail in everything would just get a bit mundane. But I digress, what I was really trying to get at in my explanation of inflation is what Angelie calls "The DKP Gap" in her post on the WoW Guild Relations forum (under post #10). This gap is the DKP difference between the top of the DKP and the bottom (which is normally effected by attendance, length in guild, etc). Interestingly enough her suggestions mirror my own (not that mine were anything brand new anyways), but I never actually used her post as a resource for these posts.

Shamad's real problem though is what I should be addressing. He is assuming that everyone in the system is worth something different. Newer members are inherently undergeared, veterans actually showed up to all of the progression and not just the easy farm nights, and that the only reason there is a "DKP Gap" is that members are waiting for that one drop that just won't drop. While a veteran raid member I'm sure would totally agree with him (and by the sound of it he must be one himself) the brand new members would never see it that way. People see that there is this huge gap between them and they can never make it up. What happens when there is brand new content that drops gear that is upgrades for everyone (Tier 8)? Do the old members who helped the guild get through the old content deserve more than the newer members that are currently helping with progression?

I agree that to some point veterans should get some sort of one-up because without them the guild would not be where it was today, but in the same breathe the guild would not be still the same as it is if not for the newer members who replaced the ones who retired, changed guilds, etc. Of course, like Shamad's comment, these are just my beliefs. This is something you want to decide early on when setting up this system. That is why these options are out there that I laid out.

Ok, holy crap that's long and I have like 5 more to go. I'll split these up into separate posts that will release throughout the day(as I finish them).

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