I personally belive the big problem with GDKP is the barrier to enter for new player in particolary since as you said they have cannibalize at least partially on the pug scene. As it cutrently is the budget required for a new player to enter a good GDKP really incetives gold buying. That said banning GDKP whtv this means is not a ssolution

I don't assume that everyone in a gdkp bought the gold themselves. I assume they got so much gold by participating in gdkps that auction items to other people who bought gold. And I don't see a meaningful difference between whether they bought it or got it from someone else who did.

Amazing video as always! The one who really wants improvements, love the work you put on this theme especially

I like the emblem system you presented here. Also to add extra incentive for BIS or nearly BIS geared characters to attend those raids. Each patch there could be a special mount that could be only bought with those emblems. Also those emblems being bind on account like some of currency in retail you can use to gear your alts ( of course there would have to be some emblems lost in the conversion so it doesn't allow you to fully gear your alts to bis with your main).

GDKPs are one of the main reasons I stopped playing Classic. So many times where people just inflated bids when they had no intention of using the item, but rather just to increase the pot. And people openly buying tons of gold from gold-sellers. It's hot garbage.

what a beautiful way of saying things, observe>analysis problem>ideas for solution.ty for the goodwork,much love

Love the video. But i got a question in my mind. How many hats u got?

I always appreciate the clinical and comprehensive Simonize analysis. Some great points and ideas. I wonder if Blizzard exercises this level of thought.

What addons is that on middle of screen that like spammable click for avility u use?

On the emblem system topic: I think what you basically want is a "global" DKP system, i.e. DKP that is transferable between raids and not guild-only. Maybe this could happen with the help of an addon tracking the dkp, doing the auctions etc edit: just reached the point in the vid where you basically described it like that :D

Are you planning on doing a video on the Black Temple Gold farm? It being devalued by goldbuying or the way better time to fun/gold returns from gdkp aside, I'd like to hear your opinion and ideas on it.

Good points, but I disagree on the "it doesn't matter if gold was bought from illegitimate websites". While it is true that it doesn't directly affect the raid, it pretty much affects anything else. There are so many bots because there is such a high demand for gold. This demand is to a large degree due to GDKPs. It is bad for the economy and causes massive inflation, as the gold ist created from nothing. Besides bots, goldsellers also hack accounts to make gold to sell, which is not exactly a pleasant experience for the person getting hacked, even if they get their stuff back from Blizzard.

I have hosted multiple gdkps a week since AQ40 and I think that the gdkp loot system itself is fine. If there was a world where RMT was not around and people were just farming elementals no one would bat an eye, but would still complain about not being able to get into the better runs. You went from having 400-500 gold payouts from people farming Black Lotus in 40 mans to 30k payouts from the spike in RMT-ers. The line between RMT-ers and farmers is blurred even a trade chat 4/5H or full normal gdkp has 7-8k payouts with who knows where it came from. I know many people who have never bought gold that have soaked and spent intelligently so their characters get the pieces they really want, even legendaries. I heard on even Classic Era a Nelth Tear from BWL went for 50k. The current servers are all screwed and a fresh wipe is the only way to fix it, but with enough time this will be the natural ending again and again with our current knowledge. Botters will not be banned unless it is extremely obvious or with mass reporting. I don't think it is within Blizzard's means to simply ban GDKPs as a loot system either. It seems like a system that will be around forever. People now have a "me first" mentality and even in gdkps I have seen people leave after their items don't drop. TLDR: I think gdkp is ok at best, players are now accustomed to this system so it will rise again, I have profited off of it in the gear of my characters, and I think Simon's video is excellent.

Really well thought out explanations. Thanks for the different perspective

Thank you for the clear and easy to understand video.

I agree the GDKP WAS GOOD at lets say TBC after that…. No longer the same for me.The effect of GDKP is the same for you. Ok you join a raid with 2 more rogues who buys gold with real money. You don’t , so they have alot ,alot more gold than you. An item drops that you have been waiting and they outbid you. You get only gold at the end of the raid, great next week let’s pray the gold buyers don’t come again on atleast they already have your items so they don’t bid.. the whole WOTLK experience is gone because of boting, gold buying and all the other bs…

Did my first ever GDKP the other week, really well organized raid, walked away with what I thought lot of gold but according to the regulars was a "low pot". Only 1 tanking item dropped, which was third BiS so didn't wanna bid 10k minimum for it (i'm not a whale apparently). GDKP feeds botting and RMT, but I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I went in expecting to have a negative experience due to what I had heard, but was pleasantly surprised.

I am in a raiding guild so I typically don't need to GDKP. However, one week when I was out of town for work one Wednesday (our 10 man night) I joined one for a chance at Dark Matter, Band of Lights, and Loop of the Agile. Well some Feral druid out bid me (I'd go to about 12k max on rings and 20k on DM) on them all, even getting into a bidding war on DM and dropping ~40k on it. So no gear. But I made 11k at the end. Next week back with the guild Loop drops and I get it. Week later same for DM. I'm happy with the outcome.

questions i have for the badges system: - not being able to carry 4 gold with good chars to equip twinks might turn-off good players. - badges are no longer EFFECTIVLY soulbound. you can trade badges to twinks by using multiple accounts and the bidding system. requires some work and some people you trust, but will 100% be done on a relevant scale: kill onyxia with 5 chars. 4 chars bid 10k badges on 1 item each, twink (char 5) soaks up 8k badges. repeat next week from main to the donor chars for repayment. - raids on early phases run on old badges? - how would the attractiveness of badge gear from vendors/orb prices change? - end-of-raid distribution would be impossible imo. either on loot distribution or on leaving the group. - badges are problematic because non-fungible. carrying over badges until divisible by group size requires too many rules for edge cases to be a viable solution, therefore badges would need to be reworked as a fungible currency. attempt at carry-over pot for non-divisible badges: - min-bid == group size. - carry over remaining badges to next loot distribution event or when a player leaves the group. - pass on partial badges when leaving group voluntarily - payout rounded-up cut on getting kicked - burn non distributable badges when killing the last boss problems with this: - raid is not clear (therefore carry-over badges can't be burned), but group can't continue playing. best course of action would be to afk until enough people have left voluntarily for the pot to pay out. - need to track who has rights to which badge (badge order) for the case of replacement characters. edit: changed all occurences of "token" to "badge" to avoid confusion.

This is a brilliant solution man. Gj

GDKP coming onto the scene really is just like when the Undertaker threw Mankind off the cell in 1998...

What’s the background song

yay simon time

very much agree, thanks for presenting the opposing opinion against the grain of the community of players on reddit and youtube who honestly seem like they don't even play the game anymore.

So if you dont want badge inflation make badges worth it to purchase. All badge gear is boe, all badge gear is boa, more crafting materials can be purchased or my favourite you purchase a gear token which is boa and you can buy the respective token's class of item. So if you purchase the triumph badge trinket token you can send it to your alt and now your alt can purchase any trinket you so choose and the token is consumed. This also removes tokens and helps fight inflation.

I liked your solutions to keep GDKP loot format and using a different kind of point system to avoid inflation and the like. As I 100% agree with GDKP being the best loots system there is. I'd like to suggest; putting a minimum / maximum points (gold or emblems or raid points) would help the raid be fair. Maybe it will also work with the current GDKPs. Having a minimum amount of gold in order to join and putting a maximum bid amount.

GDKP - It feels good on drop but acquiring an item doesn't because you know beforehand if youre gonna get the item or not get the item. Sure auctioning feels good. SR - Feels amazing to acquire an item through this system. But overall 95% of the time youre depressed af because you math is not on your side. Guild Loot Council - It feels amazing to progress and finally kill the boss after 8 wipes with guildies but loot moaners bring your day down.

How to get those BIG damage numbers? :ooo

I think one thing with buying gold and going to GDKPs are the people who don’t have a ton of time to play the game because they work. So if they want to do the raids because they enjoy them a lot of the time they won’t get invited because their GS is too low for the SR, MS OS run so it’s enabling a whole extra set of players that would otherwise just quit. I get the whole thing of buying gold ruins markets etc just I feel this is another way to view it and I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

GDKP is really just a symptom of the Classic content release schedule and the limited amount of loot that can drop within each period. Normal pugs don't work for the above average player because loot is just too random to obtain with a basic /roll. I raidlead a casual raiding guild on Warmane and we had one person raiding with us every week for 6+ months and never won a /roll on HC DBW. At some point I was close to just tossing him the HC DBW but due to me not really being the GM and there being a certain vibe in the guild, I never was able to toss him one. It wasn't until our guild stopped raiding and he joined a DKP guild that he finally got himself a more than well-deserved HC BDW. However we could afford to use such a /roll system because Warmane's content lasts indefinitely and therefore you feel no real rush to obtain gear quickly. Back on-topic however; without these above average players you're also not able to actually have consistent pugs being ran. You need above average players to lead and play in pugs to off-set the average/below average players. Also you basically described DKP with that badge system, but transferrable between raids. IMHO amount of gear dropped from raids should simply be updated. It might be controversial because it's not 'classic', but neither is Classic's short tier cycle either. It's the only way however to truly combat the current behavior of the community which is to do everything in their power to obtain the extremely limited gear available. Increase the amount of loot dropped from bosses and players will feel less stressed to rush gear gains. Sure, they'll 'burn out' faster due to obtaining gear faster, but I'd say only those spending a lot of time in GDKPs or are in guilds with dedicated loot distribution will really experience this. And in both of those cases players will still play one way or another whether through participating in carry runs, creating alts, or competing on warcraftlogs. Really IMO the argument of 'we can't increase quantity of loot obtained because players will get gear too quickly and therefore get bored and stop playing' doesn't have merit in this regard. The players who quit upon fully gearing their character are not worth catering to and if they're in your guild, should really just be kicked from the guild. So yeah. Let bosses drop more gear. Pros: cheaper GDKP prices, less stress on the community to hyper-optimize ways to obtain gear, more people get to have fun with gear. Cons: sweaty Antisocial Andies will quit the game sooner; solution to which being to just kick them from your guild or discord.

With regard to how the raid should be ended to get the emblem pot distributed, how about having a vote to end system. It would obviously be annoying if anyone could just start a vote, but let's say that if a certain percentage of the raid size (let's say 5 players for 25 man and maybe 3 players for 10 man) wants to initiate a vote to end, then a vote to end button shows up for everyone. Then if a majority of the players wants to end the raid, that happens. See any problems with that?

A bid system by blizzard that uses gold instead of badges as currency could take a tax before redistributing the gold, reducing the overall amount of gold in circulation by a significant amount.

Yeah if you've bought gold or have been playing the game the last 2 years, i'm sure it's great. If you're new like me, you got two options. Either buy gold, or get fucked. There's nothing wrong with the toxicity that comes with GDKP'S, i get it i'm new. I gotta earn my stripes yadda yadda yadda but when the only guilds and only groups on your server are a bunch of sweaty people nolifing a 14 year old expansion and gatekeeping? Yeah it kinda sucks.

I still think GDKPs should be held to a higher standard that incentivizes players not to play with cheaters. As it stands players take no accountability for a cheater being in their raid and I think that should change. In fact you have every benefit to bring them for a higher payout. In an FPS shooter knowingly grouping up with a cheater is a bannable offense for association. I think this should apply to GDKP. At minimum if a gold buyer is found in a raid each member should have that dirty money removed from their account. Players that did not report the cheater should also receive a 3 day - 1 week ban as well. By strike 5 you should receive a prema ban. This would keep GDKPs honest, keep the integrity of the game in-tact, and leave cheaters out of the raid. The emblem system is a great idea tho, shame that Blizz will never implement anything like this.

sometimes gkp rewards those who are committed to the game.

I believe that GDKPs have done more damage to the game overall than good.

I dont like gdkps. That being said, in the way you explain it, sound good ngl, i also like your idea of that "gdkp with badges". 1 alternative for gdkps would be if blizzard actually put a gkdp loot system withing the game like you said, the same but without the chance of getting scammed, that would deal with the "bad gdkp runs" and scammers; and actually adding one "raid end" buttom with a votation (like the ready check buttom), so the raid leader having everyone hostage doesnt happen anymore either

Masterloot, SR> MS > OS after final boss. Solved ppl leaving the raid. GDKP is promote gold buying.

11:10 - 11:50 really funny. that already existed too long ago, it's called DKP, it's really famous on retail wow. you get an alternative Currency (DKP) provided by your guild masters/RL. You collect some amount of DKP through weekly raids on your guild and then spend it to the item you really want it. Although, this system is not so good for people that don't want to spent time on raiding and they just want to get carried and purchase X item as soon as it drops :)

there shouldn't even be a debate on this, gdkp should of been banned since AQ where it rose to popularity

Today, I ran with a guild and bid against another warrior for justicebringer. He had bid on two other items and then had to pass because he was out of gold but then he bid on justicebringer and just beat me out as the RL his guildie knew what I brought and they pooled guild gold together to take the item from me. this is the crappy side.

I really appreciate this video and the perspective it brings, but honestly I dont think it convinces me that GDKP is an overall positive for the game(s) health. Personally, I really disliked this in WoTLK classic, but i also just personally didnt involve myself in those guilds/raids instead of complaining about it a lot lol. I think Retail rn is suffering extremely badly due to this mentality that people can buy their way to huge achievements or through content, when imo that kind of completely defeats the purpose of actually playing a game to me. I know thats just my opinion, since people care more about the reward vs the journey now, but the fact that its a system that incentivizes RMT and Blizzard themselves are now allowing the RMT on their end to get a cut of it, it honestly feels so cynincal to me. Personally though, i really liked your ideas about emblems and using emblems instead and having other/alternative currencies for GDKP, which i think actually would solve a lot of the issues i personally have with the system. Always appreciate your stuff Simon even if im not playing Wotlk anymore (i mostly do hardcore classic rogue now hehe).

The scariest thing you said is thats NEW players entering the GDKP scene is not ideal becuase it soreads the gold thinner. So its just not scalable. There will always be an elite group on each server that is tough to get into.

While I personally don’t like tbe GDKP system, the fault at the end of the day is on Blizzard for not banning the bots and RMTers. You can still have the GDKP system in an economy where bots and gold buying is heavily regulated because the prices of items would scale down to what players can afford by playing the game.

You know, while i agree with the pseudo problems of gdkp, the inflation makes it increasingly difficult for bots to generate amounts that sweep TOS players. In nax you could fully gear with 90k, in ulduar aside from getting stuck with tons of whales it would be 600-800k to win every auction on your bis. It remains to be seen what togc inflation looks like, and i know the amounts bots generate on servers is ludicrous. But if players real money purchasing power and bots gold generation falls behind ever-increasing gdkp inflation over time it reigns those problems in. With the one new problem that ppl who dont gdkp or start fresh accounts need to get payouts for 2 weeks before taking even modest items. While blizzard wont do anything they could remove trash drops and gold entirely from old raids, maybe even push gold rewards in the game to content bots haven't mastered. Im sure it would be too drastic and blizzard would botch it somehow anyway.

So basically the original DKP system?

Good points

Lol...the emblem system is an old-school DKP... where every boss gave Dragon Kill Points, that players would spend... and the origin of GDKP... Anyone who played MMOs before WoW knows DKP, and how flawed it was even with DKP decay.

The issue has ALWAYS been RMT. GDKPs aren't a problem. RMT is.

until you get into a gdkp where raid leader Deducts your cut by 100% due to not bidding on items.....

you should hide your character ui and add a health bar to your central weak aura.

The problem with GDKPs is that it started off as a replacement for SR and MS/OS runs but it has taken over guilds now also. So many guilds i know have fallen apart over gdkp. people who lead guilds just would rather run gdkps take their 10% host cut and basically buy their full bis. on bene for example a mega server in US on the bene guild recruitment discord it's the same 15 guilds reposting looking for more warlocks/ uh dks/ and holy pallys. You would think on a server of that size it would be easy to guilds to join but it really isnt everyone just runs gdkps now

GDKP is literally just a easy way to laundering gold into the game and it is one of the main reason of RMT in the game. People aren't "Farming for gold" really as much anymore but VAST VAST majority comes from RMT which even GDKP people SAY it does because that is what inflates the economy tons faster, saying it doesn't matter is a dumb statement because it just inflates it more and people who wants items then is forced to eventually RMT to keep up, GDKP is bad actually REALLY BAD but people don't care in the end. You literally just named DKP system which was common in vanilla which again has its own problem LOL, The best loot system i have ever ran in WoW was in a guild it was a KSK.

Gdkp saved the game for me, but also doomed my soul for playing wow too much as result. I think it'd be about flawless if there was no RMT, but even with its flaws I can safely say that the gdkp I'm in is better than 99% guilds on my mid 10k server

As always, well thought out and have definitely given me something to think about.

Putting the focus on gold is the biggest problem.... thats not why we play

I like your emblem-bid system idea. It sounds great and way better than the GDKP system. Sad that we never going to see it.

it has totally killed the pug scene and requires you to pay/have gold to raid. My 10k gold is not enough for any raid these days. This system only benefits the already rich players and the gold buyers. Only stupid KZfaqrs will claim this is good for the game. Imagine starting fresh, how do you even get to end game unless you have good friends?

Some real good points and ideas. I don't understand the mentality that someone needs to present a "better" system in order to critize a current system. To me those things aren't related but it's common for someone to make that false correlation. For example, I don't think you should murder children "PrEsNT a BeTter IdEa ThEn"

I certainly think the game would be better without gdkps but I see them more as a symptom which is still not great but not the real disease which is RMT. I can’t think of a better solution though like you said without blizzard intervening in a major way. Until then I will sometimes do SR runs and sometimes do gdkp runs so it is nice to have the options, but that option is slowly becoming non existent which I do think makes the game worse.

The problem is GDKP is illegal and Blizzard has been banning accounts left and right in 2024 for being involved in GDKP. So yeah, if you don’t want to lose your account access, I highly advise against it.

maybe im just the one unlucky person in this world but i didnt even get invited into ulduar GDKPs during P2 without some insane budget. i rerolled from a dead realm onto high pop and im not going to grind raw gold for weeks on end just to get into my first GDKP or do naxx 8 weeks in a row until i can get into my first ulduar ... i actually considered it but 3 out of 6-7 naxx25 GDKPs i joined were scam (scambuster + scambuster for the realm didnt warn me, so they are constantly new people/chars/renames). cant imagine how insane it is now in To(G)C as a new player/reroller.

Loot council has always been corrupt, gdkp is the best option in game at the moment the problem that it has is that they expect you to waste 100k gold if not you won’t come again. My guild runs amazing GDKP currently saving gold to start running with them 😊

thank you for making this video sir, i feel to many hate GDKPs

The con of cultivates RMT is too big. If Blizzard banned RMT and the wow token I would accept GDKP. However as it stands GDKP is a cesspool of RMT.

I dont mind GDKP. The problem is bots. I cant compete with farming sholozar basing for 3 hours a day with a bot doing it 24/7. So my time is worth jack. Better spend 30min of my wage to buy 100k gold. fuck em.

"You walk away with something valuable your time" is just wrong. Gold has literally no value. When you need to leech 3-4 raids without getting loot and in the fifth week you can finally afford one item, thats really not a "value". In addition, outside of gdkp you dont need all of this gold, so also no "value" there.

The worst thing in gdkp is that most of the organisers are selling the gold they get from the organiser 20% fee. You can even see that some are doing that for a living, it’s their pay check. About the emblems you explain: what incentive would we need to have to make the transition from gold to emblem’s when blizzard sells gold in the form of tokens?

Simonize out the gate saying you ALWAYS get something of value from a GDKP like he's never had a pot scammed. Not true, people are shit sometimes and Blizz will literally do nothing...my pot scammer is still playing the same char with the same char name. Sure he is blacklisted on our server discord, but that doesn't help people finding raids out of trade chat.

GDKP is still a means of Money and Gold laundering, that hurts the game's economy.

It's not good for new players.

BuT GdKp bAD!!!!

Spirit of the game vs. tryhard efficiency. You always walk away with a win, never losing makes winning less meaningful. Players optimize the fun out of the game.

Implement personal Loot. Problem solved forever as well as some kind of Token/Badges (less if you get an item, more if you dont) which can be used to purchase gear from vendors

You're suporting botting and gold buying by participating in GDKP´s, hence you share responsibility for it.

So nice to hear a different opinion than GDKP BAD!

The only people I've noticed that take issue with GDKPs are either low quality players or people who have their ego too strongly attached to their WoW account. All one needs to get into a GDKP is the ability to play their class and role w/ a very small purse to make at least starting bids on their BiS items. I've never bought gold and I'm routinely dropping 60-80k every other week -- paid 120k for my Comet and I'm only doing GDKPs across two different toons.

Obtaining gold outside of raid is not an issue, no one is stopping anyone from doing so, so it's fair to everyone. That's on you how much effort you put into the game. If you think you should have equal rights to buy an item someone else who has spent 10 hours farming instead of you who only farmed for an hour, then I don't you think you are right.

I truly believe most of the ppl who "hate gdkps" are just ppl who like to be in a LC or a DKP system where they can funnel loot to either themselves or only there friends. Ppl only care about RMT when it's possibly involved in a GDKP but the community was so silent for years when there have been plenty of guilds and LC members who take RMT or gold bribes to get items. There is NO OTHER loot system where every player walks away with something it's fantastic that this system does.

It's not a great system. It eroded the fuck out of Wrath. Stop it.

L take. an average player does not get invited to a gdkp raid. the only reason you got invited is becuase you have a following. who gets invited to gdkp raids you say? people with big pots. how does an average person get big pots? buying gold with real money. you are closing your eyes to the problem because you are not the one directly buying gold. 1 or 2 or even half the raid can buy gold but its ok to you since you dont directly know if they are doing it or not. congrats! you are part of a gold/money laundering scheme. and that emblem talk at the end is just DKP with extra step

Did GDKPs since cata. It’s like capitalism, it’s not perfect but it’s the best thing we got.

this is why this game will die quickly with gdkp. There will never be a newbie, fresh player, the frustration of a new wowplayer? When u turn a game into basic gold earn system, when u buy your way up to bis. Basically drain all the blood to an old geezer to keep him alive system.

You cant get in a gdkp as carry without having the required min gold, anywhere between 20 -100k. No one has that gold legitimately, time to take out the wallet

At first I did not like g d k p's because I thought it promoted gold byers. But now being a part of Gd KB's for 3 years It's very rare to have a Gold Buyer.

There is no better loot system than gdkp in the game, not yet.

Copium at it’s finest, if you think people are farming gold nowadays, gdkp is str8 out bad, the only formula where gdkp is ok ish is where there are no gold buying sites or botting. Unsubbed

GDKP raiding is 100% funded by botters/sellers and RMT/buyers. Promoting GDKPs on your channel is just as shameful and bad for the game as being a botter and honestly should be bannable by Blizzard.

No, just no. First you said you do not buy gold. That means you will never be able to compete with people that buy gold since in order to reach these amounts you will need for farm endlessly (yeah ok... no way). So the only way is by not participating as a buyer but as a booster. Well in order to participate as such you need to do good dps (since you are rogue). In order to do good dps you need gear that you cannot yet buy since swippers take everything. Now, say that the raid leader is a friend and brings you along. Still, you will eventually have to spend your GDKP gold to buy something. In order to even be able to compete you need to spend all your gold. Then "farm" again and do GDKPs (although you get items once every X raids due to limited funds). This is bad for the game. This "gold that circulates" is not without consequences. If there is that amount of gold in the economy, gold loses value and things are getting very expensive for people that do not participate in this thing. They cannot do ANYTHING to progress their character apart ofc from joining a raiding guild. If you are a casual no swipper you are fucked