DKP: Honestly, I think it's a great idea. Using myself as an example, if I can't raid much over the next 4 months, but I squeeze in a night of it next month as the group first hits MH, I don't think it fair if I were to be able to snag some Holy Priest upgrade over Jut who rarely misses a raid (in fact, when I first got Aes to KZ status, I wouldn't bid against her because she was running well before me).

What is a concern, I suppose, is if I get back into raiding (say in July when Val's on the road 3 weeks or in the fall), that people with DKP accumulated will be able to take side grades, off specs, and secondary sets over me and I'll have to just accept the fact that limited raiding schedules means limited opportunity at upgrades. I can't agrue against the right of the full time raider to take whatever it is they've earned the points for... but it might cause a little resentment if I see something that might be a huge upgrade go to the guy who only wants it for DPS Farming against albino trees at midnight in Terokkar.

Concern #2 might be that someone who decides to be a spec-hopper and whom has the DKP will be able gear themselves up for 2 or 3 builds because they are, again, the hard-core raider, where I'd be happy just to have an opportunity to gear up one.

Forum Move: Honestly, I am having more trouble coming up with even a single concern for this at all. I've seen nothing to indicate to me that Shanker (et al) will either abuse or allow abuse to overwhelm a new site. It seems perfectly suited to what it's intended for.

If I have any other comments it's to insist that we start scheduling all content pushing to happen at either 10am server on Thursday mornings or at Midnight on Saturday nights Who's with me now?!?!

I don't have the knowledge or perspective to have much of an opinion on the DKP issue, and I trust that whatever is developed by our excellent guild leadership will be fair and appropriate for the nature of our guild. So on to the thing that does concern me a bit:

To put it simply, I don't want to see the guild become divorced from the Gamers With Jobs community as a whole. I do trust that even if such a thing did happen we would still maintain the spirit of what GWJ is as a gaming community, but it would become a greater challenge if we stopped operating within the context of the GWJ parent site.

As such, the two main things I'd hope to see happen would be the following.

1. That the new forum would be used ONLY for guild business and raid/instance run scheduling. I suppose it might also be okay to have theory discussions related directly to helping specific players prepare specific characters for raiding on the new site, as long as all other discussions would stay here on the main GWJ MMO forum. However, I do fear that this might become a slippery slope, as taking some of those kinds of threads to a separate location would make it much more difficult to maintain a continuity of discussion between threads.

2. That membership (or direct familial relationship to a member) at the main GWJ site still be a requirement for membership in the guild (and thus, indirectly, a requirement for membership in the new guild forum). It's sort of hard to explain to people the exact nature of our community, so asking people to at least sign up for the main site, take a look around (and take a look at the CoC), and get a feel for what we are all about seems like it will be even more important once we are conducting guild business off the main site.

Anyway, other than that I guess the only thing worth saying is that the friendly, fun, and generous nature of the guild is the reason why my intentions to have a brief dalliance with WoW back in January turned into a full blown WoW addiction. You all have really built an excellent thing here that truly does capture everything about GWJ that makes it the only online community I am a part of, so I'm sure that the coming changes will be handled well and when the dust settles, things will continue to be good for everyone involved.

I've already discussed this in the past, but have no reason to keep myself silent, so here is my input as an officer

DKP:
Concern - That long time members will not receive points when they are moved aside to allow other guildies to gear up on content they themselves have already geared. That we are able to allow a rotation of dps, tanks and healers where needed so that people do not get shafted, but do not hinder the chance of success in the raid (success is more important to me in this case). That points earned on progression are not given the value it deserves opposed to farmed content that people can slap together. Without people for progression, we go much slower. Also, that filling a necessary role on an alt will provide some incentive too when you could not properly fill that role on your main (going with a healer alt when your main is a dps class for instance will award points the main is able to use because you needed to help the raid).

Advantage - Prevents a new guildy from stepping in and receiving rare loot without putting in effort into the progression of gearing the guild. Allows wealth to be spread out opposed to the chance of geared only a handful of people who have good rolls. Prevents people from trying to get gear they do not need and should not have, and if they do, they hinder their own progression by wasting points.

Disadvantage - Casual players who do not raid as often will earn less points. Takes time to calculate and monitor scores to prevent people from attempting to spend fake points, or points they "think they have".

Point system type - I'm in favor of a bid system, but it takes time. Silent bid would be even better and it would not take a long time to divvy up the loot.

Point Awards - Awarded based on the run in question. 10-man would be less points than a 25man, and progression would give more. It should not be based on actual bosses killed though IMO, as sometime luck can prevent a very well geared group from succeeding. I suggest a multiplier if the group is fighting something that has not been deemed "farmed" - defined as killed 3 consistent times. Currently, Mag, Jan'Alai and Malacrass are all progression fights, along with everything SSC and up. Points should also be awards to those who lay in wait if a fill-in is required.

Bonus points should be awarded based on what I might suggest are "heroic" actions. If the raid dies horribly except for a few sole survivors who finish it off, or if what looks like the impossible is occuring, you should be able to nominate them for a bonus. I also think if you pass up your spot for another, that should provide a bonus.

Penalties should be rare as they cause drama, usually unwarranted. I suggest if the last spot needs to be rolled on because 3 equally geared players all want desperately to go, the one who wins should earn less points. Eventually, if someone had passed previously to let someone go, the bonus then should balance out with the penalty.

Forum Move:
Concern - That not all will become aware when we start scheduling there and will miss out because they had a TL,DR moment.

Advantage - It's more private, we don't have to worry about others getting involved in guild activities, being on display.

Disadvantage - Less outside input from more experienced players that have dealt with the content.

Purpose - Should allow us to do our scheduling, deal with issues quietly, and unclog these forums meant for multiple other games.

Other comments - These are both good moves and overdue IMO. DKP will allow the right people to get the right gear, and push people to learn what they really should be aiming to get, as it might be a while before they get another chance. In the cases of the same gear dropping over and over, items will cost less and less while the rare items will cost a substantial amount if not all your points.

Sorry for the length alot to type

Make sure whoever signs up to be the administrator over this realizes the additional time it takes to handle this

There's dozens of DKP addons now that help automate the process and they're able to be configured for most rules, but there's still times when they mess up. That results in manual entries. Sometimes people dont have the time to commit to get the information entered.

Only way i've seen bonus/penalty points work without massive fuss was using them along with showing up on time to the raid. Everyone that showed up 10min before start time was awarded 5(*) points. While you still have people showing up late it helped getting the raid going faster.

* whatever value you want.

I have a question. How are you going to handle DKP hoarding? Where people dont take an item taht's an obvious upgrade. You get in a situation where if they change their minds down the road they have a dkp advantage over someone that just now became able to get that item and they try to get it at the same time. It's not fair for the person who just requested it.

I've seen systems where they forced the upgrade with and without a dkp hit or a double dkp hit if the item was previously sharded. The best one i've seen is if you pass on an item that's an obvious upgrade you're dropped to the bottom of the list if you try and take it again against first timers.

This should help: http://www.wowwiki.com/Loot_system

Concern: Simply put, that those who get to run the most by virtue of being selected to run (especially WRT progression content as there is some indication that progression content will provide extra points for participation) rather than including all those who wish to run and are ready to do so will have a widening "gear gap" that will, over time, grow more and more difficult to bridge.

Advantages: Obviously, the big advantage is that those who contribute more over time will be rewarded accordingly. Despite my concerns, I am in favor of this. Especially since, in time, if the system works as intended, a wider range of people will get upgrades with a fairly even distribution.

Disadvantages: Managing the point system will at times be a headache, for one. Higher barrier of entry for new 70's or more casual members of the guild, for another. Inevitable drama when &$#@ happens (and I honestly expect that &$#@ will eventually happen) that the point system can't quite account for, or where the point system "works" but leads to bad results (someone getting a piece that's a third spec set for them, but a major primary upgrade for one or more other people, for example).

I prefer a bid system, personally. Particularly silent bid. You decide how many of the points you have you're willing to spend on that item, and whisper that bid to the raidleader. If you have the highest bid, that's what you spent on it and you get the item. If there is a tie, then the people who tied send a second bid offer to the raidleader with the same method of resolution.

I'm going to sound a little looney here, but hear me out, because I've been thinking long and hard about this next part and think it's where our guild could really make a DKP system work. There should be several ways to earn points.

1) Points for raid attendance, obviously. However, I also think that if you sign up for the raid and commit to be present, even if you get rotated out, if you still show up and remain available to jump in within 5 minutes notice or less while the raid is ongoing, you get points as if you were actually running the raid. It's already penalty enough that you wanted to go and are geared & ready for it but got sidelined. Earning points for sticking around and warming the bench like good old Rudy is simply the right thing to do. If Stormy and I, for example, both really want to hit Zul'Aman, and are both ready and present to do it, but only one of us is able to go due to group needs, then if he had to sit out I'd want him to earn DKP for being there as backup, and likewise I'd want the same for myself.

2) Points based on time spent in the raid (on a per-hour basis or per-half-hour, I could see either working), not on quantity of bosskills. Especially on progression content, it takes more effort (and expense for repairs and consumables) to beat your head fruitlessly against a wall for three hours (hello, Gruul attempt #1!) so that we can continue to work on tactics and learning the encounters than it does to jump in and one-shot the whole thing in 40 minutes with few deaths and barely any repairs/consumables needed. The pain (it's fun, but still painful! ) of a three-hour wipe-a-thon is punishment enough; getting fewer DKP points than the next week's raid who scored the "phat l3wtz" from this week's hard work is adding insult on top of that.

I strongly, strongly feel that as a guild, we need to be rewarding effort and attitude with our new focus as opposed to simply rewarding raw success.

3) Points also being available for supplying the raids. Have a list of consumables needed for our raids (being oversupplied for these would be a problem we'd love to have), determine a cap for how many points anyone can earn from contributing per week, and then let people "buy" DKP through contributing consumables that then get distributed to the raid (helping defray the costs overall for the guild in supplying their own consumables as much as we can). Sometimes people won't have time to raid but could have time to do supplying instead, and it's beneficial to everyone.

4) I very strongly feel that offering bonus points for "heroic" actions is a bad, bad idea. There are a lot of heroic actions that go into every raid, and not all of them are noticed. Subjective points like that open up a very dangerous slippery slope that we do not want to go down. Shaderaven hit this point better than I could, so I'm just going to ditto everything he said on that topic. I prefer Ran's suggestion of bonus points for anyone who arrives early, it should help get things going faster overall.

This guild is the GWJ guild. I have no interest in being in a non-GWJ guild because I love the principles and community of GWJ so much. I very much want to see the majority of our community interaction remain on GWJ itself, and I also strongly want to see us continue to keep GWJ main site membership a requirement of guild membership. There's almost always a difference (at least initially) in the general approach and attitude of people who start as goodjers and join the guild versus join the guild and become goodjers. Eventually this all washes out, but (and I mean no offense to anyone here) it is noticeable to me, as subtle as it may be.

The point being, if we move away from being a GWJ-centric guild, I don't know that it's going to stay a community I want to be a part of. Hopefully it will, but that kind of step is a big step in the wrong direction for me.

Primarily organizational/scheduling and rules discussion stuff. Keep the community-building interaction (strategizing, socializing, discussing how events went, etc) here on GWJ to keep it community-oriented.

Look, I've brought up my biggest concerns about this initiative (involving as many people as want to be participants in our raids, equitable gearing up to keep everyone progressing, and keeping this a GWJ community first and foremost), but don't take this to mean I'm being negative. I'm not, just look at my posts elsewhere especially in the initial DEATH SUMMER '08! thread. I thought for a while about the whole shebang after Reap's initial post. My gut reaction was "oh hell, I knew this would happen eventually :(" but I stopped, looked at it from various angles, and am giving things a go.

I really do think we have good leadership, that the people in charge genuinely want to involve everyone we can, and that the intent behind all of this is to keep our community strong so we don't start losing people. Heck, I've had far more trouble getting into any heroic 5-man groups than I've had getting into any raids (seems there are too many healers wanting to get heroics going and not enough dps/tanks these days ).

So overall, despite my concerns, I'm giving it a go because I think we can really run with all this, and it'll even carry us into some great grouping and fun as we romp through the next expansion when it releases.

Thanks. Not sure why they have the (IMHO) fairly useless DKP page rather than just linking that page to the Loot system page.

I encourage constructive criticism and input. My biggest fear in posting this up was that it would immediately turn into some FUD about participation points or that I'm trying to ninjaz all teh lootz1

I also use winky smiles when I'm being sarcastic.

DKP seems like it will be an equitable way to distribute loot as we head into 25 mans. The devil will be in the details of its application.

Very true. The recent raids in Kara and Gruul's have lead to a lot of passing on loot as the veteran members have already geared beyond it via earlier raiding, badges or PvP.

This is an excellent point. I would like to see some continuation of our current method in this regard where folks who need it for their primary set get first shot to bid. Then, if no one needs, it can to people who want to bid on it for secondary sets.

Both seem like they could get real ugly, real fast. There would need to be explicitly clear guidelines on how these are implemented and by whom, otherwise the cries of favoritism or persecution will no doubt be heard.

Points should be awarded for full run attendance, learning initial fights, downing bosses, and being on standby. Zone or boss specific points might want to be considered (Attumen=1 point, Gruul=10 for example). Perhaps everyone in the guild starts off with points to spend and new folks upon reaching 70? Officers and raid leaders begin with a one-time bonus to acknowledge their contributions up to this point.

Penalties very rare and only for complete asshats.

Any more concrete details on the DKP system GWJ management wants to use? There is a confusing amount of information out there on all the various systems.

The forum move I've no problem with as long as the GWJ attitude remains.

A true reward system where players who participate are rewarded is long overdue. I think we might want to sptep back a bit and really look at what we are trying to accomplish with a reward system:

1) rewarding players for time spent on working on the progression of our guild thru content.
2) making a fair and simple system to speed up the loot process..gone are the days of linking gear and standing around.
3) building a system that encourages everyone to look to the next boss...next raid...in order to have a chance to get TRUE upgrades, and not worthless junk.
4) protect the less-active players in the guild by making all loot point-based. Rolling on a side-grade or off-set is a thing of the past. Noone will be wasting points when the rare/desired item is in the next raid/boss.

Kinda simplified things a bit, but you get the point. I spent about 6 months in another guild before BC came out where we were pushing 10 and 25-man raids using a DKP system. It is truly great when done correctly, and truly BAD when done incorrectly.

We used a silent bid system that seemed to make things run ALOT smoother and quicker and eliminate 99% of the drama. A quick run-down is all interested parties would wisp the loot master with a bid for the item in question. before bidding was started though, the loot leader would announce a scale for the item. A scale would be way to discourage off-class items from being taken by a off-class. Example: A 2H sword that would be a clear upgrade for all non-tanking Warriors drops and the loot leader announces that off-classes (non-DPS warriors) would add +20 points to their bid to discourage other classes from bidding. Or discourage the main tank from saying to himself...i have enough points for that..i'll bid. Once the bids are sent to the loot leader, he then determines whom has the highest bid and rewards that item with the cost of the 2nd bidders price plus 10%. Ties re-bid and 0 drama.

Also, everybody in the raid does have the ability to look up the DKP points of every other person in the raid to determine how many points all the other Mage's, for example, to help the loot leader determine who has what points.

I agree. This is why we have our BOE epics/other rule. Because I didn't understand how the gem situation was handled on Mags, I made an executive decision to bank the items in question until I could discuss it with the officers at large. I think the epic gems are an example of a situation in which somebody could make extreme personal profit at the guild's expense. However, this is just my point of view and as I said, we've agreed that these special circumstances will get discussed.

In the extremely rare circumstances we've had with items dropping of that nature (recipes come to my mind) they've usually gone right to a crafter that could use them.

In the mean time, the epic gems stay put.

I believe we will continue the mains before alts rule and the on-spec before off-spec rule, meaning I won't be able to outbid the DPSers for the Dragonspine Trophy so I can use it for my Ret set.

We should also have separate pools, imho, which some top-end guilds use. IE points earned in Kara, if any, can't be spent in SSC. I'd suggest a pool of points for progression, and a pool (or not) for farm content.

Right now, you'd get points for Gruul's and Mag's imho. Eventually, no more "Cupcake Points" for those, make a new pool called "farm points" or something. Only Cupcake Points can be spent in progression raids; both can be spent on farm raids (this is just one idea). "I bid 100 Cupcakes plus 20 farm" or something.

Kara I think we can keep /rolling...if someone only needs one item or something, maybe give them priority if it drops. ZA...probably can be worked out amongst those in the group? The people going are mostly the people who need very little.

Again, I want to stress that the people with the most points will be those who need the least. In T4, the newer and/or less active folks have cleaned up (which is good!) while some of our best people have gotten nothing at all so far. That is the reality. Many folks are so badged out that there won't be much for them in T5 either; let's not begrudge them priority on the one or two items they can really be excited about. We have folks who have needed little and got nothing while brand new folks get geared out, but remember, those folks like an upgrade now and then as well.

I disagree. I and several others would have absolutely no reason to run Kara or Gruul whatsoever anymore. If this were to occur, we'd have people just log on for what they need and nothing else. So, that'd be like me saying "I don't need anything from Mag or Gruul, lemme know when you guys hit T5". If it's a raid, and has majority GWJ (80%+), I'd consider it usable for points, period. It provides incentive to have our stronger players help gear up those trying to join us. Eventually it'll be the same in Gruul/Mag, especially for tanks. Other than T4, there is 1 item between all these bosses that's worth getting as a tank, and even then, it can be leapfrogged, so what tanks are going to help our DPS get the Dragonspine Trophy, since it's pretty much a required trinket for all hunters and melee going forward...

I think if I tell people I'm willing to help them get those upgrades they need in Kara and overall T4 content, I should be able to use those points towards helping myself when we finally get to Mount Hyjal (unfortunately I'm not all that impressed with SSC/TK loot either).

The one benefit to this I see is that it helps promote those who have the high repair bills and material costs earn points sooner, since they're in the doors first and for the longhaul (so would have to be paired with the fact points are not based on whether bosses die).

I also really hope we don't call them Cupcake points. The bird and channel are enough