The GDKP Problem

[Dequanacus]

I've always asked that question as to why because the only difference in doing Option A and Option B is a matter of chance and time spent playing. You can do GDKP and get the items you want... and I can join a raiding guild and get the exact same layout as the people doing GDKP and there is nothing to "win" because when the next raid hits all of your gear is irrelevant anyways and you start over again.

I've always stated that it's just someone who sees someone else getting loot faster than them and being selfish and spoiled about it and hating on the process "because" but as for a real argument or statement... zero over all these years playing MMO's.

What I further do not understand is that guilds and even non gdkp pugs still exist but require actually being social, which funnily enough is what people claim GDKPs and gold selling killed despite it actually being the existing solution to not wanting to GDKP.

However, the gold you need to get good items in GDKPs is also low. I join TK/SSC GDKPs even prior to SWP being out and seeing most things go for minimum bid if anyone even bothers bidding on it. You could do your dailies, get a thousand gold, join a gdkp and get three or four items and that's likely a faster rate of gear than non GDKP pugging or joining a guild, and you get gold back from the payout. That's without putting any effort or time into grinding out gold, learning how to profit from professions or levelling alts to do dailies on them as well.

And what do people spend gold on anyway? I farm gold and it just sits there. I have nothing to spend it on and if people do spend it, it's on vanity items. I genuinely do not know why people make such a stink about gold when gold is easy to get, a majority of gear is dirt cheap, and regular pugs and guilds still exist everywhere. Just saying that it leads to inflation doesn't mean anything when you don't spend your gold on anything in the first place. Then we have people who don't even run GDKPs worrying about inflation when GDKPs are the only real gold sink that currently exists.

[Drudi]

How, though? It's not creating new gold, it's just shuffling gold around.

If anything, it's RMT that's behind an influx of new gold because it's fueled by bots farming 24/7. THAT is the problem, not GDKP runs.

They are both bad and support each other. GDKP creates demand for gold, RMT provides easy option to fulfill this demand

[Biomega]

They are both bad and support each other. GDKP creates demand for gold, RMT provides easy option to fulfill this demand

I mean, you're not wrong that GDKP creates a demand for RMT - but the problem is (illegal) RMT, not GDKP.

Illegal RMT is bad because it's host to a variety of problems: scams, theft, botting, etc.

GDKP by itself isn't problematic.

[Drudi]

I mean, you're not wrong that GDKP creates a demand for RMT - but the problem is (illegal) RMT, not GDKP.

Illegal RMT is bad because it's host to a variety of problems: scams, theft, botting, etc.

GDKP by itself isn't problematic.

As in, “using drugs is not a problem, only illegally selling them”, right?

[Biomega]

As in, “using drugs is not a problem, only illegally selling them”, right?

No, that's not a correct analogy.

Even if traded legally, most (currently illegal) drugs lead to problems both for the user and for other people; people under the influence causing accidents, etc. for example. That's not how it works for GDKP, which are actually more of a net positive for certain parts of the community (allowing for more agency in loot acquisition) and don't affect most others at all (like guild runs).

It's more like saying "hedge funds are bad, because there's lots of insider trading going on" - but the problem is the insider trading, not the hedge funds.

[Drudi]

No, that's not a correct analogy.

Even if traded legally, most (currently illegal) drugs lead to problems both for the user and for other people; people under the influence causing accidents, etc. for example. That's not how it works for GDKP, which are actually more of a net positive for certain parts of the community (allowing for more agency in loot acquisition) and don't affect most others at all (like guild runs).

It's more like saying "hedge funds are bad, because there's lots of insider trading going on" - but the problem is the insider trading, not the hedge funds.

The same with GDKP and RMT. Even if the gold is acquired legally, using it on GDKP leads to problems both for the user and other people. Problems such as: not playing the game and not socializing, making the option to “just play” less accessible to other users because of the game being plagued by GDKP paradigm, causing global inflation that negatively affects other users and so on.

It’s not net positive and never was. ANYTHING that increases pay to win-oriented revenue is negative, this includes RMT in the first place and all game activities that incentivize demand for such transfers, be it 5 million mounts (no extra value compared to a 60g mount) or GDKP runs.

[Dequanacus]

The same with GDKP and RMT. Even if the gold is acquired legally, using it on GDKP leads to problems both for the user and other people. Problems such as: not playing the game and not socializing, making the option to “just play” less accessible to other users because of the game being plagued by GDKP paradigm, causing global inflation that negatively affects other users and so on.

The whole inflation and accessibility has already been refuted in this thread but regarding not socializing, what makes a person any less likely to socialize in a GDKP than in a SR run or the like? If anything, GDKPs seem more vocal since Discord is required for your cut, and you have people constantly looking for items to drop for the pot, and engaging back and forth while bidding is going on.

[Biomega]

The same with GDKP and RMT. Even if the gold is acquired legally, using it on GDKP leads to problems both for the user and other people. Problems such as: not playing the game and not socializing

IDK what you mean by "not playing the game". Where do you think the gold comes from if there's no RMT? What you might mean is "not playing the game the way *I* think it should be played", which is a very weird take.

Same goes for "not socializing". That's such a weird statement to make. First of all, do you think that just because you're not in a guild you're "not socializing"? And even if that were true, and you'd unequivocally not be socializing - so what? Why do you feel entitled to dictate to people whether or how much they socialize in this game?

But most importantly: if you're an average player who raids with their guild, WHY THE FUCK DOES IT MATTER IF SOMEONE SOMEWHERE OUT THERE DOESN'T SOCIALIZE WITH PEOPLE?

making the option to “just play” less accessible to other users because of the game being plagued by GDKP paradigm

You mean there's less random PUGs where loot is just /roll? That's true.

But why is this suddenly a concern for you? Don't you want everyone to socialize anyway? Wouldn't more GDKP runs mean people who don't like them are more likely to join guilds as a result, and socialize more? ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU WANT?

Hyperbole aside, you're right that it's a game of trade-offs. But let's not forget those go both ways: GDKP runs allow players more agency in loot acquisition. Random PUGs with systems like random roll for loot take that agency away. That's a bad thing, too. Is it really fair that someone who puts in a lot of hours into the game and tries to improve themselves with effort loses loot to someone who plays only occasionally and just happens to randomly roll highly on a coveted loot item? Is that really a better experience for more people?

causing global inflation that negatively affects other users and so on.

That's largely the fault of RMT, not GDKP. Regular people could never generate the same amount of currency as RMT bot farming. It's negligible in its overall effect on inflation, ESPECIALLY since most of the gold is actually kept in circulation within the GDKP runs themselves. There's barely anything to buy outside of GDKP runs, making the overall effect on the economy minuscule. In fact, you could probably argue that more GDKP runs means more raids, which increases demand for consumables etc. therefore contributing POSITIVELY to the economy.

Your problem seems to be with RMT, and that's understandable. You just don't understand how this interacts with GDKP, and misplace the blame.

[Dorothyjean]

What I further do not understand is that guilds and even non gdkp pugs still exist but require actually being social, which funnily enough is what people claim GDKPs and gold selling killed despite it actually being the existing solution to not wanting to GDKP.

However, the gold you need to get good items in GDKPs is also low. I join TK/SSC GDKPs even prior to SWP being out and seeing most things go for minimum bid if anyone even bothers bidding on it. You could do your dailies, get a thousand gold, join a gdkp and get three or four items and that's likely a faster rate of gear than non GDKP pugging or joining a guild, and you get gold back from the payout. That's without putting any effort or time into grinding out gold, learning how to profit from professions or levelling alts to do dailies on them as well.

And what do people spend gold on anyway? I farm gold and it just sits there. I have nothing to spend it on and if people do spend it, it's on vanity items. I genuinely do not know why people make such a stink about gold when gold is easy to get, a majority of gear is dirt cheap, and regular pugs and guilds still exist everywhere. Just saying that it leads to inflation doesn't mean anything when you don't spend your gold on anything in the first place. Then we have people who don't even run GDKPs worrying about inflation when GDKPs are the only real gold sink that currently exists.

GDKP, to me, was just a fast track for people who had gold to get items now versus later. I played from TBC onwards and Master loot can suck in regards to getting stuff but if you're into raiding and raid every week... you'll eventually get everything you need/want anyways and even if you don't, the next raid will be there for new goodies. There is never a "win" for PvE in WoW so the whole thing never made any sense to me. I did GDKP once just to check it out and then just stuck to raiding.

Ya, I think people have an inflated sense of the gold from dumb ass YT videos "You'll never believe this GDKP run when the Warglaive dropped..." yada yada. The people I knew who did GDKP were usually just looking for one item and most of them were also in it for the gold. It was nice and quick gold for doing something you are good at.

I dunno about Classic at all but in TBC, Wrath etc. I spent most of mine on dumb shit but mainly raid supplies. Farming stuff puts me to sleep so I'd rather just do dailies and just having enough gold for raid supplies while I raid for the week. If you're not into pets, mounts etc. I'm honestly shocked more people don't have absolute tons of gold in-game over the years. Now with playing the AH and I've seen this on TBC Classic through a friend of mine who streams... the AH on Classic is WAY different than it was during original TBC.

I've never understood why people bitch and moan about GDKP, same with P2W (even with the "new" definition of it) ... just play the bloody game. It's a VIDEOGAME... hehe. Like if it sucks for you, go play another videogame. Shit is so weird.

[Delekii]

Except you're not. I'm getting more gear than you are, per week, because I'm playing the game. Unless, of course, you're spending hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in a single week to get all the gold you'd need for a full set of mythic gear. But even then you'd still not be "winning" because even if you outgear me, I'd still be doing more damage, healing, or tanking better than you because I actually played the game.

And the people in the M+ community might easily take you because of your gear, but they'd just blacklist you because of your horrid DPS since all you have is stuff you bought, not stuff you earned through skill. And I'd still be "winning" because I'd have the IO score to show that my gear was earned rather than bought.


That's not pay to win. You're still having to participate in the game to earn that piece of gear. You're literally describing playing the game.


No. No, it's not. If you need in-game gold to buy stuff, then it's not 'pay to win'. Simple as that.

For some reason you seem to think that spending the money to buy the gold precludes you from playing the game; it doesn't. Everything you described yourself as doing, so can the person buying the golf. The only difference is that they can outspend you specifically in areas that can be paid for with gold.

Some of the biggest gold buyers in retail wow are without a doubt world-first guilds increasing their purchasing power to buy gear for the race. You are absolutely blind if you don't see that is pay to win.

- - - Updated - - -

You are fighting a lost fight, mate.
I tried telling these people the same thing like twice now but they will not understand.

Just how everything is a retcon now when they don't like a story-beat, everything is P2W now for them when gold is involved.

They don't go far to understand terminologies, they just wanna cry.
That's all that this is about.

Edit:
Also, they will always go about anything the wrong way.
"I don't like GDKP runs, so therefore, they should be banned... Also inflation smth smth big words."

They go against such easy, simple game mechanics as "you can trade your gold to other players".
Instead, they want Blizzard to manually monitor WHAT people trade gold for, yes, hundreds of thousands of players, manually.

These people cant think things through. They don't bother. They rage.

You're simply wrong. Gdkp allows real money to directly transfer into purchasing power and thus game power.

[Drosul]

Even in the absence of RMT, GDKP would still be a terrible loot system because of the social impacts it has, transforming player interactions from social, mutually beneficial ones, into parasitical and transactional ones. That's also to say nothing of the inherent disparities in classes' ability to farm raw gold.

The fact that gold is readily and easily purchasable with real world dollars only further completely and totally invalidates any attempts to justify GDKP as anything but a pay to win scheme perpetuated by players of decidedly low character, and even less worth.

All of the P2W garbage should be purged. GDKPs are only one facet, paid boosts, paid carries, paid achievement carries (coming soon in wrath) and paid arena carries are all a damn abomination, and a blatant slap in the face to any players that actually earn any or all of those things in game.

Wipe all gold and gear and achievements on the entire account on first offense

Second offense do the same, but also delete all of their characters.

Lifetime ban third offense.

[Delekii]

Debates about what exactly "p2W" entails aside, it's important to be clear here: the problem is the SECOND premise, not the first. What's toxic is the fact that you can buy gold for real money - not that GDKP runs exist.

They're not entirely disconnected (GDKP does contribute to the demand for RMT gold) but it's the existence of RMT that's making things problematic. Let's not lose sight of that.

That's a perfectly fair assesment; if you couldn't buy gold there wouldn't be any issue with GDKP that isn't subjective - I don't like it but I don't have to. Ultimately, that's up to each player to make an assessment of what's important to them, and Blizzard to decide where they draw the line. When you can buy gold with real money it is objectively the case that the game is no longer on an even footing, and exists in a space where every player is on an equal footing - where each player's merit is based on what you see in game.

I think what you call it is irrelevant. Some people distinguish between being able to spend real money, but only to get gear faster that can otherwise be obtained in game, and being able to buy gear for real money that you cannot otherwise get ingame and that is objectively better than what is obtainable in game.

What people call it is arbitrary though, it cannot really be disputed that buying gold allows one access to the former.

I agree entirely; the title is largely irrelevant and I said as much to the guy I was arguing with. You can call it pay to win, pay to advance, pay to skip boring bits, pay to progress... you don't have to call it anything, it still fits smack bang into the same category. It is as clear as day that you can spend real money to make progress in WoW.

[Biomega]

Even in the absence of RMT, GDKP would still be a terrible loot system because of the social impacts it has, transforming player interactions from social, mutually beneficial ones, into parasitical and transactional ones.

I'm not sure you know how GDKP runs work. They split the money. It's nothing if not cooperative and mutually beneficial, the only difference is that there's a mechanism in place to give players loot agency that they can work towards rather than it being all up to a random roll.

That rhetoric about how GDKP destroys social interaction and whatnot is nonsense. They don't infringe on guilds, and they don't create a hostile social environment, nor do you suddenly have to stop cooperating on boss kills. And even in "social" settings like guilds a lot of the relationships are in fact transactional: I help you, you help me, we get loot. Even in a GDKP run, someone still has to do all the same work a guild does. The only difference is how loot is distributed.

To claim that somehow the method of loot distribution sucks out all the other interactions you have in a group, or makes them inherently worse than in groups with non-gold-based loot systems is specious at best.

[Drosul]

I'm not sure you know how GDKP runs work. They split the money. It's nothing if not cooperative and mutually beneficial, the only difference is that there's a mechanism in place to give players loot agency that they can work towards rather than it being all up to a random roll.

That rhetoric about how GDKP destroys social interaction and whatnot is nonsense. They don't infringe on guilds, and they don't create a hostile social environment, nor do you suddenly have to stop cooperating on boss kills. And even in "social" settings like guilds a lot of the relationships are in fact transactional: I help you, you help me, we get loot. Even in a GDKP run, someone still has to do all the same work a guild does. The only difference is how loot is distributed.

To claim that somehow the method of loot distribution sucks out all the other interactions you have in a group, or makes them inherently worse than in groups with non-gold-based loot systems is specious at best.

Every GDKP group falls all over itself finding ~5 whales brought in as "pure buyers" every run. Most of them spend more time chasing after those 5 whales than the rest of the players in the raid combined. It's blatantly predatory for the people who already have gear, and blatantly p2w for the people that don't. Keep being delusional though. Also, since you are clearly a gdkper based upon your ridiculous propaganda shilling on behalf of them, allow me to also /spit your way. You P2W types ruined retail, and have been steadily on a path to ruin classic.

[Biomega]

Every GDKP group falls all over itself finding ~5 whales brought in as "pure buyers" every run. Most of them spend more time chasing after those 5 whales than the rest of the players in the raid combined.

Even if that was simply and unequivocally true (and I doubt it's either) - so what? How does that suddenly destroy the social fabric of the game and turn everyone into corporate drones slaving away for the pleasure of their gold-buying masters? That's just hyperbolic nonsense.

The romantic notion of a bunch of average randos coming together just to have a good time wasn't even true back in the day, much less now. There was always personal ambition at play, and incentive-driven goals. The interactions are what happens on your way TO that goal. And they still happen in GDKP runs. For those players who want a more tightly knit social experience, guilds still exist, and still make up a massive slice of the raiding population - a slice that's virtually untouched and unchanged by the existence of GDKP runs.

For those who don't value the social experience all that much - good for them. Why do you think you have a right to tell them they ought to play the game differently? There is almost nothing that's more overvalued and overblown in its importance than the "social aspect of WoW". People want to play the game and have a good time. That happens in many ways. Sometimes it involves finding good friends to play with for years; often it doesn't. That doesn't mean one is more "correct" than the other.

Also, since you are clearly a gdkper based upon your ridiculous propaganda shilling on behalf of them, allow me to also /spit your way. You P2W types ruined retail, and have been steadily on a path to ruin classic.

The last GDKP run I did was in 2009. I guess that technically makes me a "GDKPer"? I've never played Classic, and I'm not even playing Retail anymore. Haven't for months.

You seem to think that people are incapable of arguing a point they're not personally invested in. Is that perhaps because you can only imagine an argument from personal investment? Is that why you're having so much trouble formulating objective points rather than baseless assumptions and vitriolic claims?

[Kralljin]

The last GDKP run I did was in 2009. I guess that technically makes me a "GDKPer"? I've never played Classic, and I'm not even playing Retail anymore. Haven't for months.

I think reason for that anger is rather simple and as you admit you haven't played Classic not as obvious: GDKP's have basically become what boosting was in Retail until Blizzard effectively banned boosting communities.

On larger servers, trade chat is full of it, it takes absolutely no genius to figure out where all this gold comes that pretty much fuel these runs (RMT), which causes massive inflation, making any regular gold farm barely worth it, as the botting that drives up the supply is an indirect result of the GDKP runs making gold buying very attractive.

I'll be frank, i handfarmed a ton of gold in Classic myself by just doing DM:E jump runs, because the runs cannot be easily botted and the bots need to resort to outright hacks in order to compete with a player.
In TBC, i barely farmed any gold myself (outside of some dailies, but those were largely done for the Rep), because outdoor farming isn't worth it.

Can you avoid it? Sure, but efficiency is very much engrained into people and it's not a great feeling when one person walks out of a regular run with 0-1 Items, while another person swipes their card and walks out decked out of a GDKP.
GDKP's aren't some fringe occurrence anymore, it's a huge pillar next old fashioned guilds and regular pugs.

That's why some people are very negative towards GDKP, it promotes RMT on a massive scale.

[Ielenia]

[QUOTE=Delekii;53786756]For some reason you seem to think that spending the money to buy the gold precludes you from playing the game; it doesn't. Everything you described yourself as doing, so can the person buying the golf. The only difference is that they can outspend you specifically in areas that can be paid for with gold.

Some of the biggest gold buyers in retail wow are without a doubt world-first guilds increasing their purchasing power to buy gear for the race.

Somehow I doubt that. Funny that.

Your entire argument about "also playing the game" is also made weaker considering your example is world-first race guilds. We're not talking about WFR guilds, just like we don't talk about World Championship soccer players train when we're talking about our own next soccer game with friends. What the WF players do is inconsequential because what they do doesn't affect the general player base.

And that's what we're talking about: the general player base. The player who doesn't care to "waste time" by spending months doing 4-8 Mythic+ dungeons every week to get gear from the Great Vault. The player who prefers to just 'buy their way' into gear.

[Kralljin]

Somehow I doubt that. Funny that.

That's not really an outlandish guess.

World first raiders need horrendeous amounts of gold in order to fuel their split raids, they handed out huge sums of gold to people who could trade them tokens during the last race.
That gold has to come from somewhere and it's not just them saving up during farm with boost raids.

There are also WF raiders out there who flat out admitted that they bought gold, because it simply saves them a ton of money in comparison to the WoW Token.

https://twitter.com/scripewow/status...128322?lang=en

Yeah we needed gold and I bought it from gallywix instead of buying wowtokens.

Personally, what i find the most egregious about this that those people are actually still being (indirectly) promoted by Blizzard and basically get their own difficulty for them (pre nerf Mythic that is), while they can just publically admit that they broke the ToS.

[Demsi]

I don't get this last part. You're saying they have no gold or a guild, but it's not about effort - so what ARE they doing? And if it's not getting gold or a guild, why do they deserve loot over people who do the work?

Shouldn't loot be a reward for effort, rather than just, idk, luck?

Doing Pugs isn't putting in the effort? just because you're doing organised content that isn't within the context of a guild doesn't make you less of a player or less worthy of gear, maybe i'm old fashioned but back in the day when you were doing pugs you would simply roll on the item you needed (MS>OS) and while it wasn't perfect atleast gold wasn't a factor.

[Celarent]

Doing Pugs isn't putting in the effort? just because you're doing organised content that isn't within the context of a guild doesn't make you less of a player or less worthy of gear, maybe i'm old fashioned but back in the day when you were doing pugs you would simply roll on the item you needed (MS>OS) and while it wasn't perfect atleast gold wasn't a factor.

It seems these players aren't after the fun of running content with new people, or the thrill of getting a reward from equal chances among teammates. They want gear with the equity structure of a guild but substituting social obligations with the principle of Money Talks. (It's apparently not even enough for pug leaders to auto-regulate effort contribution in extreme cases of carrying.) Obviously more money talks more loudly, hence the RMT spigot that many pretend isn't helping underwrite the practice.

Again, I still think Wrath will carve out a much wider swath for traditional pugs due to accessibility reducing pug organizer leverage, but yeah, it is odd to see this as prevalent as it is.