On Horde side on my realm in GDKP’s I have been told it’s not uncommon for there to be a loot rule of at least one random Reserve. or 1RR. This means that at any time during the run, the Raid leader & Organiser of the GDKP can say when a piece of loot drops ” Mine! – that’s my random reserve.”
Other are more specific – if” *blah* drops It’s mine, or I reserve one BOE . Someone – probably a Horde to Alliance transfer tried to reserve two BOE’s in their GDKP ad the other week. They were laughed out of trade chat. At least they were being upfront about their loot rules though. Those sorts of loot rules do not sit well on Alliance side.
Most GDKP’s go ahead without reward given to the raid leader. Other rewards are subtle, and not declared. The Goodie bag that was saved to the end of the run is forgotten about – the Primordials aren’t included as part of the auctions – sometimes it’s not their intent to forget, or the amount the primal might go for may not be consequential so it doesnt matter. I worked out that was how one frequent GDKP leader was making so many of the ICC patterns and then selling them cheaper then the AH – he was keeping the primordials
Is it fair?
A GDKP is still mostly a Pug run. We have at least one sponsored one on our side where last week the share each was 14.5 k gold. It has a waiting list. Most however you still need to sit in trade at the right time, hope another one isn’t forming at the same time, juggle your class and role needs, screen the potential peoples, balance your carrys and non carrys. Control bidding and looting and gold while in the run, run the raid, handle drama. Know strats. That’s not easy to do at the best of times.
A Guild master / Raid leader does it for free in their guild – but that’s a guild – why shouldn’t an organiser of a GDKP get compensated for their efforts?
unfortunately that is a reason for a lot of ninjas. -Their feelings of entitlement override what is ‘fair’. Fair – is making the rules upfront – and sticking to them. That way I get an informed choice.
When looking for a GDKP – a loot rule like 1RR would influence my decision to join. If the organiser – say does not have Deaths Verdict – and it’s good for his class – and he declares “1RR” then if I was after that same loot item – it means the opportunity to bid on that is gone for a week.
Reserving of much wanted items is also bad for the Pot. Heroic DFO’s in the earlier days was going for 45k gold – thats 1.8k gold each in the pot off one bid. Boe’s always sell well in GDKP’s because of their resale value on the auction house.
What sort of compensation should they get?
I find it unfair that we would pay 1k for someone to unlock heroic mode once for lootship – yet the person who ran it – gets nothing but the pleasure of 24 other peoples company and the equal chance to bids. Maybe some of the carrys are their friends.
However besides a cut of the pot – the primordials – patterns, a choice of loot, or a BOE – how do you be fair to the leader without being at least a little unfair – or depriving the remaining 24?
I would prefer that they get no reward = more things/gold for me, but I don’t believe that it’s entirely ‘fair’ but it’s certainly a preference of mine. No Funky loot rules.
What would I be ok with? – what’s ‘fair’ ?
Firstly. I would need to be informed of these rules before I started. Then I would weigh it up.
I might be ok with say a 1k payment. 40 gold each from the pot for a decent ICC run. Eg now 10/12 bosses.
Keeping the patterns from TOC/TOGC
One BOE
That about covers it what I would be willing to give up to be involved in a GDKP. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t even agree to those. But I think they are reasonable. If that was my only choice.
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I certainly don’t mind a raid leader getting compensated for setting it up and taking care of the auctions and gold etc. I think 1k is a fair amount. It isn’t like the leader is not going to benefit from this raid. He gets his share of the loot and possible purchases.
I did run one the other day where someone else was also tallying the purchases and noted it was a little over 1k short per person at the end but the the raid leader kinda just dismissed him. That doesn’t sit well with me although I did end up with 3,700g from that run.
The two that I have completed had very similar leaders that you certainly felt the power they had over the raid and how things went. Even if they start to become idiots, you feel the need to continue to get to the final goal and see if any loots drop for yourself and get your portion of the gold.
Upfront is where it has to be about any raid leader compensation, then I can decide whether I want to attend. I kinda just roll my eyes if they are idiots hehehe and just do my healing job.
Great post!
This recent article discusses briefly what you’re talking about over at wow.com: http://www.wow.com/2010/06/14/gold-capped-gdkp-raiding-for-fun-and-profit/
The punchline is basically that a loot reserve makes it less likely for your loot master to ninja an entire run. Now I know this is something you’re familiar with, so if up front loot rules that think someone for the effort of a GDKP avoids that headache, I’m all for it.
You always post about GDKP =( WTB GDKP on Dragonblight. But hearing you talk about it I can relate it to some situations here. Especially back to the Sunwell days.
We don’t have GDKP here, but we certainly have reserves. I’ve never heard of Random Reserve though, and that seems borderline bullshit. But I think aforementioned reserves are perfectly legitimate. If people willingly go to a run knowing full well the item is reserved ahead of time, it’s their own stupidity.
But there are other things to take into account. Here on Dragonblight, there were essentially two guilds responsible for setting up pug runs, or even Sunwell trash farming runs or what not. Both guilds thought the puggers and what not how to do Sunwell, how to do Ulduar, how to do ICC — though not so much ToC or Naxxramas. I think vent hosting should be taken into account, as well as the number of people a certain guild can field — and to a much lesser degree some of the vital roles (namely, Main Tanks and to a much lesser degree skilled healers).
There is a certain amount of work in putting together these runs, especially for the first time when it’s basically a crapshoot. And certain people are far more valuable than others (super-geared main tank). So if a specific guild is providing 10-12 people, I don’t take much of an issue with reserves. I think of it as payment for increasing the likelihood the run will succeed. (The best example I can come up with though, besides ICC, is doing pug ToGC — good luck doing it without high-SB shield tank).
Of course, things are relative. The skills/talent/leadership needed for doing ToGC is vastly different from that needed to do normal ToC.
But in closing, I think if someone thinks they can do a better run or make a better leader; then they should just step up to the plate and be the leader/organizer. Speaking from experience as a raid-organize on Dragonblight, it’s a hugely time-consuming and almost overwhelming task. Especially thing things are new and require specific stacking to increase the opportunity to succeed.
Also worth mentioning is “being the first”. It’s always harder to be the first at something. The first pug to do a new boss is always going to be significantly harder than every successive pug after.
As long as its clear its ok, people are free to choose their run or not. Having said that random reserve does sound a bit much.
The traditional advantage of being a pug raid leader has been freedom to choose the make-up. you can be undergeared, you can load it the raid with leather+ if your cloth, you can only take people who all ready have your most desired item etc.