Module one preview

[Zeus]

sorry gottaa, i have to disagree with you there. DKP is not born of a lack of trust.
at its heart, it *is* a fair way of distributing loot.
if i'm choosing who gets what loot, without a DKP system, what am i going to base it on? well, attendance, usefulness, and what items they've had already. all DKP does is formalise this system. if i was looting and there wasnt a DKP system, i'd have to base my decisions on my memory - and quite frankly, when its 40people that have put the effort in, even *I* dont trust my own memory on who's been there the most or recieved the least loot. so even if i was raid leader of a group that didnt want DKP, and just wanted to trust me, i'd *still* use DKP, even if just on my own computer in private, to decide who gets what.

that said, one of the attractions of DDO was the fact they said all along that systems like this wouldnt be needed :/

 

[Gottaa]

You wouldn't need any of that though Zeus if people trusted each other. When CUK in WoW started doing the "raid" type places the way we did loot was simple, if you could use it and wanted you spoke with the other people who may want it and came to a decision. From memory at no point did that system break down, no "overall" ruling needed to be called upon and in general it was much more about "well if he wants it he should have it as I have better than he has", than "I want it, everyone else can bugger off". The decision of loot though should never rest on any one persons shoulders.

DKP was born on a lack of trust in EQ though, and to this day I think that's exactly he same with any guild that uses it. And there should never really be a need for any one person to decide upon loot, the people there should be able to discuss it.

The reason this failed in WoW was people started to assume the worst of people (with no examples of it having happened or evidence) and suddenly DKP was the solution to all the problems.

Given the choice Zeus which system would you prefer a self regulating system based on player trust and mutual understanding and working together or DKP ?

And yes there may be someone who decides to abuse any system in place and oddly enough if that happens EVERYONE will notice and this can be discussed.

If I've generalised too much I apologise, I don't mean that anyone using DKP is untrustworthy or has a lack of trust in the people they play with. I will though say that DKP does change the focus of people into being more concerned with "points" and "attendance" than actual effort. For example someone with a family, work and other such involving things who has to rush home early and cook dinner for everyone before logging on and raiding for 3 hours is actually putting more effort into the game than someone for example unemployed sitting around all day online (I feel comfy saying this as I myself am unemployed and am happy to say I don't really put much "effort" into being online). DKP doesn't cater for that, and never realistically can do.

The crux of it for me though is I play to have fun, and earning points, buying items, bidding against friends isn't fun. Which is why I'll never be in a guild that uses DKP, however I find the system itself actually interesting

 

[Sorontar]

I think the dev from the US boards has raised some concerns about a market for goods evolving if the items are only "bind on equip" but could we not have arandom chance for everyone to get something a bit spesh (much like Drydens Mace but a lower chance) which is "bind on exit instance" that way a group could trade it in the instance if they chose to, but would not be able to take it out and sell it?

 

[Zeus]

maybe effort was the wrong word. contribution might be better.
Anyway, yes i would prefer a self-regulating system, whereby everyone magically gets what they deserve... but its not gonna happen. anyway, all that leads to is people keeping mental dkp systems ("lets see... i've come on 8 raids, and he's only been on 5, but i've had 3 items and he's only had 1... but then, it's slightly more of an upgrade for me i suppose.... but then, he did give me that ZG coin the other day..." etc.)

a perfect DKP system (and i admit there isnt really one yet) leads to people getting items in proportion to how much they attend raids. it results in someone that attends raids once a month not getting much loot. that is actually a good thing. I dont care how nice and generous in the rest of the game or life someone is, if they're only going to be at a raid once a month, its a bad thing for them to get loot. why? because loot isnt just an item to look nice. without good loot, the guild wont manage to kill more bosses. So to give it to people who are nice and well liked (as any discussion based system will tend to do) isnt necesarily in the best interests of the guild... and logically then, isnt even in the best interests of the people getting all the loot!
DKP also leads to people actually thinking about items before they roll on them - eg. is it worth me getting this OEB, when theres a chance Spinal Reaper could drop later today, and i'm the only one that would much want that, whereas lots of people want OEB?
since you're interested, i'll tell you a bit about my guilds DKP system.
we currently use a null-DKP system (as i've described to you before) for ony and MC.
We dont use one for ZG and AQ20 - we just use rolling (still with ML, to stop accidents or whatever).
the issue we have with ZG and AQ20, is that people have a habit of not coming because theres no loot in the instance that they want, or we're not killing bosses that they want to get loot from, stuff like that. Sure, in a perfect guild this wouldnt be an issue - people would come along just to be helpful. But if i was to compose a list of people that perfect it would have about 3 people on it, and i wouldnt be one of them . how often does the average person take 4 hours to run some low levels through deadmines?

 

[Readon]

Just read on the forums that it'll be another 2/3 weeks before we get the module

 

[Sorontar]

Yeah a bit pants isn't it

 

[Gottaa]

For the people who speak english it is, for all the other languages in the EU it'll be worth the wait so they can understand the text

And given the choice of DKP or trusting ClanUK members I'd still totally trust ClanUK members to decide and police the difficult issues of loot over a points system. Maybe I'm being nieve but I'll never know cos I simply won't be in a guild that does use DKP. And I'd also add in a DKP guild surely you'd be less likely to get people helping out others as there are no points in it for them, and given the choice of a raid giving points and helping someone out they would pick points every time. And the fact points make powergamers worth more than casual gamers just means you lose all the casual gamers, need to bolster numbers due to people leaving, get in strangers, repeat that a few times and your left with a guild with no heart, no soul and simply existing to get loot and kill bosses.

 

[Sorontar]

For the people who speak english it is, for all the other languages in the EU .

There are other languages in the EU I just thought they all spoke English with a funny accent

 

[Gottaa]

You mean like the scots ?

*duck and cover*

 

[Zed]

I think the guild membership in CUK DDO is small enough that *if* we get to raiding (and I damn well hope we do) we can trust how we distribute the loot, and that everyone will help everyone get at least one item.

I wont want to see DKP, however if we raid with other guilds we might have to. Personally Id have a system for that where if we field 1 group of 6 and Guild X fields another group of 6 its simple to give the leader of the other group a shard to do with as they please.