Once I came back to classic, I began raid leading, experimenting with the SR and GDKP systems, the GDKP system is by far the most rewarding and flexible system, also is attractive to full BiS players that can earn some GOLD which they can use on their other characters for the various in-game activities available like professions, consumables, etc.
Recruiting for such raid is a breeze there are always people who want to either gear, earn gold or just enjoy the game and see gold as bonus. There is not much incentive for PvE players to raid every week after the gear progression is concluded.
There is also Drama and Human Differences that lead many people away from guild activities and GDKP is an alternative that keeps the player playing without having to deal with prolonged negative social interactions or the need to jump from guild to guild where its possible to sit on a bench for a while.
Compared to a GUILD experience which can be more static in nature community wise the GDKP based communities can be very dynamic, providing time efficiency for its members, well life is brief, for whoever wants the guild experience it is there. I do play in a guild as well, so I’m coming from purely observational point of view that comes from experience. The guild experience is still available to everyone and there are active guilds running but in these days it can be a burden for a modern man to stay in the loop. I know that this can be a shock for some players but not every human is living in the shell of a experience that you would like to experience.
From my experience, the community that I’ve formed while raid leading consisted in itself each aspect that a guild brings but was a lot larger than a regular guild, over 700 people on the discord server, most of them active players, WHILE and this is one big WHILE folks, while someone was busy due to REAL LIFE situations or whatever their personal reason would be, it would be fast, drama-less and seamless experience as replace is significantly easier. Why is it easier? WHY PEOPLE PLAY WITH THIS SYSTEM? IT’S SO EVIL? MAYABE… they are demons eroding the community! No… It provides a reward even if you do not manage to get an Item(reward), you still get some GDKP(gold) which you can trade in for items on the next run or progress your other characters even more the resource is not bound by the raid instances so you can progress other aspects of the game like professions, consumables, etc. . So you are essentially expanding your capabilities to acquire character power, a point which is lacking in every other system, like SR runs, regular DKP, or Loot Council runs.
Loot Council has its own charm but its a very particular experience and is also easily corrupt, I’ve personally participated in 1 guild that had from my PoV fair-to-all council and that was my speed run guild that I played in parallelly to GDKP’s.
The dynamic that GDKP’s brought to the game is unmatched… You can be part of multiple communities with different raid days and join on and off without that hurting the particular community. So you can be full-fledged human being in real life and also enjoy being part of a larger in-game community that clears end-game content, meet a lot more, in the ranks of hundreds, players that are part of the community due to the flexibility of the system and just have a taste of all kinds o human flavors.
You progress your other character by playing your main character and you don’t have to worry for the group being disbanded or people leaving because there is incentive for them to stay or be easily replaced, those who have actually played SR runs know what I’m talking about with multiple people leaving mid run after their items didn’t drop or their actions were questioned due to playing in a manner that is inefficient, yes people leave because you ask them to follow the game mechanics. Even if you are a considerably unexperienced player you can join a GDKP and see how the experienced, already skilled players perform and what tactics work.
I personally had communications with people playing both in guilds and gdkp’s, some of the guild players brought that experience in their guilds that further helped their progression.
So the GDKP system has spot for everybody and provides a UNIQUE opportunity that CONNECTS players from all skill sets. The experience provides minimum friction and maximum reward, so of course it became so popular.
For me personally I geared 9 characters most of them to full BiS and provided the same experience to many others who played with me, which would’ve been near impossible with the other systems, I connected with hundreds of people and got the chance to make meaningful connections outside of the game too, the old-school systems were still part of my experience as I was part of a High-End closed community that resided in a guild and utilized the Loot Council system, and 2 more guilds which utilized the SR system, its not a bad experience and in terms of social interactions, it is simply limited in terms of loot system functionality and in some cases highly irritable for many players that didn’t get anything for their involvement in the activity.
The point of this post is not to speak illy on the other systems but merely point out the LIMITATIONS of it and how banning an aspect such as the GDKP system hurts rather than enhance the in-game POSSIBILITIES for the dedicated gamers. I had tremendous pleasure enjoying each aspect of the game in WOTLK:classic, besides PvP, and can claim without hesitation that out of all the GDKP’s system had the biggest positive impact on my in-game experience. Once I was done with one character I could just hop on other character and bring it to a point where I pump big numbers even faster, it was getting incrementally easier with playing because I had more characters that I could raid with and use the gold to gear my new characters and level up the necessary professions.
None of those elements hurt my social experience in-game so I do not understand such comments from people, I start to assume that those who speak badly of the GDKP system just have no experience of it or simply have prejudice against it as it was the largest contributor to my social experience in-game.
I am putting my experience out here because I’d like to play the Classic:classic and use the dynamic tools of GDKP to enhance and fast-forward my in-game experience. I’d like to appeal to anyone with actual GDKP experience to express it here so Blizzard can adjust this decision accordingly.
Bless Y’all and have a great day.
- An Old School World of Warcraft player with over a decade of playing experience
