DKP in WoW, more common than you think!
by Alex Ziebart 
Apr 12th 2008 at 1:00PM
It only recently dawned on me that the World of Warcraft has its own built-in DKP system to some extent, based off of set item prices determined by the raid leader. They're called Badges of Justice. Blizzard is your Raid Leader. For every raid or heroic boss you kill, you get a Badge of Justice. How many badges you earn is roughly based on the difficulty of the encounter, from one to three badges.
While not everyone likes the Badge of Justice system, most people do. Being able to accumulate badges in new places for new rewards is exciting! When it comes down to it, they're just DKP. Instead of being tally marks on a chart somewhere, they're material possessions in your bags.
Naturally, there are many different DKP systems out there, as varied as the raids that use them. It's possible I'm the last person on Azeroth to realize it, but I simply found it interesting that even Blizzard has implemented pseudo-DKP.
Those of you out there that loathe the idea of DKP, do Badges of Justice make you feel any better about it? Worse?
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Breakfast Topics, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
mandaree Apr 12th 2008 1:14PM
DKP reduces the luck factor: losing any given roll gives you a better chance to win the next roll.
Badges eliminate the luck factor entirely.
Juan C. Flores Apr 12th 2008 1:31PM
How is this a bad DKP system? If you have both guys that want one piece of loot but both have the same DKP and both bid the same amount of DKP you go look for attendace % and you give it to the guy with the most %. While with the badges if both guys want the same item and have the same amount of badges both can take the loot. In my opinion this speeds up the process for the guild to have their members with better gear and it gets them to more progression which is on of the guilds goals.
Charlie Taylor Apr 12th 2008 1:21PM
Huh, I never thought of it that way before, but you're right.
Tyranor Apr 12th 2008 1:22PM
Whilst I see the analogy, if bages are DKP, they're definitely a horrendously bad DKP system...how many bosses you kill is in no means a measure of how many effort you've put into things, which is why most DKP systems also allocate points for how much time you waste on "learning wipes", time taken, material farmed, being on time, etc.
Dah Apr 12th 2008 1:34PM
EPGP > DKP
Meingaree Apr 12th 2008 2:15PM
loot council is the only way to go.
my guild uses it and everyone is happy.
most by/hyjal guilds and up actually use loot council.
Chai Apr 12th 2008 2:31PM
I was a hater of dkp up until I actually joined a guild that does it well (except for certain people bending the rules to suit them when an item they've wanted for a while drops).
Don't get me wrong, I understand what you are saying, but it's just not as close as you may think. It would be a lot closer of a comparison, if everytime you killed a boss a vendor spawned to tell you how awesome you did, then offer you the bosses loot in exchange for badges.
It would def remove all the crying about "random" loot, if after illidan died, Akama hung around with a couple warglaive s up for 300+ badges.
Kadamon Apr 12th 2008 2:45PM
My Guild doesn't use the DKP system, we're going to try out loot council first and see how well that goes, especially since we've never even been to Kara yet.
However, since we're not anywhere yet, I didn't think we really would be...what'm I supposed to do if we run with a guild that actually uses DKP? Do we conform to their system and have our guil;dies probably lose out on a shit ton of stuff, or do I ask that they follow our system?
BillDoor Apr 12th 2008 3:02PM
For 10-man stuff, loot council is the way to go. The groups are so small and the stuff is so targetted, it's pretty obvious who gets the drop.
Draele Apr 12th 2008 4:25PM
Generally when running with other guilds you'd either /random for loot, or do a /random 100 for each piece of loot, weighting the roll on how many people from each guild are present. IE if 6 people from "Dragon Slayas" and 4 people from "Ogre Killas" are in a Kara run, you roll 100. If from 1-60 Dragon Slayas would handle that item in their way, if from 61-100 Ogre Killas would handle it.
Though ultimately just rolling for loot is the simplest way =P
Littlemouse Apr 12th 2008 4:34PM
I personally had bad initial experiences with DKP, but after running "free-for-all" looting raids back before BC, I've come to see it's value. Nothing is more annoying than running AQ20 for Buru's shield 10+ times and having it finally drop and going to the pug dps warrior (he won the roll, i'm not crying about that) on his first run makes you see the flaw in that system:(
Due to the fact that I'm a night worker, I haven't been able to raid since BC, so I'm not too familiar with the loot systems out now. Loot council, I'll have to look it up:)
G Apr 12th 2008 6:05PM
Blizzard finally took care of the guild bank. It looks like they are trying to address who gets what drops, though they could work a little more instant gratification into badges to make it more Fun than Farm.
So lastly, how does everyone handle scheduling? Are we all running GroupCalendar, an addon which has been abandoned by its author at least once already? (Endless props to Mundocani anyway.) Imagine if Blizzard came up with their own scheduling system, which could work both in-game and on their web site simultaneously, in both directions. Blizzard creates so many group quests and dungeons, which require other people with real lives to assist, yet they provide no official method to help schedule any of it. Just a 2-cent idea.
And if you don't show up on time, a badge disappears from your bank. Kidding. Or am I? Minus 50 DKP!!! More DoTs! More DoTs!
PeeWee Apr 13th 2008 6:27AM
Our guild uses phpraider atm, but a built-in planning system would be awesome. But since there are so many guild-alliances out there, it'd have to be able to share its info over a custom channel as well. GEM does this, but a lot of people I know wo've tried it suddenly experienced tremendous chat-lag.
Ayalafatalis Apr 12th 2008 9:44PM
Good analogy, in my opinion. The next best thing Blizz can do is when you screw up something in a Heroic/Raid, like standing in fire/wiping group/not healing/sucking at DPS/pulling agro, have a huge raid warning come up on your screen saying:
"THATS A 50 BADGE MINUS!!!!"
*Wonders if someone gets that...*
James Stevenson Apr 13th 2008 1:37AM
There is a major, major flaw in your logic. a DPK system is used for random loot drops, not purpose farming for loot. Yes, they badges does need to drop off boss. DPK systems are designed so when your random item drops off a boss you were there to kill you get to have a higher percentage chance of getting it for time served. Badges drop off every boss on heroic/raid instances and everyone gets them, there for they are farmed, not given. The more you farm, the more you get, sort of like when you make an item.
Being completely and utterly in deep epic hate of any DPK system, I can't see any reason to have them other than whiny magots who need instant gratification.
Eh? Apr 13th 2008 6:02AM
Badges are a 1-way currency, pure and simple. you get badge from boss, you save badge, you purchase item with many badges. The item is up on the vendor first time and every time. It's a guaranteed thing.
While some guilds may run their DKP system similar to a currency with prices for each item, it still depends on a random drop for that item to appear in the first place. Random drops, mind you, that have a possibility of never dropping while you are in the raid during the entire time your guild raids that instance. Very small chance, but it CAN happen.
The way the badge system CAN be similar to this is if you went into Shat and had to perform a particularly difficult quest to get the badge vendor to appear. The number of times you have performed this will determine your chance to successfully complete the quest to get the vendor to appear. The more times done the quest, the higher probability of successful completion. You can group up with others to attempt to complete the quest but then the chance for completion is determined by an average of the group so while you may have much experience with the quest, you culd be grouped with a few people who never have and thus negatively affect the chance for successful completion. As long as you fail the quest you can reattempt as many times as you want, but each attempt costs a little more gold. This is ok because each failed attempt gets you another badge or two and some gold back from the attempt deposit.
Once you have successfully completed the quest however, the vendor spawns for 1 hour, returns your last gold deposit, and presents a random page of items available for purchase out of their entire inventory when you right click on them. After the hour is up, you cannot attempt the spawning quest for this badge vendor for another week wherepon the random page of items is reset and the process starts over.
There would be several badge vendors in Shat, each with their own quest and different sets of items but they all accept the same badges.
Raegn Apr 13th 2008 8:08AM
This post is directed to James Stevenson, in lieu of a working reply button:
Okay, Mr. Stevenson, I believe I understand your point to be something along the lines of “DKP is better because you get more of a benefit for time served.”
There is a distinct similarity in this sentiment to the idea of badge loot. Badge loot is another reward for time served. Granted, being able to pull a badge from a boss corpse is “instant gratification” but is it not the loot that we’re really after and the fun that comes from the kill/reward schema behind us all as players? While you may be able to consistently make it to raids and serve your time to get your loot, another player’s may be more spread out. Therefore, it may be quicker for that person to invest their time in collecting badges instead of just accumulating DKP. Moreover, the badges eliminate the circumstance where you miss out on something you really need, just because another raider was able to make it more than you were, thereby reducing frustration for all. It’s win-win and hurts no one (other than certain people’s e-peen). The point is, badges are just another way to get a reward for your time investment just like your DKP.
On a different note, I really wish the “leet” would quit tossing out insults towards people who have different play-styles; to call someone a “whiny magot" because they’d like to get something for their participation, or simply because they like the badge system, is rude and makes you look like a fool. I don’t support insulting people because they can play any more or less than anyone else. If you don’t like the way someone does things, ignore it. If you call attention to yourself, be prepared to be called out. And for the record, I don’t think someone who can’t even put D-K-P in the right order, let alone spell, has a right to talk down to anyone else. /end rant
Raegn Apr 13th 2008 8:09AM
Bahhhhh! Wall of text! Curse you website formatting!
Golijov Apr 13th 2008 2:33PM
The raid alliance I am in (as well as the author of this article) use a system that is somewhat like a free-market DKP system.
You earn points for being on time, for boss kills, or for progression nights on new content if there wasn't a kill (sometimes). The clear benefit to this system is that the value of drops are not decided ahead of time, but rather decided by the want of the members of the raid.
Oli Apr 14th 2008 12:24PM
By the same reasoning isn't gold just a dkp system?