Should Blizzard Ban GDKP's in WOTLK? >Sponsored by FunPay<

Wrath of the Lich King is right around the corner and the preparation from new and old players alike has begun. With Shadowlands on its last patch, Wrath of the Lich King is gaining a lot of eyeballs. It's a nice blend of catering to the old heads who enjoyed Classic WoW and enough class balance and raid difficulty to satisfy the new age who tend to reside on retail. With all this being said there is one thing looming over Wrath of the Lich King and some think it may even hinder its success. GDKP's, also known as Gold DKP.



What is a GDKP?
A GDKP is a raid where all items that drop go for a gold bid during or at the end of the raid. Once everything is bid off the total pot is split between the raid. Often the organizers will take a cut of around 20-30% for putting together the raid, spread sheets, assignments, and raid leading and the rest is evenly split amongst all players. Each GDKP is a bit different but this is the general idea.

Why are these potentially bad for Wrath of the Lich King?
The main issue with the GDKP scene is what they have done to mid tier raiding. In Classic WoW you can break down each guild into 1 of 3 types. The progression/speed run rank chasers (sweaty guilds), the mid tier guilds who likely clear everything the first week but aren't over min maxing their rosters and not spending time on PTR before stuff comes out, and then you have the casual/dad guilds who are usually in permanent progression on 15 year old content because they do 0 research, use close to 0 consumes, have bad gear optimization, and just play for the fun of the game with their friends. Right now the sweaty/speed guilds and the casual/dad guilds are fine but GDKP's have definitely put a damper on these mid tier guilds. The reason being is that the content is not hard enough to warrant needing a guild that puts you on a strict schedule and on top of that your at the mercy of their loot council for gear. Why do any of that when you can farm and/or buy gold and join 1 of many hosted GDKP's at your leisure and buy your way to best in slot? Not only will you get geared quicker if your gold rich but if you find yourself in a consistent GDKP you might even turn a profit by the end of the phase from all the cuts. There is no better gold per hour than leeching a GDKP or better yet hosting your own and soaking an org cut.

What can Blizzard do?
I mean the root is obviously gold buying. This won't ever be fixed so we should think beyond this. Should Blizzard ban GDKPs? They already fixed mage boosting in Classic SOM and have tweeted they are looking to do the same for WOTLK. If you made it against TOS and a reportable offense to run a GDKP or participate in one it would kill it instantly. If not that extreme you can make them not be able to be advertised in trade/LFG chats in game. This is not the best fix as most of it is done via Discord's now.

Do you consider GDKP's a problem?
Do you think GDKP's are an issue? Let us know down below!