Making Gold by Raiding in World of Warcraft
There are two ways of getting gold through providing the ‘service’ of a raid to other players. One is by selling a place in a guild run for achievements, and this is something that’s been around in game for several years. The first really big notice was when guilds started selling speed runs through Zul Aman to get the Zul Aman warbear mount for 10,000g or so. More recently, players have been able to buy places for achievements in Icecrown Citadel.
Introducing GDKP
This post is about the other way to make gold through raiding, which is a “GDKP” run. Yes, that means “Gold DKP” and it means that you join a hand-picked pug, and spend gold instead of DKP. The GDKP you pay for an item drop is put into a raiders pot, and if you have behaved yourself and played well, you get a share of the pot at the end of the run. There are usually strict rules that you will be required to stick to if you want to get your share of the pot at the end!
Just two more bosses, guys, and its yours!
Basics
- Items that drop are auctioned off in raid chat
- All raiders are equal, there are no mains/alts priorities.
- The item goes to whichever raider bids the most gold.
- The highest bidder receives the item and pay the amount of gold into the “pot”.
- At the end of the run, the pot is shared equally between all the raiders.
Pros
- Tend to get a high quality of raiders who are looking to make gold, or very rich alts/new raiders who want to get an item they can’t get in another way, or a combination of both.
- Pot is split at the end of the raid, so its an incentive for all the puggers to stay in the raid.
- Because they are well organised, with a good leader, and good players, GDKP runs are more successful than random pugs.
- GDKP runs attract high geared players who want gold, and can provide a good quality raid.
- If you’re a competent raider, and don’t need much/anything from the raid, you can get very rich very quick.
Cons
- You need a very firm raid leader. If a raider is slacking, not flasking properly, going AFK without reason, your leader is going to have to kick him, and the slacker is not going to be pleased about losing his gold!
- Raid leader must be very precise and upfront with all the rules. For this reason, its best to organise them via forums where raiders can ‘sign’ that they agree to the rules. Rules MUST be stated before the raid starts, and repeated in raid chat beforehand, so everyone is clear.
- Some raiders worry the pot will be ninjad.
- Elitist Jerks says: “If the pot is ninjaed, Blizzard GM’s actually will intervene and split them to the raid, if there was a written agreement at the start of the run. This is why I’m highly recommending all Raid Leaders paste the rules at the start, and Raid Members refuse to go on any run where this isn’t done.”
- You need to read the boss and raid strategy beforehand, and be prepared to focus and play in a courteous and non-selfish way. You will have the threat of being kicked hanging over your head!
Useful to know
- Some items can start a high bidding war, which is great for other players, but not so great if that is the item you want.
- Be wary of any GDKP that have non-public votes. What’s the leader trying to hide?
- Use common sense – is it being organised in a clear and fair manner, or is it a just a normal pug that some swindler is trying to abuse?
- Some servers have lots of GDKP runs, some have never heard of it.
- Players should bring a Minimum amount of gold, this will be set by the raid leader.
- Successful GDKP runs are those that are run by a strong leader, on a regular basis, organised well in advance somewhere like the realm forums, who has a good reputation.
- Its a good way to gear up alts. You could take your alt to a GDKP run, earn 10,000g, repeat a second week, earn another 10,000g and in the third week have enough to spend 20,000g on a beautiful epic.
gold coins
How much can you make?
GDKP runs were very popular in Wrath of the Lich King. They’ve dropped off in Cataclysm because there aren’t as many full-geared players. Yet. Give it a few months, and wait until you see geared up raiders on your server with alts that want. Then the sky is the limit. ICC saw raiders walk off with thousands of gold for a few hours work doing something they love. It’s going to depend on what drops. If there is an item that raiders want to buy, and are willing to spend a lot of gold on, then you can profit from that.
If you’re thinking about running a GDKP run or joining your first GDKP it is worth your time to read up about how they work on forums like Elitist Jerks or your realm forums.
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
Gonna be a while before we see GDKP runs. Gotta wait until a raid instance is easily farmable by pugs before the GDKPs will start up. I don’t gear up in GDKPs as much as I use them to get rare patterns and BoE epics to flip for a profit.
I went on a lot of GDKP runs in ICC (until the raid leader decided to turn them basically into his guild’s progression runs – he’d give invite priority to his guild and allies, and then would handpick a few others; the ‘gold’ part was largely ignored). I spent more than I made, but I was incredibly well geared given that my guild was doing 10m content and the GDKP was 25.
That’s another thing to note – GDKPs really only work in 25m. 10 has too much chance of no one needing the drop and thus no one bidding.
The raid lockout change is going to make it difficult for GDKPs to take off as much in Cataclsym. You can’t go to a 25-man GDKP and run the same raid on 10 with your guild. You can’t do heroics with your guild and normals with the GDKP. There are currently 3 raids, but most guilds are going to, at the very least, be killing the easier bosses in all three. Further tiers are likely to have fewer raids.
So, basically, what’s going to happen is that if you want to go on a GDKP run, you’re going to have to step out from your guild run for the week. That will be especially tough for tanks and healers, but I’m a DPS and it still makes the GDKP less attractive. Raiding with my guild is fun. GDKP raiding, not as much.
Nonetheless, I hope to see some soon, GDKP runs are one of the only real uses for having as much gold as I do.
Hey Uriul, thanks for replying, I’m hoping there will be some GDKP runs in Cata at some point too. Do you think it will be a good place to gear up tank or healing alts?