Earlier this week, the team working on World of Warcraft: Classic’s Season of Discovery announced that GDKP (gold dragon kill point) runs – raid groups that exchange loot drops for player gold – will be banned in the upcoming phase later this month. This announcement has gone down a treat throughout community hubs like Reddit and Twitter, but why?
It’s a complicated issue, and one folks have been fiendishly fighting over for years. The Season of Discovery team felt it was worth experimenting this phase, and have opted to outright ban it in phase 2, providing the following explanation in a blog post.
“It’s fair to say that GDKP has some benefits to individuals who don’t want to be tied to a guild or set raid schedule. GDKP raids are, while mostly transactional in nature, another social activity in the game, and we’re hesitant to discourage anything that gets people into groups to play together. However, we’ve been concerned that GDKP erodes traditional guild and social structures that are in many cases the basis of our most fond memories of early versions of World of Warcraft. It’s also undeniable that GDKP contributes to and drives a lot of illicit activity, such as real-money trading (RMT) and botting, as it creates a demand for in-game gold that would not otherwise exist. GDKP can create an “arms race” effect that encourages participating players to purchase gold to be able to compete for the best items.”
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