Project Lore

A New Guild and the EPGP Loot System

It finally happened.  My Guild Master called it quits and Warriors of Faith is no more (for all intents and purposes).  The guild that got me back into raiding - pot popping, min-maxing and all - fell apart for a few different reasons.  Naxxramas and Ulduar will no longer feel the wrath of WoF due to the well-timed departure of a handful of key members for a variety of reasons, summer, vacations, money, ninja transfer and flat out boredom.  The camel's back was not officially broken until the last two active Officers /gquit and formed a new guild, with the apparent blessing of their former GM.  WoF is still alive, but raiding is done and said GM has been inactive since.  With a need to raid I /gquit with a heavy heart, and asked for an invite to the next powerhouse of Magtheridon-NA, Smooth Criminals. I know some people /gquit all the time, but it always depresses me a little bit.  Its makes me feel like a, well, a quitter, and that annoys me.  Then there is the notion of betrayal and abandonment to my former mates.  When I quit my original vanilla WoW guild it ate me up for a few weeks, but I was quickly forgotten so I got over it.  Since Smooth Criminals has a "blessing" from old GM, and one of my favorite people to play WoW with is an Officer, it feels more like a reformation rather than a new beginning.  I hope these facts manage to keep my feelings of remorse to a minimum, but the simple 6-keystroke act still penetrated deeper than expected. I already know many of the members in the guild, so I assume my "standing" won't differ much.  Naturally I will continue to be highly vocal (see this entire blog) with my opinions, but respectfully so.  My nature has already lead me to go head-to-head with my new Guild Master.  Thankfully he is as chill, articulate and respectable as I (hope I) am. We've discussed loot issues here at PL quite a few times, from ninjas to the woes of PuGs.  I even went on a triad about my old guild's severe lack of a fair - in my mind - loot system when dealing with PuGs in the raid.  After that ordeal the old (tear) guild saw its first loot system implemented.  It was a newish system, not used by many guild, but it worked relatively well.  It was basic enough to not impede raiding, but robust enough to deal with dual specs, auto-ignore members who can't use certain items and kept a running list of who received gear that night.  We only used it for a few weeks, but it received my approval.  Of course the new guild decided to go a different direction, EPGP. In theory EPGP is a solid DKP system.  It does all the basics, rewards players for attending successful raids, tracks one's points for receiving gear and allows raid leaders to keep records of all the happenings.  The best feature is the basic design of the system.  Like most systems players are given points for being present at kills (Effort Points or EP).  Separate to this is their Gear Points (GP), a number which climbs as gear is acquired through the system.  If two or more people want a piece of gear then the quotient of the two numbers (EP/GP) is calculated and the raider with the highest number is rewarded.  Essentially it gives people who can only raid here and there a chance to acquire gear over time, rather than always losing to someone with super-high DKP.