Raid Loot Policy

Zero Sum Point System with Sealed-Bid Second Price Auction

Overview

• First-time raid members receive 1000 points.
• Players may bid a maximum of 500 points per item on their first trip with a character.
• An item is auctioned off with all interested players secretly submitting a single bid to the auctioneer.
• Auctions occur after each boss is killed. /afk will not be a valid excuse for a late bid.
• The item is awarded to the player with the highest bid. /roll will break ties.
• The winner pays the amount of the second highest bid.
• The points used to purchase the item are redistributed amongst the other raid members, not including the winner. All fractions will be rounded down.
• Bids must be a minimum of 200 points. If only one person bids, they pay the minimum 200.
• Bids are to be announced before awarding the item for transparency.

Please note our Ahn'Qiraj 20 raid uses a 500pt base system. Other numbers, such as minimum bid, are also halved.

Example

"The Kneecaps of Allure are now up for auction."

Secret Bids to Auctioneer:
Joe bids 800
Bob bids 650
Jane bids 600
Mary bids 625

"Joe wins the Kneecaps of Allure with a bid of 800. Joe will pay Bob's 2nd place bid of 650."
"Other bids: Jane 600, Mary 625."

650 points are to be redistributed amongst 39 people.
650 / 39 = 16.67 points. Rounded down to 16 points.
Joe loses 650 points, everyone else gains 16 points.

Bind on Equip

Bind on Equip items that have no bidders during the initial auction will be saved for forum auctions. A first auction will take place where players may bid on the item with the intent to equip & use the item on any of their characters. If there are no bidders in the first forum auction, a second forum auction will take place where the item may now be used for any purpose (including sale on the auction house). The required minimum bid in the final forum auction is reduced to 1 to assure the item is sold. Forum auctions will also be second-price sealed-bid.

Forum auctions are limited to Royal Steel members who have attended the event in the last 6 weeks and non-Royal Steel players with regular status.

Crafting Materials

Crafting materials will be collected and distributed as follows:

• The raid leader will collect all crafting materials (Dark Iron, Fiery Cores, Core Leather, etc.) and mail them to the raid bank.
• Currently, Nishan of Royal Steel serves as raid bank.
• The banker will post the available crafting materials here, along with lists of players requesting items.
• A request for items can be made by contacting the banker via ingame mail or Royal Steel Forum Personal Message.
• In order for a request to be accepted, all other materials needed for the recipe must be obtained and a crafter must be secured.
• Certain classes may receive priority for crafting gear at raid leader's discretion. For example, Warriors requesting gear with fire resistance for Molten Core were given top priority. Otherwise, orders will be filled first come, first serve.
• Excess materials will be sent to a selected craftsman for building reputation with an NPC group. Only one craftsman per raid will be selected at a time. Once the craftsman reaches attains their reputation goal (usually Exalted), a new craftsman will be selected.

Commentary

The zero-sum point system was chosen for two reasons. It is believed that point systems more fairly distribute items between classes, more on this in the next paragraph. The zero-sum aspect is meant to stop bid inflation, and make the point system more friendly to first-time or casual raiders. The bidding system was also chosen carefully, with speed and fairness in mind.

Alternative systems were considered. A standard master loot style /roll system was considered, but provided complications with class distribution. The Zulian Stone Axe incident that Royal Steel experienced in October 2005 is a prime example. The pick-up paladin believed the +Int on the 2-handed axe designated the axe for paladins. However, both a warrior and hunter rolled on the weapon, with the warrior eventually winning. The hunter situation is especially troublesome, as they can technically use melee weapons even though they use them sparingly. Allowing them to compete on level terms with rogues, paladins, and warriors seems unfair, as does disallowing their rolls outright. A point system self-corrects for this, as the bids reflect the value of an item to a player. Hunters would be free to bid on melee weapons, which would then put them at a disadvantage when bidding on guns or hunter armor in the future.

A standard DKP system was considered, but rejected in favor of a zero sum system. Point accumulation in standard DKP results in bid inflation. This represents a growing entry barrier for new or casual raiders. As Royal Steel was built first and foremost with casual players in mind, this system was unacceptable.

A small amount of inflation can occur in zero-sum when people win items, and then cease raiding with point totals lower than 1,000. Due to the zero-sum aspect, this effectively adds points to the remaining pool. To counteract this, all calculations for redistribution will be rounded down.

SuicideKings was also considered. However, SuicideKings assigns the same value to every item (dropping you to the bottom of the list), offering no differentiation between a +Spirit ring and the best sword in the game.

A "second price auction" was selected as the bidding system. A standard open bidding system was undesireable because multipule rounds of bidding take too long. Each item could take several minutes, which quickly becomes unwieldy and unacceptable. The second price auction is undeniably faster, with only one round of bidding. It correctly selects the winner, using the highest bid. It has the winner pay the minimum price possible, using the second highest bid as the purchase price. This is to simulate rounds of bidding, where the second place person would drop out of the race. Lastly, if bids are announced along with winners, it's a transparent process. If all bids are announced at the end, no one can claim favoritism or conspiracies.