Dragon kill points

Dragon kill points (usually abbreviated with the acronym DKP) designates a kind of currency which is earned by participating in endgame raids and spent by acquiring loot from endgame bosses. The term DKP is also frequently used to designate raid-level loot system in general. The most popular systems for endgame loot distribution are point-based (and thus DKP systems). The very first endgame loot distribution system was developed by the guild Afterlife in 1999 and named for the original two EverQuest end bosses, both of whom were dragons.

Creating a DKP system gives an example of how to build a DKP system from scratch.

EQ origins

From EQDKP - About:

What is DKP?

DKP, short for Dragon Kill Points, is a concept originally created by Thott of Afterlife, at a time where the only two raid targets in Everquest were two dragons, Lady Vox and Lord Nagafen. These points are awarded to each guild member as they attend a guild raid. The current DKP of each member reflects his or her priority for loot. When a member "wins" an item, they lose a DKP amount that reflects the value of that item.

DKP allows for an unbiased comparison between guild members when decisions about loot are to be made based on attendance and recent items that have been awarded.

DKP automation

Most guilds using a formal loot system will use a website to communicate current standings to their members. There is a plethora of ways to do this ranging from simple lists updated manually, to highly tailored full-fledged graphic mods. When setting up such a system it helps to keep it simple at first, and not to get carried away with fancy features and time-consuming projects.

The technically simplest method of dealing with DKP is to just have a list on the guild forums or a flat html file in which the standings are manually updated. The disadvantage of this solution is that there will be no item history, and it's not easy to do fast searches while raiding. Updating can also be time-consuming and error-prone. If a simple system (like Suicide Kings) is used, this approach may still be appropriate.

The vast majority of raids though use some ingame mod to collect data, and a website with a database to display the statistics. These DKPSoft systems need some time to set up, and a little learning on how to use them, but offer a lot of nice features, and are quite safe and simple to use. The most popular such systems are eqDKP, eqDKP Plus nDKP, AutoDKP, gsdkp and bbDkp. Most are PHP/MySQL based, thus need a website supporting that. eqDKP is something like a gold standard, the grandfather of all such systems. It is rather well documented, and sports support forums on its website. It's not a bad idea to simply start there if there are no specific reasons to use one of the other systems. A Project (namely eqDKP Plus) with extended Functions and as well supported Games has evolved from eqDKP. It has an included Raid Planner, Boss Progressing Graphs, an Importer for Raids from WoW and supports many CMS and Forums to login with the same username. Another new Eqdkp evolution is bbdkp, a guildportal sulution combining eqdkp with the phpbb3 forum.

Some live DKP standings examples:

• Vanguard (using gsdkp)
• Totus Solus (using WebDKP official site)
• Plan B (using PBDKP)
• For The Lose (using nDKP official site)
• The Covenant (using eqDKP official site)
• Dark Destiny (using AutoDKP HTML postings official site)
• Thor's Requiem (using ThorDKP, still in Beta with no official site)
• MLdkp (DKP System made by Moonglade Lumberjacks. With WoW in-game Support official site)
• Perfect dkp (Made by Theolas. Theoretical Idea not yet implemented. [2])
• bbdkp Demo (EqDKP port to PhpBb) official site)

There are also addons that use Officer/Public notes to handle DKP. As such DKPs are tracked in real time and everyone has the latest standings readily available, in the expense on not being able to handle DKP tracking for people outside the guild:

• Eternal DKP at Curse Gaming
• EPGP (download addon at Curse Gaming)
• Quick DKP (this one falls back to internal storage for people outside the guild)

And there are also systems that don't use the Officer/Public notes, but keep their own storage mechanism:

• RDKP (Can be found at Curse Gaming)

Scientific research on DKP systems

Meanwhile, the economics of MMORPGs in general, and the loot distribution systems in particular, have become the subject of scientific research. Notable articles include:

• Spohn, Dave. DKP - dragon kill points. About.com.
• Neils Clark (August 2006). "Addiction and the Structural Characteristics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games" (PDF). University of Hawaii.
• Oppenheimer. Loot Distribution for Raids. World of Warcraft Stratics.
• Castronova and Fairfield (October 16, 2006). "Dragon Kill Points: A Summary Whitepaper" (PDF). Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research.
• Developing management skills through MMORPGs

External links

• DKP Sites - Cheap DKP, Raid Planner, Roster and Forum hosting. Basically everything a guild needs.
• FreeDKP.Org - Free hosting of the EQdkp open source software.
• gsDKP.Com - Free Online DKP & Raid Management System
• Ejeet Networks - Dedicated EQDKP++ Hosting
• WebDKP - A free addon and website for managing DKP
• Alt5 - Add DKP functionality to your guild website

See also: Loot system