Suicide Kings

Suicide Kings is a loot distribution system for guild raiding. Suicide Kings was designed to be a system that distributes loot in decently fair manner, and nothing else. If you choose SK as your loot system, that means you are going to have to find some other way to get players to perform well and show up when no loot drops. This emphasizes the point that SK works better in casual and friendly environments where people show up to play first and foremost, and loot is but a happy consequence. If loot is the main (or only!) reason people show up, SK is not the right system for you.

Basics
The basics of the system are as follows:


 * 1) Players are put in an ordered list, usually based on a random roll (although some have made attempts to translate the order from a pre-existing loot system). Multiple lists may be used (see below for discussion).
 * 2) When a new player needs to be added to the list, it is possible to let him "roll in," or simply insert him at the bottom of the list(s).
 * 3) When loot is dropped, the person who wants it and is nearest the top of the list wins the loot and goes to the bottom of the list.
 * 4) Players who are not currently in the raid do not move up or down in the lists.
 * 5) If no-one wants the item, it is up to the guild to decide what to do with it. See the SK FAQ for some suggestions.

Potential advantages over other loot systems

 * Very transparent, and simple to maintain
 * Loot distribution takes place very quickly
 * Veteran players cannot build a large DKP lead, inflation is a non-issue
 * A more casual gamer who does not attend very often can still work their way up the priority list to have an opportunity at loot
 * Works well for motivated guilds who don't need to use DKP bonuses as incentives
 * Encourages people to pass on minor upgrades so others who need more can have a priority

Potential disadvantages over other loot systems

 * No rewards for desirable behaviour (like punctuality, potion grinding, joining wipe runs)
 * Does not take into account or track if one player gives more dedication to raiding[going more times] vs another.
 * Somewhat disadvantageous for hybrid classes or classes needing resist gear, since they are interested in many more items than "pure" classes.
 * Raid Members at the bottom of the list have a potential to bid more since they have less distance to Suicide, thus allowing potential access to more gear.
 * Different lists (i.e. A List for All Raid Gear, and a List for Tier Tokens) allows the potential for a member to receive more than one piece of gear on a run where gear is restrictive in a 25+ man raid.

Common modifications
Many of these modifications are implemented in order to compensate for some of the disadvantages.


 * Attendance policy. E.g., a person with low attendance (e.g. less than 40%) can never outbid someone with higher attendance, regardless of list position.  This allows for more flexibility in "rewarding" attendance and punctuality.
 * Resist gear is suicide-free. Often, this will be administered by a Loot Council.
 * Separate lists for class-specific vs. cross class items. Running class-specific items such as set items or the BWL class trinkets on their own list allows players to build their sets without sacrificing position for valuable cross-class items.  Also, it removes imbalances caused by different class populations.
 * Separate lists for separate instances. This allows players to fill out gear from "lower" instances without sacrificing position for loot in more-valuable instances.  This allows new players that may still need lots of loot from the lower instances to gear up there without sacrificing their position for loot in the higher instances.  Sometimes, guilds may only allow players to be added to the list for the higher instances after they have been with the guild for a while and/or achieved a certain level of gear from the lower instances as well.  This modification also allows for using a different loot type in different instances.
 * Separate lists for different types of loot. A good rule of thumb is that if players are passing on an entire type of loot (such as AQ20 books) in order to hold out for better drops, it is time to split that type of loot to its own list.  Note that this mitigates the disadvantage related to minor upgrades, by allowing players to take loot they need without feeling they have to "camp."

Current Status

 * The original mod author has retired, so development and maintenance of SuicideKings has been taken over by ArPharazon. The mod has been updated to supports WoW patch 3.02 and the WoLK expansion.

Alternate versions

 * Konfer Suicide Kings (KSK) by Cruciformer can be found over here as well as on Curse Gaming and WowInterface.com. It is fully documented on its home site and is a completely independent Suicide Kings implementation. It supports CSV and XML exporting of lists for easy uploading to web sites, among many other features.


 * Suicide Kings Geo (SKG) by Zhinjio which can be found at WowAce or Curse. Version 6.01 (Gold Release) was pushed out on 5/26/08 and is the first full public release of the completely rewritten codebase. More through documentation can be found on the SKG Wowace project.


 * There is also an open source web-based suicide kings tracking app available for public use. Implements separate tier and regular loot lists and features a character inactivity warning for the list manager. Also has a nice web based output for viewing by the guild.

Similar systems

 * Zero-sum DKP (like SK, other people only move up when you take an item)
 * Spend-all DKP (like SK, you spend all your "points" when you take an item)