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Jan 26, 2007

Dragon Kill Points and Posner

Posner seems quite interested in our little corner of the metaverse.  He invited our own Edward Castronova to his Rational Models colloquium to give a whitepaper that we co-wrote on Dragon Kill Points.

I think the paper, although meant to be a fun exploration of the phenomenon, could eventually have some serious use.  DKP systems route around the new fad in online regulation, which is to target trade by targeting the money supply.   In virtual worlds, this can be as extreme as making items non-tradeable.  But DKP systems show that even where goods are "soulbound," and therefore not tradeable at all, we find a strongly functioning market in points that allocate the resources quite nicely. 

Also, the piece at least raises serious questions about "soft law" (sometimes called norms, although that's a term of art in a lot of disciplines, and therefore loaded) in virtual worlds: DKP systems are community generated, self-enforcing rules.   Courts that think they can import law from the outside and not consider the laws generated inside the virtual world had better think twice. 

For those disinclined to click, here's the abstract:

This piece briefly describes the self-enforcing and non-pecuniary resource allocation system used by players in virtual worlds to allocate goods produced by a combination of player effort (the effort required to organize a group and overcome challenges) and the game itself (which "generates the good" – the input here is the time of the design staff). For historical reasons, these systems are commonly called DKP – Dragon Kill Points. The following is an attempt at a fun, not a thorough, discussion of the subject and some of the puzzles it raises.

Comments, either here or to the authors privately, would be wonderful.

on Jan 26, 2007 |

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Comments

1.

My guild was in a similar situation where we originally did random rolling, a weighted point system, then a full blown Zero-sum DKP system. Converting long-term member points through each system was a huge headache.

Discussion about ninja looting was interesting. I see it similar to theft in real life. Setting master looter is akin to whether or not you lock your car doors or house when you leave. Some people feel its necessary, some don't, mostly based on their trust of the local community...or how much of a rush they are in at the time.

Comparing Ninja looting in WoW to other games like Ultima Online or Meridian59, there weren't DKP systems there, but you still saw some kind of enforcement against ninja looting. If you were caught stealing an item, you were usually put on Kill-on-sight lists and hunted down.

It was interesting to read while at work. Thanks! ;)

Posted by: InterSlayer | Jan 26, 2007 at 15:50

2.

>Courts that think they can import law from the outside and not consider the laws generated inside the virtual world had better think twice.

Um, yeah, at least until a government or public company or big corporation turns off the electricity to the server farms, anyway.

Posted by: Prokofy Neva | Jan 26, 2007 at 20:24

5.

I haven't read your paper yet, but I thought I'd link to a similar posting at GameStudy.org. I agree about the implications, it's also related to how difficult it is do design a virtual economy isolated from RMT.

Oh and in that vein: eBay bans virtual property auctions?

An eventful week.

Posted by: Vili Lehdonvirta | Jan 27, 2007 at 06:19

6.

Dear buy wow gold,
link spamming, lol. btwgtfo.

Now, that aside, I do love a good whitepaper.

Posted by: Idyll | Jan 28, 2007 at 00:10

7.

Prokofy Neva: Well, indeed, it can always be shut down. I think the point is that some sort of alternate court-imposed MMO design can't work - it will either be widely flouted or people will leave.

There is a lot of stuff like this written by Hernando de Soto about how law works in practice in Peru, where for example large areas of the capital the formal land title and the effective ownership do not match up.

Posted by: Peter Clay | Jan 29, 2007 at 09:39

8.


It's a great paper.

Do dragon kill points get exchanged for us dollars, or is that unheard of?

The paper explains how DKP systems are "for" growth/stability of the guild. Would RMT help or hurt stability?

Posted by: Johnicholas Hines | Jan 30, 2007 at 15:01

9.

My raid guild is currently doing the levelling thing, and I suspect we are a couple of weeks/month from resuming proper raiding, however we are slightly uncertain as to what to do with old, pre BC DKP.

On one hand it is a currency that is deeply personal to a lot of the established members, who spent months attending/working on old 40 man content. It represents this labour and commitment, and wiping this or reducing it's value would be seen to be unfair.

On the other hand the large DKP holdings of some people will act as a disincentive to those who didn't join earlier. So despite the fact all players are effectively at the same point at 70, some members will be able to gear up very fast because of their past efforts. Which is very much the benefit of being someone rich in recognised currency. But where is the incentive for the new members? Work hard, spend gold and time on clearing new content to gear up other people, as they will be relatively poor.

Posted by: Juan Incognito | Jan 30, 2007 at 19:36

10.

I've been working on designing a new sort of DKP system that attempts to combine elements of bidding (without the negatives) while maintaining zero-sum.

More information is here:
http://forums.subcreation.net/viewtopic.php?id=2386

Thanks for the DKP whitepaper -- it's a pretty cool read!

Posted by: Alcaras Argentus | Feb 01, 2007 at 14:27

13.

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Posted by: Earn your Gold | Feb 02, 2007 at 00:21

14.

And just when people thought vibrant economic discussion was dead at University, I come and check TN only to find Posner and Gold Farmers all in the same thread!

Good paper by the way. Although DKP lacks significant appeal for smaller and/or casual guilds it works well for larger raid guilds (suffering now under its weight with the new raiding paradyme in TBC)


Those gold farmers bot algorithims that scrape the net are getting really good at the keyword/tagging on blog platforms.

It's interesting that the control/tools people have given up by moving from Forums to Blogs are the exact same tools that are needed to prevent bots.

FWIW: There are plug ins you can install that prevent bot spam.

Posted by: Allen Sligar | Feb 02, 2007 at 18:34

19.

Perhaps there is a connection DKP points and the informal law of miners in California? Rights to claims, etc. Or perhaps the rules allocating prize rewards from captain to crew on saling vessels?

Nice to see that either by wiring or passed culture, young gamers today replicate the informal governments of the past.

It gives hope, that, similar to populist movements in the 1800's, should a corporate nightmare future of "bladerunner", "network" or George Lucas’s star wars" that informal "end runs" and methods of group cooperative "end runs" will prevail.

Could it be, if one is a cornucopian "gaia theory" type, that we can see the Purpose of our time wasting skinner-box addictive recreations having a social purpose conditioning us to not only work within an arbitrary system, but social tools to take control of it in an egalitarian way from within?

Posted by: shander | Feb 08, 2007 at 20:29

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