The 'ninja looting' problem on Warcraft (the only MMORPG I play) seemed to be going out of hand. Since quite a few of the quest related loots are the 'you pick up, you own it for ever' varient, hard feelings are easy to come by.

What my friends and I do is only roll on items each of us can use. Whoever wins the roll, gets the item, simple as that. If nobody can use the item, we all roll for it. Same thing for chests. We've started laying these ground rules for everyone we team up with for the bigger quests, since it can get irritating otherwise. Of course, that means some people make out better than others, but it's worth it to avoid the interpersonal issues.

I really don't understand where all these looting 'rules' have come from. My opinion is that everyone can roll on anything they want. Who am I to say that you selling an item for gold that you are going to put towards a mount is not a good use for an item? After all, you just helped kill the monster that is dropping the loot.

Having said that, I usually will pass on things that I am not going to use. I'm a level 60 and have pretty decent gear - most of which I have bought in the AH because I don't typically have enough uninterrupted to run instances. I was part of a group the other day when a piece of plate armor dropped. I rolled on it because it was a 100 AC upgrade over what I was using. Someone in the group told me I shouldn't roll on it because "it was a bigger upgrade for someone else". I left the group.

The way my guild does it is that if someone can use it then they get it. Except for Epics, they are rolled on freely unless they are class specific, otherwise if you have problems just use the Master Loot setting.

I am going to try to explain where "these looting 'rules'" come from. Please don't misunderstand this as me trying to justify these rules being the best under most circumstances. I am not.

The BoP loot system creates a Prisoner's Dilemma (that gets repeated over and over within a certain group of participants, too). From that point of view, it is easy to see that a fixed group of people playing together (such as a guild, typically) with the goal to achieve "best possible equipment for all group members" is going to reach its goal a lot faster if the individuals in the group are not "greedy". So, if any item drops that more than one person would use, the one should get it, whom it means the biggest upgrade for. For the others, this may be a temporary disadvantage, but over time everyone will get ahead in equipment a lot faster.

Thus, idealists will always let the most "needy" group member have the item, even in pickup groups, helping to get the whole server the best equipment fastest, in theory (presuming that all others are idealists too...).

Non-idealists, if they think ahead, will still act like that in a group of regulars, even if it's not for their own short-term best. Sometimes they will even act like that in pickup groups, for example if they deem it likely that they will meet up with the pickup people again in the future (let's say, for raids).

Short-sighted people or people who don't even trust in their relationships to the people they play side-by-side regularly (or people with totally other goals, see below) will of course maximize their gain by just rolling on everything...

Ok, I want to state again that this analysis is only strictly valid if you have the goal to achieve best equipment fastest. But people always have a wide range of other goals, like having fun, or collecting gold just for the heck of it, or making lots of friends, or being famous or whatever. All these other goals may influence the looting rules someone lives by, consciously or not.

It is also only strictly valid in an environment where you will meet the same people again somewhat reliantly. And, finally, it is not necessarily the most "fair" set of rules, depending how you define fairness/equality.

Ah yes, and managing a guild is always something that will cost a lot of time and dedication, in my experience. If you "just want to play the damn game", Draginol, you should probably resign from being guild master (I hope that doesn't sound too harsh, it is not meant like that) or maybe get good 'advisors' that handle the social stuff for you. I have met people (few though) that view exactly the disputing and sorting-out stuff as "the damn game" and have a lot of fun with it (and really care for getting it right). These are the ideal guild masters imho. - For others, leading a guild can quickly become totally overwhelming. I have led a guild one time for several months, and I have learnt the hard way that I belong to the others, the ones that have more fun playing the "damn game" and not the damn social meta-game.

Addendum: If you don't know about the Prisoner's Dilemma (I guess lots of readers here do, though), I highly recommend reading up on it. Very interesting stuff, imho.

This is one of the reasons I play Guild Wars. The game automatically divides up the loot among the party members, eliminating the first round of difficulties, and simply creating a trading situation with players wanting the item and teh player who was assigned the item.

Need Before Greed. We give a chance first to people who can use and equip it, and for who it is an upgrade. If there's no one, then anyone and everyone.

Doesn't made a lot of difference in EQ anymore, since about anything worth having is no drop and is not tradeable after you loot it. Anyway, hopefully no one in a group is just "there"; hopefully they helped kill the mob in question too.

I think I won't join another guild, not in Wow anyway. So far been burned by 4 guilds, and it hurts bad. Can't see myself playing the game for long thou since there's no reason really if u have no guild :/

Yea unfortunatley a guild is really needed after you hit 60, or at least a bunch of friends that can help you out.

I think I won't join another guild, not in Wow anyway. So far been burned by 4 guilds, and it hurts bad. Can't see myself playing the game for long thou since there's no reason really if u have no guild :/

I'd say to Astax, persevere. There's bound to be a group out there you'd like. I don't play WoW, I play EVE-Online. alot of players there have been in half a dozen or more corporations (eve's version of a guild), it's only natural for players to move on or just pick the wrong group for them. I was lucky, the first corp I joined turned out to be right for me and a year later I'm still in it.

Out of interest though, it sounds like you're saying 4 guilds screwed you over somehow, what happened?