A view on DKP

Dragon Kill Points or more commonly refered to as DKP, it's a virtual kind of cash often provided by your guild for attending raids or killing raidbosses. The name has it's origin in a different MMORPG actually, can't tell you which as Wow is my first but i've heared the name Everquest being mentioned before.

You spend real time and get virtual points in return of which you can buy virtual items (if you are lucky enough that the item you need/want drops). The more time you spend on raids and events, the more DKP you get and the more points you will get in return.
There are various variations on the DKP-system (some systems reward only for time, others for kills or item drops or even some wacko combination.. our system seems to evolve all the time) but in about every system goes; the one with the most DKP has the best chance to get an item. I say chance as not all systems are as easy as "the highest gets the item" there are also bidsystems, with aswell open as hidden biddings.
It's not always called DKP either, my previous guild called it ELP for Earned Loot Points but whatever you call it, it's still virtual "money" for virtual items.

The question here is; do you get out of the game what you put into it? You raid weeks and weeks and then get a shiny new Epic, then it starts over (most likely not being the highest in the list anymore... if you weren't just pickup up a leftover already). Weeks and weeks will go by once again untill you get that next Epic and your life is a little more complete. (yeah riiight, who am i fooling? :P )
Or perhaps you are "lucky" and get a couple of items in a row, only to fall to the bottom of the list and will have to wait even longer, maybe even a couple of months? The best way to shorten this period time is to attend as much raids as possible, that way you won't fall behind on your fellow guildmates and get a fair shot at the loot.
So even if you sick (either in RL or about the instance) you're gonna show and pay the hefty price for pots and repairs, not to mention time which could have been spend better somewhere else. I'm not exactly cheering anyone up here am i? But when looked at through this dark shades thats pretty much how i see it... until i'm gonna swap to the pink goggles later on.
I hated to mis a raid myself as this would get me out of pace with the rest and i wanted to have a fair shot at loot and stay on top of my game but then i bought me a new house and me and my GF missed out on 2 months of raiding and missing out on a shitload worth of DKP.
Since then i'm not that worried if i'm missing a raid due to RL happenings, i don't even try to move appointments to non-raidnights all of the time. Chances i catch up any time soon aint too big anyway and any loot i get will often be scraps left by others and picking up those scraps will keep me nicely at the bottom.
I kind of let go of the obsession and stopped DKP running my life and i have been enjoying both RL as Raids much more as i'm really raiding for the fun of it not for the purplezz.

Now when comparing raiding to pvp i wonder if this still in balance. This weekend it was Alterac Valley bonus weekend which resulted in about 500honor per run, which takes about 30-40minutes. I'm after a shield myself which is worth 17k honor. It would take me 34 runs to get the right amount of honor for this, which is about 18-20 hours of raiding. So in 4 nights of doing AV i get a nice shiny epic, could easily get this in a weekend aswell when i have time during the day.
If i would spend my time on pvp instead of pve i would get at least an epic each week ánd without paying that absurd ammount of gold on repairs or pots. Sadly enough, pvp is boring... at least for me it is. And having a victory with a bunch of people you don't know is just not much fun, it just means you get more marks. What keeps me going back is the extra fun of raiding and the people in our raid.
Maybe pvp rewards aint in balance to pve rewards but for me the scale still tips to pve, despite of that damned DKP ;)