Konfer Suicide Kings (hereafter refered to simply as KSK) is an implementationn of the Suicide Kings loot distribution system. If you are not familiar with Suicide Kings, you can read the discussion below on the principles behind it. It is a very simple, elegant loot distribution system that gets a lot of gear to more guild members quicker than just about any other system.

KSK has many features designed to make the loot distribution process as quick and easy as possible. My own guild used a different implemention of Suicide Kings (SKG) for many months, and as the person who was most often the master looter, I saw many ways in which it could be improved. I had long wanted to sink my teeth into addon development, and this seemed like a perfect place to start. Thus, the KahLua project was born, and KSK is the first addon in that project to leave the stable.

If you already know Suicide Kings is for you, here is a list of features that KSK supports, so you can better decide if it is the addon you want to use to distribute your loot in raids.

• Supports multiple configurations, including guild configs and PUG configs. Each configuration is completely discrete.
• Quick and easy user and list management
• Simple, compact user interface
• Robust, fast synchronization between administrators
• Item editor that allows you to auto-assign items to users or set default loot priorities
• User-only mode for non-administrators so they can see their list positions and watch looting take place
• Auto-assignment of loot when a bid is won
• Auto-assign loot to defined enchanters if no users bid on an item
• Supports open rolls that do not suicide users on lists
• Open roll system supports alt-spec rolls (/roll 101-200)
• Records loot assigned through the mod
• Import of existing SKG and SuicideKings users and lists
• Import users by guild rank or from a CSV list
• Export to CSV or XML formats
• Announces winners in guild or raid chat
• Supports silent bidding (highest bidder not announced)
• Filters out all mod-related messages for master looter so chat isn't cluttered
• Allows master looter to force bids and retractions
• Automatically assigns BOE items that are not bid on to the master looter
• Automatically supports class restrictions if an item is class specific
• Guild rank based filtering (allow only raiders and above to roll, then members and above etc)
• Allows you to define user "roles" such as tank, healer, spellcaster etc, and filter based on that role

On the right hand side of this page you can click on the Users link to see documentation for normal (non adminstrator) users, or on Admins to see documentation on features that only administrators have access to. You can also click Download to download the latest stable version.

As near as I can tell, Suicide Kings was a loot system invented by a guild called "The Black Company". An author I know only as "Joehunk" seems to have been the original author. At some point he quit developing the mod, and several other implementations have cropped up. Most notable among then is SKG, the mod that inspired me to write KSK in the first place. I am sure there are more formal definitions of exactly what Suicide Kings is, but this is how I see it.

Quite simply, Suicide Kings uses one or more ordered lists to keep track of users who are eligible to receive loot. The list is ordered from highest (person with first dibs on the loot) to lowest (person with last dibs on the loot). When you kill a boss and start distributing loot, the master looter selects which list (if there is more than 1) users are going to be using, and they "open bids" on the item. Users who are interested in receiving the item bid on it, via whatever mechanism the implementation defines, and after some suitable period of time has elapsed so all interested parties can bid, the master looter closes bids. The bidder who has the highest position (the King) on the list wins the item, and in so doing, moves to the bottom of the list (suicides). All other users in the raid move up one slot, and move 1 spot closer to being King. It is almost that simple. However, the devil they say, is in the details.

If all of the users on the list were present in the raid, then everything as described above holds true. However, what happens if the list contains 80 users, only 25 of whom can be raiding at one time? Simply put, if you were not in the raid, your position on the lists remains static and the users who were there move "around" you. Some implementations (KSK being one of them) also allow you to "reserve" users, which tells the addon to pretend that the user was actually in the raid (perhaps they are with you in Ventrilo but are not in the raid group while they farm), thus ensuring that they move up the lists when other players suicide.

There are many different ways you can use Suicide Kings to give priority to frequent versus casual raiders. The first is to have two lists, one for full-time raiders and one for more casual players. Only if the full-time raiders do not bid on an item do you switch to the casuals lists and allow them to bid there. Another way, perhaps even better, is to use guild ranks as a means of filtering bids. This requires that your full time raider rank is higher in the rank list than your casual raiders or initiates. The you can simply use a single list and change which ranks are allowed to bid. KSK makes this easy by supporting guild rank filters as part of the loot screen, and also gives you a handy-dandy little button for moving to a lower rank should no-one bid on an item. The advantage to this approach rather than having multiple lists is that if a user is working on transitioning from being a casual to a full time raider, or if they are initiates into the guild, they are still working their way up the loot list, and do not have to drop to the bottom when they are promoted.