Like Assembling Groups? Get Paid as a Raid Planner.

I few weeks ago I was on vent on a sunday afternoon when someone popped on and asked me what I was doing.  I said nothing much.  I mentioned I wanted to do an heirloom run on one of my alts but I did not feel like trying to pick up a group because I had some bad groups this week and I was not in the mood to assemble one myself.  I basically had set myself up for not getting an heirloom run on that character that week because I was just burnt out on finding and/or assembling groups.

It was then that he said to me that he needed a run as well and would be willing to assemble one.  I said, jokingly but serious, that I would be willing to pay him to do that.  He sent me an invite and I declined saing that I was going to farm some frogs while he was doing that and being you can not loot while in a raid group to not invite me now.  I asked him to save me a space and let me know when the raid was ready to go and then invite me last.

I told him I would give him one thousand gold to do this.  To me that was nothing really, heck I made over 20K this weekend alone just clearing out my bags some, not even trying to make money, just make bag space, but for some people that are not good at making money, like him, it was well worth it.

I said I would raid lead, I just did not want to go through the hassle of assembling.  So basically I was paying him to weed out the players that were not worth an invite.  I was paying him to deal with people coming and going while assembling.  I was paying him to sit there talking to people, check their armory, find the best that were available, and then just give me a shout when we were ready to pull.

If you ever read my blog you should know this is very much me.  I hate wasting time.  Assembling a pug is nothing but wasted time.  Even if it goes well you are going to spend 10 to 20 minutes to get everyone invited and in the raid.  That is 10 or 20 minutes that could be better spent doing other things than sitting in a group waiting for it to fill out, in my opinion.

He filled out, invited me last, we pulled, wiped a couple of times, but I got my kill without having to seek out a group or assemble a group.  Basically I paid him to make the group come to me.

Then the idea popped into my mind, why is this not a service that people offer in game?  Seriously, why isn't it.  I would pay every single week for a service like this.

A decent player that is knowledgeable can easily sell their ability to assemble groups.  I've had no luck with challenge mode groups and if someone came to me right now and said I will assemble the group that will get you gold for 1000 per dungeon I would jump on it like a fly on... well you know. It is not buying a carry, a carry would mean you need others to do the work for you, this is buying the ease of not having to assemble the people yourself.  It is like hiring a head hunter to get my employees.  In this case the employees are the people I will be running with.  No carry needed, heck I can carry them, and I a hunter, but I just need a group.

Admittedly me offering 1K to do it is rather cheap but I can really see something like this being huge, something people could sell.  Kind of like a professional wedding planner, or bachelor party assembler.  There are many things in real life that people could do themselves but they pay someone else to do it for them.  Heck, you can even think maid or drop off laundry service.  You could clean your own house and do your own laundry, but if you can afford to pay someone else to do it, why not. 

It is one of the privileges of having money isn't it?  To pay other people to do the things you would rather not do.  If I have the gold in wow I can basically have the privilege of not having to seek a group and pay someone to do it for me.   I can pay for the privilege of not needing to stand in a group doing nothing while it is being assembled.  I can basically come in just at the last moment when the boss is ready to be pulled and get my kill and be done with it.  In my opinion that is easily worth 1K gold, don't you think?

I was thinking with next expansion, and the ability to kill the same bosses again (unless they changed that, but I've read nothing on it) so you could do the same raid a dozen times a week if you wanted to but just would not get loot from it, the person that does not mind assembling groups can easily sell their services to assemble groups for people.

And if they can lead the groups too they can even charge more.  They can offer full service raid catering services.  With flasks, potions, food, assembly, and leading.  All for the low low price of 10K, or whatever they decide.

Mind you I would not go for something like this on current content or while content is still new.  But this late in the expansion where normal SoO is trivial for most actual raiders I have no issues with paying someone to assemble the group for it.

Do you think there is a future in warcraft for a raid planner, like a wedding planner.  The type of person that just assembles the groups and does all the leg work for you.  They pick out the best tanks, (cake) the best healer (invitations), the best damage dealers (the location) and then you just get to walk in when it is all ready for the rewards of their efforts.

I can see this being a way for the real entrepreneur to make a little gold in game and if they are the type of person that likes to assemble groups even more power to them, they can make gold selling a service doing something they like to do.

And as a kicker, once they get a solid customer base, if they do it correctly, they can basically get 5, 6 or even 16 people to pay them to assemble the same group.  And if they are charging even 1K each that is making a fair deal of gold to assemble a raid you were going to raid anyway.  They can collect names of the better players in the pugs so they know who to reinvite.  Maybe even collect an entire network where they share the gold.

Not sure about you, but I think this could be an excellent way to make money and I wonder why no one has ever actually created a service in game for this.  I could see someone making a network over the servers for paid group assembly programs.  Not groups that will carry, but groups that will help knowledgable players find other like skilled players without needing to pug and get bad players, bad people, and bad attitudes.

I know if something like this was around I would most definitely partake in their services.  No longer would my alts end up in dead end groups, waiting forever to fill, or wipes on trash only to disband groups.  Hell yes, I would easily pay 1K, 2K and maybe even 5K depending, just so I do not have to go through the trouble of assembling a group myself.

Has anyone ever even considered this idea?  Use your skills assembling groups, maybe even leading them, and turn it into a gold making service.  Sounds like a solid plan to me.

If you start a business like this, let me know, I will be your first costumer and I have 20 90s at the moment that would love to get their guaranteed heirloom once 6.0 comes out without having the hassle of assembling the groups myself or having to find one that will not disband on trash.

Just to clarify, because I know some people might misunderstand.  I am not talking about the carrying services we see listed all the time, they already exist and are way to pricy to even be considered as a group finder option..  I am talking about a group finder option, a raid planner if you will, where someone assembles a group for you with people of like skill to make pugging less painful.  I love this idea.   Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye.