

Show HN: QuestCompanions, temp labor for MMORPGs - daeken
https://questcompanions.com/

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daeken
QuestCompanions is a new startup launched by myself and some friends. The idea
is that casual MMO players can pay to have hardcore players help them with
quests, tough enemies, etc. The difference between this and everything else
out there is that the Companions do not play _for_ the player, but play _with_
them. We think that makes all the difference in the world.

We're in private beta right now, but you can use this invite link to join:
[https://questcompanions.com/invite/accept?code=1.1335882868a...](https://questcompanions.com/invite/accept?code=1.1335882868a5c795e7)

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

~~~
Alex3917
"The difference between this and everything else out there is that the
Companions do not play for the player, but play with them."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlfriend_experience>

~~~
tehayj
I see fail in your venture sorry. I played mmos for some time and never had
problems to find some hardcore players to come and help me. I mean they get an
ego boost out of helping noobs like you...

While I did buy some gold from some farmers I would not pay for this kind of
service. If you are really lost just join a guild and one of your guild mates
will help you.

~~~
alttab
Not sure about the downvotes, this is not really a business. Connecting MMO
players so they can play together, but having one person pay another?

What ever happened to playing games because they were fun?

Full disclosure: I never really understood the pay-someone-to-play-a-game-for-
me-that-I-also-paid-for business. Are people so busy these days they don't
even have time to play video games so they must pay other people to do this?

What ever happened to meeting up in chat rooms?

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Lewisham
Hi daeken, I'm a games researcher and perhaps too heavy of a game player.

While I largely agree with the people who have mentioned "why don't they just
buy gold?", and I somewhat agree with your stance that there are people that
won't do this, I can't help but wonder who you are serving and how you intend
to do it.

* World of Warcraft currently runs 500+ servers. You'll need characters in very specific level ranges. A level 80 that needs to run with a level 20, even if completely unequipped, will still cakewalk the encounter. Assuming you need to be within say, 20 levels of any character, that means you need at least 4 characters per server, which means 2000 characters on tap, if you want full coverage.

* Even if you had those 2000 characters, they need to be available _now_. I would posit that most players who buy gold do so out of ego depletion (ie. people lose willpower over time banging their head against a certain quest, and eventually they just tip over the edge). If you're not there to provide the service straight away, either the ego will come back, they've already abandoned what they're doing, or they've found someone else to help.

* But probably the biggest issue, which tehayj notes, is that guilds already fill this purpose. Good guilds will often have people who will come and help if you just ask, and they're already people that are friends. And they're usually available in 15 minutes or less. They provide a better service than you can.

If guilds are providing a better service, it makes more sense to pivot and
provide some sort of guild matching web site, although there's one of those
already in-game in WoW.

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lmkg
I'm a little bit confused about the target audience. The target audience is
supposedly "casual MMO players," but the idea of investing money for
advancement in a game seems to me like a more hardcore-ish thing to do. I
would expect the groups "casual" and "willing to spend more money on the game"
to be largely disjoint.

It's possible my intuition is completely off. I know there is a market of
aging, settled gamers in the "time is more valuable than money" category, but
I thought it was a small population. Have you done research on the size of the
potential market?

~~~
webjprgm
I wonder how this compares to monetizing iOS apps with in-app purchases of
game currency and/or items (or even Rovio's "Mighty Eagle"). There seems to be
some market in games that would be called casual games (in my understanding,
all iOS games are pretty much for the casual gamer) for those who get
frustrated to pay real money for some advancement.

I personally don't like it, though, and would never pay extra money to skip
playing the game since that seems counter productive to the purpose of a game.
If the game isn't interesting enough to play, then I just play a different
game. It's not like I don't have enough choices.

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elliottcarlson
Excellent idea - as a casual gamer who doesn't have time to get sucked in to
an MMO these days, but I still wish I could participate in them. Something
like this would be quite useful.

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gravitronic
Maybe you are aware of this, but did you know that Quest is the name of one of
those late-night "local girls waiting by the phone, call now!" advertisements?

example ad (borderline nsfw maybe): www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFEYKnEDnh0

Maybe you can use this to your benefit by filming a spoof commercial featuring
WoW characters.

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jyost
This is against many poplar MMO's EULA's. Specifically since World of Warcraft
is the MMO with the largest player base you would get most of your users form
there. The EULA for that game specifically prohibits setting up any sort of
match making service. I would expect a C&D if this venture takes off.

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kenrikm
The idea has been around for a while however not at scale. Which brings up the
topic of cost? I know it can be outsourced, however hopefully not this way:
[http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/26/chinese-
prisoners-...](http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/26/chinese-prisoners-
forced-play-world-warcraft-detainee-says/)

Kidding aside, If you can offer good quality/friendly companions I can see
this being a hit. "it's like exec for WoW"

~~~
daeken
Honestly, the link you gave is part of the reason we're only allowing
Companions within the US as it stands. In addition to making it easier on me
(I'm currently going to be writing checks by hand for this -- gotta start
somewhere), I feel that it will keep the quality high. Fewer language
barriers, less 'farming', etc.

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athst
Good idea, but I wish there was something we could see on the site before it
was posted.

I think this could be an interesting service for the launch of Diablo 3 in a
couple week. With the difficulty of Inferno mode in combination with the
financial incentive of a real money auction house, hiring "mercenaries" to do
quests could become a common thing.

~~~
daeken
What would you like to see?

And we're definitely considering Diablo 3 support. There are some interesting
challenges, though, in terms of how you can start the game with a Companion;
from what I know from playing the beta, I believe you'd have to add the
Companion as a friend, right?

~~~
JohnTitus
My first question, as a user, would be - "How much?" Maybe create a page for
each game you support with examples of quests/costs/the level of "companions"
available and their experience...

~~~
daeken
Showing examples of pricing is tough. The way it works is that the job poster
says how much they're willing to pay, and then Companions bid down from there.
We decided against influencing the pricing, outside of having a minimum price
of 10 gold ($1 USD).

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NathanKP
Which games will be supported? I would like to put in a vote that Dofus
(<http://dofus.com>) be included. And will individuals be allowed to offer
their mercenary services for free on the site, or do you plan to make money by
taking a percentage of the money to be paid to the mercenary?

~~~
daeken
Right now we only support World of Warcraft, but support for others are coming
soon, starting with Star Wars: The Old Republic. We're definitely considering
other games for the near future, though.

We currently don't support free jobs, and we do take 30% of the money paid for
jobs.

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saw-lau
Some site feedback - the 'You have enlisted!' text that appears when you click
'Enlist' wasn't obvious to me. Might be better to go old-skool and redirect to
a 'Thanks for enlisting!' page to make it clear that you have the details.

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tonetheman
Great idea, I registered! I can see using this for learning to deal with
heroics.

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kelsokennedy
This is a great idea, I've been waiting a long time to finally get to try it
out!

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science_robot
Cool idea. Reminds me of the novel _For The Win_ by Cory Doctorow.

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JohnTitus
Love the idea. How will you market it?

~~~
daeken
We had great success running Facebook ads to get Companions into the private
beta list back when we were still in early development. Now we need to focus
on getting paying customers. To that end, we plan to run Google ads for
keywords related to buying/selling gold and powerleveling services; while we
have no intention of doing these things (in fact, they're very much against
our ToS), we feel that customers looking for such services will have a nicer,
safer, and more rewarding experience with our site. We also plan to go to the
standard gaming bloggers/press when we feel we're at the right point,
hopefully within the next month or two.

~~~
patio11
That sort of bait&switch AdWords stuff rarely works well, unless the
bait&switch is of the variety:

\+ title: "Is Gold Selling A Scam?"

\+ actual business: selling gold

You might consider doing media buys on outlets which refuse gold selling ads,
since their ad rates are _terrible_ (because they refuse the best way to
monetize MMORPG traffic) and the audience is targeted fairly well. This is
especially the case if you can get ones which are too obscure/niche to warrant
attention from either the Chinese MMORPG publishers or the brand advertising
teams at EA and whatnot. e.g. Curse Gaming currently shows a D3 ad placed
directly by Blizzard so they'd be a poor choice. Penny Arcade also probably a
poor choice. Popular MMORPG bloggers monetizing through Project Wonderful or
something: probably a good choice.

(I'd try buying an ad through Project Wonderful, seeing if it works, than
offering to just buy that ad slot directly and cut out the middleman. Bonus:
they're probably cheap -- you could anchor it to something like "Hey I'll pay
for your WoW subscription _and_ buy you D3 when it comes out if you replace
your ad block with this.")

~~~
daeken
Interesting. So you don't think that something like "Get help in World of
Warcraft" or the like would convert well off of keywords like gold or
powerleveling?

~~~
patio11
I believe that the conversions would be abysmal (on the order of ads for e.g.
wedding venues on a search which clearly demonstrates immediate intent to
consume pornography) and the ad network (Google, etc) will hate it.

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gcb
Slogan should be: trade you fake female account for some dignity and gold

