Sherpas

Tim O'Reilly cites a recent Wall Street Journal article (syndicated ref  here) naming commercial services that offer lessons from "professional gamers" for 15-65$/hr.

Tim points out that the surface lessons may seem pedestrian (especially to TN readers):

A.  computer games are now important enough to warrant pay-for-training;

B.  kids are probably the most qualified to teach someone about Halo 2, say.

He instead emphasizes their exhibit of remote instruction as noteworthy (C.) :

...through an Internet phone strapped over his head, snapped commands at Mr. Estalote back in New York. Mr. Estalote, a computer programmer, pays Mr. Taylor $45 an hour for help improving his "Halo 2" skills.

The services cited in the WSJ piece emphasize FPS/RTS computer games - perhaps the skill-emphasized nature of play in these games is best served by such training.  Or perhaps players of these games are more willing to pay (competitive, ladder oriented) than are others. 

Yes it may be hard to see how this type of  instruction transfers into current MMORPG world patterns without turning to the gray side - e.g. power-leveling.   But that is likely an outcome of how places like WoW are designed (Throttbot pwns! instruction).

Perhaps someday Sherpas for (virtual world) mountineering will offer services worthy of 15-65$/hr.

Comments

[Daniel Speed]

1.

Makes me think that areas restricted by your abilities (and maybe not totally those of your avatar) are fairly few and far between. Lots of games have content restricted to your level, or ability to hit things and survive, but few games test you in other ways.

I particularly remember playing Asheron's Call (the original) and finding a big hole at the bottom of a hard dungeon (for my character at the time). I jumped down just to see what was at the bottom, and eventually managed to work out how to survive the drop, which led to an area with portals that could take you all over the continent. Finding the place was cool, but the acheivement of working out how I could get down there was also a big factor in how fondly I remember the game.

[mjh]

2.

It's also true that in MMOs your guild will serve a lot of the training function. If you've got the bare minimum of skills (and people skills--god knows you're not going to learn *those* from a 13-year-old) necessary to get in, they'll help you with the rest. Helping you makes them stronger too.

[Michael Buckbee]

3.

Just this morning, I ran into someone who is starting a SecondLife tour guide business.

They're creating a service to help business people come to grips with SecondLife and the innovative things that are happening within the virtual world.

I'm not sure carrying oxygen tanks was part of the deal or not.

[illovich]

4.

I've been wondering how long until power leveling services started offering safari services instead. They run you through [insert endgame content here] for a fee (I'm assuming raid content would be pricey), and the client would get to be the master looter.

Discounts could be offered if employees got any good loot, and there would be no effective way to police it because no TOS would be violated (although, I expect the Safari organizers might be harassed if identified).

Of course, people who used the service would still be trash-talked in the common chat areas -- "Oh. you got a Shanghai Safari*, huh? What's the matter, too much of a n00b to find a real guild?"

* my assumption is that this type of business would be run by the same people who run the gold farm/powerlevel markets, and thus would be assumed to be chinese by most players.

[Jeff S]

5.

The near infamous Fires of Heaven guild has been running Safari's as you call them for some months now in WoW. It began as a raffle to encourage the rest of their server to farm the necessary mats to open the AQ gates, but lately they been doing them for gold to pay for in-game armor repairs.