Boosting services for MMORPGs have been around for quite a few years now and yet this industry is still quite a mystery to many.
Recently, I was given a rare opportunity to experience a premium boosting service for World of Warcraft thanks to the guys at Prommote.me, and it really felt like flying first class. I have never participated in any similar form of boosts in MMORPGs and so this was a new thing to me.
This boost run was accompanied by an interview with Co-founder Dmitry Beseda, who revealed the nature of this unknown industry. Before discussing the PvE boost itself, let’s take a look at what Dmitry had to say.
As far as I know, you are one of the oldest Boosting Services in the market for World of Warcraft. Can you tell us in a nutshell how it all began?
For me it all began in TBC – that’s when I boosted someone to 2k 2v2 rating and got some gold for my main – a shadow priest. The fact that people are actually willing to pay money in exchange for my “skill” was quite stunning. Later on, in WotLK, I boosted my first Gladiator order – and that was for real money. As far as I remember, I got myself a new PC and realized that being a good player paid off much better than having a regular job 🙂
The real business began when I was invited as a sales manager and marketing officer to one of the small Russian boosting services. That was the moment when I stopped playing myself and devoted my time and knowledge to connect the customers with the most skilled players around the globe.
I never liked a principle “sell shit at all costs”. Sadly my previous partner didn’t share the opinion, but I was lucky to meet Valentin, with whom we started running prommote.me.
Valentin was a person completely focused on working with VIPs: politicians, media people, sheikhs and business owners. In my opinion, this is the true magic of prommote.me : one guy is a master of handling complex orders and important customers, while the other (me) knows marketing and has experience of handling huge customer flows.
And we both think that the quality of the service is number one priority.
Boosting Services seem to be rather popular as we are nearing the end of the current expansion. Can you tell us about the amount of customers you guys have to deal with on a daily basis?
We have more than ten raids and still sometimes (sadly) customers have to wait for their raid for a few days. I think that gives you the idea of the numbers 🙂 When there is a new raid released, it becomes even tougher. Our business is completely seasonal, though it’s not connected to the times of the year. It’s all about expansions release schedule.
How heavy is the competition currently, and how do you guys manage to bring unique services?
The competition is heavy but nobody survives for long. Most services are run by 1-2 people who are in charge of the website, marketing and customer communications. Obviously, they don’t have enough time to deal with everything properly.
As for unique services, there is a short but quite exclusive list: Ultra rare mount hunting with zero ban risk, a place in a top guild (basically bringing your character to top-20 WoWProgress), 100% achievements on a character with weekly reports on the progress.
Are PvE and PvP Boosts safe for players and their accounts?
I’ll be honest here – no, PvP boosts are absolutely not safe nowadays. And I’m sure that if someone “guarantees” you 100% ban protection – they will not give you your money back in case of title reset. When there was a way to safely boost arena ratings – we used it and paid the money back to people who lost their title as a result of our boost (though that happened only 2 times). Right now the only way to get boosted in the arena is buying coaching, where you play with pro players yourself.
As for PvE boosts – right now there is no threat at all. Blizzard doesn’t ban for account sharing though I wouldn’t be surprised if some day they will start doing so. However, self-played boosts are not such huge problem as in PvP, so we’re not afraid if Blizzard’s policy changes.
How are you able to gather so many skilled players to conduct the boosting services?
Since both me and my partner started as normal players and did the boosts ourselves – we knew loads of reliable players with whom we personally completed our first orders.
Later on, we developed a set of requirements that ensures that the player is professional.
We don’t hire actively right now, the players contact us themselves.
What will you guys do when Legion kicks off?
Would be boring if I said “Work on the quality of our services even harder”, huh? 🙂 That’s absolutely true though ^^.
But, in addition to that, I am also willing to develop an “educational” program. People want to learn the game but don’t have time to do so. I personally bought a level 100 boost for a rogue (I never played the rogue) and I realised that I have no idea how to play this class, and there are no up-to-date newbie guides on the web.
Lastly, what do you think about the future of World of Warcraft and the boosting market? Is it here to stay?
That fully depends on Blizzard. The game’s core mechanics requires HUGE changes if you want to get rid of self-played boosting. As for account sharing – they can easily ban it when they want. In my vision of the perfect future, we stop being a pain in their ass and develop coaching and educational products together with them 🙂
Dmitry Beseda and Valentin Batura allowed me to experience a full-service Hellfire Citadel Mythic difficulty boost and I was simply stunned by the amount of loot that ended up in my inventory. At first, I predicted to get around 7 items at best, and yet ended up with roughly 18 pieces of Mythic quality loot, including some really rare drops like a Mythic Warforged Tier 18 robe and a Mythic Warforged Edict of Argus staff from Archimonde. The whole run took roughly 3 hours and the boosters were very polite. For obvious reasons, character and guild names will not be mentioned here.
Since I joined in with the WoD endgame quite late, this run enabled me to catch up with the content and to carefully examine the tactics, which means I know have a far better overview of Mythic Hellfire Citadel. This is probably proof that indeed these boosts can turn out to be educational both about endgame content and about our own limits. I was allowed to take part in almost all of the fights and didn’t just have to die in a corner like many other boosters probably ask you to do.
All in all, I am greatly thankful to Dmitry, Valentin and their crew for letting me personally get an insight into this complex and still developing industry. If you guys got similar experiences, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
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