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.
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.