Prostitution is considered to be one of the earliest professions and a form of it is gaining steam in World of Warcraft. Tanks are selling themselves out to groups for large sums of gold as DPS players suffer under long heroic queue times. Who is to blame for this new market for character labor? Why are the queue times so long, and will there ever be any kind of relief?

The Mechanics of the Tank for Sale

It all started around Cataclysm’s release - at least the rampant surge of it - where you could pay a tank to join your group, queue, and then he’d drop out and you’d be moved to the front of the queue for a tank. This benefited the person paying but was detrimental to other people who had waited forever to get their chance only to find that as soon as they load the tank would skadoodle. Blizzard was quick to issue a hotfix kicking anyone who queued with a tank that would leave shortly after joining.

As you can see, tanks get into the queue instantly no matter what time of day it is.

In response, tanks found a new source of income; whenever they needed to do their daily heroic they could simply spam trade chat and gain several followers who are willing to throw their gold into his pocket for the chance to have an instant queue. Trade chat seems to now be overrun by tanks offering their services to anyone with the spare gold to pay.

Why is the market growing so rapidly and why is there such a steep rate for tanks? Many tanks, at least on the servers I frequent, broadcast their rates between 200 and 500 gold per run. That’s some real money and they get takers too. Well it all boils down to one harsh fact: the random dungeon queue is now up to about an hour a pop during primetime for DPS players.

Waiting an hour to get one run in is quite frustrating and whenever you’re desperate for loot there exists a really huge need to get those dungeons ran. So why not throw some coin the way of a tank and skip that hour long queue? Of course, we must ask why the queue is so long.

Well, group composition follows the holy trinity: one tank, one healer, and then three DPS. Since DPS are so plentiful and tanks/healers are so rare, it would make sense that there would be a longer queue time for damage dealers then there would be for tanks.  The issue gets much more complicated in WoW: Cataclysm when tanks and healers have a much harder time playing with much higher standards for gear/skill. This makes queuing up as either to be more than just a simple hassle.

Van Cleef taunts the length of time you waited to wipe on her encounter.

Before, hybrids could easily take on an off-spec of healing or tanking to get quick queues, alleviating the pressure off of the DPS queue times. That is not how it works anymore. Now you need some dedication, some gear, and a lot of time to learn the fights from another point of view.Is this how the game should operate? 

Alternate Forms of Income

First and foremost, let me say that no, it’s not how a game should operate. No game should stress players out and make them waste hours to try to squeeze into a group. However, it’s not new to the MMOG world and, if you read many nostalgia posts, something that many players crave. In the days of yore when MMOGs were almost 32 bit quality you’d find yourself waiting an entire day just to get the chance to be in a fail group. Now, with a more automated process and easier grouping schemes, it’s much easier and much quicker to find a group.

The second point I think is that guilds exist for a reason. I hear a lot from DPS players (especially non-hybrid DPS) about how long the queue is and how much they suffer. It’s true, the queue does take forever, but on the other hand there is nothing stopping anyone from forming their own complete group to run into the heroic. That’s why you join a guild, to find other people to play with, and that’s why the dungeon finder lets you queue as a group. Queuing solo, to me, is like a last ditch effort to find a group and there shouldn’t be any priority placed to making queue times shorter when MMOGs are about being social and finding other players to play with.

Of course, guilds don't always solve the problem. There are times where guilds don't have the available resources or people are in cliques where they only queue with certain other people. Since it is a social game, finding a friend to perma-queue with is another alternative. It's also a great idea to think whenever you're rolling new characters to have someone be a healer or tank offspec to make getting through dungeons quick and painless.

Waking up 7:00 A.M. gotta get in my queue, gotta have my wait, gotta be fresh. Queue times at 7 A.M. EST when no one is on playing.

The third point is that if tanks want to sell themselves out, let ‘em. If people are so desperate to be anti-social and not take the time to find other likeminded players to join up with them to delve into the depths of the various dungeons in Azeroth or not wait the queue time or wait until non-primetime to play then well… paying a tank seems like a great thing. You get to join the queue quickly and a tank gets to buy some more ale at the inn.

Some games even create the market for it. Guild Wars features players, especially tank type players, selling runs between outposts. When a character reaches another zone all other characters are transfered, so one player will "run" the character through a map to unlock areas of the game before you'd naturally reach them.

I think a lot of problems in modern day WoW would be alleviated if people just worked together with the people on their own server and in their own guilds. There is no point in suffering long queue times when you can make friends with a guild tank and do back to back dungeon runs day in and day out without having to pay an entrance fee. As far as the lack of tanks in the dungeon finder, there isn’t much anyone can ever do about that. Tanking is tough, so is healing, so there is always going to be lack of those two roles.

Overall, if you are ever sitting there waiting forever in a queue wishing that it’d be shorter then consider this: joining a guild and making friends takes only a little bit of time upfront but has a huge payoff. You might have to submit applications, do test runs, talk nicely to people, and more but in the end you’ll see yourself running through dungeons as the speed of light.

What do you think about queue times? Leave your comments below. We’d love to hear your own opinions about the subject.