I just don't see it!

I do not understand why people would pay for services like running, doing quests and such. I just see a general scam, you can't really gaurantee if people will pay.

the way they charge you is to stop somewhere close to the finish line, but still needs one last act, then charge you there. if you don't pay, they won't complete the run/quest. it's also common to charge you in pieces instead of all at once.

It's a service that has been going since the advent of Guild Wars. It is purely based on trust and, in general, it has always worked well.

There have been and will always be scammers but the majority of customers do pay.

Why would people want those services? IMHO, for the older players, it may be their 100th time at that point in the game and they just want someone else to do it for them. For the newer, a false sense of needing to rush through to catch up to others. Whatever, it doesn't affect you in the slightest if you don't want those services.

Two sides to that, which you seem to be mixing up. 1)The person offering the service takes your money and leaves. 2)The person receiving gets what he wants done and leaves without paying.

In any case, as moriz mentions, certain practices about payment have become commonplace.

A couple of my friends usually do it to get their toon to a place where they can use it to continue playing. They know the main story since they have done it countless times and they just dont want to take the time to do it again.

There are scammers of course, being the one providing or receiving the service.
Except for once or twice,my experience with this service has been honorable with good clients/service providers.

Well getting a run is totaly up to YOU as a individual. Some missions especialy in HM are a pain and you need help. If you decide not to pay for a service the other person doing the work can report you and you can/will get a 36 hour ban. If you are leary of getting a run say HM SoO go to doomlore or where ever people advertise for runs look at who is running. Add them in friends list and when you see them on go back to town and see if they are there. If you see that person on a constant basis running people most likely they are legit and you dont have to worry about getting scammed out of 10k or what ever the price is for what you are doing. I personally have never gotten burned by paying for a run/service that is because I am careful who I choose. Good Luck!!

Like the above posters have said... It's an honor system.

Plus, I'm a firm believer in karma so if you don't pay or get paid for a run, etc., than karma's going to bite you in the butt.

Paying halfway is usually a good way to determine if the runner is legit. Most of the runs I have had are pretty good, except for a few, where I got scammed. Overall I would say if the guy asks for it upfront, say no and leave cause hes a scammer. And also, don't try to be cheap because chances are that people who offer discount runs are scammers themselves or just terrible / test runners.

For anything other than the common runs, such as Ascalon to LA, Beacons to Droks, CoF, etc. - check out the Services section of guru's Ventari section.

Most of them are long time service providers and are very trustworthy. And from their viewpoint, if you don't pay, they not only will not complete the run/mission/dungeon, they will report you instantly.

I would be curious to find out how long you've been playing, since your join date on these forums is Dec. 2008? I didn't really see the point to runs either until I had played for several months (more than 8) and I realized just how boring some things can be the upteenth time you do them. Otherwise, if you don't see any point to getting runs, you're one of those people that just doesn't see any point to runs.

And when you think of it there's not really any guarantee that anyone anywhere could get paid for a lot of transactions. For instance, when we go out for dinner, usually what happens is you don't pay until after you've eaten or, in the case of take out, are within arms reach of the food. You could always just get up and leave with out paying your bill, or you could always grab the takeout bag and go running out the door. The restaurant has no way to track you, and in general the hassle of trying to bring you to justice for stealing the food would far outweigh the expense of the food in the first place.

Most good runners don't charge you unless you are pretty close to the destination; they don't make you pay up front. And if you're talking about one of the runnee's not paying for the run, well, it's the proverbial person grabbing their take out food and running out the door.

Your probably not at the point in your GW gaming life to need or want any type of services. But for someone like myself who's been playing since the beginning, it's more practical and efficient to pay someone to do it for me. For me time IS money. If I can shave some time here and there I can go on to do other things.

Look at it this way. It's common knowledge by now that most people are not very good at this game. Instead of spending 2-3 hours of your own time trying to tackle 1 dungeon/mission/run you pay someone to do it in a fraction of the time for you, thus freeing up valuable time for you to do something more productive.

Alot of gamers look at some of the prices of these "services" and think to themselves, "OMG what a ripoff!!!!!", but I value my "real life" time more then some virtual pixels. So if I have to pay 10k+ "virtual money" I'll gladly do it in a heartbeat. Besides many of us who've played this long usually don't have money issues anyways. 10k is like pocket change ya?

You don't see any point in paying someone an absurd amount of money to do something you can do yourself.

I don't see a point in wasting my precious time repeating something I've done 546546546465 times when I can pay someone who specializes in running the service for me. Eg. 600/Smite or Permas.

Separate payments at each stop along the run including the destination is the best way to prevent scams being done on either side.

Example:
A Drok's Run from Beacon's Perch for 2k would be 500g at Dreadnought's Drift, another 500g on top at Snake Dance, another 500g on top at Camp Rankor, and the last 500g at the destination, Droknar's Forge.

There are scammers but this isn't WoW, or Runescape, where (the general amount of) people only care about Uberness and not teamwork or tactics.

I now understand, I do believe time is money. Now I will be considering to use services, because man I have beaten factions, halfway through NF and starting prophecies and boy prophecies takes long from one destination to the other.

In the old days there were no hero's and way and I mean WAY less skills. Just stop and think about what Guild Wars looked like without Shadow Form or some of the other Elites. There was no Dervish, or Assassin so guess what.. no skills like that. There was no Golem Elite for necros.. only Prophecies.

In those days there were REAL people actually playing the game. There were real people to form parties of 8,6 or 4, In those days there were no really runners as you would team up with guild members and try and complete the game.

The goal was to complete the game with one profession and then with all of the professions for the FULL Guild Wars Experience.

Now that has all changed. All it takes to complete the last mission in Prophecies is 2 real players and 6 hero's with the right build. Had you told me 2 years ago that GW was all about glowing hands and mini pets and Voltaic Spears I would have said that you were full of smelly brown stuff.

But now you have GW that is all about elitism and the ability to rush through the game in grand fashion.

I myself can not do the harder missions with hero's and henchmen so I just pay 5K for a run and sit there and chat with my guildies as professionals complete the missions for me. If I hit a wall were no one is willing to help with the mission I just simply up it to 10K am spam the quest in a Major Town or outpost. What could be easier.

After all if you have the gold might as well spend it. Fact is the game is already dumbed down.

Another aspect, I have taken and given runs, but rarely from anyone who wasn't running "for tips". When I ran for tips some players payed more then what I'd have asked, some payed less or not at all. This way you take the scam aspect out of the equation entirely. If they mess up or can't complete the run, you're not obligated to pay, if they do you set the price according to your situation. If I was the one doing the run, I actually kind of enjoyed the challenge of running, or getting experience on a challenging run(this was before SF, VoS, and all the consets, I used to do it on a ranger or warrior), so whatever I got afterward was just a bonus.