I like Dailies

I am a player that actually enjoys daily quests. Most gaming pundits seem to wonder where the players are who these quests are designed for. Well here I am.

The most important part of dailies is that they are something that can be done every day by every player. It gives everyone a reason to log in every day. This is important for the broad community. It keeps populations stable and clumped so that they can intersect and feel like they are part of a community. This is also important for the small communities within the whole; guilds. Having a collection of daily quests to address each day gets me signed into the game, and into vent, and talking with my friends. We are bound by this common task and it opens the doors of communication. We start talking about dailies, and achievements, and then TV and other games, and news and local events. Also, they are entry level content, they aren't challenging, they offer players an opportunity to be powerful heroes, which I think is good emotionally.

So I like them. I also like running dungeons, working on challenge modes, or playing some of the games I bought in the Steam Summer Sale.

I haven't had an opportunity to do that for the last month since most of my gaming time (and a significant portion of the writing time) is soaked by the massive collection of dailies presented in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. It's really too much, when you add up all the crucial reputations it's about 40 quests every day. That doesn't count Cloud Serpents, Anglers or Nat Pagle. I feel like there are probably even more that I either don't know about or am forgetting. The system is not a good one.

There are a couple of ways this could have worked out better. The first would have been to use the Lesser Charms as a way to grant reputation. Have a weekly quest that costs X Lesser Charms and then rewards Y reputation in the amount that Blizzard wanted to limit the community to. The advantage here would be that after you finished the X dailies you could take a break, or store up some extras for the next week like you can for the Greater Charm quest. The disadvantage would be that there is a real risk that the servers kind of dwindle in population as the week goes on. On the other hand it could revitalize the community and allow more players to participate in all the great fringe activities we have in Mists. Pet Battles, and Challenge Modes and knocking people off their mounts with the turtle shell as they fly over the top of a mountain.

The other solution would have been to tie the gear to factions in a different way than they have. Instead of each reputation offering a certain item. Instead have every reputation offer every item, but with a unique look. Klaxxi armor, Golden Lotus Armor, August Celestial Armor and Shadow Pan Armor. Nothing crazy or over the top, but distinct. As pre-raid gear it shouldn't be the greatest in the game, but with Transmog as a feature there is no reason not to have a neat set of transition gear, people can choose to display it as a way of showing which faction they chose to focus their efforts to helping. Make it a real choice, you can only work on one rep at a time. You can do the other quests, but they don't generate rep, that way guild members can help each other out if they want, they still get gold and lesser charms, but no rep. Maybe block off those armor sets to only your first choice. Sure some people will want it all, but the more you offer limiting choices to players the more they will become distinct. And the less they will have to spend 3 hours running dailies every night for a month. God damn it I just want to play Assassin's Creed! The most epic thing I have had time to do is Perform a stunning aerial assassination on a Bunny Rabbit. Even in my single player action games....afkljfslad