I'll hang out with you just for this one daily...

The concept of daily activities, aka dailies, isn’t new in the gamer lexicon. They’ve been around for years. I wouldn’t agree that these digital chores have been with us for over a decade, but some gamers might see it that way. My first true experience, the one that actually hooked me on the design, was, not surprisingly, World of Warcraft. I used to log in daily anyways to farm, but The Burning Crusade’s implementation of daily quests to deliver guaranteed amounts of gold struck me as genius. And somehow less monotonous. The various tasks required of me on the Isle of Quel’Danas sealed the deal, securing my routine attention for weeks on end.

Gold was to be had, how could I, an Au hoarder, say no?

Slowly, Blizzard expanded the concept of dailies. Daily quests for primary professions, cooking, fishing and the beloved addition of reputation grinds were added. Seasonal events joined the fray, and then the epitome of the daily, dungeon runs with delicious rewards. At this point, spending over an hour tackling various dailies was commonplace. And that was fine with me. I only had one character and WoW was the only game that I played with dailies. Fast forward a few years (and two expansions) later and that’s no longer the case.

Not only has Solidsagart joined my stable of endgame avatars, but other companies have begun to tap in to this design philosophy to drag players to their world just like Blizzard has. Upcoming MMOG Forsaken World has your typical string of dailies, as well as the rewarding prayers which can be triggered multiple times a day. Even psuedo- or non-MMOGs have joined the parade. From FPS games (Modern Warfare) to MOBA games (League of Legends) and F2P MMOG (World of Tanks), the first victory of the day garners extra experience, in-game currency or both. I’ve yet to find any Gaming Sirens in Rift, but I’d be shocked if Trion Worlds ignored the latest and greatest trend.

It’s getting to the point that I need to setup an advanced schedule to maximize rewards from dailies that are spread across a half-dozen games. Or I could stop playing so many titles in such a min-maxer fashion.

Where’s that calender app…?