Alternatives to dailies...

Almost every time I have seen a blue post on the topic of why players hate dailies, the response is almost always, "What would you suggest we do instead of dailies?"  So this post intends to bring up some possible answers to that question, as well as to invite you, the reader to share your ideas as well.

First off, I will start by saying I am in the camp of people who hate dailies.  I know many people like them, but I do not.  My addictive nature causes me to view them as mandatory jobs rather then a fun option on how to play my game.  As such, I would love to see options introduced to replace dailies, preferably solutions that require less Dev time to create then dailies.  I refuse to believe that dailies are the best model.  I think they are just the easiest and most likely model to keep players logging in everyday and not unsubbing.

So now for the list of possible other options:

1. Dynamic World Boss with no grouping requirements - This one may be wishful thinking as I don't know what the programming constraints would be on such a boss, but I would love to see world bosses that don't require you to enter a raid group to fight.  These bosses would split damage amongst all players in front of them, so that multiple tanks could soak the damage.  They would have a stacking debuff everytime a player tags them (tagging doesn't make them turn grey, just makes you part of the fight) that would increase the damage they do, and if the rival faction wants to help you kill them, it is allowed.  Lastly, on PVP servers, rival faction could also choose to attack you instead of helping on the boss.  These bosses could be in lots of different areas, and offer loot equivalent to heroic dungeon gear.  (This would act as an in world equivalent to gear other then running heroic dungeons)

2. In world timed scenarios - Instead of making scenarios instanced, make bigger scale scenarios that are in world and occur at specific times.  Kinda like a bigger version of the cata launch event where every hour, a scenario starts somewhere in the game world.  The more people who join the scenario, the more AI opponents that are added to the event.  These events could include attacking a city (theramore maybe...), defending a city (Undercity), attacking on the plains of battle (arathi highlands), Wiping out demons armies (Badlands), infiltrating a strategic battle point.  These scenarios would be like pve versions of Wintergrasp or Baradin Hold.  And by having one available every hour (maybe every 15 minutes over an expansion or two, as more of these are added in), means that every time you log in, you are only a short wait away from another event.

3. In world battlegrounds - bring back pvp battles that take place in world.  Use the wintergrasp technology to balance out differing numbers of players and like the previous idea, have four different ones that cycle every hour so that there is an in world battelground every hour, but you can only do the same one once every four hours since they cycle.

4. Races - Create race courses in various real world places, let contestants pay gold to enter the race, and then the winner of the race gets a gold payout, or loot item.  These races have strict movement rules, such as:  Only mounts, only class speed boosts, just regular running, flying using your mount through obstacles, etc.  Players can stand outside the track and watch the races (much like brawler's guild) as well as betting on who they think will win (an in game oddsmaker to make bets with).  These races like previous other ideas, happen at specific plannable timetables, and must be pre-registered atleast half an hour before the event to participate.

5. Once a day (at random times), capitol attack or defense - Each capitol will be attacked by npc's once per day, and players can join their sides npcs as they attack or defend the city.  Successful repulsion of the invading forces results in a loot bag, much like scenarios.  If you are apart of the attacking city and succeed in taking out the capitals leader, you get a loot bag.  Attacking campaigns will be announced to offensive players throughout the world one hour before the attack happens.  Defending campaigns will be announced to players on the defending team, five minutes before the attack happens.  These will be sceduled to take place at peak times of play, so that in a given night, you have five chances to participate, depending on which capitol is attacked.  This will be an active pvp event, so while it is happening, low level players will need to hide in the city till it is over or leave the city (get the woman and children out of the city anyone).  There could even be a low level quest allowing low level players to assist in evacuating the city.

6. Non - expansion and patch based dailies - I know, not the best idea, but if you are gonna have dailies they need to still be viable after a new patch.  So let them keep rewarding items that are applicable to the current tier.  For example, TOC dailies granting lesser charms and valor.

I will give some thought and see if I can come up with anymore ideas, but this is my list up to this point.  Feel free to share your ideas in the comments.  Hopefully, somebody from Blizzard will see this and decide to implement something other then dailies to keep us busy in game every day.