Funneling MMO population is a big deal that can have huge effects on daily online, active players (or subscriber numbers). The Guild Wars Live Team is doing just that for their game, where population decline is sometimes an issue. They are doing this in the way of “daily” quests, called Zaishen Challenge Quests. This information was just released in the Guild Wars 4th Anniversary content preview.
The goal of the Zaishen Challenge Quests was to direct the critical mass of players. Each day players can go to and grab the daily quest, which features a new challenge for the day. The challenge could be winning a PvP match, defeating a dungeon boss, etc. When complete the players get all sorts of goodies ranging from gold and faction rep to Zaishen barter items. The Challenge Quests are not daily quests, per se, because a player can hold on to them indefinitely (up to 3 at a time), and it seems like they won’t repeat that often. Regardless, it seems like a great way to get players together.
There are plenty of other features coming like a pet zoo, expanded storage, and a Hall of Monuments upgrade, but I think the Zaishen Challenge Quests are by far the best thing announced in the April update so far to give Guild Wars a stronger heartbeat.
–Ravious
trial by stone