Quest

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As you receive quests during your adventures, you will notice two different kinds of quests that are added to your quest log (which you can view by pressing "L" at any time): primary quests and secondary quests. Primary quests move you along the direct story path that will take you to the next major task you need to complete. Typically, these quests will lead you from mission to mission throughout the world. Secondary quests, which are not required for you to complete, allow you to earn rewards or explore side storylines that persist outside the primary quest chain.

— Tablet of Wisdom

Quests are a basic feature of the game play in Guild Wars. Fundamentally, they consist of a series of objectives for the player's character to fulfill, and text that both explains the objectives and tells a story. Quests also often create spawns associated with the objectives, and sometimes provide transport to zone not accessible before or at all otherwise. Completion of all the objectives usually brings a reward. The objectives, initial text, and reward of a quest are listed in the Quest log, and the quest selected in the log may provide a quest marker on the compass map.

Acquisition and removal

Quests are almost always gained by talking to friendly NPCs. If they have at least one quest available, the quest name is a dialogue option. Selecting this displays a description of the quest, the reward, and options for accepting or declining the quest. Declined quests will still be available later. If a single quest is the only available option, it will be displayed immediately upon talking with the NPC.

NPCs that have quests to offer are visually marked with a green 3D exclamation mark hovering above them.

A small number of quests are automatically obtained upon reaching certain criteria, such as entering a specific zone.

Requirements

Beyond the practical requirement of reaching the quest providing NPC, some quests have formal requirements that must be met before the quest becomes available. A common requirement is completion of another quest; this is typical when quests form a chain that tells a story arc. Another common requirement is a character native to the campaign, usually used for quests meant as tutorials.

Completion

Meeting all objectives will complete the quest. A last objective to speak with a specific NPC will be added, and doing so will provide the final text of the quest, allowing formal acceptance of the reward. Doing so also removes the quest from the log. Completed quests cannot normally be obtained again.

A small number of quests are automatically completed on meeting the final objective.

Abandoning

Quests can be abandoned by using the "Abandon" button in the log. This option is only available in towns and outposts, not combat areas.

• The quest can be in any state of completion.
• Abandoned quests can be reacquired the same way they were acquired the first time. A few automatically acquired quests cannot ever be abandoned, as there would be no way to regain them.
• If you abandon a quest while the request reward dialog is offered and you then accept the quest, whatever required Quest Items in your inventory are removed, but you do not get the reward.
• You can Farm quests that have increased spawns by abandoning and reacquiring them. A great example is The Siege at Tsumei Village.

Traits

See also: List of quests for full listing of quests

Some quests have standardized traits that affect the quest.

Solo quests

These involves being transported to another zone alone, separated from any party one was in. Some abilities are disabled during solo quests, such as summoning stones. In later campaigns, solo quests are indicated by a [Solo Quest] tag at the start of the quest description.

Mini-missions

These quests are similar to missions in that they take place in their own zone which lacks resurrection shrines. This is sometimes denoted as an extra objective, but this does not mean that there is another task to do.

Difficulty

Some quests of high difficulty have a [Difficulty: Master] tag, or rarely, a [Difficulty: Elite] tag. Such quests work like any other quests, but the objectives will be difficult to obtain.

Repeatable quests

These quests are offered again by the quest giver NPC after the quest is completed. Re-zoning is often required to regain the quest after completing the previous one. These quests are not marked as repeatable in-game.

Hard Mode Only quests

These quests are duplicates of regular quests that are redisigned to be far more difficult. As the name implies, they can only be done in Hard Mode. These quests will have a [Hard Mode Only] tag.

Hero required

Some quests in Guild Wars Nightfall, Eye of the North, and Beyond require a hero to be present in the party in order to be completed. For these quests, between the dialogue and reward, there will be a Hero required: <hero's name> tag.

Flashback quests

The Memories of Purity quest has a [Flashback Quest] tag that allows some to relive the events of the Canthan plague from before the Winds of Change events.

Section

In the quest log, quests are grouped based on having something in common. Examples:

Primary Quests

These quests form part of the central storyline of a campaign.

Festival Event Quests

The NPC which provides these quests will only be available during some festivals. In addition, completion of them is reset before the festival returns the next year (with an exception).

Zaishen Combat Quests

Rewards victory in various forms of Player vs Player play. Available only on certain days. Always repeatable.

Zinn's Task Quest

A special group for Zinn's Task and its three subquests.

Most quests are found in sections named after the zone, region, or subregion they primarily take place in.

Rewards

Gold and experience are the most common rewards. Others include faction, Zaishen Coins, and items. Some quests provide attribute points and learning skills and are often highly valued.

Bug.If your character does not have an inventory slot for a quest reward item, the NPC will not give the reward and inform you that an empty inventory slot is required. However, the NPC will not take into consideration if your character cannot hold any more gold; i.e. if a quest awards 1 and your character already has 99 1 in inventory, the NPC will give your character the quest's other rewards, but will award 0 even though your inventory can receive 999 and the chat window displays "You receive 1,000 gold." This is inconsistent with merchants and traders, since they will not complete a transaction if a character cannot receive the full amount of gold when selling an item or a stack of an item.

Notes

• As some quests modify the type and number of NPCs and enemies that can be found in an explorable area, it may be advantageous or disadvantageous to leave certain quests uncompleted when vanquishing or farming.
• If you have more than one quest that take place in the same area, some of them may be mutually exclusive due to incompatible spawn point arrangements.
• Sometimes having multiple quests for the same area will cause conflicts, instead of one overriding the other. If this happens, you may experience trouble with missing NPCs, weird NPC behavior, missing quest markers, or missing quest triggers. This is most common with seasonal quests; the festival quests in Shing Jea Island, for example, are known to conflict with the region's primary quests. In these cases, one of the quests needs to be abandoned before either can be properly completed.
• When you are required to escort NPCs to a portal, do not enter the portal yourself until you are sure the objective has been completed. The NPCs will need to reach a certain spot close to the portal while you are still in the zone, and if you run through before they do, the quest will not complete. Stop near the portal and wait for them to approach, stop, converse, etc. Watch your chat window for the quest update message, and listen for the chime of a new objective marker being set before proceeding.
• The quest markers float a fixed height above the ground. Some non-human quest givers are so large that their bodies obscure the markers. Others, such as the Asura or the occasional quest-giving object, are far below their markers.
  • The quest-giver marker appears as an exclamation mark.
  • The quest destination (or mid-point) marker appears as an arrow.
• There are also quest markers that appear on the compass.
  • If the quest marker is within compass range, it appears as a green star.
  • If the quest marker is outside compass range, it appears as a green arrow pointing in its general direction.
• The quests offered by Zenjal can only be completed once per account.
• Wayfarer's Reverie quests and festival quests that award a festival hat token (i.e. Imperial Mask Token, Ghoulish Accessory Token, and Frozen Accessory Token) or miniature token (i.e. Celestial Miniature Token) can only be completed once per account each festival (with an exception).

See also

• Quest item
• All quests

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