Quest



A Quest (クエスト) is an Non-Player Character (NPC)-initiated event that typically leads to a reward after fulfilling a series of set conditions. Certain quests are given via a bulletin board, instead of an NPC.

Quest Types
In general, quests in Sword Art Online can be broadly categorised into four types: Collection, Elimination, Escort, and Errand quests. Collection (収集系) type quests primarily require players to gather materials in the Outer Field. Elimination (討伐系) type quests involve defeating specific monsters. Escort (護衛系) type quests necessitate escorting an NPC to a specified area, guarding them along the way. The final Errand (お使い系) type is a miscellaneous class of quests with abundance of variations. Most of these types of quests involve delivering or retrieving specific items. On the other hand, the Errand classification also includes Search Quests (捜索クエスト) and Investigation Quests (調査クエスト), some of which can be so elaborate that they even lead from a simple search to a Floor Boss fight.

Initiation and Progress


Initiation of an NPC-given quest begins by interacting with NPCs that have a gold «!» symbol above them. Usually, a phrase like "Is something troubling you?" is used to accept a quest from an NPC, though this is not the only possible variant and it's not applicable to all quests. Certain quests might also require certain conditions to be met, like accepting an offer for a cup of water, before the quest can be accepted. After a quest is initiated, the respective NPC's gold «!» will change into a «?», denoting a quest in progress; however, the quest will not progress unless the quest giver's entire speech, which tends to be rather long during certain quests, is heard. Certain quests have side-objectives that need to be completed before the final objective becomes available. All currently available objectives are displayed as golden «!» on the map, while the final objective that is currently unavailable is displayed as a grey «!» on the map. Once a quest is accepted, the quest appears in the player's quest log with information on the current progress of the quest.

Repeatability
In Sword Art Online, most quests can be completed repeatedly. However, most such quests have a "cooldown time" after the quest is completed before it becomes available again. Certain quests, usually the ones offering high-value rewards, can only be completed once.

In some quests, instance maps would be generated, so that different players could accept the same quest without either party hindering the other.

Quest Generation
The Cardinal System in Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online comes with a feature called «Automatic Quest Generation Function». With this feature, the Cardinal System automatically collects folklore and legends of the world, adapts it for the game and continues to generate infinite amounts of quests using proper names and story patterns. These quests can also lead to an "end of the world" event or one that greatly changes the terrain of the world, as the Cardinal System was given authority to change the world of Aincrad to its discretion, seeing as the world was meant to be destroyed in the end anyway. This feature has usually been disabled in ALfheim, but if activated from the management side, the Cardinal System seems to retain the authority of changing the world to its discretion without even getting permission from the management team. Examples of such quests are «The Holy Sword of the Ice Palace» quest in ALO and the «Witch of the West and the Three Treasures» quest in SAO.

Due to this feature, just those known SAO quests in the quest database of the information shop exceed 10,000 by the time the 75th Floor is reached.

ALfheim Online

 * «Angel's Ring»
 * Beast God Slaughter quest
 * «Deep Sea Plunderers»
 * «Guardians of the World Tree» - 1st Grand Quest
 * «The Holy Sword of the Ice Palace»

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