* ALERT *
A new Quest List sytem has been implemented and this guide will be updated accordingly but the majority of the content remains valid.
Description[]
Quests are tasks which need to be completed by the player. There are several Quest Types but all of them involve performing a task (or several tasks), in order to complete the quest and gain a reward.
For the first 17 levels of gameplay, you will do the Tutorial, which contains the Training Quests. These are a series of quests which will teach you how to play the game by building up your basic town, and beginning to free your Home Island of Bandits.
Usually, only training quests will give you XP and allow you to level up until you finish the tutorial.
After the Tutorial this remains true until you hit level 26 where adventures become the main source of XP along with any Special Events Settlers Online might be enguaged in.
Each quest can be pinned as a reminder to the side of your game screen by checking the checkbox next to each Quest in the list. Mousing over the pinned Quest gives you a breakdown of what you need to do to complete the Quest. Uncechking the box removes it.
Quest[]
This is your only source of XP during the Tutorial and for a fair bit afterwards.
Do the main quest as soon as you are able by clicking on it to to get a break down of your task in the window to the right. The early quests revolve around building and move into conquest of your island until it is cleared at which point it becomes a level grind rewarding you with Gems for gaining levels through adevnturing.
Daily Quests[]
Main article: Daily Quests
The Daily Quest is a little bonus for logging in each day and often takes the form of completeing a fairly trivial resource gathering task for resources. It's wise to pay attention to what the relative gain is to the cost as some deals are not great for every player and might cost you more than you gain.
When the text says to "raise your stock by xxx" for an item all you have to do is gather enough of that item and you get the reward without losing the gathered items, otherwise the items you gathered will be taken.
If the deal does not look to be a good one you can always hit Cancel to remove the Quest, there is a confirmation button but once confirmed the quest is lost for that day but can come around again in the future.
Waiting Quests[]
The confusingly named Waiting Quests is actually the next daily quest in waiting and results from not completeing or cancelling yesterdays (oftenfrom either not logging in one day or still working on yesterdays quest). This quest cannot be started until the previous one, the current Daily Quest, is completed or cancelled.
If after 24hours you have neither cancelled or completed the Daily Quest the next days Daily Quest will replace the Waiting Quest with a new one but the Daily one remains the same.
When you start getting Adventure based Quests (such as "Do the Sons of the Veld adventure") it can take several days and cause you to miss out on Waiting Quests which are random and hopefully the rewards you get are better than those you missed out on.
Guild Quests[]
A new range of quests that are associated with guild membership.
Active Adventures[]
Explorer gathered or Event specific Adventures get added here and help keep track of them.