Quests are the main type of events featured within many VR MMORPGs, including Sword Art Online 1/4 and ALfheim Online. Often these quests are given to the player by interacting with a bulletin board, or a Non Player Character (NPC).

Most quests in Sword Art Online are repeatable, allowing the player to revisit familiar territories and farm for XP and rewards. These quests typically have a "cooldown" timer to avoid players exploiting the sytem. A specific grade of quests (often having critical story significance and higher valued rewards) can only be completed once while others can be repeated.

Some quests generate instanced maps which allow different players or parties to accept the same quest without interferring with one another.

System

NPCs who have an available quest are denoted by a golden exclamation mark (!) above their heads. The system tends to wait for the player to prompt an NPC with the phrase "Is something troubling you?" before beginning quest explanation. This is not applicable to every quest, sometimes certain conditions need to be met before a quest can be accepted. Once a quest has been initiated, the NPCs golden ! will become a question mark (?) indicating that the quest is in progress. Once accepted, the quest and all details pertaining to it can be found in the player's quest log.

Some quests feature side-objectives that act as requirements to be completed before the final objective becomes available to the players. The current location of the active quests step is shown on the map with a golden !, and the location of an unavailable objective for the final object is a grey !.

Cardinal System

Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online both used Cardinal System to power the Automatic Quest Generation Function. Using the Cardinal System, folklore and character information is collected automatically, and the system continues to generate an infinate amount of quests using reliable story patterns and recurring characters important to the world.

Despite being automatically generated, these quest lines can lead to an "end world" event, or create an event that completely changes the world of the game. The Cardinal System has authority to change the world at its descretion. This can be seen predominantly in the world of Aincrad, as the intent of this world was for it to ultimately be destroyed. The Cardinal System was disabled in ALfheim, however it could be enabled from the management side and would then resume to change the system at its own discretion, without permission from the ALfheim management team.

Due to The Cardinal System, the known quests of Sword Art Online in the shop exceed 10,000 by the time a typical player will reach the 75th floor.

Known Quests

Sword Art Online

Cow's Counter Attack (1st floor) (Reward: Cream)
This quest has no description.

Secret Medicine of the Forest (1st floor) (Reward: Anneal Blade)
Obtain a rare drop from Little Nepenthes.

Martial Arts Quest (2nd floor) (Reward: Martial Arts - Extra Skill)
Break a demonic rock with one's bare hands.

Guild formation quest (3rd floor) (Reward: Guid creation)
This quest has no description.

Elf War (3rd - 9th floor) (Reward: Random)
This is a campaign quest line that brings the player floors 3-9. It is comprised of quite a few quests in itself and culminates in the player choosing to either aid the Forest Elves or Dark Elves.

Shipwright of Yore (4th floor) (Reward: Custom gondola)
This is a multi-stage quest that builds towards the player obtaining a means of freely travelling on the 4th floor. The final portions of this quest is intertwined with the Elf War campaign questline that pertains to the 4th floor.

Laketop Fortress (4th floor) (Reward: Two chose Yofilis's family heirlooms)
Following on from the Shipwright of Yore quest, this quest sees the player continue along the Dark Elf side of the Elf War campaign. The player is required to defend Yofel Castle from an invading force of Forest Elves.

Little Lost Jenny* (5th floor) (Reward: Unknown)
Find a girl's missing pet.

The Tasteless Collector (5th floor) (Reward: Unknown)
Find a certain type of relic.

Thirty-Year Lament (5th floor) (Reward: Unknown)
Resolve an issue with a lamenting spirit.

Curse of Stachion (6th floor) (Reward: Unknown)
Locate and retrieve a missing golden cube

Meditation Extra Skill Quest (6th floor) (Reward: Meditation - Extra Skill)
This quest has no description.

Dark Elf Queen's Quest (9th floor) (Reward: Queen's Knightsword)
This quest has no description

Witch of the West and the Three Treasures (22nd floor) (Reward: Ability to purchase Forest House K4)
Defeat the Witch and save Dorothy. Includes 3 optional side-objectives to obtain the Scarecrow's brain, the Tin's heart and the Lion's courage, but these quests aren't necessary for the completion of the main quest. This quest features 3 NPCs that accompany players as they attempt the quest. It is thematically inspired by the story 'The Wizard of Oz'.

Ogre Slaughter Quest (30th floor) (Reward: Unknown)
A quest that requires the player to kill a number of ogres that are wearing strange masks. This is a repeatable quest that refreshes once a week.

Frost Dragon Quest (55th floor) (Secret Reward: Crystallite Ingot)
Confronting X'rphan the White Wyrm

Angel's Ring (Unknown floor) (Ring of Angel's Whisper)
Surpass trials set by a holy angel. One of the tasks in the quest is to fight a demonic monster that is a fluffy bunny with wings.

Alignment Recovery Quest (Various floors) (Reward: Reverting the player's orange cursor back to green)
When a player's cursor is orange, they have a chance to randomly encounter travelling NPCs that offer this quest. This quest features a variable difficulty and length that increases based on the severity of the player's crimes.

ALfheim Online

Angel's Ring
Beast God Slaughter Quest
Deep Sea Plunderers
Guardians of the World Tree
The Holy Swird of the Ice Palace