Dungeons & Dragons Online Developer Diary
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Slayer Quests
Slayer quests are simple. They count how many monsters in the area you've killed. Your first goal might be to kill 10 monsters. Once you kill 10, you get some XP right then and there (no need to talk to an NPC), and get a new goal kill 25. The higher you go, the more lucrative the XP and you will never lose your progress. You can kill 23 of 25 monsters one night, then log in a week later, kill 2 more, and get your XP for finishing all 25 kills.
Slayer quests have many goals to kill higher and higher numbers of monsters. It is technically possible to eventually solve a slayer quest but you'd have to kill a lot of monsters to get there. We set the monster kill numbers really high so that players who like this free-form hunting activity will always have a new goal ahead of them.
Slayer quests can be a fun activity for smaller groups. They're also great if you just want to login for a few minutes of play, without having to commit to finishing a long dungeon.
Smaller areas will generally have one slayer quest which counts all monsters. Larger, high-level areas might have several slayer quests each monster will only count towards one.
Explorer Quests
The objectives of an explorer quest are twofold: to discover the lore of the area, and to find all of the dungeon entrances. Explorer Quests are solved by wandering the wilderness and finding their locations. When you find an important point of interest, you'll see some DM narration and will be rewarded XP. Discovering all of the explorer objectives in a particular landscape will give you a final, big XP payoff.
Rare Encounter Quests
The objectives of a rare encounter quest are hidden at first. Scattered around the wilderness area, certain unique NPCs or powerful monsters have a chance of spawning. Solving the objective usually involves combat, but not always. Similar to explorer quests, you get XP on the spot when you complete each rare encounter, and a big XP payoff when you complete the whole quest.