How to get Quests
All quests in the game cannot be accepted willy nilly, there are prerequisites needing to be met first. The level of your character, its reputation, race and class can play a part.

When walking into a town or area NPCs with quests for you will have a yellow exclamation mark above their head. Clicking on one of these NPCs will activate the quest window with a full description and brief overview and the rewards for completing the quest. There will be quests that list a selection of reward items so you can pick and choose which you prefer once you've completed the quest. Once you have accepted the quest, the full details will go into your Quest Log and you can refer to it at any time as you travel.

The table below details the different icons you can find above some NPCs heads and what they mean to your character.

Icon Meaning
Has a quest for you now.
Has a quest for you when you are a higher character level.
You have an uncompleted quest to hand into this person.
Return to them with a completed quest for reward or follow-on quest.
Repeatable quest such as Water Pouch Bounty in Gadgetzan.

There is a setting in Interface Options to set Instant Quest Text. This means when an NPC tells you the details of a quest it will pop into the window at once rather than slowly revealing the text.

Each quest log will give the title of the quest and a brief (usually 1 or 2 sentances) of what's required of you listed as a bulleted list of each item/task if necessary. This will change as you complete the objectives. See this example shot of a quest log. Below that is a more detailed description with a bit of back story. Lastly, the quest reward items and/or money will be listed. Any experience earned by completing the quest is not displayed but it will display in your chat window and middle of the screen when you hand in the quest.

When to do a Quest
Quests are a great way to explore the world and as all quests are level appropriate there's no danger of finding yourself way out of your depth as far as opponents are concerned. However, if you get a quest at an early level, say 10, and you don't complete it until much later, say level 20, you will be rewarded the experience points of a level 10 character. The quests will not disappear from your Quest Log if you don't do them. You can find out which character level each area is best suited for on our Zone Levels page. For example if you're character level 33 you would best be adventuring in Desolace, Dustwallow Marsh, Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands and Stranglethorn Vale and picking up quests for Razorfen Kraul and Gnomeregan instances. Of course you can try higher level areas but take along a few friends if you do.

As with trade skill recipes quests are colour coded in your quest log in relation to your character level so you can determine which quests you should be doing now and which you should wait until you level up a little more.

Gray - Trivial. You will get reduced experience for doing this quest because it will be so easy for your character. The longer you leave it the less xp you'll get.
Green - Easy for your character to complete.
Yellow - Relatively easy for your character complete.
Orange - Challenging.
Red - Very challenging. Take a friend, actually take two.
Dungeon - Instances such as Zul'Farrak, Deadmines, Scholomance or Maraudon.
Elite - Requires a group to complete.
Raid - Requires a large group.
Some quests can also be on a timer, the 'race against time' element adds some excitement. If you find yourself running out of time you can abandon the quest and re-request it again. The clock (as seen above) will sit just below your minimap until the time runs out or you complete the quest. It starts ticking down the moment you accept the quest from the NPC.

When you near an NPC who you are to hand a completed quest in and you've completed the quest a yellow marker will appear on the minimap. If you hover over this it will tell you the name of the NPC.

Tracking your Quests
You can track your quest through your Quest Log (Hotkey L) or you can track them in your game window as seen in this shot. This means you don't have to keep opening your Log to see where you are in a quest. There are also UIs that you can add to your WoW directory that further help you manage and monitor quests in WoW. None allow you to store more than 20 Quests in your log however.

There is a limit of 20 quests you can store in your quest log. Due to this, it is wise to try to complete all the quests in one area before moving on to the next one. Do not be afraid to abandon quests and go back to do them later, as you go along, you will learn how to manage your quests better, and obtain several quests involving the same monsters or region before doing them.