NPCs may have something to say or a service to offer you. If they do say something, keep an eye out for clues that can reveal more information. Clues generally appear in the form of bracketed and highlighted text. Simply click on the text (or /say or /whisper it while the NPC is targeted). Continue to interact with the NPC and he or she may offer you a quest, which you can accept or decline. If you accept, the NPC will describe what you must do next, and your Quest Journal will be updated.
You can check the status of your ongoing quest with the Quest Journal, or by typing /quest and scrolling up to the "Pending Quests" listing.
Tasks
Tasks are short, fairly direct quests with a time limit of two hours and can be received from a named guard by /say or /whispering task it while the NPC is targeted. If you complete the task on time, you will receive and XP and monetary reward. Tasks always involve a single step, and they do not appear in your Quest Journal. To check what your currrent quest is, type /task. While you can receive several quests, you can only ever have one task. Dying will abort your current task. Tasks are randomly generated, and are available until you reach 20th level.
Taskmasters
With the introduction of Catacombs, taskmasters in your realm's mainland will set you timed instance dungeon tasks.In your conversation with the taskmaster you will be able to choose long range or melee style dungeons to suit your character. With instance dungeon tasks, leaving the dungeon will abort your current task. Currently there are taskmasters available to all characters levels 1-50 who are running the Catacombs expansion