SargePepper
commented
11 years ago A possible server-as-is solution (meaning without mods, plugins, or edits), could entail making signed books that have all the current quests listed. Of course, a problem arises that with each new quest the books will be outdated. A work around for that would be to release books with different "sets" of quests. Such as a book with all the "tutorial" quests, and then another set of related quests having its own book. The books would serve as a guide until completion of all quests, at which point they could be returned to a location/person that could redistribute them to new players. That way the players wouldn't have a bunch of useless books.
As for knowing which quests they have failed, perhaps each quest could have an item of completion that is given after doing the quest. For example, in Swom's quest there could be some trophy (a titled item via anvil) that is given, just for bragging rights.
However, this would take some heavy maintenance to keep everything updated.
With the arrival of future NPC quests (which there will be, despite the delays as of late), players will want a way to keep track of what quests they're working on, which ones they've completed, and even which one's they've failed (just so they can always feel a tad bit ashamed). It would be quick useful to have some sort of quest log or manager added for each player to access this information from.