multiplayer games with parallel play
I think this is part of the appeal with minecraft servers?
(I have never played minecraft)
"adventurer's guild" game running on a server, multiple players can form a party and do quests as usual, or you can hire NPCs and do a quest yourself
the world is persistent between players, so if someone else takes a quest & completes it, the quest is unavailable for you too
likewise, any effects of the quest on the town/guild/environment are also shared
ideally many/most of the quests would have a community benefit, maybe as simple as decreasing prices (supply goes down when monsters raid farms/mines/merchants) or making rare goods available (someone needs to actually slay a dragon before villagers can make dragonhide armor)
maybe clearing intermediate dungeons temporarily opens hard dungeons, or a boss makes things difficult for everyone until someone takes it down
