Secret quest? cool!

[the Langolier]

Yes of course, I do not consider this a quest you can activate.  It is a world event thing, thus a entire realm thing.  Blizzard activates it, and bnet proceeds to go on the "quest".  But perhaps only certain people who activate their quest on their end can "play" the game.

I think I understand what you are saying. Instead of the normal quests that a character can do all by its itself, such as well, ANY quest, this quest will not be available in normal gameplay. It will only be able to be done when blizzard activates the quest via a server-side patch. Only then can characters complete it.

This would likely require a server-side patch to add this new quest. It wouldn't really be anything different, however, it would be simply like adding a new quest. It would not really be a global quest, because multiple games would not be sharing any information. The only thing global about it would be that it would become availible to all characters at the same time (and perhaps patched again so it could no longer be accessed at the same time). The game just is not designed to have a singular quest for all the realm players who can simultaneously advance the realm to the quest goal.

It is very interesting though. Imagine if the "siege on harrogoth" could not be completed by characters in a single game, but had to be completed by X players in X games killing X monsters. Players in a realm (who advanced thus far) would all be fighting in the bloody foothills and could not progress until the quest was complete, no matter how many times they have cleared it solo. Once the realm as a whole completed the quest, everyone could move onto the next quest/area of the game. This would truely be like hundreds of heros racing up Mt. Arreat to face the Lord of Destruction. But again, the game is not built this way. You will find this interface in games like everquest, ascheron's call, and the upcoming world of warcraft.