Essentially, you're just questing as usual and a message will pop up saying there's an event in the area. It will show up on your map. It somehow measures your participation in it and awards you a gold, silver, or bronze medal for it. Bad thing is, it repeats.... often. At least that's my take on it.
As for as your personal story quest line, it uses instancing to keep you separate from gen pop while doing your own quest chain.