This is a most infuriating game.   I really want to like it but the learning curve it too steep for a new player.  Why do I say that?  Lets take a walk through of my experience so far.

First, I've spent well over 3 hours reading things.  Not 3 hours playing and reading, 3 hours of nothing but reading, searching for more reading information and reading more.  I still don't think I have more then the barest grasp of the game so far.  Sure I can walk around and kill rats but that's about it.  I want more in a game then mindless grinding of rats for no purpose.

My first experience with the game is the tutorial.  I get through with the last quest and am ready to leave but my graphic settings are pretty poor at this moment so I log out, log back in and can't remember what I need to say to leave the tutorial.  I try asking the end tutorial guy all sorts of things but the best I can get out of him are "bring me the three items you need" comment.  Great, that wasn't helpful.  I try searching the forums but not knowing exactly what to search for I don't find anything useful.  Lets try the help channel... and sit for 20 minutes.  It was quicker to make another new character, run the tutorial again, just to find out I needed the words "enter Ylakium".  By now I'm getting pretty frustrated but, I really want to like this game so lets chalk it up to learning curve and move on.  [Suggestion, for the tutorial at least add from the very first step a means of initiating some sort of conversation with the tutorial NPCs that is very clear.  To a new player there was nothing clear and I was just plain stuck at this point with no help available]

I take my second character and wander around for about an hour.  I've gotten thoroughly lost when I left the city and eventualy found another city.  Not having any idea what to fight and having nothing better to do I try fighting something out in the wilds... and quickly die.  Well, no time like the present, lets explore death.  I spend about an hour there and the NPCs are anything but helpful.  Finally I start doing things that are counterintuitive and finally find my way out and back to life.  I'm back in Ylakium at least but I'm frustrated with this character so I take a break.

A few hours later I come back and try for a clean slate.  Load up my first character again and tell the NPC "enter Ylakium".  It only took me a few hours to get my first character through creation, tutorial and out into the world.  Finally.

So entering Ylakium drops me in some back alley with no idea really want to do.  I start walking around asking NPCs and the odd player for quests.  At this point I wasn't entirely certain if some of the people standing around doing nothing were PCs or NPCs and I picked a few of each.  I get some quests but I'm thoroughly lost still even after spending time in the city with my other character.  I like how the characters have backgrounds and such and you want us to role play but if in real life even if I don't know how to do something I'm not fighting controls that only allow me to slowly look around, I can look over my shoulder with a quick glance, have an easier time with land marks, and can get around a lot easier.  One wrong turn and I'm completely lost here and it takes me a good while to turn around or do anything.  So I'm lost to begin with, quickly get lost and can't get back where I'm trying to go and every move is basically more frustration as I get deeper and deeper into confusion.  [Suggestion: Maps would be a good thing.  At least a general map of the city.  Sure, it's out of game but it compensates for a lot of little details you have in real life that the game can't compensate for.  Searching the web it seems maps and solid explanations like a walk through of how to start a few things are at the least highly frowned upon]

I've asked a lot of people for help and someone finally takes pity and helps a bit.  They even give me an air rune.  Great!  I've been wanting to try magic in the system some.  I purify the rune (go tutorial training!  It finally helped with something), Then I... wait, the tutorial didn't really teach us anything about magic, just how to purify a rune... (ah well, so much for help on magic form the tutorial).  The person who is helping me says "see, this is how magic works" and lines swirl around him.  Ah.. ok, great.  I have no idea what he did or it's significance other than magic "can" be done, I don't know how, and I obviously can't do that yet.  Finally after several questions I am told that I need to train it.  Ok, sure, I have some vague idea where the magic trainer is now.  Heck, I even have a quest to get mushrooms there.  Yay, something productive at last.  While out there I get a few mushrooms and then go try to train magic... Thus begins my initiation into the experience system.  I use 2 of my 3 training points and can't afford the third but I still don't have enough skill to discover any new spells and use that nifty air rune I have.  Turns out I have 2 skill in all the magic except two ways and one happens to be the one I need or air runes.  My 2 skill points spent buy me a mere sliver of skill, not enough for any spell use.  I've nearly killed myself 5 times from full health trying to learn spells now verifying this.  Ok, so now I'm nearly broke and practically nothing to show for it.  [Suggestion: a better in-game explanation of experience would be good.  New players will be frustrated enough as it is and having them feel they wasted all their hard-earned practicing points and meager cash only makes it more frustrating.  I fully expect the amount I spent in points and cash will be trivial later but to begin with 2 points and 60 trias or so is a fortune to a new player and telling them it's trivial or "some day" you'll have so much more won't make it less frustrating to them]

Fine... take a break.  I come back the next day and finish harvesting mushrooms, head to town, complete my quest and have 400 trias now!  Lets give weapon repair a try, I have 2 skill in that already and I'd like to see repair and crafting in this game.  I buy a repair kit... and spend 10 minutes failing to figure out how to use it.  None of the crafting stations seem to matter.  I ask around, it takes a while, but someone finally responds.  So I'm supposed to wield the weapon with the repair kit in my inventory and use a /repair command?  Where did I learn that before?  Ah, I didn't.  Sure, in a way it sort of emulates that you need a trainer to learn how to do things in real life.  Of course, I already have some skill in it so in theory I'm already trained to some extent.  Having to rely on the kindness of a player (most were not kind or helpful here) is a weak point in the game.  Socialization is a great thing, forcing players to require it from players who may or may not be available let alone helpful adds to the frustration level, not the fun.  [Suggestion: put usage hints in the item descriptions for things like repair kits].

Turns out with 2 skill I'm still not skilled enough to use a basic repair kit on my basic short sword.  Umm... okay.  I don't even see how I improve my skill so I can use it.  Fine, I give up on this.  I still have about 350 trias left, lets waste 100 on a pick and give mining a try.  I'm most looking forward to mining some ore and trying some crafting anyhow.  By now though my frustration level with the game is pretty high so I fully expect this to be an excersize in complete frustration.

I was right.

So I've read about mining, as much as I can find on the forums and online elsewhere.  I spend about two hours wandering the wilds looking for places to mind.  I've look for every sort of rock outcropping I can find and all of them tell me "You don't see a good place to dig".  At first I had the pick in my weapon hand (right hand) and something I read suggested maybe it should be in my left hand so I went back through all the places with a pick in my left hand.  The game text though leads me to think that didn't matter as it was the place itself that was the problem, not how I was doing it.  Fine... lets go back to town and ask around.  And ask... and ask.... and ask....... people are NOT helpful in this game.  I'm sure some are but they're all chatting with each other and not helping me at all.  I long since gave up hoping the NPC would help, he gave me some meager explanation about mining but couldn't tell me where to mine or what to look for even beyond he needs "tin".  Great.  [Suggestion: the smith who wants the ore and sells the picks could probably be a bit more helpful with answers to where to go, how to look for it, and what to do when mining]

Finally I'm sitting there searching the web again and find on the forums that there is a place to mine deep in the sewers.  Deep, huh?  So I've been running around the sewers lost for quite some time trying to mine walls, floors, brown lumps, grey lumps, fallen rocks, rocky outcroppings, heck even machinery.  No luck so far.  I can't even find the way out yet.  I've met a couple other lost people, they don't know how to mine either.  I met two people in different locations, they were too busy killing things to talk though.

I really want to like this game but it is so infuriatingly difficult.  A picture somewhere of what I'm looking for even, what kind of outcropping for mining, would be nice but those don't seem to be allowed.  It appears the only way to learn to mine is to find a player who takes pity on you and takes you there and walks you through it.  Of course, with 2 skill I apparently need 3 skill for gold or something.  I'm expecting I'll need 3-5 skill for anything to work with mining now and not sure I even can skill up in the sewers.  The way things are going I half expect there's some esoteric means of skilling up that I need to ask a player about to figure out and won't be told until I figure out even what to ask them in the first place.  This game has potential but if I had to summ it up right now in one word it'd be "frustrating".  Enough so that most people I know wouldn't bother playing it and would advise others not to.  I'll give it a bit longer but I'm quickly getting to the point where I'm ready to give up altogether.