All the quests require mob killing or money; because you need a rock pick to do even the first quest, which doesn't come free.
Anyways it is very difficult to roleplay when the only thing I can talk about with other players is the pretty apple I just found, or the fact that I can die but rats are immortal, and if rats have learned the secret of immortality how come they don't overrun the planet, and how come rats, which most people will agree are not the most intelligent of animals on this planet, except those who believe, as I know some do, that Douglas Adams is a prophet and that even relatives of mice are of much higher intelligence than us, have worked out the secret to immortality and we're stuck dying. By this point of course the person I was attempting to have a theological debate with has either jumped off a very tall building or walked off.
I did hold a relatively amusing conversation with an NPC though, we were discussing how he must be a foreigner as he could only understand the most basic of phrases, actually it was more of a monologue but meh.