well, ok spidey, here goes, rundown of the whoel game....
you make your guy, go to some tutorial island place that teaches you how to do everything, you get off that, your a level 1 guy with level 1 everything. and as you go kill stuff, cut down trees, make fires, cook fish that u caught over a fire u made all that stuff, your seperate levels go up, now i cant name all the levels cuz im lazy, but, in battle, if you use aggressive attacks, your strength, if u use controlled tabs, your attack level raises, if you use defensive stabs and stuff, your defense level goes up, the main levels are: firemaking level, tree cutting, attack, strength, defense, cooking, fishing, mining (for stuff to make new weapons). and when you get to certain levels for each of these, it enables you to use or do differant things, such as, if your attack level goes up to level 5, you can use steel weapons, when before that, you could only use bronze, blah blah blah, better weapons, same goes for the defense, steel armor over bronze once you get that to level 5, but anyway, tree cutting level enables you to cut down bigger trees and stuff. but then, if you die, all of your stuff except for the stuff u had equipped falls down right there and u spawn at the closest main castle place, and, your stuff gets stolen by some lucky passer-byer.but then, there is a quest list that u can go to to do differant quests for differant people, which i dont waste my time on. and there are shops, and a lot of people sit in the main castles selling and buying stuff from eahvc other since you can trade with each other.
i think i covered al the bases, but i duno, ask anymore questions you have.
o wait, other people cant attack other people unless you go way off the map into the wilderness, thats where high level characters beat each other up and steal their stuff.