The game world proper consists of a very large series of X, Y, Z coordinates, allowing players to warp to specific destinations with the proper equipment or powers. The basic 'starting play' area is known as Malone, a country with a number of small towns and cities that has been around for a fairly long time and serves as the initial difficulty level. Other countries tend to be spikes in difficulty because the local monster situation is usually not as well controlled.

Malone is a mostly peaceful country; bandits, miscreants, and other random encounters occur, but they are both infrequent and not usually especially dangerous. It is also the home of the Artifacts and Crafts store, where tech armor, weapons, and devices, including the all important soulphone, can be purchased, making adventures that much easier.

When a character dies, they wind up on Alshira, where they are judged for their sins. This is based on their Karma. Karma can be earned, lost, or reset based on your actions, but suffice to say that murdering dozens of innocents is bad and saving them is generally good, for example. Most, but not all actions that have a Karmic effect will inform you in some way, but those who are truly seeking virtue should be mindful of the long-term consequences of their actions.

The goddess Khiala, goddess of rebirth and reincarnation, allows you to return to the world, and choose a new identity if you wish to escape your past. New identities will cost you your experience, skills and knowledge - and more Karma - but provide you with new opportunities as well. Rebirth allows you to return to the world with your talents intact, ready to challenge what took you down, and hopefully learn something in the process.

When you don't have enough Karma to return to the world, either because you were a truly rotten person or because you tend to die a lot, you can work to repay your Karmic debts in a variety of fashions. Most of them involve doing menial work of some sort or another, perhaps providing customer service at one of the various shops that those lucky people who visit Alshira while living can enjoy or running errands for this or that minor deity.

This is the area where players can congregate and hang out, featuring the leaderboards, character viewer, character creator, and character terminals.

Where you can see the top players and characters.

You can view your characters here, as well as characters belonging to other players (although you won't get full information on them.) You can also modify their AI control package, allowing them to more intelligently defend themselves against challenges by other characters or when part of an adventuring party.

Allows you to create a new character to control, including species and base statistics. Note that to join a class you must find a teacher, and to learn skills you must practice them (and often to practice on your own you need a base level of skill first, although you can find teachers to train you. More on this elsewhere.)

These allow you to play whatever bonus games have been created by the programmers without interfering with your characters' lives. Playing often earns Player Tokens, which can be used to buy special privileges and powerups for your characters, or give newly created characters better-than-average stats, or do other things in the game world.

This allows you to cash in your hard-earned (or hard-bought) Player Tokens for things that are fun and useful, like gifts for your or other people's characters. Want to restore your party's energy? Go shopping and buy some Energy Potions!

These let you connect to the game proper and take over control of your character. If your character is currently in a party being led by someone else, you will have the option of leaving the party to control your own character, or stay in the party as a member (in which case where you go will be controlled by the party leader, but you can chat and provide your own opinions on matters.)