Playing the Game

On the website, press Play now or Enter world. A guest account is made for you in this browser: no sign up, no email and no wallet.

Then make a character. Pick a body, skin tone, hair, outfit and colours, and a name of 3 to 16 characters: letters, digits, single spaces or underscores. It must start with a letter and end with a letter or digit. Randomise look and Suggest help if you cannot decide.

You can have up to 3 characters per account. Names and looks cannot be changed later, so take a moment.

The Getting started checklist under your portrait tracks these as you play. Each step ticks itself off when you do it, and you can skip any of them.

1. 1Take a walkPress WASD or click the ground to walk there.
2. 2Look aroundHold the right mouse button and drag to turn the camera. Scroll to zoom.
3. 3Read a sign or talk to someoneWalk up to a signpost or a person and press E, or click them.
4. 4Gather a resourceClick a tree, rock or fishing spot. You keep working it until you move.
5. 5Check your bagsPress I to see what you carry.
6. 6Open the world mapPress M. Towns you visit on foot can be fast travelled to from here.
7. 7Reach The CrossroadsThe walled city north of Wayfarer's Hill is the capital, where every town's coin is traded. Walk north, or fast travel from the map.
8. 8Visit a townEvery town is a real coin. Walk into one to discover it: you get Exploration XP and can fast travel there later.
9. 9Take a questRead a town's notice board and accept a quest, then bring it back to the same board.

Walk with WASD or the arrow keys. They move you relative to the camera, so W always walks the way the camera faces.

Or click the ground to walk there, and a marker shows the spot. You can turn this off in Settings (Click to move).

You start out running. Press Shift to switch between running and walking.

Hold the right mouse button and drag to turn the camera (the middle button works too). Scroll the wheel to zoom in and out. There is no jump.

Point at anything in the world and a small card tells you what it is and what a click will do: talk, gather, attack or use.

Click a person, tree, rock, fishing spot, sign or enemy and your character walks up and does it.

Or walk close and press E. It uses the nearest thing within reach, and the prompt above the action bar says what it will do, such as Read Signpost or Chop Oak Tree.

E never attacks. To fight, click an enemy.

Top left is your portrait, with your health and where you are. Short messages about XP, loot and anything that went wrong appear top right. Chat is bottom left and the action bar is bottom centre. Bottom right holds your gold, the bell with world news, and the minimap.

Open a window with its key, or with its button on the action bar:

• I Inventory: your bags and your gold.
• K Skills: every skill and its level. Clicking your portrait opens it too.
• Q Quests: the quests you have taken and where to turn them in.
• M World map. Clicking the minimap opens it too.
• O Friends and party.
• H How to Play: this guide.
• Esc closes the top window, or opens the menu with Settings and every control.

New characters start on Wayfarer's Hill. The Crossroads, the walled capital, is straight north along the road.

Signposts list nearby places with a direction and a distance. Press E at one to read it.

A waypoint is a marker on your minimap to follow. Set one from the world map, from a quest, or with Get directions at the Grand Exchange.

Fast travel is free. Open the world map (M) and travel to The Crossroads, or to any town you have visited on foot. It does not work during combat, and there is a short cooldown between trips.

Roads lead from town to town but do not make you any faster.

Press Enter to chat, type your message and press Enter again to send it. Esc leaves the chat line without sending.

Type a command to pick a channel: /t is Trade, and /town is Town. Whisper to one player with /w name message, reply with /r, and type /help to see every command.

Add friends and invite players to a party in Social (O). A party of up to 5 shares a chat and sees each other's health. It does not share XP or loot.

Click another player to see their profile: levels, towns founded and achievements.

Nothing is lost: you keep your items, your gold and your XP.

After a few seconds you can respawn with full health in the nearest town that is Thriving or Rebuilding, or at The Crossroads if that is closer.

Mintlands plays best with a keyboard and mouse. On a touch screen a tap walks, talks, gathers and attacks, and the buttons on screen work.

Every page of the website works on phones.

You have ten skills. Each one levels up from 1 to 99 by doing it.

Every action earns XP in its skill, and you see a +XP message each time. Enough XP raises the skill's level. Open Skills (K) to see how much you need for the next one.

Your total level is the sum of all ten skills. Your combat level is your Combat skill level.

Combat also raises your health: 30 health at combat level 1, 57 at 10, 87 at 20 and 324 at 99.

Click a tree, rock or fishing spot, or stand next to it and press E. You walk up and start working it. No tools are needed.

You keep gathering one item at a time until you move, do something else, your bags are full, or it runs out. A spent tree or rock shows as depleted and grows back for everyone after a short while.

Some trees and rocks need a skill level first, and the hover card says which. Every level above that makes you a little faster, up to 45% faster.

Now and then a rock or fishing spot gives a rare find instead, such as Rough Gem, Uncut Sapphire, Silver Ore, Uncut Emerald, Uncut Ruby, Uncut Diamond or Raw Salmon.

• The first trees and rocks are right beside Wayfarer's Hill. Fishing spots are on the river, by the bridge on the road toward Goldmeadow.
• Groves grow around every town and along the king's roads, never inside The Crossroads or on a road.
• Oak trees, stone and copper grow almost everywhere.
• Birch trees grow only in forest, such as Greenwood.
• Pine trees and iron rocks are in the snowy north (Frostmarch) and the mountains (Iron Peaks). Iron also turns up in Emberwaste and, rarely, Sunreach.
• Fishing spots line the river, the sea coast in the south-east and the pools of Mirefen.

Smithing, Cooking and Crafting happen at stations: a furnace, an anvil, a campfire, a cooking range or a crafting bench. Walk up to one and press E, or click it, to see what you can make there. The prompt names the station, such as Smelt at the Furnace.

• Every Camp and Hamlet has a campfire in the middle of town.
• Most Hamlets and larger towns have a crafting bench beside the storehouse.
• From Village up, the smithy has a furnace and an anvil in its open front, often with a crafting bench beside it, and the tavern has a cooking range outside.
• Wayfarer's Rest, the inn a short walk north-east of Wayfarer's Hill where you start, has a cooking range and a crafting bench out front.
• The Crossroads has a furnace and an anvil at its smithy, a cooking range beside the tavern, a crafting bench by the warehouse and the restoration desk in front of the museum, where finds from the ruins are restored.
• Out in the wild, the Iron Peaks Mining Camp has a furnace and an anvil, and the Saltcoast Jetty has a cooking range.
• Boarded up and ruined towns have no working stations.

Your bags hold 24 slots, and one slot stacks up to 9,999 of the same item.

Deliver resources to a town's storehouse to help it build, or carry them for a delivery quest.

Drop destroys the whole stack for good, so think twice.

Items and gold are game things. They are never tokens and never on chain.

Click an enemy. You walk into range and attack on your own, again and again, while you stay close. To stop, walk away.

Loot and gold go straight into your bags. Your health refills a few seconds after the fight ends.

The hover card shows an enemy's level. The higher your combat level is compared to it, the more often you hit and the less often it hits you.

Only enemies can be attacked. Players cannot fight each other.

Road Bandits guard camps beside the king's roads. The road near Wayfarer's Hill is safe.

Enemies attack players who come close, but ignore players far stronger than them. Lead one too far from home and it gives up the chase and walks back.

The goblin raid is the only world event. A banner announces it about 3 minutes ahead and names the town. Travel takes you there, and View map shows where it is.

Goblins arrive in waves. When enough have fallen, the Goblin Warchief appears. Defeat the Goblin Warchief to win.

If the raid is beaten, everyone who damaged a raider and is still online gets gold, Combat XP, Goblin Totems and the Defender achievement. The town gets town points.

If time runs out the raid succeeds, but nothing is taken from the town. It only goes into the town's history.

Raids only come to Thriving or Rebuilding towns of Hamlet level or higher. Ruins are never raided.