First things first
EVERY player seems to go out into the world and the first thing is to gut a corpse. This will cause your karma level to go down and you will become Red. This means every player can see you on the map and can kill you for positive karma. If you make this mistake, you need to open your crafting menu and find "grave" recipe. Bury some player corpses (your own if you need to) to gain karma back to 0.

Crafting
You should look at your crafting options. Figure out what you need and how to get it. Many items require multiple tools or "crafting stations" to complete.. Sometimes you need to put items in it, sometimes just be standing by them. Experiment.

Next
Going out in the world you need to make tools. Axe, pickaxe, shovel, knife, and hammer are the basics. When you get them, you can skin animals, chop trees, make boards etc..

How do I make money?
Gathering 8 grass will allow you to make rope. Rope sells for a small, but decent amount of coin. There is an Auction House in the bottom left of the city. You cannot put things for auction, but you can see what other players have buy orders for. If you find/make these items, there is the place to sell them and make some better money. The NPC vendors in town also buy things.

What do I do first?
After you talk to the NPCs, you will get a land claim license. You take a portal out randomly putting you in the world. You find a place to lay your claim. There from your crafting menu you need to craft a stake claim and a respawn. The square on the ground is a safe area for you. The respawn point allows you to teleport back and forth to the city. A good idea is to pick a spot that has some water in it to fill your tools that require water.. or else you will be carrying them back and forth to the city rather than just click on them to fill them. You want to put a fence all around your area (you will be able to make your area larger later on when you make money). You can convert some area to farm and grow crops. I suggest making 5 drying racks and 5 tannings tubs. These will allow you to take raw hide and dry it, then put them in the tanning tub and they will become leather. You can use leather for a lot of things. Inventory space is important early. The quicker you can carry more things, the faster you will move later. Make baskets for your claim, and bags for you to carry.

Food system
The way to raise your skills is to raise your stats. The way to raise your stats is by eating food. Food gives vitamins (protein, carbs, etc..) stats are tied to those vitamins (strength, dex, etc) then the skills are tied to those as well. They are all color coded so you can view them in the game. When you consume the food, you gain the vitamin. Then you perform tasks associated with that vitamin and the vitamin turns into your stats. Your skills cannot exceed your stats so you may eat protein to gain strength. If your strength is 15, you can only raise your carpentry, metalworking, and woodworking to 15. You need to eat more protein to raise them...
The top 3 stats are one group, and the bottom 3 stats are another group. Strength, Vitality, Dex. Int, Perception, Wisdom are another. Strength and Int, Vitality and Perception, Dex and Wisdom are opposite stats. So the higher your strength, the harder it will be to gain Int, or the opposite.

Planting crops
Inside your claim, you take your shovel and dig on a square. It will turn brown. Then dig it again, and it will be tilled and turn dark brown. Now it is ready to plant a seed. Some seeds only require 1 sqaure, but many require a 2x2 square. Everything takes 16-24 hours to grow. Trees take 2-3 days to regrow. You know something is finished growing because the soil below it will turn from the dark brown, back to the lighter brown like when you only use your shovel the first time.

Groups
Many people say, "oh I want to bring my friends!" This isn't the best idea. As you can read above, resources take a very long time to grow. So they are very limited. Since you have to consume food and perform tasks to improve, sharing resources will really slow you down. Playing with 1 other person is ideal because you can focus on the opposite set of stats without penalty. However anything larger than 2, you will be competing for local resources and slow you down in the long run.

These are the basic questions almost every player asks when they join. If anything needs to be added, I will add it. Most other questions can be asked in game and people will answer. There is a lot to learn so people have no problem pointing you in the right direction!