Character: There are 7 characters to choose from the sorceress,
druid,necromancer,paladin,barbarian,assasin and amazon. Each character has its on special and unique skills. I would advise starting with a sorceress as she is one of the best characters and the most usefull for getting good items. Each charater has different skills but all characters have the same stats: Strength-self explanitory.
Dexterity- this is how fast you hit.
Mana- this is how much magic you have.
Vitality-how much life you have
Leveling up: To increase your characters health and skills you must level up you can get up to lvl 99 and start at lvl 1.To gain a lvl you must earn exp points you do this by killing monsters outside of town. For the first 10 level's act1 and doing quests is the best way to lvl. Once you reach lvl 10 goto the tombs in act2 as you gain more exprience here and do this till you reach lvl 25. Once you have reached lvl 25 you unlock a exp barrier so it is easier to lvl up. I would advise now to lvl up in the throne where the final boss baal is in act5(this is called a baal run) as theese are the hardest monsters to kill you will find that you lvl up nearly every baal run. When it is harder to lvl up you must now goto to the next diffculty up you do this by killing baal. You should now be about lvl 45-50 you simply do the same as instructed above in the new difficulty then once u have done that go up to the hardest difficulty hell and repeat all again. It does take quite a while to lvl up but keep at it and it will be worth it in the end.
Stats and Skills: Every time you lvl up you recieve 5 stats and 1 skill. This is personal preference how you add your points but i would advise to put alot of your stats to vitality.
Items: To make your character better by gaining extra skills and stats you wear items. You get set items which are green which means when you wear the whole set you get extra features.Gold items are uniques which are better than normal items which are blue and grey. To get better items you need mf-magic find. You get this from items you will recieve a certain % off some items the higher the % the more likely you are of finding good items.
Mf runs-There are certain places which are better for finding good items. The best place is the boss to act3 in the durance of hate. If you choose the sorceress like i advised she has a skill called teleport which allows her to get from one place to another quickly which is handy for getting to the act3 boss.
This is all you need to know cause after you have done this you will expand your knowledge by exploring i also advise you play this game online because there are alot of users and it is very fun.
Hope this walk through was usefull in some way for you happy game playing!!!!