Played the heck out of this game back in the college days, and recently got involved again after a recent outage. There's a core group that has been there for a long time that are willing to help anyone new. Probably some 3000+ rooms/areas with multiple towns, hidden areas, a player-run guild economy, and multiple quests.
PK'ing is allowed, but definitely not a core feature of the game and socially frowned upon. Multiple characters are allowed!!