Buy your early gear from vendors. Do NOT buy gear from the AH. Also, do not sell ANY of your drop from mobs to vendors. Sell them to the AH. Some things you'll probably have trouble with are the fact that money is very difficult to come by early on (if you don't know how to make it already) and soloing is very difficult after about 6 (more or less depending on the job) before you have a subjob.


You'll find that when you get a quest you get pretty much no info in the quest log like in WoW. Basically you'll need to look the quests up to figure out how to do them if you didn't pay careful attention when you talked to an NPC that gave them to you. Check the useful link sticky in this forum. FFXIclopedia is probably your best bet for quest walk-throughs. Don't focus much on quests though. They have little to no reward at this point in the game and take up far more time than they are worth.

Make sure you talk to a guard near the gates of whatever city you are in and get them to cast Signet on you. It will help you get crystals as drops (among other benefits). Like most other things you get, sell them on the AH. When you hit around 10 you may need to start buying some gear from the AH. Hopefully you've saved up some money by then, but up until that point don't bother.

Good luck.