1: RP is enforced. You are NEVER allowed to go OOC unless an Immortal adresses you oocly. (Or if you pray about some game mechanic or bug that you can handle over the forums.)

2: You can ALWAYS PK with ANYONE within 8 levels range (Or if +-30% of your total experience points gathered.) Unless you've been killed recently and are a ghost.
There are no players that are excempt from PKing.

3: There is a lot of information on the unofficial site (http://www.qhcf.net) BUT, the information is to be taken with a grain of salt as it isn't official and there is quite a bit of missinformation. (Though those things the imms has gone out openly with is mostly accurate, such as skills/spells etc.)

4: You don't need to get involved in the politics at all if you don't want to. However it is great fun! (At least I believe so, some doesn't.)

You will never get any benefits from paying anything. The only thing you can pay for is your PBF notice (Premium battlefield). And that only comes into affect once your char has died. Which basically means that you pay to get to have all the stats of char published after it's dead. (Stats like: PK-kills, PK-deaths, mob deaths, best gear... Here is a link to the PBFs published: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=31 )

This game is totally free, and it's awesomely addictive. I joined 10 years ago, though had a six years long brake with studies building a family etc. Played for 4 years now and now I can finally call myself skilled. ;) The learning curve is steep. (However I managed to hold my own after a few months or so as I had focused a lot of exploring and learning my way around. heh)

Welcome to CF, quite a shame that you came just as it's down. (Second down time over 1 hour that I've experienced for the past 4 years, the last one was when the hosting company's server hall cought fire or something.) So, don't expect any downtimes at all except for the regular reboots every 72 hours, which only lasts for 15 mins.)