To get the crystals you need to upgrade your gear, you need to first go mining for ores. With cheap blocks such as dirt or wood, or more expensive ores like diamonds or emeralds, you can earn enough crystals to get your first upgrade. The more valuable the item, the more crystals you'll get in exchange. The most valuable items are ancient debris which can be found inside the volcano!

As you mine ore, get kills and complete quests on the server, you will gain levels, and with each level you will earn gold and crate keys which can be used to upgrade your heroes!

You can exchange your blocks for crystals, which you can then use to upgrade your gear. Exchanging is simple, just find the NPC at spawn named "Exchange" and right-click to open the exchange menu.

Using the Upgrade NPC at spawn, you can open the Upgrade Menu and select gear to upgrade. Upgrading gear costs crystals, which can be made by exchanging items in the Exchange Menu.

Everyone starts as a miner hero, but you can unlock more heroes as you level up! Heroes have two primary abilities that can be activated by pressing [SHIFT + F] or [SHIFT + SHIFT]. If these abilities aren't working, then it's like because you have custom keybindings, in which case you need to press [Crouch_Key + Offhand_Key] or [Crouch_Key + Crouch_Key].

Hero abilities are upgradeable in the Evolutions Menu, which can be accessed by the Evolutions NPC at spawn. Evolutions cost gold, and gold can be earned by levelling up.

There are 3 teams: Empire, Rebels and Bandits. Each team spawns on a different balloon in the sky, each location having unique advantages and disadvantages. Players are automatically assigned a team when they join to keep the game balanced. You cannot PVP with members of your own team. You should work together with your team to get kills and unlock the volcano. If you wish to switch teams, then use the /team command at spawn. You cannot switch teams if the teams are unbalanced or if the volcano is currently unlocked.

That massive volcano in the center of the map is actually home to the most precious items in the game, and only the winning team can enter. To gain access to the volcano, your team needs to get the most kills within a 1 hour period. When your team achieves this requirement, the volcano entrance will unlock for only 5 minutes. Quickly enter the volcano and grab valuable loot during these 5 minutes, but be careful, if you stay longer the volcano will erupt and you will certainly die.