Welcome to the game and the forums!

The no answer on your NPC linkpearl means you need to finish the quest, or wait till there is a new quest. Each npc that has a quest available for you will have a little white ! in a comic book style talk bubble or cloud above their heads. You can do any quest you want without the adventurer's guild pearl as long as you are able to accept it. As you progress in a quest your chatlog will say "updated in your journal" if there is new info for the next part of the quest.

The linkpearl from the adventurer's guild is story line quests and usually wont bug you until you level up to a new level where the next part of the storyline is available.

Go back to the NPC in the Adventurer's guild who gave you the pearl and ask her how to get started. Also talk to every npc inside of the adventurer's guild and make a habit of talking to as many as you can in general for storyline and info. If you don't like that, you can seek out the ones with the quest icon above their heads. It will show up on your map as you get near the npc as well so if you kind of walk around the town, and get near each npc you will see the bubble on the map for available quests.

You can also do levee quests, level up, earn gil and items through these. The levee quest counter is in the adventurer's guild where you got the link pearl from the npc. You select the levee by talking to the npcs at the counter. There are battlecraft levees for fighting mobs and guild crafting levees. You can have up to a certain amount per day and your log will tell you how many you have left. Follow the map info on the levee quest in your journal and either run or teleport to the camp on the leveequest.

When you get to the camp [use the map in your journal for that camp] you click on the aetheryte and choose "initiate levee quest" when you are ready to go. The battlecraft levees have difficulty adjustments. One star equals one level so you can increase the level of the levee quest at the start. If it is too hard you can reduce the difficulty by running back to camp and opening it up again at the aetheryte. If you fail a levee you can choose to retry it by clicking retry on the levee. [read about the levee's goals and reward in your journal once you get one].

You will see a little piece of paper icon on your gamescreen with a list of the goals you need to finish the levee and how much time you have to do it. Your map will light up with yellow arrows that point to the direction of the place you are supposed to go for the levee. If you open your map by pressing M for keyboard, you will see a highlighted yellow area that also tells you where your goal is. When you find the levee mobs they also will have little paper icons over their heads near their names. Only you can kill them unless you are in a party.

If you have your menu set to display enemy icons it will tell you if they are red, aggressive or green neutral/passive meaning they will attack you if aggressive and wont unless you hit first if they are green neutral/passive. Their level also will be displayed if you have that option turned on.

You might see a little treasure chest on the ground during levees, click on it and you get whatever item is in it.

If you are doing guild levees and are mining, fishing, harvesting then you will see sparkles on the tree or bush or rock, a fish on your map for fishing or a swirly light in the water.

If you choose to do crafting levees, you first need to get the right equipment and change classes to the appropriate one. The npcs on either side of the adventurer guild npc who gave you the pearl, they have equipment you can buy for low gil to get started. If you don't have gil yet, do more battle craft levees and earn gil also you can sell your inventory items you get from mob drops.

When you are done, a teleport appears beside you and you tele back to the camp you initiated the levee from. Or you can choose to wait or refuse the teleport and run back to camp when you feel up to it. Once you use up all of your levees, rinse repeat by going back to the adventurer's guild levee counter to get more. I think you can get 8 per type at a time.

The NPCs at the levee counter have instructions on how to use them. They also have Tutorial Levees, choose those first to learn how to do each thing.

Teleporting is via your log or going to the Aetheryte in town [Light blue conical crystals on a metal framed device kinda look like snowcones on a candelabra lol ]. [Whenever you see an Aetheryte click on it so that it registers in your teleport history and you can use it later.] Aetherytes also have a training manual there where you can read about battle and skilling up ect. You can also set your home point [place you return to when you k.o. [die] and also when you use the Return command from your menu it takes you to your last saved point. Take into account that teleporting uses Anima.

You only have 100 anima and it takes time to restore back up to 100 once you use it up so when you find a camp that you like, register it as a favored location by talking to the NPC at the camp who is usually behind the table or desk. Favored location gives you reduced cost to teleport. You can only have a few favored destinations so register the ones you know you will frequently come back to. Using levees, if you die during combat you will teleport back to the camp where the levee was initiated.

Mages can party with you and also teleport you. Oh yeah parties. If some one offers you a link pearl to party, it is one way to get familiar with others and start playing with others in battle and stuff. Don't be afraid to ask people for help by using /say in your chatlog. Most people are nice if you don't spam or shout spam the log.

Journal notes also have maps and useful info on each quest.

You can turn on popup help that highlights what each function of your menu and game screen does by clicking on the gold ? icon to turn it off or on.

Well I hope this helps, I am a bit scatterbrained so I apologize for the all over the place kinda advice.

Also this forum has The Lodestone Play Guide on the left side of the webpage at http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/index.html

There are also links to fan created sites like wiki right below the play guide.

Good luck and enjoy!