I'll start off by pointing out that the Graveyard you find near the start of the game
is intended for a higher level player, so you should avoid it for now.
Both the Cleric and the Warrior are excellent beginner classes. The Cleric has healing, which is very helpful, but has very weak armor. The Warrior lacks healing, but has more well rounded stats for combat, and starts with better equipment.
When it comes to developing your character, there is one thing you should keep in mind: You should only boost one offensive stat. This includes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Faith. The reason for this is that most weapons have stat scaling. So if you have a weapon which scales with strength, and you decided to split your points between dexterity and strength, all of the points invested in dexterity are essentially useless. That isn't to say you shouldn't put any points into the other offensive stats, just that you should only be putting enough to meet stat requirements for equipment.
My personal suggestion would be to focus on a Dexterity build. This will allow you to use bows effectively, which can make your game a lot easier. Bows allow you to both kill and weaken enemies from afar, lure single enemies away from a group, and take care of archers as soon as you encounter them.
Best Answer
Yes, according to other players of the game, you'll hear the bell ringing if you're playing online and someone else online rings the bell.
It doesn't appear to have any effect on your game, although the interactions between games in Dark Souls is a bit mysterious and I don't have any authoritative sources confirming this.