Why does the game always return to level one when I shut down my computer and then try to play again?
The returns to level one because there is no way to save the progress since it's an online game. This is the "limitation" when you are playing certain online games. I think you can't do anything about it since this is the way the game works.
The game used to save the level so the next time you logged on you could start where you left off. Not anymore!! Or maybe changing from vista to windows 8.1 had something to do with it.