First of all CF is a PK mud. The essence of the game should be available to new players as soon as possible. No one wants to spend several hours investing in a MUD just to find out whether or not it's interesting. Instead of skipping to rank 30, PK should start at level one and every class should have at least one class-defining, killer PK ability by rank 5. The academy should be redone so that no one can leave before level 5, and it should also include a protected area and perhaps some interesting guard mechanics. At the 6th rank ALL players are transported to Galadon where guards refuse to let them leave the gates before rank 10. This is so that new players are given a chance to learn the necessary terrain a bit more piecemeal while they PK and while all players in these ranks are forced to interact with other each other. This also limits everyone at these levels to fine leather and balanced practice weapons at best. A lot of fun could be had 1-10 for all players.

The things that new players struggle most with are geography, gearing and general game knowledge. We can address each of these issues separately. First geography. The wiki maps here are absolutely critical to the success of the new player. The game geography is simply maddening without them. It's too much to begin to absorb without visual aids. The maps need to be mentioned and re-mentioned in game for the new player as they're adventuring.

Next we address gearing. I suggest giving a player that flags themselves as new at creation a default set of gear that can always be replaced with the outfit command. This gear scales with rank and has decent stats relative to their guild and race. It cannot be looted, but in return the new player gives up the ability to loot or steal from other players or use other gear. This allows the new player to worry about something other than gear for the life of their first character and focus on other things like geography.

Game knowledge is the toughest to address. If only CF were the matrix and you could download the vast amounts of experience that other players have. Alas you cannot. What we can do is encourage other players to share some of what they know with new players. One improvement would be to make new players more obvious, perhaps through their title. Another would be to make the newbie chat channel the general place for OOC. New players could probably learn a lot just by listening to experienced players chat about the game. But really this is something that has to happen at the player level and can't all be fixed by coding and Immortals. The players and staff have to band together in encouraging a culture of 'We really love this game, and we think you will too. Let us tell you about it (in newbie chat).'