That is all good and fine Dimmi, however, new players will be put off by "negative bonuses". I recently got an old friend to try SoD (he had never played eq or any mmo prior to this) and this was one of the things that ticked him off. Luckily I was always around to gloss issues like this over, but to a new player without a veteran to ask questions to he would have quit within the first 30 levels.
People truly need to stop using the level 65 player base as their sample size for changes. Start thinking like a complete noob and think about what might bother you...
You bring up an interesting point. I'll preface with a boring anecdote, then roll into an amazing idea you just inspired.
Boring anecdote: When I started on SoD I picked a rogue for my 1st toon and had never played any MMO ever ever ever other than Runescape. I vividly remember pulling the little single gnoll outside blackburrow, praying I'd win, then sitting to regen my hp to full and pulling him again because I had no idea what I was doing. tl;dr: I am a complete noob =(
Amazing Idea: Open up a section of the forums (and direct players to said section in The Dream) for a mentorship program. Veteran players can post if they are accepting mentees along with their various areas of expertise (knights, tanks, priests, int casters, monks, warriors, wizards, min/maxing DPS, trolling forums, getting jailed *this one's for you Fidel*, farming plat, whatever) and new players can befriend and get to know veteran players.
The potential upside:
This would make integration into a very clique-ish playerbase (hopefully) less painful and intimidating, and make learning the ropes on a game where many of the basic functions and features are more like easter eggs than intuitive obviousalities (made a new word!) much easier. It would hopefully also take some of the abrasive out of the prima facia (used an old word!) introduction to the community.
The potential downside:
It could not work at all. Like
at all. It could also (maybe idk, I'm just spitballin here now) lead to streamlined tier jumping in some cases...but probably not tbh. Unless people just really hit it off and are really cool and lucky with their SoD hook-up, in which case I'm not sure it's BAD because we're all here to slay dragons for fun with a group of friends. It's staying on the downside list though because of traditional staff intent.
The potential really shitty side:
This could very very easily lead to occassional trolls by veteran players making new accounts to tease other veteran players they don't like. Also some new people can be flat out annoying as balls to an old salt and those old salts could be puting themselves out there for some pretty gnarly inbox spamming, tell spamming, and angry new people in /ooc when they finally blow off their annoying mentee.
tl;dr: If new people didn't have contact with veteran players, 90% of them would quit before level 30, and it would be nice to have an official and easily-located way to mesh the new and old blood.