I very much agree with the sentiment. I spend many thousands of hours on my last MUD, and another many thousand on my first MUD.

My first MUD took a very different approach to CF. The locations of all of the eq-loading mobs were public knowledge but specifics about those mobs and areas weren't. It led to a really healthy veteran-newbie culture where it still made a lot of sense to follow around a vet to learn about the game, AND it led to a really healthy culture of individual exploration, AND it led to a really healthy culture of funneling players into the same areas for PK.

Sharing general information like "an enormous axe loads on the renegade commander north of the keep" is way different than sharing specific information like "you need to prac 53% search, go 3w 9n 3w 8n u 8n w s, search south, open treeroots, s, search e, op hiddenknot, and the commander is east with six guards so bring a group." With the first version, there's still a ton of excitement in heading north of the keep for the first time and scouring every room until you find the treeroots. Some people would do this even with no reward. But, it isn't much fun for a lot of players if they don't know that an enormous axe is waiting for them if they can find it...

My second MUD took more the CF approach, and I did most of my learning where things were on ICQ and AIM, and most of my learning area specifics in game. That game had a SUPER rich in game history and a relatively big world with lots of places to explore, and exploring the hidden home of the angels that you could only access by standing in the right place with the right key at 3pm then solving a number of puzzles based on room descs was fun... and not at all spoiled by someone telling me "here's my list of item IDs from the past 10 years, that limited suit of adamantite armor and energy sword are up at the top of Cain Techt."

My experience as a vet on other muds and as a newer player on CF is that vets respond better to new players sending them a tell with a specific request than a general one. It's way nicer to get the tell that says "hello sir, I've heard of a sword held by Bob in the Castle, think we can roll over there and check it out" as opposed to a tell that says "hello sir, I'm totally helpless and have no idea what good gear even smells like unless I'm following around heros during pk and spamming get all corpse, please take pity on me and help me find gear."