In regards to gear:

This might be of no use but I thought I would throw it out there anway.

1. If someone is nice enough to give you gear, ask IC if they could tell you where it came from, or better yet, show you so you can get it yourself next time.

2. If possible make friends with someone IC of the same class that seems to be more experienced then yourself. Find a way IC to ask for advice about where to get gear or what might be more useful for you. This can be done without it appearing like begging.

3. If someone asks for your help to get something, go along, write down what they are getting and from where, this can help with future characters if not the current one.

4. Keep a listing of gear including location. If you cannot identify gear yourself, there is a mob in the Inn that can do it for you at a price.

5. Spend sometime building a basic regear set. Regearing is part of CF so it is a good idea to build a basic set of stuff you can get as a ghost so when you die and find yourself looted you know exactly where you are going to go to a piece of gear for whatever slot you are missing. As you get more experience and learn more gear this list will change. I will note I haven't played for awhile and am not sure how well the outfit command works, I thought it was reworked to be better recently.

6. Work at learning the different areas, spend time exploring even low level areas to see what mobs have what gear.

Hope something in there was helpful.