Hey,

Per some of the related discussion about newbies a few days ago, I offer the following suggestion for an incentive system :

Karma points

- You attain these by being nice to newbies, essentially. They are awarded by Immortals, someone can nominate a player for a reward if they have the newbie-yes flag set as well.

- Other immortals cannot see the total karma points. This should just be to alleviate concerns that they're impacting mechanical game rewards like Imm XP and etc.

- You can trade in karma points for the following :
a) Stack of gold.
b) Batch of random skill improvements.
c) Consumable that gives you bonus XP while leveling. Only you can see it to prevent having it looted...or it just activates once you turn it in.
d) NOTHING ELSE. These are not meant to add another thing you need to farm to be competitive in PVP.

Thoughts, suggestions, concerns?

That can be toggled on by the user, and not toggled off for another 30 mins real time. Thirty mins would be the standard reward.

Gold -- affects pk.
Skill improvements -- may affect pk, potentially significantly.

I like your bonus exp idea though. Potentially you could also give it out to people with the newbie flag that die to a mob, so the exp hole doesn't seem to bad to them.

Maybe you could also have some kind of "pillar" that helpful characters go on. Potentially even while they are alive. Then the newbs know that if they can find a suitable way to ask something ic, the character might throw them a bone. Even when you are enemies you can typically communicate something helpful if you want.