FWIW...

Most of the advices on how to learn the game (play a hidden class, ask around how to fight, join Nexun, Herald or Fortress, etc) given to Eldras are true.

About the no apparent RP reasons to kill, I agree with the vets and Imms: you can alway have a good reason to PK. I remember how impressed I was when I red the PBF of Paraloit. This wonderfull RP ranger was restraining herself to eat only the steaks of the people she pked.

But on Eldras side, between the learning of your ways around, the general tactics of each class, the knowledge of the enormous amount of preps & gear and the ferocity of the pk, I think CF is really not beginner friendly.

But it could probably more significantly be by getting rid of the gear fact (I still don't understand why a warrior can use a hero armor at level 15 while a wizard of the same level is not aloud to use a lvl hero wand?). Unfortunatly, it looks like the oldies prefer their brutal domination to a larger pool of players. I mean, would CF loose such a big "swing" by limiting the use of gear to 5 lvl above your current level? Guess it depends on what kind of "swing" you like: lot of people around or total domination by a few.

CF is hard enough and I think it would make a huge difference on new players retention if newbies could not be pked in 3 rounds because of the gear advantage and could count on the " balance " between the classes to be able to pk themselve in less than a year. The vets would still have their knowledge of the game as an advantage (ex: knowing the best weapon for your rank and being able to put all the chances on your side to be able to pk to get it) and yes the learning curve would be less steep and yes there would be less total domination. If you cannot see yourself playing without that midnight dragon gear, good god... just level up.

The majority is not all genius (or old timer) like the best players of CF. But every time I see 50 players online instead of 12, I remember it's still the more, the merrier.