For some added newbie friendlyness.
I think newbies should be given more direct info on how gamemech, levelling, quests work on cf.
Example: lagging skills are very hard for most newcommers to understand. So, perhaps a helpfile could be added for what lagging skills do. Also, trip helpfile could directly say how much lag it dishes. Same for bash helpfile. Instead of reading: trip will stun your foe momentarily, it could read: trip will give your opponent 2 rounds of lag with a single command before you can trip again. Direct, understandable by a newbie.
Another thing that I thought about is a VERY helpfull newbie quest that helps a lowbie get at least decently geared up (trying not to go into too much detail here). The quest is great, but kind of hard to complete for a total newbie. Even worse, a newbie might not even know that such a quest exists. It might be a good idea to have someone tell newbies that such a quest exists (perhaps have a sign, or a mob to tell it to anyone who answers yes to the newbie question), and tell them the final reward for it. This would catch interest, and they would be searching to complete it. And in the best case scenario, they'd think: What a cool mud! after they get their very own pimpmaster flex weapon to pwn some dockworkers with.
Final thing, adding some maps on the home page would also be good. There are readily available maps at dikuclan's, etc. but these are not necessarily reachable for total newbies. No need to have maps for all the areas, but perhaps at least the hometowns, and the areas listed in help newbie.