I'm glad i'm not a real newbie anymore...
You guys crack me up
The money issue is serious for a newbie, sure, it forces them to interact with others, begging for money. I'm not so sure that's good, though. Not that fun to beg. They learn to grind in newbie land, that's good, but they can't use that knowledge in the real Gen world, it's a kick in the butt when they find out, very disincouraging. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some of them quit when they figure out they can't do any of the things they could in newbie land. The gap is too wide....they can practically not kill anything without training up skills, (anything with loot) they can't train skills if they don't kill.....
They can herb and sell those, but that they don't know, because in newbie land you can't sell herbs.
Wouldn't it be sweet, as a reward for entering the portal to the real Genesis, to have 500 platinum automatically put in your account? I mean, they've learned how to grind in newbie land, but I really think they need a head start. Or at least, make it possible to loot the rats in Sparkle for coins, preferably 1-2 gold coins. And cap it to wanderer and lower, noone bigger get any loot. Could do the same with the small orcs outside Sparkle.