As a relatively new player who enjoys questing, I have a few suggestions that I think will help make questing more enjoyable and easier for new players.

The problem right now is that as a new player, you don't know where everything and everyone is.  So you talk to a few NPCs and get a few quests.  Not so bad.  However, you aren't sure where to go to do these quests, so you start talking to more NPCs hoping to find one you're supposed to talk to.  This just leads to getting more quests, for which you have to find more NPCs, and the spiral continues.

Eventually you find your quest log cluttered with dozens of quests, most of which you can't remember anything about.  So "questing" for the most part just turns into talking to every NPC you can find and seeing if they have any quest info for you.  To make matters worse, some of the quests involve things like killing tefusangs or making gold ingots, which are way out of reach for new players.  So I have a few suggestions for reducing the clutter and confusion of questing.

1. Distinguish between "Quests" and "Tasks"

Quests should be moderately long and story oriented, and as being story-oriented they should only be able to be completed once.  Tasks, on the other hand, are simple things that require little or no skill and can be done over and over (for example, Harnquist is Hungry, Jayose Lamp Fuel, Paper for Charisa, etc.).  Quests and tasks can have separate tabs in the quest journal to help reduce clutter.  Also, quests should have significantly higher rewards than tasks.

2. Reputation Point System

Another thing that would help reduce the overwhelming amount of quests new players face is to introduce a "reputation score" to the quest system.  Each quest or task should have a reputation requirement based on its difficulty.  Easy quests like learning leatherworking or the "tasks" mentioned above would have a requirement of 0 (anyone can do them) but harder quests that involve things like killing tefusangs, making gold ingots, or traveling to multiple cities would have a higher reputation requirement (new players wouldn't be able to do these anyway).  After all, you wouldn't hire someone you've never heard of to kill a tefusang and bring back its hide or carry your important delivery to the bronze doors.  You probably would ask them to bring you a couple apples or collect some rat eyes.  For each quest the player does, the reputation score would increase.  Quests or tasks that can be done multiple times would only give you reputation points the first time.

I think that these changes would help new players get accustomed to the game more easily and not feel overwhelmed by the amount of quests they have assigned to them, some of which they are not even able to do yet.

Maybe just make the backs of the chairs non-collidable geometry?

Right, but the training they provide does not match what the quest dialogue tells you.  Unless I misunderstood him entirely, he said that he could train armor making for beginners and the person in the area (I forget her name) could continue to train at higher levels.  However this seems to be opposite of how it actually is in-game.

I saw this discussion somewhere and I think it deserves it's own thread.

Let's face it.  Grinding is boring.  So why not make it a little more fun by adding the ability to train things like blade making and cooking with some skill-oriented quests?

For example, Harnquist tells you that he just got an order from the city guard for 4 new longswords.  They need them fast, and he's busy with another project.  If you agree to make them for him, he'll agree to give you a few pointers about swordmaking (and pay you for the swords, of course).  Now when you finish the quest, instead of getting experience and money you could get blade making practice, blacksmith practice, and money.  This way, people learn in a realistic way by creating a product rather than by repeatedly hammering sword handles for hours at a time.

This could apply to a variety of skills.  Mining practice could be given for the Harnquist Iron Ore quest, cooking practice for making stuff, leatherworking and armor making for making pieces of leather armor, etc.

I know there are some details to work out but I think this would help make training a little less boring.

I think this might already exist but I've looked around and I haven't found it so I'm putting it here.

The thing I'd most like to see is a website made by the devs to let the public know what's going on behind the scenes.  In my opinion this should have a few sections:

1. Things already completed (either just released or going on the next release)
2. What's being worked on now (ie things to be included in the next release)
3. Next in line (to be done within the next few months, 1 or 2 releases down the road)
4. Long term goals

Things further down on the list should be more general (for example "balancing stat progression") and as they move up they should get more specific ("make this change to this skill/item/npc/location for this reason").

I realize this would take a bit of work but I believe it's worth it.  It would generate excitement and support.  Plus people could look at it BEFORE posting on the wish list to see if their brilliant idea is already planned.