sorry if this has been mentioned before but i couldn\'t find it in the search....
i think having an apprenticeship program would be great to give newbies a jump start where you can be taken under a master of a certain skill and work for him, say mining, where you don\'t get to keep the goodies but you skill goes up to a certain extent say up to 5 points then you\'re on your own in the world. same could be done for skills such as magic, where you can take up apprenticeship with a fire sage, while learning magic for free, you\'d have to cook and clean the house for a week or something so that you don\'t have to go out killing rats all day. But it should be free only for the first few levels, and then you\'d have to pay for it...you could also make it so you\'d have to go through a certain quest before you are accepted as an apprentice....
