Speaking from experience, I found that the hardest thing to do is keep the game balanced so new players stand a chance, while not benefiting higher level players way too much. So here goes:
1. Have atleast one okish cash cow monster - earlier this was bats, which allowed even new players to make some cash easily. The downside to removing it is that it forces more people to cheat and cash cow with alt-characters.
2. Slow rise of costs of some things based on player level. Like the Ferry, making it 1000gp makes it harder for a player of level 10, while a player like me (Level 50) it's barely an inconvenience. Rather make the costs slowly rise based on levels - kind of like with stat resets.
3. Higher drop rate for quest-required items. Maybe even make this trigger-able so that it only activates when the user accepts the quests. I had to kill over 10000 pinkies, cave snakes and fluffies just to get the required amount of items. Nothing major, but if it was similar to log heads drop rate, then It would have been way less frustrating. It will mean less frustration for new users trying to complete the quests.
Anyway, those are my suggestions - feel free to flame the newbie now
