I have seen several games that a had a forum board specifically for new players to ask questions. Not the "helpline" one that we have now that is a generic help board, but a dedicated "Newbie Corner" kind of thing. Perhaps we could do that, including giving new players a link to that board in their IG welcome message. That would hopefully give newer players a way to ask questions about things, and maybe get a quicker response, due to the wider player-base they could access on the forums rather than their realm.
