That might be a bit excessive. The forced pausing of characters they had been allowed to start seems pretty harsh. I'd rather start with a sensible character limit from the start.
What's harsh about it if they know in advance? They aren't forced to create more characters than they'll end up being able to play. Besides, what are the odds that they like seven realms equally? There comes a point where characters in duller places just distracts one from the more interactive places.
May be useful, I guess. A prominent option at the top of the Messages page. It would probably need suitable language to point out that its an OOC channel for sharing game experiences, and not for sharing IC information/plans/etc.
I also still like the option of the island-wide OOC channel for mentoring.
Yes, it'd have to be stressed that it's for OOC only. But newbies are unlikely to want to game this extra communications channel, in my opinion, because they don't have any contacts to leak it to, nor any reason to betray their realm.
Newbies could have a "contact all new players / contact all new players and mentors" link, while mentors could have a "contact all new players". I don't really see a point to putting mentors in contact with each other.
