I don't like the idea of some thought police that determines which group is a bunch of nice guys, and which ones are bad evil cliques. Cliques, in the sens of a closed group, suck. However, I've seen more accusations of cliques than were warranted. Often, newbs would go around doing things that were completely against the culture of the realm, and then would whine persecution and cliques. Sure, it sucks to make a bad gamble and go too far down an RP path that doesn't suit the realm you picked, but that doesn't mean the realm is led by a bunch of bad guys. I don't like the prospect of turning players against each other, calling each other the game-ruining cliques.
I think mobility needs to be stressed more with newbies. "If you don't like your realm, move to another one!" Don't allow them to create two characters on the same continent for an X period of time, then don't allow them to create a character in a realm they've already got one for another Y. The mechanics of restricting how many characters new players can play is also in our disfavor. The more realms they can experience, the better the odds of them finding one they enjoy. The fewer, the greater the odds that they give up before having a representative experience. Perks for having played a long time aren't a bad idea, but active character limits aren't the proper way to proceed.
I also despise mortality. Every time the game killed one of my characters, I felt like quitting. Old characters have a background, they have contacts, a reputation, a personality. That's what makes them fun. People recognize them. And react to this. New characters are hollow shells. Any written background is fluff of little interest. When Nicolas died, Guillaume was absolutely hollow. He had no personality whatsoever. And the thought of making him one of my main characters was repulsive. But did mortality really shake things up and leave more room for newbies? No, not really. Guillaume ended up climbing back to occupy a position of equivalence to the one Nicolas had. That's what happens with mortality more often then not, you'll get another character of the same family, but with a far less rich background, ascend to the predecessor's spot. But the the lack of background is actually detrimental. Of all of the factors that played against Enweil over the years, the forced mortality during the early phases of the fourth invasion is what killed it. With so many nobles killed, many did not come back. And of those who did, they had little RP motivation to interact with each other, because none of the new characters had any prior contact with each other. Some players have the will and time to reach out to many people in a very short period of time, most don't. And in that period of transition where people figured out if the new characters were being played like the dead one, the team spirit was dead because no one could really trust anyone.
