Surprised there are no megathreads for feedback. Some intial newbie thoughts.
-The 'rules' banner in New York is really not necessary. Considering how few people are playing and to attract more players, it may be wise to just stick a ReadMe in the CrossFire directory (or the launcher) and have the players agree to it before launching MultiPlayer each time. The current placement & implementation of the 'rules' banner creates quite a negative and sour impression of the mod itself. It is even present in Single Player for some reason (!?) which makes zero sense.
-Even better would be including the 'Starter Guide' within the Mod itself, perhaps as a Neural Net post that the players have when starting up. Not every player is going to read the forums for the first time and know the way to get better equipment so that they don't get beaten up by NPCs all the time. It may not appear to the veterans here but NPCs are far above and beyond significantly more difficult to fight than in Vanilla. That will put off a lot of new players if they aren't aware of how they are 'supposed' to start off (trading) until they get money for a good ship.
-It would be really helpful for newbies to start off neutral with all factions by default until they start choosing sides. This way they can only blame themselves when they get zerged by Liberty Rogues or Xenos and obliterated in their starter ship with pea-shooters for guns. This allows them to trade or to make enemies/friends with whomever they like. Instead of starting off friendly with the Police they'd have to blow up a few criminals to gain their trust first.
-Dedicated Hint NPC on Manhatten. For a small fee (2k creds) they will reveal all of the New York map with JumpHoles and everything including what bases sell which items. This is optional to put in but would really help with newbies who want to get a head start on the game instead of manually exploring the starter system. Get an idea of trade prices and start making money right away.
-Newbie Night. Once a week hold a newbie night to help those who are under Rank X (pick one) with any questions/hints/etc and advice. Just a simple Q&A session for a few minutes.
-Universe Chat. It may be useful due to the low population to permit/allow Universe Chat until the population increases to a certain point and remains stable.
-Announce Blurbs. Please let us turn them off or at least not have them visible on the screen. If there is a way to do so then I'd love to hear about it (maybe 'Turn off HUD' in Multiplayer keybinds?).
EDIT: The strikethough points have been resolved (aka not changing) but the remaining points are still valid concerns. The announce blurbs seem to be less spammy than they used to be (take about twice as long between blurbs as before).