there are classifications of players, and new players.
1) new player, brand new, probably never seen a mud before.
joins mud, skips tutorial
-this player will not read a noteboard for a very long time.
2) new player, brand new, probably never seen a mud before.
joins mud, does the tutorial, asks questions, and is somewhat intelligent.
- this player may see a noteboard, and figure out how to use it.. maybe
3) new player, knows what a noteboard is, has played on muds before.
joins mud, plays
- this player will notice the noteboard, and may or may not be bothered with reading it.
there are many other 'classifications' that players can fall under, but these are the main ones. The trick is for us to actively throw information at them, without smothering them in the information.
Difficult to do, considering how much information is relevant.
Many players will not go out of their way to read a noteboard (effectively buried information) or read a helpfile for that matter.
Some even remove room descriptions from showing up, because they think they don't need them.
these types of players can be spotted instantly.
So whats my point of all this? There is no best way to handle new players, aside from mailing them a starters book in the mail, and hoping they read it
Webpages, helpfiles, room descriptions, programs popping up telling them information, ingame coded information forcing them to do things to learn on their own, newbie guides who volunteer their time to explain to new players what needs to be done, and how to communicate, all these things have to be in place to teach new players.