I am a first time MUD player.

Help is necessary, and definitely requires you to ask questions either on or off game, but the player base is willing to offer and guide.

Patience is also important, considering the world is big and you might not often run into people, but the roleplay is what keeps me staying, and incentivizes me to do the mechanics that are conducive to more roleplay.

It eventually turns into a feedback loop of me wanting better roleplay by working at progression for my character.

You start as a nobody, which is important to keep in mind. So you'd start with nothing and assume you are nothing, and have to work from there. When fresh, you cannot start as anything important like a knight or powerful evildoer, and I guess it might be to temper unpredictable characters. I suppose it was not immediately evident until I started playing. The keyword is slow-burn as for character progression.

Improvements I would ask that the game be a bit more newbie friendly (Offering the bread and butter for newbs like myself to understand what is important for crafts, functions, engagement) and having guardrails for understanding what to do before hitting the wall of frustrating death and loss.

That said, I am happy overall, and it took a fair amount of learning and mistakes to get to the rewarding part of gameplay.