The new players need a channel where they can ask for help. Using channel 1 is a problem because the helper can only chat once every 30 seconds, making it troublesome to address multiple questions.

I propose 1 of 2 things:

1) add some way for players to sign up to work the help channels, maybe a position similar to the guides (call them supermentors?) but with only the ability to chat as many times as they want in channel 1

or

2) add a channel to the tutorial section for chat, I've been using channel 111 but any channel could work, it just needs a recognition of some sort so that new players know it is there and official. (maybe channel 411? 911?)

i've seen your work on 111 spellcast.. i must salute your initiative. still, as you say, there should be a different channel (not 1) for this. that is because we are all subscribed to 1 by default and if a lot of chatting would happen there, the chat would become more and more harder to follow.

here are some more sugestions regarding the chat system (questions):
- is it possible to change to chat fade-out delay ?
- is it possible to increase the number of chat lines displayed (along with font size maybe?)
- is it possible to move a certain chat (guild, group, etc) from the main window to mission window ? that would be usefull at least for GROUP chat, as you need to watch the group talk as well as mission outcomes. if fade-out delay can be modified that could solve this problem indirectly.
- would it be possible to have names for channels, somewhat like irc? so that if someone enters 111 he is notified "this is a helping channel, please keep chatter to a minimum", or when he enter 104 he gets "this is the weather channel, anounce ion storms here".