imo, the system is not automated enough up there
especially movement explanation is still a problem, you should really have some holographic writing thingie there, explaining aim mode and wait til the newbie actually managed to turn with aim mode til the next step starts
may be a bit old fashioned, but amazingly many people i saw during my times as NAZ, as extended guide and before, had serious trouble moving
being on that topic, the (fairly few) arriving newbies rarely spoke at all or asked questions, although being told in chat to do so if they need help
amazingly few seemed to read the chat on how to move properly too, as they continued running without being able to move
most of the (fairly few) questions we got where about moving, how to get ped and how to hunt
the gateway answers just one of them imo, which isn't too good
that said, having people up there answering questions may be less useful than it seems to be
also, you allow pretty much everyone to get up there, or you get a selected few which will have to endure quite some trouble by the community (i could tell you some stories from the extended guide period, but i rather don't- goes from plain jealousy to insults)
i dont think that many traders would be up there, cause arriving newbies usually don't have peds, nor sweating tools there i think, so not much to get from them
but its hard to say, i think opening it up for everyone could be interesting
let it run for say 2 or 3 months and see how it goes
if shit starts, just turn it back
as to the mentor system, it was crap, there isn't much denying of that
for example there were pretty much these outcomes in case of possible disciple and possible mentor:
-(usually depositing) newbie wants mentor, but found out after he got 20 pts in rifle after he got an opalo that he is -too skilled-
so a very promising and most likely help needing newbie went without mentor, especially a that early depositor would need advice imo
-an "i want to get rich fast" newbie, which are around 90% of the arriving ones it seems, gets a mentor, who spends hours on explaining stuff
newbie doesnt log in a second time
mentor lost lotsa time
-(possible promising) newbie gets a mentor who is just after a gift and doesn't help at all
seems to have been happening very often too
so newbie didn't have much of it either
-the least likely case afterall is that a promising, still basically unskilled, newbie meets a good and decent mentor
so the newbie as well as the mentor had just one useful outcome, a pretty unlikely one too
cause most of the more skilled and/or knowledgeable people simply dont have the time or mood to really take care of newbies, but I can't blame them
if my graduation rate is correct, that good outcome roughly the case in ~5-15% of the cases in total, depends a bit on your luck
makes pretty much a 90% total loss of time
and i guess you can easily count 1-2 hours lost per newbie there, rather more
so imo, the system was crap for the newbie and crap for the mentor
some word to the gifts
if you spend LOTS of time on helping disciples who mostly quit cause they didn't want to deposit (can't blame them there either often enough), and wait months for a graduater to actually finish and get an alpha ME after that, it is an insult
i don't speak of the value itself, i speak of usefulness
i can't even drop the shit in my apt cause i had to repair it ^^
so please, leave the old mentor system out, it was mostly abused and not useful imo
if you want to help, you do so anyway
imo the whole mentor thing was just some funny MA psycho trick, to form an emotional bound from disciple to mentor, to make the disciple deposit so he can graduate to get the mentor the epic (ly bad) gift