As there are plenty of newbie guides made by people more experienced than myself, I don't intend to write one, but just share some observations about pitfalls which new players sometimes fall into and get frustrated.
No synergy between guild and race choices
Understandable error as newcomers of course don't know what works. But basically if you want to make a fighter type, choose a race which has good str, con and size. For caster types pick one which has decent int and wis. Don't dream of making a nomad Elf Ranger (yet). Don't make a Dwarf Mage even if you loved it in D&D. Also don't pick a human, it's not very good a starter race, average in everything. But don’t stress about the choices too much either and don't fret if your choice seems bad, new players can always recreate with no exp loss. And you can always reinc into crazy combos later if you want.
"I only play Assassin"
Many people have one archetype they like to play. However in Batmud you can always reincarnate your character to different race and background so I strongly advise everyone to at least try out different stuff. I myself was for long convinced I must always play a caster. Then I finally decided to try out a tank and reinced into Ogre Ranger, and loved it, and kicked myself why I had not done it sooner. Another example are people who want to play Merchant. Alas in Batmud it is very hard to progress your character as a Merchant so you need to first make necessary exp and money as some other type and reinc into merchant later. And you can always make a secondary character if you want to try out some different playstyle.
Ignoring level quests
Doing level quests is not mandatory but advised. They teach you about the game and sometimes provide useful eq and you gain extra training points for better stats. Also, don't forget Area quests, some are quite easy and provide useful rewards.
Getting too obsessed about doing level quests
Opposite of above, some newbies think they can't advance if they don't do the quest first and get frustrated and stuck at the same level. If you can't get friends to help you to kill Vault guardians, don't stress, just advance level and do it in your next reinc. Exp saving provided by quests is fairly insignificant on early levels.
"I can only kill Happy Phantoms"
Often a player stumbles into an area where it is easy to make solo exp, like Bunny Valley, School of Lumine, Smurville etc. and then proceeds to grind it non-stop as exp keeps coming and risk of death is very small. This is a bad idea on several fronts: first, your personal exp tune goes down and quickly you end up earning much less exp for the effort. Second, the area’s global tune is also screwed, making you earn even less exp and upsetting other players. Third, doing just a few select areas non-stop, even if it's safe and easy, burns you out and doesn't really teach you about the game in long term and doesn't earn you all that juicy Explore exp. I advise every newbie to get out of Dortlewall and check out as many areas as possible. Granite post system is a good start but there are plenty of newbie areas outside of it, particularly around Arelium and in the 'civilized part' of Lucentium.
Throwing away tutorial reward
Some people appear disappointed with the eq they get as a reward from doing the tutorial as it's not a shiny sexy sword and doesn't have a shopvalue. But it is actually a decent piece of eq and worth retaining as buying a better one will cost you some money. Even when you have acquired a better item for the slot you can always put it in your dest set.
Cheating
Sadly, few people resort to this wanting to quickly get over the newbie-dom and move to big boy pants. Some other online games are much more tolerant to phenomenon like roboting or multiplaying. Batmud is extremely intolerant to this behaviour and over the years wizards have got quite good in sniffing it out. Other mortals also despise the cheaters and are likely to rat you out if they see behaviour which can be interpreted as cheating. Don't robot if you plan any kind of long-term presence in the game.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Okay, I'm sold! Tutorial was fun, what do I do next?
Now you start to play the game, of course. Take a look on the maps, see what looks interesting and explore around. There is second story quest available in Dortlewall, a sequel for the tutorial, you can start doing it right away, but it is not necessary. Note that doing that story has long pauses in IRL time, and you should pick it only if you plan to stay in that reinc for some time.
The map is huge! I tried walking to an area and I ran out of endurance immediately. How do I travel around?
BatWorld's sheer size can be intimidating when you step out of Dortlewall. Central continent, Laenor, is enormous and that is just one of the continents. Basically, you need a map, either the Web map (there are two) or the client map, to learn what is where and how to get there. Don't try to walk through wilderness, unless you have a mount, or very high % in Hiking skill. Some tips for travel:
*Granite Post system is a network of linked newbie areas, including some which are on different continent. It's very convenient and free, but stops working at around level 30.
*Check out 'help movement'.
*'travel' command makes it much quicker to use roads. Walking on roads doesn't take much EP. One 'travel' command always moves you to next crossing.
*Teleportation trees are a network of teleportation links maintained by players. They are very convenient and usually most popular areas and destinations have at least 1 tree linked to them. However, they cost money to use. They can't take you across oceans, with exception of teleporting to your Starting Location.
*Moving from continent to continent: first method are the Ferries which run scheduled service between continents. They are bit slow, and cost some money to use. Note that Ferry in Rothikgen is located in the southernmost tip of the continent, and quite a long travel away from capital, Shadowkeep, or other key areas.
Second method is the interdimensional city, E'siris. It is accessible by portals from every continental capital, and also some transportation trees. Unfortunately, once you're in E'siris the portals have rather lengthy cooldown before you can enter another continent. On a plus side, it doesn't cost any money, and there are easy-ish quests available making E'siris bit more convenient. (Note that you can always teleport from capital to capital, as long as you're not carrying any items.)
For bit more advanced use, there are teleportation spells (most notably by dedicated guild, Mystical Navigators). You need to max out one of your guilds, though, before you can join Navigators. Also it's not available for Nomads. Finally, you can always get a ship of your own, but they are expensive - see my other page about that.
Should I invest on weapons or armour first?
Tanks should always buy most expensive weapon they can afford, and buy whatever crap they can with leftover money (unless you're unarmed fighter, of course). You can be a decent offtank with good weapons, cheap merchant-made armour and some quest reward junk items.
For casters, it is better to buy many pieces of +sp regen or +stat eq, than one very expensive uberitem.
How do I make money in this game?
Grinding, how else? Basically, what you need to do is to find out individual monsters, and mini-quests/syntaxes which yield sellable eq (preferably 1000+ gold per item so it's worth the time and effort). Then you dump them to shops -> profit. For example, one of the early and easy level quests can be done once per day per player, and gives piece of eq which shops for few thousand gold. Helps a lot if you have good carrying capacity, like Floating Disc spell, or mount with saddlebags. Lot of suitable moneymaking areas are easily accessible (and there are some which aren't but still worth the effort once you get there), so it's just a matter of being patient and charting them out for good money runs.
If you want to invest in Boons, some people buy a Midas boon which increases the random money you get from monsters. I have never taken this boon, so I don't know how much extra money it actually gives nowadays.
So, do I need Boons to advance? Is this pay-to-win game after all?
No content in the game absolutely requires boons, and in the end, almost everything boons do can be replaced with just making more exp. However, realistically, boons make your life easier. Boons have somewhat of 'diminishing returns' impact, in that the first full boon buffs you the most, relatively speaking: allow you to take that +hpmax boon, or +skill/spellmax boon which makes some interesting reinc combo more viable. After that, the effect of taskspoints get bit smaller - but obviously a player with 10 full boons is more powerful than similar level player with no boons. Not 10 times more powerful, though, more like 50% more powerful.
Task points can be acquired by other means, such as doing tasks, finding bugs, from different events providing TP's (these often take place in major holidays, or BatMud anniversaries). Getting enough Task Points for a full boon by these means is daunting, though (unless you get lucky and win a TP lottery).
How do I get to those big, juicy EQ parties?
With patience. You need to be powerful enough to contribute to the party, and hang around on channels so you can step up quickly when somebody is asking people for a party (and not be disappointed too much if you're not picked). It is best if you manage to get into one of more casual twiddle/eq secret societies, which make eq runs for less challenging targets for money or sacrificial items (but these eq's may still be very useful for low level players). Some Houses may also run such parties. From those it is easy to move to big eq running societies.
You don't need to actually suck up people by being overly 'humble' or whatever, but it is advisable to not spam party channel too much with complaints or 'funny' comments, in a large party it might come across annoying for others.
Easiest to get party slots is probably Tarmalen, a passable Tarma/Druid can be made with like 100M exp. It is possible to make decent Deftank with relatively low totals too, if you make smart choices with your build and eq, but competition for tank slots is fierce as many highbie offtanks are also effective defs. It is harder to make a decent blaster: though twiddle society parties are often happy to take any backrow which can cast something better than Magic Missile.
Always be alert and follow instructions (and ask if you are confused about some syntax or something). In eq parties, idlers are quickly booted off.