It could be a lot of work yes, but it would be for the better. Many other games do it this way, and do it successfully.
My solution to this may be some work but it is simple.
When a player first starts off they see a 7 page long intro. I feel it could be better if a tutorial was implemented similar to the old days. What i mean by that is the paper cabin days.
A player on gateway when starting has a few things to click. One of which is a sign with a nice message telling them to click stuff and so on. But they are already able to click everything, unlike in the PC days you had to do it step by step.
So when a player begins they should get a one page greeting, but it also say to click everything and revisit locations often and such. When a player first clicks a tab such as the creature tab for example it should show them a small tutorial on how to heal their creatures, whats used to heal creatures, and how/where to use CTC's
When a player clicks on the new quest page , which was once the progress page they should get a small tutorial about the forums and how a lot of the game does take place on there.
And so on.
Or even the possibility of a video tutorial. I feel a video tutorial would be a great possibility to explain things in more detail quickly. This video could be implemented in such a way that it forces a player to do step by step instructions to play. It doesn't even need to be long as only the main tabs would need to be explained. the chest icons and such can be learned as they go, However i feel a tutorial for the inventory is more so needed. I've noticed a lot of new players quit cause they felt it was to complicated.
Also the island needs a form of NPC for them to learn to fight on. Maybe a journey up the mountain and on the way down they could be forced to get in a fight, if they have creatures. Ive had thought of another scene thats unseen that could be full of NPC's for then to train on. The biggest issue though is most quit due to the lack of MP3 and MP4 players. I feel MP3 and MP4 should be taken out and they start at MP5. With this can come new stages in the future possibly. We have MP6 MP7, and i think MP8 was a thing but i am unsure. But this could also be fixed if MP3 and MP4 could just attack and MP5.
I think another fun Idea would be to have a mind power that is based on your active days. Like 2 or 3k and above. It would show the elite players that are vets and such. It could be. I feel more achievements can also be added, such as a 3k activity day or maybe something else.
The live help option is just about done as ive noticed most new players dont use it as a lho may be online but they could be idle. can can cause an issue. A player can get frustrated after not getting a response due to one not being online.
Another big thing would be if Md had an app of sorts that would allow the player to play normally. With this could bring a hoard of new features and players. Possibly even have players return due to lack of not having a computer.
The idea is to keep the player interested till they get the hang of everything. When they get bored they register is as a boring game to them, and then quit.
The guardians have messaged players and told them this. Problem is most dont reply or speak at all. Such as they wish to do it themselves. We cant help the players who dont want to respond, but if we can get them to understand whats going on without anyone messaging them then that may help retain players.
Thats the thing. To much text is boring. Most players leave just from the forced mass reading they need to do from the start, and i feel is poorly explained and could be better.