There are a lot of comments I see in NPH made by new players to the game. One of the most common goes like this, "I just increased the settings in the game and now it looks awsome!"
There are three important things funcom can do to make newcomers stay.
1. Make the game start with high settings for a first time new player. They can always reduce settings if they have a really old comp and are experiencing frame rate issues. You could prompt the first time user to choose between high medium and low even before they start the game.
2. Revamp Tortage graphics so that trees and architecture look less blocky. You really notice the difference if you go from playing your 80 in HoC/Khitai/Turan to a low level character in tortage. You need to keep in mind that people are now playing more modern games and tortage was designed for low-mid range computers 5 years ago.
3. Upgrade the UI. Experienced players eventually end up with stonerune or something else, but new players don't even know third party UI's exist for the game. The UI exists as a tool between the player and the game and if they are comfortable with the controls they will be free to enjoy the game.