Proposal: New (gray and yellow) players get a limited form of keepinv with some percent chance to keep any given item on death. There will be players that are turned off by the thought of dealing with PvP, and this would not help them. I think the larger issue is the threat of losing all of your items. A brand new player don’t have a large chest room, spare tools, or even a steady source of food; they have the items on their back. This would dramatically reduce the punishment for death early on, and when we previously used it on the server (applied globally, not just to new players) the rate of rage-quits after death was much lower.
I like this idea for helping new players getting started - will this only be on PvP deaths or all deaths? Secondarily what about those players who just never do the tutorial. Do they lose their gray after a time? I would be very cross if someone used it as a method to keep this benefit indefinitely.
All deaths works better because it is more clear and avoids the trouble of death traps (technically pvp, but would never be detected as pvp) 24 hours of playtime promotes players to green whether they started as gray or yellow. This is how the tutorial is completely optional.