Well newbies or the "poor" need some sorta social support system or they will never make it against already established wealthy.
Like give something to the very first character created on the server. That way people will always like to join the server since they actually have a chance.
If your only option is to start grinding then its just sad since you are alone in Elven ruins, EG outside cruma and so on. Everyone else is faaar ahead of ya. So you like the server rates no gmshop and so on BUT you really dont want to play alone since its an mmo after all. What will you do? Grind and