The community's always been pretty hostile to newcomers, well ok, hostile to softie newcomers that can't ignore random trolls. Even on my cesspool server of Burning Blade, most questions that weren't too dumb usually got an answer (well, sometimes in those damn thottbot co-ords back in the day ) outside of a city-zone.
Have they really changed much though ? I've heard they've made the raiding more open to people, ableit with less rewards than organized runs.