It's absolutely accessible for a first timer.

So far, only Super Christ and Freya (as far as EoFF'ers are concerned) have joined me on Shiva, and I don't know of any other EoFF'ers who play at all; Christ's come as far since coming back than he did on his first time around already, and that was as a result of my original FFXI Recruitment Drive thread last month.

There are a couple of humps to get over (subjob items, limit breaks, unlocking jobs, etc.) but my linkshell is really good about helping out with that kind of stuff, and the guides I wrote for the frontsite are current. (Only the Abyssea guide is on the front site, which you shouldn't bother looking at until level 30, but the level 50-75 guide is in a thread further down in this forum, and I can always PM the level 1-50 guide that I wrote for the CK comp to anyone who wants it.