[busyrobot]

since new players are most hurt by monsters in mines, and least likely to macro mine,

I suggest the mining rocks fall into a random location along the wall where they appear, this means it won't be in exactly the same place twice, the player will have to move to the new spot and mine it before it may appear where it was before, and may still appear in a few other random spots.

This means, a macro-miner will not know where it will fall next, and cannot macro-mine.

Farming is already hard enough on new lvl 1 players, I hate to think of how many people will leave graal frustrated when their hard earned pick axe and tools disappear when they die, after mining for a little while.

It's hard on new players starting out without even a sword.

the other option, is to except anyone under lvl 2 from item loss, to help them get started and all.