Everytime when I started new on a shard, I ended up with a mage/scribe/fisher. When you start with 49 inscription, you get really fast to 50 and get an undead slayer spellbook with 'enough' spells to start with from the New Haven quest. I usually take the slowest way and go to mage shop, where I buy reagents for inscription and sell the finished scrolls to the npcs. I dont train on scrolls, where my chance to succeed is lower than 50%. That way, I am guaranteed to make profit with buying reags and selling scrolls. At 50 Inscription for example, I start with 4'th circle. (Either there is a 4'th circle spell in that gifted spellbook or you can buy them from a npc. Picking up lightning would be optimal, course it needs only 2 reagents.) While you wait for your needed resources to respawn, you start training eval by using the eval skill on nearby npcs. I prefer to start with a human with some str, no extra dex and little int for this char. Having only little mana makes starting harder on a scribe, but I usually need the carrying capacity very soon. (Gold, reags and scrolls start up to weight something very fast.) With letting meditation and focus rise in the first place, you get to a decent mana reg easy.
Up to around 60 skill, you should train around haven. That way you can include picking some escort quests, while your mana/int is to low to efectively train inscription. First 'big' goal is to get enough gold to buy a full spellbook. (You need the scrolls to be in a/your spellbook, before you can scribe them.) After that you should try to get the gold for a low cost lrc suit. (With imbuing, you can craft those really cheap. If you ask nicely in chat for a lowly suit with 100%lrc made out of except leather peaces, you often even will have the problem of others accepting gold for that one. *g* ) In addition to a full spellbook, i usually try to find a cheap empty one with magery and fast cast recovery bonus. +12 magery and +2 fcr would be optimal. That way you can further start to look for jewelry with more + magery and a second set with 1 fast cast and 2 fast cast recovery on each piece (ring + bracelet). I am usually not very motivated for magery training, but starting with 49 magery and magery bonus on each of spellbook, ring and bracelet allows me very early/fast to mark my own runebooks and with training inscription first, I can craft them on my own at some point.
One of the things to play around with starting a mage this way, is the use of different spellbooks. To get the bonus on your spellbook, you have to equip it. To be able to cast a certain spell (or to inscribe it) you need to carry a full spellbook with you. So switching out/equiping empty spellbooks works fine. You can find empty slayer spellbooks, which give a significant damage boost against certain monster types, for really low costs on many shards.
At one point, I personally start to pick up training fishing. But thats a personal reference. The above tips actually work for every mage/scribe character. If you want to go for a necro mage for example, you should start with 49 necromancy, becourse you get a full necro spellbook gifted from the new haven starter quest for necromancy. (The 'starter-quest' actually only tells you to get a/the responding skill to 50. So it helps you, if you can get a spellbook gifted as fast as possible.)
There are really many ways of getting started. The usual problem for a really new player is to get the first steps. Collecting enough gold/money in the first place to build a small/medium house should be the first bigger goal. (Usually I would recommend a small sandstone with a patio. That is a smaller classic house with a nice 'place-toplay-around-with'/gold ratio.) To get your first million is not that difficult nowadays. With a small house, you can start having a vendor and sell to other players. (The new vendor search really helps with that. You dont need any longer a vendor at one of your shards hot spots.) If you start with a crafter, you could aim for some bod rewards (smith + miner) or heartwood rewards (woodcrafter + lumberjack). As a melee/dexxer you might end up training on Troglodytes at one point. Those can rarely drop spellweaving scrolls. Some of those can be sold usually for a good price. Farming leather would be another way. With halfway/decently trained chars you could try and aim for solen quests (bag of sendings and powder to recharge them). Low level champion spawns are good for money too. If your lucky enough to get a decent skill scroll, you are already set up for a house. Depending on your latest expansion, the mini champions in the abyss are good for first money too. (Farming essences from the lower spawns or even challenge the easier mini bosses on mediocre trained chars.) Since you are starting now, it also might be a good idea, to fill all you char slots with dummy chars on busy/halfway busy servers. At september there is uo's next birthday upcoming. Each character older than 30 days gets a present then and usually there is a rare collectable included. So you could hit a beginners jackpot with some luck. (And there are more/other/new gifts waiting for your created chars at x-mas.) With high seas fishing for uncommon crabs could net you really good gold, if you dare to sell those. On top of that, there is a new big publish upcoming. With all the changes in there, it is even for a veteran player difficult to tell, where to find new/more challenges or opportunitys to earn some gold.
There are enough challenges out in uo for about every playstyle. It doesnt necessarily need to be for a highly skilled/equipped char. For myself I am having as much fun on picking medium monsters on a lowly equipped char, than i probably would have with a high end char on really difficult monsters. Theres no real need for me to go for what others might state as 'high-end' or late-game, where you need to use expensive equip. Actually I am playing on a shard, where I can find others, if I want to give the big games a shot together.