I don't know if it is possible without consequences.

If we did an image one, I don't think we would have that problem

The biggest issue with captcha is the audio workaround to validate the captcha. 

I’ve disabled PMs for new users. I would have preferred not to, but I think it’s more important to protect people from scammers than to make things convenient for new users. Maybe we should require posts from new users to be checked by moderators before posting. But I am less certain about that. It’s basically the same amount of work for moderating the forums (maybe a bit more, but not much), but I think it would be quite a bit more inconvenient for actual new users, especially if they come here to get help with the game and then they don’t see their post. I feel like that would be frustrating.

It seems to be in place: