2) your friend does not need a white meeple to play online with you. He will join you without it. You will be the teacher.
Have you used this feature? Did it work well? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
An old thread, however not sure if I ever saw it.
Yes, I did use this feature, and wrote rather a lengthy forum post back then about what a poor experience it was, and it relates exactly to your comment that I've quoted.
Using the feature results in the games with the 2 minute time limit - very, very difficult to teach anybody anything, even for the new person to figure out how to take their first turn - especially when the timer is running before we've pressed the button to start the game! Certainly not time to teach them anything. Take your eye off the game to look at a message or read any screen text, instructions, anything at all, and suddenly time's up!
So while I tried to use it as suggested, the time limit erased the benefit. My friend still won't come back here, in fact.
I think it's great for you to offer the link feature though, and wish I could make more use of it.