Here's my opinion as someone who has donated on 2 accounts and is planning on doing it again, should I find a proper WotLK GEAR item or a mount to buy:
- The current prices are everything BUT OK. They are way too high. 20+ dollars for a 20 slot bag is a "HELL NO!". I'm not even gonna talk about the currently available gear because we both know no one's gonna' buy it. I liked the old Molten prices. There is absolutely NO CHANCE whatsoever that I'll be buying anything off of the marketplace in its current state. Literally nothing. I, as many, am also against P2W, but we both know that gear and weapons are 90% of what people pay for. And most of the server realizes that! We realize that the server needs to cover its operating costs and that's not gonna' happen by selling bags or sh***y Vanilla/TBC items that no one will buy. The only problem I had with the old Molten marketplace were the Heroic weapons (and, of course, the Legendaries). That's all! I wasn't against the heroic gear items or normal mode items. I was utterly fine with it. I was even fine with the PvP weapons, as long as they weren't the ones that require high arena ranking in order to wear. There will always be those individuals who will ALWAYS be against any type of gear/weapons on the marketplace, but as you said, they are those who either have never donated or have donated just to skip queues. Hosting and maintaining a server isn't cheap. That's what people need to realize. The staff members aren't here only because of Malaco's good looks and his glorious mane (hence the server's name). They actually need to eat. And even though it's too early to judge at this point, due to the fact that the actual content that people will agree on paying for is nowhere near released (Ulduar/ICC stuff), the marketplace is generating nowhere near as enough revenue to cover any of its costs.