PVP gear for fresh 80s on icecrown
Problems:
.Leveling is increased meaning you have less gear when you hit 80 and are at a huge disadvantage
.Contrary to the generic "Go do PoS etc. for gear before BGs" advice DPS(and sometimes even healer) queues for dungeons are too long for gearing so the only efficient way to do so is BGs
.Gear disadvantage means people don't want to participate in BGs and end up AFKing, even full geared teammates
.PVP gear takes too long to farm due to this
.Fresh 80s spend way too long being useless in bgs
.Donators mean people don't stand a chance
My suggestion:
.Some sort of cheap, low Ilvl pvp vendor(Hateful?) that won't affect pve(or possiblly will, why not they're undergeared too?) for a small amount of honor or gold so people can actually compete
It seems like there's something of a gear gap for fresh 80s, my brother quit because of this, I'm still considering it and I bet other people have felt the same. I know you want to keep the server Blizzlike although you have faster leveling, you must admit this has created a problem that needs to be fixed. Just read the forums.
The problem with donators being so common is that it alienates any new players you have that just get told to "L2P" or "Gear doesn't matter" when they're fighting full BiS Smourne players while they have 9-11k health.
Edit for contrast:
.My Holy Pala(with help queueing with my tank brother) only has 5 items that aren't epic after 9 hours at 80.
.My rogue which I only PVP on has 2 PVP items after 20 hours at 80.