Possible new player, and I have some questions

Hello,

I am thinking about starting to play on Warmane Iecrown and would like to have a few questions answered before I commit to the server.

First of all, I am a long time TBC player - played hardcore when it was on retail, stopped playing shortly after WotLK launch due to multiple reasons. Ever since then, I have been playing on and off on random private TBC servers and for the last two years I have settled on one stable low pop server (which I will not be naming, not completely sure what approach the mods here have to promoting "competititon"). The thing is, playing TBC is getting a little stale.
First, over the years I have seen every encounter of the expansion from the point of view of multiple characters in all roles.
Second, at my current server, there is not much to do - low level content is mostly obsolete, which makes gearing a new toon absolute nightmare (unless carried by guildies) and there are rarely enough geared people to pug/semi-pug anything high end.

So, to the questions:
1) How buggy is this server? I expect there to be problems (private, duh), but the question is - can the bugs be lived with or are there some truly terrible things that would make playing here a really bad experience? What is the devs response time?
2) How hard is it to find groups (pugs or guild runs) for specific levels of content - leveling, fresh level cap, entry/mid-level instances?
3) Related to previous question, how bad is the situation with gear checks? On my current server, you might get booted out of a Karazhan pug because your toon isn't T6 ready. Again, I expect similar things to happen here to a degree, but how common is this?
4) P2G (pay to gear) - how common is this and are you eventually forced to go there? And please don't give me the "you don't have to pay if you don't want to" reponse - I'm trying to find out what the reality is, not some bull I can read on any board related to donations/micropayments.
5) Rates - is everything x7 or are there exceptions, like boss drops?
6) I am a long time Alliance player (tried Horde, the experience sucks) - how is the community on "our" side? Is there a big difference between factions and if so, might rolling Horde be a better option?

Thank you for any helpful answers.

1) to be honest, its about 99% percent free bugs, also everything is scripted, even quests, of course there are the occasional 1-3 quest bugged, but to be honest they are really rare
2)you can even find and spam dungeons at low levels, as for high levels there are tons of groups at all hours, ofc most of them still need a decent gs requirment(ICC)
3)Gear checks happen, but in my experience its within a decent limit( request), you can always run repurations and gearing up before actually going into entry lvl wowlk dungeons
Dungeons are hard, and bosses hit harder, and the whole dungeons, raid encounters are fairly hard, proper geared toons are required, you cant just go YOLO with green gear...
4) im not sure what you are reffering to, there is a 10$ donnation for the queue skip, but in my oppinion its fair to be honest, theres also shadowmourne in shop for 150 dollars, which with real money is a LOT! like a lot! and in game it doesnt offer that big of a difference, i have yet to keep count the times i wiped the floor with a shadowmourne user, you just gotta be carefull and dont let him do his rotation, since most people get them from guides on forums, its safe to assume 80% of what ppl will do in pvp, therefore they are preety straight forward to see through their tactics
5) this no ideea, i dunno, havent even checked, im a no lifer 24/7 so high rates, low rates makes no real difference to me
6-no ideea, im a jerk, i dont actually listen to what other ppl think or do or care

Depends on what you want to do in the game. If you want to PVP choose alliance, well, its obvious human racial, plus alliance pvp community is much better then hordes. If you want to pve, well pick horde, there is much more guilds on horde side that clear everything on weekly basis(Im not saying alliance guilds are not clearing stuff, but there is like 2-3 at max? Udba, Dignity and ??).

Both sides are full of dickheads so you wont escape them, all u can do is ignore.

And about your donation question, it all really depends on your class, if you go for one of the meeles, well you will have to cough up 150 coins for SM or get in game if you want to be competetive with your guildies/other meeles. And getting SM for you as a new player in-game will be pretty hard as most of the guilds have rules about shard priority.

Your point 3 is going to be much, much worse on WOTLK. Icecrown is a server where the standard is completely BIS gear. Imagine TBC where every Rogue or Fury Warrior has full Sunwell gear and Warglaives, and every Hunter has Thori'dal, where a Black Temple geared player would be turned down for a Black Temple raid due to not having enough Sunwell gear, in effect where the "standard" is to be Sunwell geared.

"Gearscore" has infected TBC a little, but WOTLK is the infestation from where it began and the WOTLK players are the ones who took it there. Of course if you have a thick skin and some determination you can 100% make it without donating a penny, but don't expect an easy ride and don't expect other players to follow your naritive, Icecrown is a breeding ground of pay to gear players and doesn't generally attract (or retain) the type of player who puts in the work and meets challenges head on.

In TBC it's also absolutely normal to keep items for months on end, even through progression of multiple tiers your gear remains pretty relevant, where as in WOTLK you churn through gearsets in a seasonal fashion and items are quickly considered obsolete and replaced, but you're entering at the end point where every point up until the end is considered obsolete... A fully T5 BIS character in TBC is considered super capable, in WOTLK the same comparison can't be made.

I pass posts such as these past for the most part these days, and suggest using the search function of the forums, as you will find that this question gets asked A LOT. However, this post was so well written, and with such detail, I feel compelled to make sure you get answered, and I feel the previous posters have done a fair job of this.

With the exception of one thing, Wotlk was one of first expansions to offer "faster gearing" there are quite a few Boe's that will get you into the thick of things faster. PvP, PvE, pay to catch up does exist, but it doesn't affect game play in the slightest. EVERYTHING is available in game, so the issue becomes whats your time worth? Also if gearing experience is as rewarding, or frustrating as you allow it to be. so what I'm saying is it comes down to attitude.

There are guilds for anything you want to do on this server, PvE endgame? Plenty. PvP, Tons, and that goes for both sides. the rates are in the information tab, 7x is just the exp. for Icecrown, the rep, professions, and gold rates are 3x.

Alliance, Horde experience is pretty similar. I am however partial to Horde. but have plenty of characters on both sides.

Rolling Horde first will allow you to que to Bg's faster, but as stated above, there are quite a few people with BiS gear, you are about to embark on a static server that has been here for many years. In any case welcome!