do new players actually play on here?

i understand that this server has a good population and usually new players that are looking for good private servers take population into consideration but this is literally pay to win (or pay to catch up). how are new players with no gear who can't pay for shadowmourne and other rare items supposed to compete with everybody else. there's no point playing on here if you don't have the money to. i did donate once to skip the queue but i refuse to pay $40 for a single piece of item. and what surprises me the most is the amount of players with shadowmourne in game. i mean i log on and i see so many people with that weapon it's insane. that's about $250 for a single item. the thing is i would love to play on lordaeron but (correct me if i'm wrong) there's no exp boost. now i didn't play wotlk back then so i don't know if it levels fast without an exp boost. does it take months to get to 80? is it hard to catch up to people since theres store? i'd love answers to those questions. now i was hoping that frostmourne wouldn't be pay to win but it looks like it is too. so where are new players to play? i'm just wondering if new players actually play on here you know. anyways thanks for reading if you did lol

Do you know that you can sell items and gold for coins ?

Why are you surprised that a large portion of the playerbase has heroic pieces that are so stupidly easy to get on Icecrown? Ofcourse people who can afford it will buy Shadowmourne but keep in mind not everyone necessary donated all the coins in $$ to get it. You can easily donate 10$ to get premium status and earn all the coins by selling items/toons/gold on trade section. Bam - easy Shadowmourne. If I remember correctly a forum mod once said that less than 10% of the population actually donates and most of them are the "10$ to skip queue" type of people.

As you correctly assumed not everyone has heroics and there's nowhere near the amount of Shadowmourne on Lordaeron because the content is tuned to be harder. And yes, there is no "xp boost" and it doesn't level fast. You can hit 80 within a reasonable amount of time. I hit it on my alt in about 100 hours while casually leveling.
There is no store on Lordaeron.

Seems to me you just ignore the amount of low geared people around and focus on the high geared ones because they are more noticeable. On top of that you're blaming people for taking advantage of something that benefits them, namely the shop. If you don't want to donate and pay for items you don't have to. Catching up isn't hard nor impossible.

Frostmourne's shop is made with catching up in mind - not "pay to win" like you call Icecrown's. Players need to acquire certain items in game enough times for it to be added into the shop.

Finally, I'd like to add that PvP is crossrealm. If you want an even playing field just go on Icecrown where HC content can be done blindfolded.

i did not know you could get coins with gold and for that i apologized, i assumed a lot it is true and thank you for pointing that out. i was especially looking for a good reply like yours. and i do indeed kind of ignore low geared people because it just seems like there arent that many of them in orgrimmar for example. seems like you have been playing here for a while so i will believe what you said. how exactly can you trade gold/items for coins? if i understand you could get shadowmourne for free without even raiding? thank you again for your reply

Bruh gearing is so easy, especially on icecrown when you can get into alt raids and have high gear people carry you. You can get to level 80 and 6k+ gearscore or 264 item level gear in 2 weeks. Also SM has been obtained from events/lottery and used to be a lot cheaper back in the day.

most raid announcements in chat require very high gearscore so i don't know how you get carried by people with high gearscore man. maybe you got carried but it's tough for some of us

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Originally Posted by niveryy

most raid announcements in chat require very high gearscore so i don't know how you get carried by people with high gearscore man. maybe you got carried but it's tough for some of us

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You join a bloody guild, most progression guilds and even high end guilds run ToC/ToGC where people can get plenty of gear for like 5 dkp, then they hop into ICC

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Originally Posted by niveryy

i did not know you could get coins with gold and for that i apologized, i assumed a lot it is true and thank you for pointing that out. i was especially looking for a good reply like yours. and i do indeed kind of ignore low geared people because it just seems like there arent that many of them in orgrimmar for example. seems like you have been playing here for a while so i will believe what you said. how exactly can you trade gold/items for coins? if i understand you could get shadowmourne for free without even raiding? thank you again for your reply

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You need to donate the minimum amount ($10 skip queue thing) to gain access to character/item trading on the site. My Account -> Trade, and I believe you can figure the rest out pretty easily.

So yes, if you play diligently you can get Shadowmourne just by doing such trades.

In regards to your remark about Frostmourne, its item shop has a policy that items won't be available there until it's dropped X amount of times ingame, and the item prices are increased compared to Icecrown. So I wouldn't really call it pay to win either, as you can never outpace those who are in the forefront of progression.

Either way, a point I want to make is that both Icecrown and Lordaeron are years-old fully progressed servers, so you will have a lot of BiS people running about with or without the item shop. But in all cases, people are constantly gearing new alts, so you shouldn't have too much trouble catching up or finding peers of your gear level to compete against.

alright well thanks guys i really didn't expect this many replies in such small amount of time. completely changed the way i saw the server and especially frostmourne. definitely makes me want to get back into it

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Originally Posted by MaXiMuS54

Bruh gearing is so easy, especially on icecrown when you can get into alt raids and have high gear people carry you. You can get to level 80 and 6k+ gearscore or 264 item level gear in 2 weeks. Also SM has been obtained from events/lottery and used to be a lot cheaper back in the day.

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You mean those alt runs when friends roll together for 1 person? Even if they dont need it

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Originally Posted by Thorbjorn

Why are you surprised that a large portion of the playerbase has heroic pieces that are so stupidly easy to get on Icecrown?

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Only if u got guild with friends, otherwise it takes long time, and it far from "stupidly easy"

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Originally Posted by Fiutolog

You mean those alt runs when friends roll together for 1 person? Even if they dont need it



Only if u got guild with friends, otherwise it takes long time, and it far from "stupidly easy"

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You can't roll if you use dkp roflmao. And if they can roll on gear they don't need then idk what to tell you for joining such a nab guild

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Originally Posted by Fiutolog

You mean those alt runs when friends roll together for 1 person? Even if they dont need it

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It's one of the good things that came from the ninja-loot rules, that you can now actually report such things.

There many novice players but after reaching 70-80 lvl many of them drop the game. WOTKL never be balanced addon at all, and when you reach 80 lvl and with you 78 lvl PvP set go on BG you see...The many players in top PvP and many of pala-war-DK with Shadowmorne... Wath the hell they do on same BG with people in 3K gearscore? On so on. NO exeptions - you die and die and die and die...Its no fun. The registration system to BG not work to balance teams. Unite the open-donate Icecrown and fun-Blackrock with pseudo-no donate Lordaeron is really strange idea.
And on long way to 80 you see more and more such things - broken quest, cheaters on BG, multiboxers, donate (Lordaeron have DONATE too! _surprise - you cant buy Shadowmorn - thats true. But you can buy the character with Shadowmourne!) and so on.

Every MMORPG is pay to win, you just didnt know about it. Account/gold/item sellers quietly floods every mmorpg. Warmane has made it easier for you to compete with them.

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Originally Posted by Najatar

There many novice players but after reaching 70-80 lvl many of them drop the game. WOTKL never be balanced addon at all, and when you reach 80 lvl and with you 78 lvl PvP set go on BG you see...The many players in top PvP and many of pala-war-DK with Shadowmorne... Wath the hell they do on same BG with people in 3K gearscore? On so on. NO exeptions - you die and die and die and die...Its no fun. The registration system to BG not work to balance teams. Unite the open-donate Icecrown and fun-Blackrock with pseudo-no donate Lordaeron is really strange idea.
And on long way to 80 you see more and more such things - broken quest, cheaters on BG, multiboxers, donate (Lordaeron have DONATE too! _surprise - you cant buy Shadowmorn - thats true. But you can buy the character with Shadowmourne!) and so on.

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More demand, less supply isn't such a strange thing to desire. You can purchase that for less with cash elsewhere. And its not such a long way...