What? You have standards? Selling frostmourne is a standard? It literally dominated blows all other weapons out of the water and was a legendary for a reason. The grind was made so it would be hard to obtain, so there wasn't going to be thousands of them destroying balance on servers. But you committed to that without much restraint or thought process.
You condemn the idea of a working shop, something that works PERFECTLY FINE on other private servers dealing with the same traffic as you do and the first thing you think to do, is add gear in cause 'people wants gear' no s**t genius, that is the entire point of the game structure, you even get gear as you level. But what you are suggesting is to undercut the entire point and purpose of logging on, the progression of and the point of grinding and being online, you are literally willing to kill the server before its even started because you are clearly justifying the fact that you see no problem with giving people a p2w option instead of doing something meaningful, like making a person behave in a decent way, to get a guild, attend raids and help members out with attunements and such, you are defeating the entire journey of wow and why the community was so good in the old days. Tbh you are actually no better than the marketeers working at blizzard now with the frame of mind. You haven't offered any middle ground, debated the potential for a cosmetic shop. Sounds like this server is dead on arrival.
SOME of my suggestions were SUGGESTIONS, IDEAS, food for thought in order to help you create a decent shop that will fund your servers. You completely glossed over everything and started on about standards and yet your one of the only private server i know of that sells gear and weapons as a means of income rather than a last resort.
Tell me why a shop based on the cosmetics and conveniences i have suggested wont work and why your standards are better?
No one gives a crap about grind for hours every day and night to get an epic ground mount, offering a fee to skip this daft grind doesn't game break, it just lets people get on with things sooner. Dual spec is a logical one, why not charge people for the second spec, you think people will refuse to pay it in vanilla? (Again logical predictions based on sense.) Bigger bag spaces, oh yes, this will definitely game break... Everyone knows carrying multiple sets of gear, ingredients for professions and potions takes up all the space you can get, allowing people to buy perhaps 2x 32 slot bags for your character would be logical because its something everyone needs. And by only allowing there to be 2x bags bought people will still need the ingame mooncloth bags.
Mount skins, or gear colours is just a simple solution to individualism, people want to buy something that makes them stand out, you are in a generation of narcissism, where game companies make BILLIONS selling skins and a fraction selling the game itself. (Business trends around what consumers want, otherwise it wouldn't make good business)
Toys, the tcg loot toys, since you will be working with a wrath client could technically include everything from vanilla to wrath and that is a fortune. I spent 360€ myself on the private server buying toys for my character because like most wpvpers i like playing buckaroo with my victim. It is also a status thing, people buy them to stand out, to be popular or to bring joy to people (such as the foam sword fights on org bank roof). There is a ridiculous amount of money to be made off these items and the thing is you can only sell all of this to 1 character. If your server model is that you let people grind gear and give no methods for people to get catch up you create a server that lasts longer and people have more time to invest more money on their characters.
Have you actually ever seen all the TCG loot stuff from vanilla to wrath? Do you know some of them are not permanent, like paintballs and pet cookies. Do you not think every single wpvper would want to get the flag of ownership?
Again, you haven't even researched or thought this process out, you are just jumping to the easiest thing you can think of and destroying what ever word of mouth or reputation you might have had doing this. And you will shoot yourself in the foot doing this, even people playing normally will wonder why they should even bother, when they can just go play some other game until the next patch releases and they can buy the tier sets. You give no reason for people to stay invested on the server. And you think because the business model works great on wrath it will adapt well here too but vanilla is a primitive game, where most fights can be over in 3 seconds with good gear.
I'm a wpvper, a griefer and i am telling you, you are going to destroy the server offering wpvpers this bounty. To any wpvper thinking this is heretical, think about the pvers, our livestock, getting bored of playing or grinding raids when they can just sit stuff out. We wont get any sporadic fights it will just devolve into petty guild feuds and numbers games. Like how crappy retail became because of it.
But i am aware from the responses from your warmane staff that the real reason you want to sell gear is so you have an excuse to start selling legendaries too. And that is where you'll completely destroy the progress servers. Why even do quest chains or help out guild members, when you can just buy your legendary. And there is a few legendary weapons in vanilla that i can see you making the excuse to sell. All of which are massively game breaking in the periods in which they release.
And vanity and cosmetic items may be secondary but that doesn't justify breaking the game to give people something they don't deserve. Your arguments aren't even logical, in the context of the server. You even stated this is a 'progression server'. A server in which you want to progress and yet you will do this first by removing the need to progress, offering people gear and legendaries at the expense of everyone else, just because you have no idea how to market your shop efficiently. You think the people who grind for the scarab lord are going to appreciate you selling their legendary mount for a few shekels?
Oh wow, set amount of certain drops? You mean like completing a nearly 18 year old dungeon that has been mapped out on speed dial once or twice before they can be sure they will absolutely get a piece of gear with their credit card instead of having to compete with the 14 other mages in their guild each week, which may be frustrating but gives you a huge sense of achievement and gives you a reason to log on every week to slog through multiple runs for the 'chance' of being a winner this week? Wow, this just totally justifies destroying your community for that person that cannot offer the same amount of time as the ones who can.
You know i always agreed, people should be given damage buffs in fps games when they don't have as much time as everyone else to grind through the progression ranking. It would be unfair to the guy who has to head off down the pub on a friday night, sacrificing his social life, to have to commit to something in a game built around reward for effort. This is a fantastic mountain to die on when it comes to arguing your point.
This is the very same attitude that people always say before they regret it later. Your business model is stagnating with only wrath servers, hence WHY you are doing vanilla ones. Criticism is one thing you will have to endure, you offer a service and it will never be for everyone but there are ways in which you can compromise without selling out your own principles. What you are saying however is typical millennial dogcrap. If you don't like it don't play it. In other words, i cannot argue, discuss or be rational, even remotely logical because you either do what i tell you, or you can f*** off. How mature.
Do you speak for everyone at warmane? Because in case you hadn't noticed although i am against p2w as a service i really really do want to support your endeavour and bring my people over here and enjoy the good times and support the store and the community. But you are telling me and anyone who has concerns on the shop and wants to make it better without wrecking the server to literally just take a hike. There is no discussion. And you know what, from the attitude on this topic i am very likely not to support this project and many many many others that you are willing to ostracise for the sake of your own echo-chamber will not tolerate or want to support a server run by absolutists. You're not doing this server for the community or for the potential growth of your business, you are just doing this because your sales in wrath have flattened and it cannot sustain itself anymore. You need something NEW in order to get the whales to want to rebuy more things.
Fair enough. Good luck with your server so, i won't be joining it.