Runes of Magic US / AU

1) it's pay2win, you don't get the best gear itself from the cash shop directly, but you purchase the enhancements required on that gear for endgame

2) for most combo's, pvp and pve gear is about the same, with just fine tuning(like making 1-2 tanking pieces for a dps or 1-2 dps pieces for a tank)

3) that being said, all content is available to the free2play player, it is just a matter of whether you have the ability to run the highest hardmode instance without using the CS(which is probably a no), but a f2p player can quite possibly keep up with the easy modes of each instance released...

yes, though it takes a bit of work. the hard part is becoming endgame, once you are endgame, you can sell the gear to pay for the enhancements, so being f2p while endgame is easily achievable, but f2p to get endgame is very hard.

Currently everything in the game is available and accessible to a free player. You do not have to pay for any content. However, as suggested above, enhancements to gear/weps is available thru the in-game Item Shop. Be aware though that the currency used for Item Shop (Diamonds) can be traded/bought/sold for gold, which is the game currency. As such yes, you can grind gold, use it to buy diamonds, and then buy directly from Item Shop. I personally have never spent 1 cent in the game and I can run some instances end-game (with guildmates help obviously). Nevertheless, though, yes it does take a lot of time and grind. Spending money does indeed help tremendously but I wouldn't go as far as to call it "Pay2Win". Some items yes, they are only exclusively available through the item shop and can only be used with diamonds (item shop currency) but as I said earlier, they can be bought freely with in-game currency. I would advise to get acquainted with all the different types of currencies in the game, at the moment I can think of 9.

Diamonds-Item Shop Currency
Rubies-Item Shop currency that can be acquired as a bonus when you spend Diamonds (has exclusive items not even available with Diamonds)
Gold-in-game currency
Phirius Tokens- Item Shop Currency by doing daily tasks (quests) <--- some of the basic items can be bought with diamonds or tokens
Phirius Shells- currency obtained when doing daily minigames that can be farmed for stats (attributes that enhance gear)
Energy of Justice- currency obtained doing regional events that can be used to buy stats as well and some other gear
Mementos- currency obtained from doing instances (raids) and killing bosses. Can be used to obtain even more stats and gear
Proof of Myth- currency obtained from killing world bosses with can be used to obtain the best stats in-game and gear (orange stats)
Honor points- currency used to buy pvp gear, materials to donate to guild, mounts etc

Have fun using them lol if you do decided to try the game , I'm pretty sure there's probably at least 1 or 2 currencies more.

The option is yours you can pay with money to be end game or pay with your time. Either way works. One is fast and easy the other is slow and hard.

Quoted from "aardvark3"

The option is yours you can pay with money to be end game or pay with your time. Either way works. One is fast and easy the other is slow and hard.

+1. What he said lol