This game is f2p to begin with.
Even in retail it was f2p.
Thing is, mostly all this f2p MMO's see cash shop as only source to make money.
Now thing is, how to make people to even spend money in the game, if you didn't add stuffs for what they will pay for.
Now since this is revival project, private project of old dead MMO, people want it to be more and more f2p and in form that you can get anything in it, simply by playing the game and contributing in a way that player base on server is huge.
Still in order to even run this server you need to pay for a lot of stuffs:
1. Server
2. Developers (No one wants to work for free, it is the fact)
3. Optional ( Modelers, animators, story makers/editors, translators and more)
Soo as community, if we can fill last 2 parts for free and if we have people who want to spend their time and do it for free, then we are still left for server fee and no one in this community, want to spend money on game where you do not gain something.
Sure some people will want, just out of love, to spend money to support project and pay for server fee, but then again, amount of them is small, unlike other people who want some "gains" in game, just soo they can speed up gearing process and be better than rest of people.
Soo in short, even if it is server revival process of old MMO, this project still needs the money to run it, and will it cash shop become more or less p2w it only depends on community if it wants it, as long they are paying and expect "OP stuffs" in return,it will have p2w parts inside.