Isn`t just vanity. Is 2 diferent experiences and thats why is bad.

[Roris]

What a lot of the people that are for the "it's only vanity you aren't winning anything in the cash shop" argument forget, and disregarding again that MMOs have many objectives to works towards, is that the entire base of the debate isn't really about vanity only. Sure, Eternal Bond might have resparked the argument, yet the cash shop debacle goes back as early as paid Retainers, if not a bit before.

Extra Retainers, also sold on the cash shop or rather rented, already offer a clear advantage especially for crafters in regards to faster means to obtain shards and mats, and also another clear advantage that's not entirely limited to crafters by giving people who buy them 40 extra slots to make bigger profits on the markets. A very clear advantage that leans really close to P2W, that a lot of the people defending the current cash shop always seem to forget or omit in their arguments.

It's not about being a "martyr" just like this isn't only about vanity either. We already have very clear aspects of your typical cash shop found in your typical F2P MMOs: we have the vanity aspect, we have the premium services aspect, we have a taste of the P2W/P2Convenience aspect and sure your basic MMO services like race/appearance change, name change and server transfers. It's only logical to expect or at least be cautious of the direction the cash shop and the game are heading to.

You really can't fault people for being concerned about the game spiraling down further towards the typical F2P or even a B2P treatment of an MMO, especially while the game is still P2P. That is, cutting content for a price or giving clear paid advantages, once again, paid advantages like paid retainers already offer. To give an example of a B2P treatment, TSW is B2P yet it sells its story content for a price, think of it as ARR selling 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc for different prices with only the bug fixes and system additions being free for everyone. GW2 offers its Living Story, as good or bad as your opinion on it or the game as a whole is, for free for the first weeks, after that you can only access it through their shop, which admittedly allows everything to be purchased with in game currency. Now picture ARR doing this while still maintaining a subscription. Like others have mentioned, there's a big concern that upcoming content will be monetized upon. Triple Triad, Golden Saucer tokens, premium Chocobo Racing/Rasing Chocobos or items, premium airships, premium GC squadmates, who knows maybe even premium classes and jobs.

Sure this is all just "being paranoid" and it's just conjecture until it either happens or it doesn't, but again the concerns are very well justified seeing how the cash shop is already being treated, especially after previous SE statements towards promised features not holding their weight.

Like some others have also said however, even with all this, yes it's perfectly acceptable for any company to seek alternate venues to make even more money. They might actually really invest it towards improving the game like they've said, they might also invest it in different projects or pocket it all. They are a company and yeah it is their money to do what they want with it, and if so called whales are willing to give it all to them, even more power to them. At least it's better to vent this all out now instead of later and have people say "well no one spoke against it, you could have stopped this" or "it's all the players' fault, they demanded to be nickel by services that extend beyond the basic realm of services in any MMO like Fantasia is, they demanded the basic MMO option to race/appearance change at will after all" or "yeah well players practically demanded it to be F2P, no one wanted the game to be P2P forever and keep all the content in the game provided to them solely on their subscription, who wants that these days anyway?" or the always great "well, those F2P freeloaders don't pay so they don't have any say, see I bought a couple of things on the shop, now I have a real say and I matter more".