So what if people sell platinum and gold plans for gil?

[MorbidCoffee]

When it comes to selling eternal bands, you're trading my money for your time invested in making gil. The very same way crafted items have a value based on the difficulty of the craft, the time invested, and the demand for the item. Different means of obtaining an item, but of equal value. It's an option for players to make gil if they choose, and the demand for the bands will slowly die out over the next few weeks and the price will significantly drop. Welcome to economy 101.

When it comes to dealing with bots, you're trading your personal information for an advantage.

[ChibiChan_Hyperion]

When it comes to selling eternal bands, you're trading my money for your time invested in making gil. The very same way crafted items have a value based on the difficulty of the craft, the time invested, and the demand for the item. Different means of obtaining an item, but of equal value. It's an option for players to make gil if they choose, and the demand for the bands will slowly die out over the next few weeks and the price will significantly drop. Welcome to economy 101.

When it comes to dealing with bots, you're trading your personal information for an advantage.

Your explanation boils down to "I used my real life money to buy your gil." The size of your wallet in real life should have no effect on your capabilities in the game, once you're in the game (subscription/expansions). They assured us that the Cash Shop was not going to become Pay to Win, but that is exactly what is happening when you can trade Cash Shop items for another player's gil.

[cookiecutter]

Your explanation boils down to "I used my real life money to buy your gil." The size of your wallet in real life should have no effect on your capabilities in the game, once you're in the game (subscription/expansions). They assured us that the Cash Shop was not going to become Pay to Win, but that is exactly what is happening when you can trade Cash Shop items for another player's gil.

Name one subscription based mmo where you can't buy in game currency via a third party? There is always a pay to win factor in every mmo via RMT because you're never going to get rid of these guys. SE only had two options to chose from when incorporating eternal bonds either make it a gil sink or money sink. If they made it a gil sink they'd be encouraging more RMT. By making it money sink then at least they can make some profits and reduce third party RMT companies. One could argue that they could have made it a time sink but then even more people would complain that they don't have enough playing time to do all the stuff necessary to get married. Or that they could make it free instantly everyone but, then the servers would be overloaded with marriage requests and people would have to wait months to actually get married if they didn't get there early. In the end everyone won't be happen no matter what option they chose. At least this option makes it accessible for everyone.