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

[SekhmetM]

It should be possible to trade most cash shop items in game. Changing money into gil isn't a big deal, it's the other way around that's a problem.

Real money is being used to purchase a digital item and they're exchanging it for in-game currency. That is literally the same thing but the other way around.

They're BOTH the problem.

[Vejjiegirl]

Quoting this from another thread:

A Friend of mine was walking around in a full Arachne Set

Arachne Robe (goes for 1mil)
Aracane Pants (goes for 1.4mil)
Kirimu Gloves (goes for 800k-1mil)
Kirimu Boots (goes for 1mil)
Platinum Circlet (goes for about 500k->1mil)
Thats around 4700000-> 5400000 gil.

For a player that just got to level 50 it was a pretty big jump to go from i50->i110(HQ) in just a few minutes.
I asked them how they did it, guess what they did.

Bought $40.00 Platinum Plan, and sold the Promise of Devotion for about 5mil each.

[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.

[Shougun]

Quoting this from another thread:

That is disheartening. Wonder how SE will play this out, either "lol its optional" or "oh crap oops, we're sorry"

If they feel that this is legitimate then it will corrupt my mindset of the market, it could lead to begrudging purchases and substandard feeling of reward. (Hey I get some people don't care and would love to buy gil, items, and anything else in the game - but this is on a true level of p2w.

/sigh I hope they dont support this, it would really ruin a lot of the game to me. Anything that relates to gil, I mean housing now? Opp all the houses are bought, must be the damn p2w mechanics SE supports.. its all going to be corrupted in perspective even if not justified. You want to build your gil up to a medium or large house on a popular server? Visit the cash shop! Even if the house isn't on the cash shop, you better visit before all the p2w gil buyers do. Only benefit to SE on this vs RMT is that there is less of a chance of people doing gil generating tasks (bots doing extremely menial gil creating tasks vs players picking more "swapping" gil tasks). Doesn't change the p2w comment though.

[cookiecutter]

snip

Its better that they do this than buying the gil for via RMT. No game is free from RMT at least this way the money is back in SE's pockets and not a third party. In end if it stops or at least reducing RMT spams I'm for it. You're never going to get rid of RMT from mmo or even character selling to a lesser degree so there will always be the "pay to win".

[Arky]

Let me ask a question... has anyone here actually bought these yet and tried trading them to someone? What if they bind on trade, making it so you bond with the person you trade it to? I don't know I haven't looked at it, but seems plausible.

[Raiya]

Only problem with this is that while no gil is created per se and the the items themselves are bound to the other player once traded its still a way of gaining gil via RL money one way or another.

EU aion has a similar model where 30 day packs for full access to the game can be bought from the shop and then can be bought and sold to other players ingame till they used them. In theory this allowed richer players to let poorer players play for free in return for kinah but the problem is if someone sells ALOT of them then they become extremely rich and can caused certain items to inflate on the broker/ah when they mass buy everything with their new gil.

In a nutshell this whole thing seems to have been planned out rather poorly, players wanted it of course but they went overboard a lil bit. Sure I can deal with the chocobo costing a few quid thats fine by me and even a minion but the whole restricted wedding customisation and limiting the dyable dresses/tuxes to those who pay is pushing it a lil too much IMO.

Also the fact that some of us dont even really want to be "bonded"..... we just want the clothes.... to make our characters look sexy.... >_> <_< >_> <_<.

Edit: Also a lil unhappy with the whole reservation system.... we cant abandon the quest once started if we want to upgrade... or have a "private" ceremony option to avoid the whole reservation thing and finish the quest. Really short sighted planning went into these parts.

Edit 2: Just did some research and found theres a NPC that allows you to cancel the quest. Cancelling the quest means the bands are destroyed BUT if you picked the free option you basically get the Dress/Tux, Emote AND new hairstyle for nothing as soon as you get them. These are not removed if you cancel the quest!

[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.

[LilRedAlchemist]

Maybe I'm crazy but I'm sure their intent was traditionally when two people get married one partner buys both ring and then they give one of said rings to their partner. So Rings are tradable. What they need to do to fix people buying rings to sell is limit the number of rings you can buy flat out. 1 ring being the max you can have on your person and 1 ring being the max number you can trade. Since divorce doesn't seem to be an option (or is it) once you're committed theres no need to buy more rings.

[cookiecutter]

Maybe I'm crazy but I'm sure their intent was traditionally when two people get married one partner buys both ring and then they give one of said rings to their partner. So Rings are tradable. What they need to do to fix people buying rings to sell is limit the number of rings you can buy flat out. 1 ring being the max you can have on your person and 1 ring being the max number you can trade. Since divorce doesn't seem to be an option (or is it) once you're committed theres no need to buy more rings.

They way you get divorced is by throwing out your ring.