There is an interesting article on Aion Source discussing the effects of the cash shop on the game that already has a subscription like Aion does. This has been a hot topic ever since the cash shop was announced. As long as items you can purchase in the shop will not give a clear advantage over other players (ie. the items bought are of cosmetic nature or there are similar items available in-game) people were pretty much OK with it. Recently more and more items are appearing in the shop, auto looting warg pet being the latest.
 
It appears now that the next item that will appear in the shop is a socketing supplement that will help you socket a manastone with 100% chance of success. As most of you know the manastone system is very unnerving with its chance of failure. Those that are willing to give some real life cash will be spared the suffering of a failed manastone socketing attempt. You can read Aion Nyx’s announcement of this on Aion Source forums. Here’s a snippet:

Yes, it is true that we will be running a promotion in late September to sell the supplements. These items are already sold in Korea on their store, and I believe there may be some other territories already selling them as well. They were designed by Korea specifically to be a cash item.

They will be offered on a limited time basis, and then we will evaluate whether they are items that we want to offer permanently based on player feedback and sales. Since we are having a positive, happy thread currently let’s not start the discussion of whether these are appropriate to be sold in this thread. If you want to express opinions either for or against that, I request that you not use the vet rewards thread for that debate.