Thoughts on 10th Vet Reward

[Aldier]

I know that many people do not/will not even receive this AA for some time, but there are many that come here that probably are going to have this.

The 10th Anniversary Veteran AA is the ability to summon a vendor to your location. I am not sure how I feel about this. I am a bit of a pack mule and pick up almost everything I see, but with all the tradeskill drops you find now while hunting, some I would not really even use/want, I am finding myself having to be more selective in what I loot. In that sense, it would be a good thing for tradeskillers as you could summon the vendor and sell the "junk" to them and make more room for tradeskill items.

On the flipside, a good source for some tradeskill items is from vendor diving/merchant mining. I suspect those that have personal vendors, when those vendors poof they will end up taking their supplies with them and leave more common vendors in static zones with fewer items on them. With the cultural template and JC drops all having no value to a merchant, these items would not be affected, but there are still a number of things that would be.

I wanted to start this thread to hear other people's opinions about it. I have not had a chance to hear exactly what all the merchant carries in stock (if anything, heard it was spell reagents). I see it as a plus for tradeskillers as we can sell vendor fodder and make more room for tradeskill drops and as a potential downside as fewer static merchants would be carrying dropped tradeskill items that can be sold to merchants that are going to potentially poof on these temporary vendors.

[Amaljia]

This is 9th anniversary not 10. The merchant has a 20 hour recast and last for about 20 minutes (you'll get a buff). He sells all kinds of reagents

[Tobynn]

I think the entire concept is merely a gimmick. I was expecting to see something with a serious wow factor for the new Veteran AA, like perhaps a DA effect for example. Very disappointing to learn after playing for 9 years you get to (once every 20 hours btw) save yourself a trip to a merchant. Yawn. Considering the proliferation of merchants in current zones and faction camps, I just really don't see the value in this one.

The Supply Merchant appears as a miniature gnome-style steamwork, named as Player's familiar. I assume you'll need to ditch any existing familiar before summoning. Whether or not the AA eats the refresh timer if you forget to lose your existing familiar first, I dunno.

The list of stocking goods includes water, rations, batwings, fish scales, coffins, Hate stones, Sky stones, and a rather large assortment of gems. Actually, it looks like majority of the merchant's stock is gems. Stacks of 100 of everything. The merchant can be used by anyone -- not only the player who summoned him.

The merchant familiar appears as a buff icon on the casting player with a duration of (I believe) 15 minutes. The merchant is static, it does not roam around and follow the player as other familiar's do.

[Aldier]

This is 9th anniversary not 10. The merchant has a 20 hour recast and last for about 20 minutes (you'll get a buff). He sells all kinds of reagents

This is the 9th anniversary, but the vet reward is the 10th because your account can be credited with an extra year (they did that a while back). Not meaning to confuse anyone.

Also, I was trying to keep the discussions not on "I wish they had made the vet reward X" but more how the resulting vet reward might affect tradeskillers.

[Minta Rose]

I tried to climb inside an' get some schematics but Niamhe caught me loosenin' the bolts on the access panel. Oo Oo Oo this means that gnomieworks are a GLOBAL model I wanna see a tinkerillusion Anizok's Gnomieplate Inducer? Gurtrude's Portable Disguise Kit without faction modifier so we can't skip skip skip skip through the hallways of Mechanotus an' S.H.I.P an' Steam Factory singing the DOOM SONG! . . .

There's four uses I see for a summonable merchant:

A. Stuck out in the Back of Beyond farming something which drops in abundance. You need your inventory slots emptied to carry more, more, more, and you've already eaten everything in your packs which looked edible. In retrospect, your peridots didn't look OR taste like salad. . .

B. Stuck out in the Back of Beyond farming a rare drop. The extra junk you're looting is weighing you down and you'd like to get SOME return from all these hours other than MAYBE getting your rare.

C. Going on a raid. "You are missing a spell component. You are missing Emerald. Main_Tank_01 has been slain by Big_Bad! You are missing Emerald."

D. Distracting gnomies while you beat feet to the zoneline.

This will cut down on the Big Finds, the people who dump 100 windstones on a merchant because they were hanging out in Akheva for whatever godforsaken reason--but those people won't be hanging out in Akheva anyway I suspect, not needing to key alts for Vex Thal. I don't think it'll have as much impact on the random scatter of one good item here, a short stack of another good item there.

[Zaltak]

You do have to kill your familar before you can summon the robot merchant.I wonder what will happen when half the ppl on a raid in an instance summons merchants? Boom! zone crash maybe?:-P I suppose they had to limit their inventory to 100 of each item to keep ppl from xfering millons of plat by selling 100 AAAA tokens to one and then somebody else buying em?

[Ngreth Thergn]

The 100 is just a concept of "This NPC does not have access to an infinite supply chain" so it does not start with an "infinite" supply of things.

it can take as many items as you can sell to it (I.E. more than 100) it just only STARTS with 100.

[thomenthechanter]

Just making sure...

...but this familiar "resets" on each summon, right? People won't be using this as a "Who needs plat" addition to their bank, I'm hoping.

[Zaltak]

Kewl beanz
Maybe next year we can get a summoned banker robot also?

[Mondrivun]

Portable Vendor

As far as I can tell, the vendor is summoned "fresh" each time, so there is no repository for inventory here.

This vendor is nice in some ways: I typically camp in one location for several nights in a row, simply to make my play time, well, play time instead of run from zone A to zone D or G... For the zones that are loot heavy, such as Nadox, where non-stackable loot drops frequently, it's nice to be able to stagger out the summons of the vendor so that you really get three or four trips a to the bank a night instead of one.

Also, if you are getting heavy on small denomination coins, the vendors now convert all coins to plat when you buy/sell to them, so it's a nice way to not have to destroy coppers just to be able to walk.

I know that some folks are wanting an uber Veteran Reward, but I am most happy with this one. Even after 9+ years of playing, I still save every copper I loot unless it's just to much impact on play.

Now, for my thoughts on the down-side... some items, which folks normally take back to common areas to vendor will not be making it there. Parchments, binding powders, etc, hit the portable vendor as soon as he pops up, mostly because where I hunt, they drop fairly frequently and I don't need them.

Even though anyone (haven't tested to see if it is limited to party or zone) can use the vendor, it takes up your pet slot, so if you are a pet class, you have to kill your pet before it will summon. The timer is reset on a failed summons, so it's not that bad of an inconvenience, other than having to kill the pet, sell, resummon pet and buff pet (for those classes who don't have pet hold yet).

Cheerios!

[Roanne]

I think the number of people who actually have access to this AA right now is low enough there will be minimal impact on vendor mining. That will change over time, of course.

[Ngreth Thergn]

...but this familiar "resets" on each summon, right? People won't be using this as a "Who needs plat" addition to their bank, I'm hoping.

yes. it is a "new" npc each time, so it does not have anything it was sold, but it has a new stock of 100 of whatever it had.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Even though anyone (haven't tested to see if it is limited to party or zone) can use the vendor, it takes up your pet slot, so if you are a pet class, you have to kill your pet before it will summon. The timer is reset on a failed summons, so it's not that bad of an inconvenience, other than having to kill the pet, sell, resummon pet and buff pet (for those classes who don't have pet hold yet).

Cheerios!

it should take up your "familiar" slot.

[Eanelder]

it should take up your "familiar" slot.

They are one in the same ... thats why pet classes dont get much use out of the LoN familiars.

Some try to get away with it by Suspending their Familiars, leaving the buff, and then creating a pet. However if the familar "buff" is dispelled the real pet is killed and conversely if the pet is killed the buff fades.

I traded away several naggy familars without /claiming any of them because of this.

IMO, all LoN familars and Vetran Familars should use the same mechanics as the Steadfast servant and Jester of Bristilbane, which dont interfer with regular pets at all.

[Minta Rose]

No kiddin'. Would LOVE to have my sporali out more than once in awhile. . .but I also would want the mythical, but really OUGHTA exist, Cicero's Poking Stick to test it out with. My sporali tastes like swamp water anyway. Yuck!

We had lotsa fun speculating on what a Cicero's Poking Stick would do. Proc summon: shrieker spores like the Scythe of Sundering procs meats an' Boneshear bone chips? Illusion: Gnomie? Illusion: Sporali? Nowadays people just speculate on Laaka, the Gnomie Slayer hammer *wails*.