User:Vili/Guild Wars suggestion

Idea for new consumable

Since most of the summoning stones are rather mediocre when you consider the costs, here's an idea for a better one:

Platinum Summoning Stone: Double-click to summon a Merchant ally of your level that lasts for 30 minutes or until slain in combat. Summoning stones can only be activated once every 60 minutes per character, and only one ally from a summoning stone can be present in an instance at a time. This item can only be used in explorable areas.

• Merchants come with Healing Signet and have "Avoid Combat" AI, much as Luxon/Kurzick Merchants in explorable areas do. (alternatively, make them invulnerable but stationary?)
• The merchant will sell all the usual wares, including Lockpicks and whatever Keys are appropriate for the zone (if applicable), and local goodies as well (e.g. Red Bean Cake when on Shing Jea Island).
• Handy when doing extensive farming, long missions, vanquishing, etc. Extreme example: If you couldn't sell stuff to the Eternal Forgemaster in the Fissure of Woe, that would reduce profits by at least 2 (for the patient people who wait behind to nab all the rest of the loot, that is).
• It may be prudent to exempt the Merchant from Summoning Sickness, or something, since he is for all intents and purposes a non-combatant. Perhaps reduce the summoning sickness by X minutes for every Y that you exchange through buying or selling of goods, to encourage business.
• Regardless, a good and worthwhile gold sink. Probably should have lower crafting requirements and costs than others, since again, it's a non-combatant (and you do want players to be turning a profit by summoning the Merchant, of course). And/Or, make it a quest reward for some Xunlai-themed quests. They could use more lore expansion, anyway, so you'd kill two birds with one stone. :)

Vili 13:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, I agree. — DarKNeSS (Contribs) 15:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I Agree. -- WoB 03:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't think lower crafting cost requirements would be necessary, really - take one of these on a UW clear, for instance, and I'm sure you could get your party to chip in. Of course, I'm assuming anyone in the party can use his services once summoned, yes? - Katscratched 08:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Even better: make it an everlasting summoning stone, that you get from a series of cool cross-continent quests from some Xunlai agent(s). Make him/her invulnerable too. Storage problem solved. Everyone would carry one and never need huge inventory space again. Awesome idea I gotta say. Sjeng 10:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Make it a 'Diamond Summoning Stone' that summons a Diamond Djinn and can be crafted in the Chantry of Secrets or the gate of Ansish, and I'm in. Summoned merchants should definitely be Djinn. And if the Djinn do not engage in combat, remove the summoning sickness from the effect, or at least reduce it. People would love that. 91.117.187.8 12:31, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, responses! o_O Yeah, the summoned merchant could be used by everyone. I guess in that regard you're right, it's balanced. Then again, many players don't care enough to pick up their merchant fodder and so would have no use. (But maybe that's *because* of lack of a merchant? Interesting study topic!)

^Correction: people would like a djinn summoning stone, period. (Make it a lamp?)

I prefer to call it platinum both because it relates to the currency and is therefore a pune (or play on words), and also because a diamond summoning stone would require diamonds as crafting material. That is a very high price to pay, even if they are cheaper now than they used to be. :C (I mean, Amber and Jadeite were worthless before the update, and now they're sold out at the traders, or are sometimes. Diamonds still have a demand for crafting that high-end bling-bling and always will, and you can't really "farm" them...)

An everlasting stone would be mildly imba, but definitely something players would kill for. :) Actually, I think the same would go for all the summoning stones... if the prices of everlasting tonics are anything to go by. xD They ought to be given out as rewards for (A) high-end PvP tourney wins; (B) people who are Legendary Guardians, Masters of the North, Grandmaster Cartographers, etc.; and/or (C) scoring a perfect score in the Xunlai tournament predictions (or whoever got closest anyway). I thought about putting them in the Zchest but that is wrong for so many reasons. Broken system is broken, after all :) Vili 09:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

When I saw the stones, I suggested to give each faction its own one... although they didn't gave the ones I anted for Eye of the North ones, they did gave Siege Turtles and Juggernauts for Factions ones. That was cool. Now, there are two allegiances without [Consumables] crafter: Sunspear and Lightbringer. More than once, since I saw that [consumables] crafters, I suggested to give each faction its own crafter NPC, with all 3 common items plus one specialty. Now we have crafters for Luxon and Kurzick too, although they have no specialties, only the stones. The 'specialty' I suggested for Sunspear was a mini-bombard, it would be an item that summons an unmovable NPC that stays were it's summoned and can't follow the party, but has some decent damage, meant to 'hold ground' in sieges. And for Lightbringer I suggested a "Djinn lamp", that would summon a djinn merchant, which would have all items available in Guild Hall traders (and maybe one alcoholic beberage, one sweet and one party item too). So of course I would agree with this, even if it's a Summoning Stone instead a lamp and another type of NPC instead a Djinn. Being able to summon a merchant everywhere would ease a bit the inventory cluttering we are suffering. But the Merchant summon should not be a fighter, but a neutral following ally, and count separately (having a Merchant Sickness instead a Summoning Sickness or even nothing at all), since it would be a problem if you were trading and then someone else summoned a battle creature, and you trader went 'poof'. Oh, by the way, I'm still for giving each allegiance the 3 common items, plus one specialty, plus one summoning stone. Currently only the Eye of the North ones have all 5 items. MithTalk 19:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so this is the failure of the Suggestions page at work - I'd never seen such a suggestion as your "djinn merchant lamp" before; I thought this was a unique idea so far. :) In any case, you just gave me another idea which could possibly be used to revamp and fix the entire rep point system. Hint: buy mudbricks now Control of EotN and Nightfall outposts. Vili 07:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea! Taka Ragranok 04:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Idea for new guild hall NPC

Consumable crafter. Need I say more? Available items would of course depend on your respective ranks in the <x> reputation.

Congrats!

Nice to see Arena Net liked your idea! Erasculio 16:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I still want them to be the Summoning stone for one of the factions without one, though. Sunspear or Lightbringer. MithTalk 17:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)