by GDEXXY » Apr 25, 2003 (12:10 pm)
The merchant who arrived last night, Azilarir, came at 10:00 PM PST (1:00 AM EST) and stayed for a few hours. He also promised to stick around for the next week (in-game time, so basically this weekend) selling various things when he can.
The person who plays this merchant is a very busy person and barely has time to organize this event, much less schedule it in for earlier hours -- or to even commit to any schedule at all.
Merchant visits are bonuses to the gameplay experience and there will always be complaints about who they didn't help, what was sold or wasn't sold, and when they happened to show up (and for how long). If the merchant had come at 5:00 PM EST, for instance, even if it were possible, even more people would have missed out.
So just take merchant visits as a bonus, not a guarantee. We generally have them more frequently than we have in the past several months, so expect to see more in the future.
By the way, I'm Azilarir -- for those of you who were wondering.