Pay-2-Win Vendor idea(?): Portable Gull

[Lazarillo]

Operating under the assumption that the options for Null the Gull are still not in the options menu rather than being confined to a somewhat-out-of-the-way NPC for mechanical reasons due to spaghetti code and whatnot, is there any chance that said NPC could be made more convenient by granting a new power, purchasable via the Pay-2-Win vendors (or otherwise) that allowed characters to directly summon or call it from the field, so to speak?  It'd be a real boon when, say, my team gets to an Oranbega mission and suddenly those run speed boosts are not helpful, or joining a raid and discovering once you're there that someone's running Group Fly, or heck, even just on new characters so they don't have to go running a zone or two away to disable the popup when they get their first travel power.

 

Plus, it's just not good for a seagull to be cooped up inside a sweaty (and likely smelly!) ravehouse all day.

[MHertz]

I’m pretty sure the alignment changes could only be allowed from a co-op zone. I doubt there’s a provision in the code for letting villains wander around the city.

 

The other bits, it might be like an Ouro portal: on a timer, summon one for everyone to use.

[A Cat]

I like this idea. Or at least gulls in every zone. Especially appreciated in RWZ since there's often people who forget to turn off being affected by group fly. 

[Coyotedancer]

Hmm... The "wrong alignment for a zone" thing might be a big issue with an "anywhere" InstaGull.

 

How about a Base Gull instead? 

[Lazarillo]

8 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

Hmm... The "wrong alignment for a zone" thing might be a big issue with an "anywhere" InstaGull.

That's a fair point ( @MHertzcaught that, too), so yeah, I think the best choice would maybe be for a summonable Gull not to offer that particular service, maybe?

[TheZag]

Im just not getting the feeling that an all powerful gull would be available at the players whim.  He sits on the truck in Pocket D because he chooses to.

 

He does offer some great functionality and shortcuts in alignment changes but he didnt exist on the retail servers.  We used to be happy walking but then they gave us a bicycle and now we want a car instead.

[SuggestorK]

41 minutes ago, TheZag said:

He does offer some great functionality and shortcuts in alignment changes but he didnt exist on the retail servers. 

 

You might be wrong there, as the article of old wiki before shutdown says he existed, but of course not with the functions he has now... pretty much a more limited version.

 

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Null_the_Gull

[wjrasmussen]

42 minutes ago, TheZag said:

Im just not getting the feeling that an all powerful gull would be available at the players whim.  He sits on the truck in Pocket D because he chooses to.

 

He does offer some great functionality and shortcuts in alignment changes but he didnt exist on the retail servers.  We used to be happy walking but then they gave us a bicycle and now we want a car instead.

that is the nature of people.   It is the just a tip phenomenon. That why we give waitstaff the full tip at the end of the service not before then.

[PeregrineFalcon]

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, TheZag said:

Im just not getting the feeling that an all powerful gull would be available at the players whim.  He sits on the truck in Pocket D because he chooses to.

I mean, I'm just not getting the feeling that we should apply our pitiful, three-dimensional understanding of space to where he's standing in the first place.

 

1 hour ago, TheZag said:

He does offer some great functionality and shortcuts in alignment changes but he didnt exist on the retail servers.  We used to be happy walking but then they gave us a bicycle and now we want a car instead.

He did, actually.  In fact, he was added specifically because they needed a band-aid for functions that they couldn't add to the option menu. So if anything, the idea of being able to summon him is, to my mind, honoring the original intent best of all (since it's not like you have to go anywhere specific in-game to open the options window...or do you think that being able to change whose broadcasts you see from anywhere is also spoiling players too much?).  That said, of course, in the game's original form, he couldn't change alignments (which as others have noted, is probably better off being left out if an idea like this one I have is implemented anyway).  The only other functionality HC added to him was disabling the extra travel popup bar, but that's because HC added that bar in the first place.  So I don't think leaving that functionality in a summonable version would be too over the top, either, since it only wasn't on "live" because the problem it solves wasn't there either.

[TheZag]

I guess if there is a need for it and its actually solving something.  If we could though,  add vendor options to him.  Sometimes my recipies or enhancements fill up mid mission and i like to clear out some space.

[Greycat]

Yeah, I think a "sub-gull" would be the most to expect, primarily with the movement type options.

 

But it'd be useful.

[golstat2003]

12 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Yeah, I think a "sub-gull" would be the most to expect, primarily with the movement type options.

 

But it'd be useful.

 

LOL I don't know why Sub-Gull has me giggling so much 😄 

Edited December 9, 2021 by golstat2003

[Shenanigunner]

Soft no on this... simply because taking less than one minute to pop over to PD and talk to the bird, maybe once a session at most, probably once a week per alt or less, just doesn't seem like a terribly onerous burden.

 

The sum of these requests sometimes seems to be "I want to sit in a bubble in my base and be able to do EVERYTHING. Couch-potato to 50, yeah!"

[Greycat]

48 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

Soft no on this... simply because taking less than one minute to pop over to PD and talk to the bird, maybe once a session at most, probably once a week per alt or less, just doesn't seem like a terribly onerous burden.

 

I'll counter with a time where it actually would be useful. On Everlasting, at least, MSRs can fill quickly. Leave the zone, and you may not be able to get back in. If you realize you're suddenly on a team with a MM with group fly and you don't want that - perhaps you're melee - you either can't change it or you may miss a chunk of the raid. (Meanwhile, you may have wanted it literally minutes before at the hamidon raid. Or, yes, you may have just forgotten to swap it back - or it's a newer character and you haven't run into it before, so you haven't thought of getting it done, or may have thought you did on that one - since there's no indicator other than "Hey, I'm suddenly flying."

[Shenanigunner]

5 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I'll counter with a time where it actually would be useful.

 

I guess. The whole alignment system pasted on top of the hero/villain divide creates all kinds of traps like this. And there's no reason not to make the alignment menu more accessible; Null always was a crude, pasted-on fix for the need.

 

Wonderfully silly, but still something of a hack. Maybe putting one in each tram station, or police station, or the like wouldn't be a bad idea. I don't really think Gull's options should be part of the regular user menus, though, which is more or less what the OP is requesting. More like leveling/tailor interfaces.

 

That's it. Put a Null in all those locations. Balance achieved. 🙂

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Shenanigunner

[0th Power]

18 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

That's it. Put a Null in all those locations. Balance achieved.

Nil the Gull

None the Gull

Nein die Möwe

Nada the Gull

[Obus Form]

You want to make Null portaGull?

[arcane]

I know it’s tempting to remove all requirement of having to move or do anything ever. Maybe we should just skip straight to all players being plugged directly into the game with an apple sauce IV drip for sustenance.

[SuggestorK]

14 minutes ago, arcane said:

I know it’s tempting to remove all requirement of having to move or do anything ever. Maybe we should just skip straight to all players being plugged directly into the game with an apple sauce IV drip for sustenance.

Lol,

 

just give me a Tron Beam Laser to merge with one of my Chars and id be happy for the rest of my life .. how long that ever would be ..... 😉

[TheZag]

haha,  sry arcane.  the sarcasm doesnt come through on text very well.  hard to illustrate that people keep wanting 1 thing more so i threw another one in there

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, 0th Power said:

Nil the Gull

None the Gull

Nein die Möwe

Nada the Gull

 

Subordinate Seagull.

[A Cat]

7 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Subordinate Seagull.

Steven Seagull

[Troo]

On 12/9/2021 at 7:56 AM, Lazarillo said:

somewhat-out-of-the-way NPC

 

Don't the starting zones have easy access to Pocket D? Did something change?

 

Asking to do something different than the default should take a moment to impliment. If there is a change that the vast majority of players are making maybe that should be the default. 

[ironjoe]

Both my Masterminds have group fly and I love it for mobility of the pets. Then sometimes I'm playing a character that might not want it at that particular moment in an MSR in the RWZ or an iTrial forming in Ouroboros.  I can understand why there are instances where people might want to switch back and forth more easily.

 

Summoning Null would be nice for those instances where a quick swap is needed. Alternatively I feel like placing him somewhere in Ouroboros and the Rikti War Zone would cover many of the instances where a quick change is necessary.