Feldon On April 14, 2009, a new Welcome Screen was added to EQ2. It was pitched to the players as an informational window with a small amount of StationCash Marketplace content. There was a lot of negative player reaction, but feedback was balanced against trying to keep the window useful.
And for those players who wanted to avoid the Welcome Screen window, a method was found to disable it. A configuration line (cl_show_welcome_screen_on_startup 0) could be added to your eq2.ini settings file. Eventually the EQ2 team relented and added a “Show this window at startup” checkbox so players could opt out of seeing this window.
Fast forward to today and as you can see with this screen shot from Game Update 57, SOE aren’t even pretending anymore. First, a StationCash button was added to the main dock, which can only be removed by replacing it with a modified UI.
And as you can clearly see, StationCash has received a more prominent location on the Welcome Screen:
But the most shocking change is that the option of “Display at startup” for the Welcome Screen is missing, and the configuration line “cl_show_welcome_screen_on_startup 0” no longer works either.
Fortunately a player Ahlana has figured out what brute force steps are needed to banish this window:
If you are using a custom UI, move the “eq2ui_mainhud_welcom.xml” file to your custom UI folder (i.e. EQ2Maps, ProfitUI, etc.).
Open up the xml file you just moved (not the original) in an editor of some sort (notepad or wordpad are fine).
Then find this, it should be at the very top:
<Page Activated=”true” eq2opensound=”ui_window_inventory_open” eq2usescomwndcontrols=”false” IgnoreTab=”false” Location=”112,72″ MaximumSize=”1024,1024″ Name=”Welcome” PackLocation=”center,center” ScrollExtent=”820,600″ Size=”820,600″ UserMovable=”true” UserScrollable=”false” version=”2.0″>
And change the bolded part to:
MaximumSize=”0,0″
and it should look like:
<Page Activated=”true” eq2opensound=”ui_window_inventory_open” eq2usescomwndcontrols=”false” IgnoreTab=”false” Location=”112,72″ MaximumSize=”0,0″ Name=”Welcome” PackLocation=”center,center” ScrollExtent=”820,600″ Size=”820,600″ UserMovable=”true” UserScrollable=”false” version=”2.0″>
Save your file and no more welcome screen.
It’s pretty sad that we must post such instructions to remove advertisements from a game we pay $15 a month to play. No word on how to remove StationCash items from in-game merchants.
I personally went for a renaming of the defaultUI\eq2ui_mainhud_welcome.xml to defaultUI\eq2ui_mainhud_welcome.xml.orig (I never delete files) and did the same in my profitUI folder. All I have to do is pray that SoE never forces me to start with the patcher instead of the game client.
Also, I’ll probably will have to do that every time there’s a GU coming out.
LOL, so anyone else see a pattern here? I would be willing to be Smokejumper was hired for this exact reason. I wonder how much longer it will take before he completely ruins the game for us all. 🙁
They would be well advised to try selling softly to players, I know station cash is there, and on long mount trips etc I sometimes browse through it, but I’m disinclined to buy anything if I feel I’m being given a hard sell.
It’s just starting to not feel like home anymore. Like they have a different audience in mind and after being around since launch….it’s sad that it’s not me : ( I don’t want SOGA as default. I don’t want StationCash. I don’t want this new UI. It’s like they are forcing me out.
The stupid thing here is that anyone who was manually editing their config files to get rid of the SC ad is almost certainly not going to break down and buy something if/when SOE manages to succeed in making it un-hideable.
Luinne found a better solution that makes it so you can open the Screen later if you please. (like the old method)
In the eq2.ini file you want to keep this code (or add it): cl_show_welcome_screen_on_startup 0.
At the top of the eq2ui_mainhud_welcome.xml, you will see this code (same as the previously mentioned technique)
instead of changing the 1024’s to 0’s, change Name=”Welcome” to Name=”Welcome Screen”. This makes the EQ2.ini file command valid again and actually PREVENTS the freaking SOE Billboard from showing at all, even minutely.
All credits to Luinne on the EQ2 board
The above comment doesn’t actually make the slash command work, it’s just renaming the window in the XML so that EQ2 can’t properly find the window to open it.
Ahlan’s method saved my sanity after Update 57 but no longer seems to work with Update 58. Has someone found a new way?