Welcome window

[Jrral]

<p>The Welcome window's been "always pop up upon login" for a while now. But I've noticed that the UI mods to keep it from showing have stopped working. The UI modders have also reported that the window's now unmoddable. This is truly annoying. The window doesn't, for me, show me anything useful. I know about the marketplace and the items, I've got my lists of the mission cycles, I read EQ2Players and've already read the news items. All this window does is prevent me from playing until I've closed it. Like many things in the new UI, it's really nice for the new player but it gets in the way of the experienced veteran. I wish it was back the way it was before GU57, or the way the help tips and tutorial pop-ups work: active by default but can be disabled by an option once they're no longer necessary.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>It is not going to happen and the minor inconvienence of the 2 seconds it takes to click it off isn't going to change soe's mind.</p><p>If anything I think the window should be modifiable so that at least UI modders could at least change the skin to match custom UI mods.</p>

[Geothe]

<p>The welcome window, best summarized as:<img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/alkv41.jpg" width="823" height="604" /></p><p>(can't take credit for the lovely image, don't recall who made it though)</p>

[Khiara]

<p>THAT IS AWESOME!!!!!! roflmao</p>

[DeathtoGnomes]

<p>LOL There should be marquee on the bottom saying "Shop Now, Smedley the Shmuck needs new underwear"</p>

[Maveric_LOL]

<p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The welcome window, best summarized as:<img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/alkv41.jpg" width="823" height="604" /></p><p>(can't take credit for the lovely image, don't recall who made it though)</p></blockquote><p>Its still low key tbh what it really needs is some flashing order now supplies are limited!!!!!!111oneeleven text some place and of course some audio from billy mayes....or rather a billy mayes type since he is no longer around!</p><p>Picture it, you innocently login, forgetting that your speakers are still set to full volume from those awsome tunes you were just listening to on youtube and all of a sudden:</p><p>UNDEAD BILLY MAYYYYYESS HERE FOR STATION CASH AND I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU ABOUT OUR INCREDIBLE OFFER! BUY ONE OF OUR PATENTED UNICORN MOUTS(tm) FOR ONLY 2500SC AND WE WILL THROW IN A <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">FREE </span></strong>XP POTION!!!! YES YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT A FREE XP POTION, A 500SC VALUE!!! BUT ONLY IF YOU ORDER NOW THOUGH SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED!!!</p>

[Liral]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It is not going to happen and the minor inconvienence of the 2 seconds it takes to click it off isn't going to change soe's mind.</p><p>If anything I think the window should be modifiable so that at least UI modders could at least change the skin to match custom UI mods.</p></blockquote><p>I couldn't agree more. Sheesh.. some people will complain about anything...</p>

[snowli]

<p>If the OP means the window can't be killed by profitUI for example anymore, then that's a shame. When I can login I'm usually happy, seeing the "welcome to stationcash window" takes a little of that happiness away.</p><p>Funny pic above though <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Ahlana]

<p>Actually the welcome screen is just as killable as it used to be. Head over to eq2interface and you will find a modded welcome window that will not open unless you tell it to through the EQ2 Menu.</p><p>OR (do it yourself instructions below) Originally from Drum on the EQ2Interface</p><div>Add a property to the first : </div><div><span style="color: #c0c0c0;"><blockquote><em>HiddenOnce="false"</em></blockquote></span><span style="color: #e5e5e5;">Add the OnShow property, also to the first : </span><span style="color: #c0c0c0;"><blockquote><em>OnShow="visible=HiddenOnce HiddenOnce=true"</em></blockquote></span></div><p> EDIT: I  just can't get it to show right lol</p>

[Shotneedle]

<p>I see someone liked the picture I posted on flames.</p>

[Nakaru-Nitepaw]

<p><cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually the welcome screen is just as killable as it used to be. Head over to eq2interface and you will find a modded welcome window that will not open unless you tell it to through the EQ2 Menu.</p><p>OR (do it yourself instructions below) Originally from Drum on the EQ2Interface</p><div>Add a property to the first : </div><div><span style="color: #c0c0c0;"><blockquote><em>HiddenOnce="false"</em></blockquote></span><span style="color: #e5e5e5;">Add the OnShow property, also to the first : </span><span style="color: #c0c0c0;"><blockquote><em>OnShow="visible=HiddenOnce HiddenOnce=true"</em></blockquote></span></div><p> EDIT: I  just can't get it to show right lol</p></blockquote><p>I just went to test server and tried it. Didn't work. The XML file is completely bypassed so no matter what you do to the file it wont take effect. The welcome window is now hard coded into the exe aparently. Nothing short of illegal hex editing will get rid of it now.</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually the welcome screen is just as killable as it used to be. Head over to eq2interface and you will find a modded welcome window that will not open unless you tell it to through the EQ2 Menu.</p><p>OR (do it yourself instructions below) Originally from Drum on the EQ2Interface</p><div>Add a property to the first : </div><div><span style="color: #c0c0c0;"><blockquote><em>HiddenOnce="false"</em></blockquote></span><span style="color: #e5e5e5;">Add the OnShow property, also to the first : </span><span style="color: #c0c0c0;"><blockquote><em>OnShow="visible=HiddenOnce HiddenOnce=true"</em></blockquote></span></div><p> EDIT: I  just can't get it to show right lol</p></blockquote><p>I just went to test server and tried it. Didn't work. The XML file is completely bypassed so no matter what you do to the file it wont take effect. The welcome window is now hard coded into the exe aparently. Nothing short of illegal hex editing will get rid of it now.</p></blockquote><p>Well I guess I had to see it coming. They re-did it before so we couldn't get rid of it and then we found a way. Now they are simply hard coding it. Why can we not have a choice is the question I want to know.</p><p>Those that will use it... well, will use it.. and those that won't never will, we will just auto close it as soon as it pops up. So what does it matter if we make it so it never shows?</p>

[Kithica]

This marketing plan is really intrusive. Soon we'll have to close a "buy this new marketplace item" before we accept each quest.

[TalisX1]

<p>It's still able to be blocked and skinned, it just has to be done a different way now. If you are on test and using Profit you can download the gu58 updates and test them out. The files are available on eq2interface here:</p><p><a href="http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14972">http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/...ead.php?t=14972</a></p><p>If you try it and find any bugs in the updated files please let me know here or there.</p><p>Thanks,</p><p>Silat</p>

[Nakaru-Nitepaw]

<p><cite>Kithica@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>This marketing plan is really intrusive. Soon we'll have to close a "buy this new marketplace item" before we accept each quest. </blockquote><p>Or every time you pull a quest it gives you a suggested marketplace item thats just as good or better then the quest reward.</p><p><cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's still able to be blocked and skinned, it just has to be done a different way now. If you are on test and using Profit you can download the gu58 updates and test them out. The files are available on eq2interface here:</p><p><a href="http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14972">http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/...ead.php?t=14972</a></p><p>If you try it and find any bugs in the updated files please let me know here or there.</p><p>Thanks,</p><p>Silat</p></blockquote><p>How did you manage to get it to not bypass your work? I tried the fix Ahlana mentioned, as well as setting maximum window size to 0,0 but it ignored everything i did. o.o I also read that someone completely deleted the XML file from the default UI and it still showed up. Strange. I'll give yours a try later tonight after my raid. I use DrumsUI but i'm sure it wont hurt anything. To fix this will i only need the welcome.xml? Or is there something else?<span><cite></cite></span></p>

[TalisX1]

<p>You edit the file at runtime instead of the eq2ui_mainhud_welcome.xml. The fix is specific to profitui (mine is anyway, other authors will fix theirs too), the code that fixes it is actually in the _profitui_controlcenter file. That code is executed by the profit experience window. Just dropping it into drums won't work.</p><p>Silat</p>

[LardLord]

<p>So now everyone who uses the profit UI auto-updater won't see it? Whereas before it was only the people who went out of their way to disable it? I'm sure that's exactly how those SOE people planned it!</p><p>Kinda funny <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p>

[TalisX1]

<p>Had not thought about it that way. I guess I should make it show by default and have a setting to disable it if you do not want to see it.</p><p>Silat</p>

[Nijia]

<p>A thought for SOE</p><p><strong>Idea: Make a TAB for the Marketplace and use more space on the welcome window to make it actually useful and well... welcome. Then let people pick which tab they want as default. </strong>That way people who like to be on top of the marketplace new items can have it as their "welkcome" screen and others will not see it if they dont like it, because it's a different tab.</p><p><strong>My point is : people who don't like ads dont click ads. So I think it's safe to assume the same goes for the marketplace. Let people learn by themselves and they'll become marketplace customers on their own accord. This works better than enforcing, and creating an adverse reaction.</strong></p><p>You'll have twice as much space for making the welcome window useful for both camps.</p><div>Personally I don't mind the welcome window, besides you can just close it and forget about it, what's the big deal? But what bothers me more, is that this welcome screen does not have much value. This may explain why people tend to focus on the SC area of the welcome window, which is actually not that big.</div><div></div><div>As a newbie player myself, I don't learn much from this welcome screen. I think it could be improved still.</div><div></div>

[Zonavar]

<p>The Welcome screen is fine. It's a great introductory screen to see in a flash what's going on: whose on, what Mark quests are available, what new items are on sale, Patch notes etc.</p><p>What is the big deal? You don't like it. Click it.</p><p>I'd even go as far as to add a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Broker</span> section showing how much coin you made by selling offline to make it more attractive to players. </p><p>I guarantee if SoE implements the broker sale feature people will be less histrionic about the Welcome screen.</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Zonavar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The Welcome screen is fine. It's a great introductory screen to see in a flash what's going on: whose on, what Mark quests are available, what new items are on sale, Patch notes etc.</p><p>What is the big deal? You don't like it. Click it.</p><p>I'd even go as far as to add a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Broker</span> section showing how much coin you made by selling offline to make it more attractive to players. </p><p>I guarantee if SoE implements the broker sale feature people will be less histrionic about the Welcome screen.</p></blockquote><p>The big deal is that we used to have a choice.... then they took it from us for no reason. Granted the newer one does indeed load faster than the old one thus not causing the lockups the old one was causing. But some of us just don't use it and we like our space very clean.</p><p>So after they took it away we managed to get rid of it several ways (Drums being alot cleaner than my first fix lol).</p><p>And now we have to find a new way.. just so we don't have to see a window we will never use /shrug. Seems like SOE should have left the disabler in the eq2.ini file working</p>

[Nakaru-Nitepaw]

<p>I've sucessfully applied the profitUI fix for the welcome window, applied to drumsUI. i had to edit the experience window and add in the necisary parts then just drop the other files in. Thanks. Hopefuly drumstix will have a update of his own soon, becuase this is just a temp fix until the next time i auto update the UI lol.</p>

[Nijia]

<p><cite>Zonavar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The Welcome screen is fine. It's a great introductory screen to see in a flash what's going on: whose on, what Mark quests are available, what new items are on sale, Patch notes etc.</p><p>What is the big deal? You don't like it. Click it.</p><p>I'd even go as far as to add a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Broker</span> section showing how much coin you made by selling offline to make it more attractive to players. </p><p>I guarantee if SoE implements the broker sale feature people will be less histrionic about the Welcome screen.</p></blockquote><p>I love that broker idea!</p><p>Your post echoes my thoughts above. It's a shame that people want to turn off the entire welcome window altogether (which was a good idea, and a good addition to the game) just because they don't like the SC "call to action" (in marketing speak).</p><p>If Tabs were used, then people could hide that tab with their UI if they can't even bear to see a "marketplace" tab.</p><p>Using tabs, and a browser analogy, the tabs could use a number to indicate how many news are on there eg:</p><p>[ Welcome  ]   [ Marketplace (4) ]</p>

[Nijia]

<p><strong>More ideas for a better welcome screen:</strong></p><p>* Creature of the day (scrounge up database info and display in a readable way, eg.: where it lurks, population % in the zone, is it social, and so on)</p><p>* Legendary / Fabled item of the day, and who drops it (not SC item), and where (helps people discover new places)</p><p>* Boss of the day (what special attacks it uses, resists, who killed it last? .. )</p><p>These "of the day" are not special xp or adventure feature, just informational. Short of pulling from a non existant official wiki, maybe off of Zam? THen you could format database stats in a readabme way.. think "fun facts".</p><p>* Tip of the day (from the loading screen).</p><p>Etc.</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Willit@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's a shame that people want to turn off the entire welcome window altogether (which was a good idea, and a good addition to the game) just because they don't like the SC "call to action" (in marketing speak).</p></blockquote><p>Hmmm good addition is opinion really. I don't look at any of it. Even if it didn't have a SC section I would still want it to not show. I do not use the mini-map thus if it always opened when I loaded in I would be upset. Since I don't use it I hide it and never have to see it. Same with clock and other UI elements. I just feel this one should be no different. There for those that want it and gone for those that don't.</p>

[Jrral]

<p><cite>Willit@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Your post echoes my thoughts above. It's a shame that people want to turn off the entire welcome window altogether (which was a good idea, and a good addition to the game) just because they don't like the SC "call to action" (in marketing speak).</p></blockquote><p>The reason I don't like the welcome window popping up has nothing to do with Station Cash or the marketplace display on it. I don't like the welcome window popping up because it doesn't contain anything I want to see at that point. The new items, I've already read those on EQ2Players by the time I'm going in-game. I don't need to see a repeat of what I read less than a half-hour ago. The marketplace display, I already know about the marketplace, how to bring it up and how to find items in it. My friends list, it already scrolls that as I log in. A list of guildmates who're logged in might be useful, but the welcome window doesn't have that so I need to pull up the guild window to display that. The guild window that <em>got overlaid by the welcome window</em> just as I was pulling it up. The missions... I already know the cycle for those and I know which ones are up right now. And there's nothing left.</p><p>Yes, I know I can just click the window off. But why should I have to? If it doesn't contain any useful information, why can't I simply check a setting for "Don't show the welcome window on logon."? We can turn off the tutorial if we're experienced players and don't need to run it on the 18th character we've rolled. We can turn off the help tips if we've been playing for 3 years now and know all those things. So why does the welcome window insist on treating us like babies who can't remember what the weekly mission is if we're not reminded of it every time we log on?</p>

[Landiin]

If they truly are blocking the welcome screen from being forces closed and it looks as if they are. Do you actually think this now well documented work around will work with the next update?

[TalisX1]

<p>If it does not I have another one figured out now. And gm9 said he can think of at least two more.</p><p>Silat</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If they truly are blocking the welcome screen from being forces closed and it looks as if they are. Do you actually think this now well documented work around will work with the next update?</blockquote><p>Everything in the UI uses an XML file. They would have to rework alot to "hardcode" it without a true UI element. Possible.. sure. Worth the effort? Hardly.</p><p>IE. If worst comes to worst you can always use an empty dummy file.</p>

[TalisX1]

<p><cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If they truly are blocking the welcome screen from being forces closed and it looks as if they are. Do you actually think this now well documented work around will work with the next update?</blockquote><p>Everything in the UI uses an XML file. They would have to rework alot to "hardcode" it without a true UI element. Possible.. sure. Worth the effort? Hardly.</p><p>IE. If worst comes to worst you can always use an empty dummy file.</p></blockquote><p>Actually at the moment the xml is hard coded but still parses like xml. You can completely delete the welcome file from both your mod directory and the default directory and it will still show. So a dummy file is already a no go.</p><p>Silat</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If they truly are blocking the welcome screen from being forces closed and it looks as if they are. Do you actually think this now well documented work around will work with the next update?</blockquote><p>Everything in the UI uses an XML file. They would have to rework alot to "hardcode" it without a true UI element. Possible.. sure. Worth the effort? Hardly.</p><p>IE. If worst comes to worst you can always use an empty dummy file.</p></blockquote><p>Actually at the moment the xml is hard coded but still parses like xml. You can completely delete the welcome file from both your mod directory and the default directory and it will still show. So a dummy file is already a no go.</p><p>Silat</p></blockquote><p>That is actually quite surprising.</p>

[Landiin]

<p><cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If it does not I have another one figured out now. And gm9 said he can think of at least two more.</p><p>Silat</p></blockquote><p>Yea there are server other ways to access it though _HUD and one I am using b/c I know this one will get blocked. But really all they will do is make the welcome screen a no named node and then we can't access it and they win. I am sure that is the way they will handle it if they indeed are trying to block us from automating it.</p>

[Nebbeny]

When the first instinct you have when you log on is to click the x in the corner of the welcome window without even glancing at it, it kinda gives it away how much I want to see it. Now that they've updated it to have the daily mission for SF, I will occasionally open it up have a quick look and close it, but that is all the use i get out of it. It's about the same use as say being curious about how much plat i have on me right now and hitting I to bring up the character window, theres a whole bunch of stuff on it, but i want just the one value. (and yes, i do mean I, first thing i did after the patch was re-map my keys for c i and p)

[tkia]

<p><cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually at the moment the xml is hard coded but still parses like xml. You can completely delete the welcome file from both your mod directory and the default directory and it will still show. So a dummy file is already a no go.</p><p>Silat</p></blockquote><p>That is actually quite surprising.</p></blockquote><p>The first word that sprang to my mind was actually 'pathetic'.   Seriously, if they've gone to the trouble to code this to try and stop us turning the thing off then they've sunk into depths of pettyness that I wouldn't have believed possible even for the soe suits.  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Nebbeny wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>(and yes, i do mean I, first thing i did after the patch was re-map my keys for c i and p)</blockquote><p>Hehe me too. C is still crouch for me and I and P open up the character window :p</p><p>The new xp bar was replaced with the old one and the Game Menu was mapped to Z since I lost the button <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p><cite>tkia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually at the moment the xml is hard coded but still parses like xml. You can completely delete the welcome file from both your mod directory and the default directory and it will still show. So a dummy file is already a no go.</p><p>Silat</p></blockquote><p>That is actually quite surprising.</p></blockquote><p>The first word that sprang to my mind was actually 'pathetic'.   Seriously, if they've gone to the trouble to code this to try and stop us turning the thing off then they've sunk into depths of pettyness that I wouldn't have believed possible even for the soe suits.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>True it is nothing more than pettiness. They want us to see it no matter what and because we choose not to they go through these lengths of time and resource just to mess with us. That is all it is, just to mess with us. It is not going to bring them more money by doing this. Not in a long shot, yet they spent the time, money, and energy to mess with us.</p><p>EDIT: Thanks to Silat and Nakaru (for sending me her mods for drums). I have managed to clean it all up for default users (so long as you are at least using like EQ2maps or something as you do need a custom UI folder of some sort to use any UI mod).</p>

[Drumstix]

<p>I've uploaded a mod to EQ2Interface which will auto-hide the Welcome window on login, which can then be manually opened afterward.</p>