Let's talk about the in-game welcome screen!

My problem with the welcome window is that everything on it is website based as far as I can tell, and therefor all the graphics it has to load and that ends up maxing internet connection for a solid 10 seconds, hitting escape as soon as it pops up seems to counter this some, but garbage internet + bandwidth cap = welcome window no thank you

I find the welcome screen to be a hazard. When I log in to the game it blocks my view and takes time which may be very important if I camped in a combat zone. This colors my view of the whole thing such that even if there were something useful to be read there I would never notice as I dismiss it as fast as possible out of aggrivation.

If the welcome screen were available from character select instead of in game I might be tempted to look at it. It could be interesting to read news before starting the game itself. That is if the content were interesting. At least it would have a chance. It has no chance for me as is.

The welcome screen would be better being 1 single page with new updated info, which comes up instead of the flash screen when you load in the game. Once the game gets to char select I don't want to be reading anything, I want to play.

As it is now, I just get rid of it before it has loaded in.

Please remove the welcome screen entirely - I've usually closed it before it even finishes loading its content...

Get rid of it. It's like going to your favorite website and having a giant pop-up appear. A MOTD is welcoming enough.

We already have this it's called /ach.

Id rather see it gone, its just one thing that has to load when I start eq.

The welcome screen used to show what friends were logged in..it would be nice if it did that again.

I didn't like it when it came out, still don't, and am guessing I never will. Sorry.

A way to easily disable it permanently is the only sincere thing I can ask for regarding the welcome screen.

I want this feature also. I absolutely despise forced pop-ups of any kind in ANY software I use and especially for this game. I can't click X fast enough when I load into EQ. I won't ever read it regardless of the information it provides. I don't want that screen, ever.

This thread should be required reading for SOE EQ marketing people. The welcome screen is at best annoying but beyond that I'm pretty sure it has caused problems with the game itself... I recall in the not too distant past the Welcome screen was having problems and was disabled...result the game ran much better and Lag was vastly reduced. When the welcome screen was "fixed", the lag returned.

Here is my preference from most preferred to least.

1.). Kill the welcome screen and fire the marketing guy responsible for it.
2.). Give Gold members the option to disable it.
3.) Have it pop once a week or when there is something relavant to announce
4.). Keep the Welcome Screen and still fire the guy responsible just for kicks

Paying customers hate this thing, in my case it has never yielded any usefull info... Time to cut the welcome screen loose IMO.

I usually close the window before it's finished loading, the only thing I might look for is new SC items or special offers. Some people have been vocal about the welcome screen being associated with lag, I don't know but it did seem that when the window was down my login/zoning times were alot faster.
If it was proven that the window did cause performance issues I'd vote to do away with it. It wouldn't hurt me to check the news and announcements section to access the information that the welcome window provides.

I close it without ever looking at it. Its annoying more than anything fir me, not to say the nextguy wont look at it. A way to disable it at startup and a way to bring it when I like would be nice.

Never mind.

I too would much rather see EQ Players working than have anything done about the welcome screen.

Roshen, I feel for you here.
As soon as I saw your well meaning post - I knew what would happen.
Frankly, the first time I saw the welcome screen pop up after I went gold - my first thought was "They said Gold Accounts weren't supposed to get the nag screens! What gives here?"
-Rat (yep- considers it merely a backdoor nag screen)

A post from January claimed they had success with modifying the eqclient.ini file to get rid of the Welcome Screen, but I didn't have much luck with it.

Haven't enough people learned from Google's example that plain text, non-obtrusive, ads are the way of the future for marketing?

Large pop ups are equated with malware these days, whether they are, or they aren't.

I wonder if I can find a pop up blocker that will work for EQ heh.

Well that would be a 3rd party program that manipulated the game and I think would fall into the using progams to manipulate the client bannable offence

Please, just make it go away. It's redundant in terms of delivering relevant information. Launcher and website does that well enough. To me it's a much hated resource hog that only increases initial load times.

I *never* look at the cursed thing. Acknowledge failure and remove it.

While agreeing with the above - I also feel the need to add something constructive.
The log in screen, message of the day, and the load in before Character select - are all places to impart more information (and ads) that SOE wishes to inform the customer base of. (Another place is the "loading art" when changing zones even.)
The last thing in the world your average customer would do, is click on a "pop-up" that obstructs the first moments in the world. This, in order to spawn yet another pop-up with further obstruction? I don't think so.
The marketing boys really should just take it in the shorts on this one - and do better next time.
-Rat