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

It's just a Sony commercial, no ones cares about it.

Why is this advertising screen even on for Gold subscriptions?

stop trying to bilk your remaining players out of their money and work on something for us like the EQPLAYERS page

I know your "superiors" told you to come on here and ask us about it , but man it just seems really callous that this is what you want our feedback on?

I don't read it whatsoever. Maybe you should actually record data to see how many people close it the moment their load etc, and see if it's even effective at all. I find it to be annoying and the only time it stays up longer than a split second on my screen, is when I walk away because of how long it takes to load. I close it as soon as I come back.

He's the "new guy". Maybe this was their way of "hazing" him?
<sniker> "Let's send Roshen into that nest of vipers to ask about the Welcome Screen!" <more snickers>

-R

I admit, back when the Welcome Screen was introduced in its earlier forms, I found it obtrusive and would close it ASAP. It has evolved to become more useful, particularly the Message of the Day (Heroic Character announcement, new race/class combos, Plane of War info) and Latest News area.

I like some of the suggested ideas in the other posts, such as, more info about new content (ie. staggered anniversary release, double experience events, year-round weekly introduced content) whenever it is released in-game.

The only additional suggestion I can think of is to allow a player (even if it's Gold members only) to have the Welcome Screen only do its automatic daily pop up within non-combat zones. At least, this will help those that are affected by any lag related to its load time, and it may encourage others to read more of the screen since they are in a safe zone.

I can just see it now from managment and Roshen.

Roshen, your first job as community manager is to see how we can make the welcome screen better. ..

I know I'll ask the community.

-Responses ensue-

So Roshen, what kind of responses did you get?

....mixed.

The answer would be to disable the ability on PvP servers while allowing it on Care Bear servers. I'm aware this is extra code, but don't the PvP servers have some different code anyway?

You know, I actually think it was a case of Roshen taking on a new job, looking around, and going, "Hey, what can I do to improve the game?".

Sorry, but I think well of Roshen, even if he did get the job I wanted .

Don't be sorry. I think well of him too.
I surely don't envy his job......... not by a long shot!
-R

YES! We already have the Alert window, just add a new alert to it, "Welcome Window has updated since your last login." Then we can choose to read it if we want.

As mentioned above, the next weekly updated would be nice. (Or next few if that info is out at the time.)

Maybe a link that says 'Coming soon!" that links to the Test patch notes, but only during the week between Test patch and Live patch.

Information like the recent announcement of Silver status not being purchasable would be ok. (Some of these things are a surprise to the people who don't read the forums... and sometimes a surprise to those who do.)

Hotfixes would be a good one.

But if you're going to do ANYTHING with it, make it eat up fewer resources! The lag it creates is terrible.

The only thing of value you can do to it is give it a permanent dismiss setting. Any other change, no matter how brilliant, will still solicit me pressing Esc as my first in-world action every login.

For me the result of the welcome screen is 1 thing.

I get irritated, and due to being irritated I dont buy anything, where I might have bought something without the welcome screen.

I suppose "kill it with fire" probably isn't the answer you were hoping to get.

That's pretty much how I feel about it, though.

All of the news functionality is better handled by the Launchpad. (And it's prettier too.)

The only thing on the welcome screen I ever care about is the Marketplace specials.

But generally I just curse at it, demanding that it finish loading already.

There probably is data showing that the spam window is not generating much revenue, and that it's being closed as soon as humanly possible. These data are likely the cause of this thread. I can't imagine anyone wanting to talk about that evil piece of bloatware for fun...

The only thing I can think of deserving of this "feature" is player polls, so we can vote on important development decisions. And, even then, it would be more tastefully done as a link in the MOTD.

I would like to see a list of all my friends online. Just my opinion.

We have that: it's called the friend window.

Personally (and maybe a bit selfishly) I'd love to see at least a small section that leads to the Guide Application someplace on there for those players who have a bit of extra time and want to help out and be a Guide.

Then again, some might call me bias

Boss: So, Roshen, on a scale of 99-100, how much did people love the welcome screen?

Roshen: I quit.

How often would you like to see it updated?
If the plan is to update on a weekly basis, then weekly.

Do you read this in-game?
Currently, no. I press ESC before it even finishes displaying all content.

What type of content would be most useful to you on the welcome screen?
Start/end dates for specials. Anniversary tasks and bonus exp for example.
Station cash balance
Friends/guildies online

My preference however is that it just go away altogether since everything I listed above can be found elsewhere.
Just takes a little longer.

How often would you like to see it updated ? - never

do you read this in-game ? - never

what type of content would be most useful to you on the welcome screen ? - none.

its clicked off even before loading.

please get rid of it or at least a way to disable it.

polls wouldn't help. as each time SoE has polled the players about what they would like - soe always choose the dumbest / least chosen one.
and they never ask us about any changes until it is a done deal and told to live with it if we don't like it.