how to disable the game from opening the membership page

Wow, I have had quite a few computers over the last 8 years, and have literally never had this problem. It brings up a little pop up that is in game, but never my web browser. Hmmm...no idea. I have a soda spilling issue and at one point there were 4 of us playing each on a different computer, so I do mean quite a few!! And here I thought the little in game pop up was annoying, yeah...When boxing, I load one in, and then push the x on the pop up that pops up about a min or 2 after I log in, then load the next and so on, if that helps! K I did the math, it was 16 computers that never had this issue.

im a long time player of EQ and EQ2, when i say long time player i mean i got to play this game when it was just a doodle of a game some of my friends came up with and wanted me to help them test it considering i was one of a few mad and crazy game nerds that they knew.

that's another story anyhow, i propose a question for you. would you accept if they gave you a client that you get pop ups after logging off of a game were you pay one sub and 19 free accounts, or they gave you a client were you got no pop ups but only got basic functions on the 19 free accounts like say your sub account got chat while all 19 of your free accounts could read others chat but couldn't chat themselves.

i ask this question because if they wanted to they can do just that, in my experience its best not to poke the bear. be happy with the fact you can have 19 free accounts if it was up to me you would only get 1 free account per household.

Each account knows nothing about any other account you may have, be that paid or free to play. So, there is no way to flag that the pop-up window has been shown once already and to suppress showing it for other FTP accounts.

I have 5 FTP accounts that I set up with the idea of multi-boxing (never actually did that with more than 3 accounts, though). This idea would have been so much easier if I could have tied the accounts together - no discounts or anything like that, just have them behave like a single account as far as trading HEIRLOOM gear and alternate currencies.

Alternatively, I would love it if I could log in more than one character at a time on a single account. Of course a subscription fee would have to be paid for each character slot that is allowed to be online simultaneously (so that DBG doesn't loose any income). This would achieve the same goal as the previous idea. I would probably pay for 3 to 6 characters to be online simultaneously if this were implemented. Even a limit of two at a time would be worthwhile to me. The downside of this idea, for DBG at least, is only one expansion would need to be purchased for the account, but they could adjust that fee based on the number of characters allowed at a time on that account: price of desired expansion + price of base expansion * (# of simultaneous characters on account-1).

I just wanted to weigh in here and add that yes, these popups are very annoying and should be done away with. It's a thing that both EQ1 and EQ2 do (and I'd bet the other Daybreak games too) and it does nothing but annoy the player and make them *not* want to subscribe. It's a strong-arm tactic that no other AAA MMO company does, and it really needs to go. People shouldn't need to make threads asking how to disable it... Daybreak should remove it from all of their titles and actually entice people to subscribe with perks, not popups.

Here is the solution:
Synopsis : Create a local windows account and run the game as another user, deny access to the directory containing msedge.exe, or whatever browser is opened by the launcher when running as the other user.

Full Explanation:
on windows 11, this looks like:

create a local user, choose "I don't have this persons sign in information" ... "Add a user without a microsoft account" , choose a username ( everquest ), and password, put it in a password safe if you think you will not remember it (you will never have to type the password more than once if you leave the /savecred option in the shortcut )

create a shortcut with the following target:


C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:everquest /savecred "C:\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\EverQuest\LaunchPad.exe"


If somehow the icon gets reset, the default is: %SystemDrive%\Users\Public\Daybreak Game Company\Installed Games\EverQuest\LaunchPad.ico



Then, In File Explorer Navigate to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\

Right click on the 'Application' directory, select properties. "security tab", "advanced", "change permissions", "add", "select principal", < type the username you picked "everquest" >, "check names", "ok", Type: Deny, "read & execute + read checkboxes", accept the warning that describes what the deny permission does,..


don't accidently deny your normal windows logon user access to the folder, you just want to prevent the "everquest" user from accessing the file.


repeat for other browsers if needed ( chrome, etc )

When you launch everquest with the custom shortcut, the first time you will be prompted for the password, but subsequently the launcher will just open. If you are paranoid about saving the password, you could remove /savecred from the command line in the shortcut. then you will be prompted every time.



This also impact the ability to click on the links in the launcher.. so if you want to click those, open the normal shortcut.. or go direct to the website to see news.

even though the game is running as a different user, there should not be any issues with settings or layouts, etc.

I have way less stress when closing the game now.
I don't have a bright window flash in my face when closing the game.
I might even be more willing to buy DB cash since to buy slots or in-game features since I'm not being pestered with the membership page pop up.

Enjoy!

Edited to reflect that the deny permission should be applied to the folder ( not the exe ).. otherwise the fix only works for a while until edge is automatically updated. by applying permission to the folder, the change should persist through browser updates.

Uh, not everyone has that kind of money let alone time to spend on a game.

1. Logout to character selection
2. Hit windows key,
3. Open task manager
4. Find everquest2.exe and/or EQ2.exe, right click -> end process

If you have oldschool AMD with Catalyst Control Center, you might have to reactivate Desktop color. If you're just shutting down don't worry about it.

Unfortunately, in original everquest, camping to character selection is what triggers the membership page to open in the browser. I have edited my original post to reflect that the 'folder'/'directory' should have the deny permission applied instead of denying access to the exe directly.. this is so that when edge updates periodically, the permissions are not lost. With that small tweak, the aforementioned fix is stable.