Looking for old Splash Pages

EQstarr · #1 09-26-2005, 05:20 AM

Remember those old splash pages used in EQ while loading up the game? Well, I'm trying to put together a collection of all the old splash pages. I am having difficulty finding them, and I was hoping someone here might still have one of the old splash pages. The ones I currently have are: classic, omens, dragons, and depths.

Thanks so much for your help.

sdabbs65 · #2 09-26-2005, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EQstarr

Remember those old splash pages used in EQ while loading up the game? Well, I'm trying to put together a collection of all the old splash pages. I am having difficulty finding them, and I was hoping someone here might still have one of the old splash pages. The ones I currently have are: classic, omens, dragons, and depths.

Thanks so much for your help.

In your Everquest folder is a "Resources" folder - in that there's a file called "loadscreen.jpg". That's the loading screen. You can probably make any loading graphics you want appear by creating another JPEG of the same size and storing it here. Of course, the patcher will try to overwrite it so you'll have to overcome that as well. As far as "older ones" go, this file used to be a BMP file, and the last BMP file that was used is in that same folder (at least for me), as "loadscreen.bmp".

so if you have older "archives" as some of us do.. you should be able to recover them.

Sakrateri · #3 09-26-2005, 12:49 PM

Here ya go , this has Original loadscreen plus Velious and Gates . Also a couple of my own . I can get them all later , out of time atm though. hope this helps ya.

ftp://68.218.192.210/loadscreen.zip

EQstarr · #4 09-26-2005, 02:52 PM

Oh, thank you. That's two more I don't have. I thought I had EQ Classic, but it was Velious I actually had. Ok, so I only need the following splash pages for my collection:

Ruins of Kunark
Shadows of Luclin
Planes of Power
Legacy of Ykesha
Lost Dungeons of Norrath

I actually did look for the loadscreen.bmp files when I installed, but I couldn't find them. I've got EQ Gold (which had EQ classic to PoP), and what I did was install each game separately. But I found no loadscreen.bmp. The "resources" folder didn't get implemented until later. I installed each expansion all the way through Gates of Discord and saw no loadscreen files. Did I not look in the right area? I did a file search, but saw nothing. Was it something that was only avaible when patching to Live at the time?

I've always loved the artwork on these splash pages, so I'm hoping to collect all the others. I might be able to get the PoP spash page from someone who plays EQ Mac, since it only goes up to PoP.

If anyone else has these splash pages somewhere, please let me know. It would be a nice collection, and something worthy to save for nostalgic reasons before they are lost forever.

Sakrateri · #5 09-26-2005, 07:49 PM

You've got them all , they are hiddin in your eqfeart.pak files which can be seen and extracted with s3dspy. do a search for that and use that to retrieve them all. Good luck

EQstarr · #6 09-27-2005, 03:27 AM

Thanks for the advice on S3dspy. I've taken a look at it those EQfeart.pak files, but I didn't see anything that looked like a "loadscreen". I actually went through and looked at all those bmps too (I saw some interesting ones, though). Still no "loadscreen" file.

I thought maybe uninstall everything and start over. I have the PoP disc which actually comes with EQ, so I tried that first. I have 11 eqfeart.pak files, but in them I saw no loadscreens.

Is it someplace else?

EQstarr · #7 09-27-2005, 09:19 AM

A small update.

I did find some files called "bmpwad.s3d". In the first one, there is a file called "logo03.bmp" and that's the original "loadscreen" for Everquest. However, I can't find any others. All I have installed right now is EQ with PoP. I didn't patch to Live yet.

If the Planes of Power "loadscreen" is on here, I can't find it.

Sakrateri · #8 09-27-2005, 01:19 PM

yeah , they are in the bmpwad files , the others in the eqfeart.pak files are start screen , the ones in the bmpwad files are like the one in bmpwad5.s3d called eqvload.bmp those are what your looking for.

EQstarr · #9 09-27-2005, 04:53 PM

bmpwad5....

That file isn't there when installing the PoP CD's, but then again I already have the Velious loadscreen.

Here's the files I have when installing the actual box version of PoP (which comes with EQ classic):

bmpwad.s3d
bmpwad2.s3d
bmpwad3.s3d
bmpwad6.s3d

Now in these 4 files, none of them had the "loadscreen" for Planes of Power. I wonder if that was a file that was downloaded from EQLive at the time?

What I did do was copy bmpwad7.s3d and bmpwad8.s3d from my wife's computer over to mine, and I actually found the Shadows of Luclin load screen. So that was cool.

I don't see a bmpwad4.s3d, though. I wonder what happened to that one? I'm also wondering where the Ruins of Kunark load screen is at and if it was in a "bmpwad" file that was overwritten.

Well, as it stands I only need the following to complete my collection:

Ruins of Kunark
Plains of Power
Legacy of Ykesha
Lost Dungeons of Norrath

I think I may need help with the Ykesha one, unless it's on the EQ Platinum set somewhere. I may need someone to dig through their CD and pull it out for me.

EQstarr · #10 09-27-2005, 06:01 PM

I thought it would be nice of me to share the images I've been able to collect so far. You'll see the 4 that I'm missing. If you know where I can find the other four, then that would be awesome!

This is a nice collection of nostalagia.

EVERQUEST

RUINS OF KUNARK

SCARS OF VELIOUS

SHADOWS OF LUCLIN

PLANES OF POWER
?????

LEGACY OF YKESHA
?????

LOST DUNGEONS OF NORRATH
?????

EQstarr · #11 09-27-2005, 06:02 PM

GATES OF DISCORD

OMENS OF WAR

DRAGONS OF NORRATH

DEPTHS OF DARKHOLLOW

Sakrateri · #12 09-27-2005, 08:24 PM

Ok , heres all i can find , I think after they started using the resource folder for the loadscreens it just deletes one and replaces it with the new one so the previous one is lost , Im not sure when they started using the resource folder .

ftp://68.17.219.190/LoadScreens.zip

EQstarr · #13 09-28-2005, 03:08 AM

Thank you for the Kunark page. Too bad you didn't have the PoP or Ykesha ones; I noticed you had the "start" screen versions of them. That would be very cool to actually find those "loadscreens".

I think the "resource" folder was added with "Gates", because I"ve noticed that when I install EQ from the CD's I don't get a resource folder until I get to the "Gates" expansion or if I try to install from the EQ Plat series (which includes everything up to Gates).

So I wonder where the "loadscreen" files are for PoP, Ykesha, and LDoN? I've got the separate CD's for PoP and LDoN, but I"m at a loss to figure out where the art files are.

Thanks for everyone's help. This is a cool list we got going here.