Guide - Adjusting MQ2's Captions (also, fixing Prefix title display for TLP) (1 Viewer)

[etherealmist]

I play on the TLP servers, so for the longest time I've been running the standard captions and it always bugged me that I couldn't see my fancy titles without completely disabling the captions all together. I decided to finally fix that! I searched around the interwebs, and even on redguides, and most people either suggest just turning them off, or have no idea how to adjust them. Hopefully I can give a little more information to a little used feature of MQ2.

First, some 'helpful' resources:
Super old MQ manual
MQ2 Wiki page about Captions

Okay so first of all, what MQ2 displays over every mob/player/pet/etc's head is all handled by captions. You can find the caption settings in your Macroquest2.ini in your base release folder.

Scrolldown to [Captions]

Okay, so what does all this fancy crap mean? Well, if you take a look, it sorta explains itself. If it doesn't, keep staring at it! (or read further)

MQCaptions=1|0 -- 1 = on, 0= off
Update=40 -- The number of 'things' to update every 'pass'. No idea how long a pass update is.
Player1 -- Same as showname 1
Player2 -- Same as showname 2
Player3 -- Same as showname 3
Player4 -- Same as showname 4

So the default for MQ2 captions is this:

[Captions]
MQCaptions=1
Update=35
Player1=${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Trader},Trader ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}),${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}]}${If[${NamingSpawn.AFK}, AFK,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Linkdead}, LD,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}
Player2=${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Trader},Trader ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}),${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Surname.Length}, ${NamingSpawn.Surname},]}${If[${NamingSpawn.AFK}, AFK,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Linkdead}, LD,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}
Player3=${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Trader},Trader ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}),${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Surname.Length}, ${NamingSpawn.Surname},]}${If[${NamingSpawn.AFK}, AFK,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Linkdead}, LD,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Guild.Length},\n<${If[${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus.NotEqual[member]},${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus} of ,]}${NamingSpawn.Guild}>,]}
Player4=${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Trader},Trader ,]} ${If[${NamingSpawn.AARank}, ${NamingSpawn.AATitle} ,]} ${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}),${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Surname.Length}, ${NamingSpawn.Surname},]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Suffix.Length}~${If[${NamingSpawn.Suffix.Left[1].Equal[,]}~${NamingSpawn.Suffix}~ ${NamingSpawn.Suffix}]}~]}${If[${NamingSpawn.AFK}, AFK,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Linkdead}, LD,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Guild.Length},\n<${If[${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus.NotEqual[member]},${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus} of ,]}${NamingSpawn.Guild}>,]}
NPC=${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Assist},>> ,]}${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}${If[${NamingSpawn.Assist}, - ${NamingSpawn.PctHPs}%<<,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Surname.Length},\n(${NamingSpawn.Surname}),]}
Corpse=${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}'s corpse
Pet=${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Assist},>> ,]}${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}${If[${NamingSpawn.Assist}, - ${NamingSpawn.PctHPs}%<<,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Master.Type.Equal[PC]},\n(${NamingSpawn.Master}),]}

Taking a look at Player 4/showname 4, you SHOULD see Prefix title, If you're invis, Your name, Your Surname, If you're AFK/LD or the Leader of the group (LDR).

If you're on the TLP, because of the way it's phrased, it's saying, IF you have AAs, display AA title. We don't have any AAs yet. So, all we need to do is change this:

${If[${NamingSpawn.AARank}, ${NamingSpawn.AATitle} ,]}

To this: (keep a space before and after)

 ${NamingSpawn.AATitle}

That basically tells Captions to get rid of the IF statement, and ALWAYS display the title.

Let's say we want to edit some more fun things. (keep in mind, you can change everything you want to display for all 4 of the showname/playername ranks, you could even display nothing, including names)

Let's break it down like this, so we can see it easier:

${If[${NamingSpawn.Mark},${NamingSpawn.Mark} - ,]}
${If[${NamingSpawn.Trader},Trader ,]} 
${If[${NamingSpawn.AARank}, ${NamingSpawn.AATitle} ,]} 
${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}),${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Surname.Length},${NamingSpawn.Surname},]}
${If[${NamingSpawn.Suffix.Length}~${If[${NamingSpawn.Suffix.Left[1].Equal[,]}~${NamingSpawn.Suffix}~ ${NamingSpawn.Suffix}]}~]}
${If[${NamingSpawn.AFK}, AFK,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Linkdead}, LD,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}
${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Guild.Length},\n<${If[${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus.NotEqual[member]},${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus} of ,]}${NamingSpawn.Guild}>,]}

Most of these are saying "If something, something", which is an easy way of telling captions to apply "something" if they are "something". That's how I look at it.

I don't want to know who is an officer/recruit/initiate/guild leader. Lets remove that!
Simply change:

${If[${NamingSpawn.LFG}, LFG,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.GroupLeader}, LDR,]}${If[${NamingSpawn.Guild.Length},\n<${If[${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus.NotEqual[member]},${NamingSpawn.GuildStatus} of ,]}${NamingSpawn.Guild}>,]}

To this:

${If[${NamingSpawn.Guild.Length},\n<${NamingSpawn.Guild}>,]}

If you couldn't tell, the guild < and > are build into the lines. The \n means new line. So what this is saying is Does this person have a guild? If yes, make a new line, and display the guild surrounded by <>.

This gives you a ton more control over what actually displays. Let's have some fun with this shall we? I want my guild take to look like this >:|Ethereal|:< instead of <Ethereal>. Well, lets do it!

${If[${NamingSpawn.Guild.Length},\n>:|${NamingSpawn.Guild}|:<,]}

I'm sure you can come up with something better.

Let's say, instead of displaying a title IF you have AAs, let's display a title and show how many AA's we have! Change this:

 ${If[${NamingSpawn.AARank}, ${NamingSpawn.AATitle} ,]}

To this: (again, leaving spaces)

 ${NamingSpawn.AARank} ${NamingSpawn.AATitle}

Let's say you want to record videos, stream twitch, or something, but you want SOME sort of name displayed, and you don't care if people know you MQ. We can fix that!
Look for this:

${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}),${NamingSpawn.DisplayName}]}

Change that, to this: (put whatever you want, just like I have it)

${If[${NamingSpawn.Invis},(EtherealmistRG),EtherealmistRG]}

Want your own custom Prefix title? BOOM, I got you dawg! Find this:

${If[${NamingSpawn.AARank}, ${NamingSpawn.AATitle} ,]}

Change that to any text you want, just make sure to leave a space!

 SuperbadAss

(Sorry for my awesome creativity)

NOTE: Keep in mind, any time you don't use a TLO (such as when we replaced our name or our AA title with something STATIC), it will change it for EVERYONE.
If anyone knows how to change just the actual player's name, and leave everyone else's, PLEASE post!

Lastly:
@eqmule (if he ever reads this!)
I wish we could get the different types of player status a seperate color, such as if people are roleplaying. I'd like to be able to set colors for that. In captions, I can only seem to either have EQ's defaults (purple for RP, blue for everything else), or ONE color for everything:

[Caption Colors]
PC=On
PC-Color=ffb7c5

I guess this will have to do