Any idea how to disable the on start check for the "Epic online service?"

I know you can cancel out of it but there doesn't seem to be a setting to turn it off.

I'm happy for folks who want co-op but I am not interested in it and dislike a default check to any kind of mother ship server.....

That would be nice to be able to not see this pop up, indeed.
It shall be an opt-in option, since MD is a single player game in which a co-op mode has been added. (Anyway, IMO, unless co-op game is selected, connection to any web/network service shall not occur at all.)

I'm affraid that unless a lot of people complain (or someone reverse engineer some library and recomplile it), we have to cancel connection again and again...