I have been playing with the various servers and eq emulator for about a decade now. I'm a lurker for the most part. I started way back when, 2008-ish, 2009-ish, something like that. I played on my own server and PEQ and played around on a few others. I even did a few perl quests back then, quests that existed in EQ but didn't yet in EQ EMU.
I did it a for a while, then dropped out, came back a couple years later, then dropped out, etc. A lot like my relationship with everquest in general (I started playing EQ in 2000).
I remember setting up my first EQ EMU server. I am a database guy professionally so the db part was easy. Getting the server working was a pain. I started with windows and pre-built binaries and later moved to Linux. I think we had to use a pre-built login server though. I forget how that worked now.
My point here is that setting up was a LOT of work. Lot's of errors. Lot's of trials and tribulations. That DB was a work in progress, but even then had a lot of the first couple of expansions. But overall, it was kind of painful.
Now I am back. Decided to play around with it some more. I have 2 kids that I have played EQ live with and wanted to have a custom EQ for us. I plan to do some work to make it sort of a DND campaign where one of us is the GM and we build a campaign for the other 2 (and maybe some of their friends). Be able to easily add nasty surprises but use the existing levels and creatures. A dungeon crawl with chests, potions, cool artifacts, etc.
I just have to say WOW. I mean that seriously. WOW. The progress that has been made on EQ EMU is amazing. The installation is a no-brainer. Even bots. Freaking mercs work too. All of the quests I have tried, exist and work (still doing old world classic at the moment).
So thank you to Rogean, Trevius, Akkadius, and any others I may be missing (PEQ people too!). This project is amazing and I know it has taken really hard work. Thank you.
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