Hello, I'm new to this whole thing and I was just wondering.
 

Could I make a server myself, and just have like me and a friend or a couple friends, walk around... go to any zone... fight monsters or whatnot or would I be limited to certain zones depening on how many my PC could handle?

I only ask because I heard something like you can only have all the zones up if your connection and PC is real fast. I have a cable connection, 2.26 ghz Proc, with 512 megs of RAM.

The short answer is, yes.

However you should prepare yourself. It can be rather complicated to set up properly, depending on your level of experience with: your operating system, tcp/ip protocols, relational databases(mysql or sql) and your willingness to educate yourself by reading all the documentation and forum topics that apply.

I believe that the "number of zones per computer" applies to how many different zones can be in USE at the same time. That is, if say 5 of you want to hang out, and your computer can only hold 4 zone slots or whatever, that means you can still go to any zone you want, but you all can only be in 4 different zones at once.