So as of now it is just restricted to the "right-place-at-the-right-time" group. No-one new can join in. No one can recover to this if their harddrive crashes (ie install from their media and update).
It is pretty much moot anyway. I called the guy at gamestop and he agreed to take it back and credit me toward something else (since he did say everquest did work with an emulator).
Does anyone have a suggestion for another mmorpg which is more emulator-on-a-private-lan friendly. I checked city of heros and that seems to have its own political / legal cesspool of barriers as well. I mean the ones who wrote it have not released the server or binaries for the server, but give you the impression by providing guides (1) client setup (2) server setup. But after reading an elaborate server-setup howto, you realize they are only walking you through how to connect to their server. Quite deceptive.
I guess the whole point is not the fact that they charge a monthly fee, but is also an issue of control. When I buy the license to use a software product, they do not hardcode an expiration date into the eula, but guess what? If that company goes out of business and shuts down their server, their server is hacked, the one hosting the emulators server is hacked, your "use" has just expired.
(1) If I have to pay a fixed fee for a product, then I should have full use of it and not have to depend on anything external via the internet.
(2) If I am going to pay a recurring fee, then I should have use of that as well. I mean maybe they should just give you the CDs, but charge for minutes when you login to the server, even sell prepaid server minutes.
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