[Xarslik]

I definitely agree with Trumpcard about unique content.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do right now: Setup an "Arena Challenge" where you take on a challenge, fighting harder and harder creatures, to get to lvl65 with some quality custom-gear. However the way the emu is right now, there's very little documentation and discussion on the specifics of complex customization. I've had to go about editing code myself to achieve most of my desired quest-system results, as well as trying a multitude of different things to understand exactly how parts of the emu work. Now for the normal user this can be overwhelming, if we focused more on the custom side of the emu we definitely would see more unique servers. I'm definitely not criticizing the developers, they're doing a great job, but if you subtract the EQ NPC\Item etc databases, there's a lot less to do atm.

One final comment on the patchers: I would say that the EQ Patcher is definitely more along the lines of a service given to you for buying the software. Any non-online server run software has a website or integrated patcher to keep it up to date, this is very common now a days with bugs arising out of every game released. Therefore buying the game and not paying for an online account, while still using the patcher, is perfectly legal. The CD-KEY is what you're buying if you want to play online. As it stands, ppatch.exe allows you to check the "Planes of Power" option in the patcher, and the only legal way to obtain this file is by buying PoP. Now giving someone this file breaks the boards rule on warez. There may be other transactions that go across this board that could be constituted as warez, however generally they are textual, and we seem to impose a limit on binary transactions. So while under the generalized title of "warez", giving someone ppatch.exe and eqhost.txt is one in the same, in these boards it is not. That is what you, and everyone else must understand.