Honestly I don't know MySQL or Databases very well. I also don't know how the zone servers talk to DB. It certenly would be nice to know if you can spread any light on this.
I found myself reading over some info on Transactions in MySQL.
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/...tutorial2.html
Specificly
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/...tml?tw=backend
quote "MyISAM supports only table-level locks of two types: read locks and write locks. "
and
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/11/index4a.html
quote
"When a client places a shared lock on data, other clients cannot alter that data with UPDATE or DELETE statements, but they can read the locked data via SELECTs. When a client gains an exclusive lock, other clients can neither alter the locked data via UPDATEs and DELETEs, nor can they read the data with SELECTs."
My original thought was on locking. I don't know how many times the eqemu servers update or change the DB if at all. But it seems to me that it would alow multiple people to use the same data at the same time without the deley of the defaul MySQL table type.
Of course this assumes that there is a chance of multiple people accessing the same data.