Best Practices? Live edits OK?

[Jooma]

Hi guys, I've had a server up for about a week now and I wanted some tips on best practices for adding content etc.

First my setup: Have 2 comps. 1 I use as my server, the other is my main gaming machine which I use to play EQ and remote into the server.


1) I've been making changes to NPC loot using George S' NPC Loot Edit, and general rule changes and such via Navicat. I make these changes live since the only time I have to do them is during peak play time hours. But sometimes my friends on Vent who are playing tell me I've crashed the server.

Should I be handling this a different way?

2) Is there a way to lock my server but still be able to login for live testing on my ServerOP account?

3) Any other tips or best practices I should be following? My server is legit but I like adding in new quests and increasing drop rates to reduce the grind.


Thanks in advance!

[lerxst2112]

You can bring your server up as locked and then only people with a status of 100 or higher can log in. The setting for default locked/unlocked is in the eqemu_config.xml file.

In general you can edit things while the server is running, but many changes will require a restart, repop, reloadpl, etc. before they take effect.