The guides definitely need updated. I found the answer from a post 7 years ago.
In the eqemu_config.xml section, the username and password for the server admin needs to be entered.
<loginserver>
<host>localhost</host>
<port>5998</port>
<account>
admin_user_name</account>
<password>
supersecretpassword</password>
</loginserver>
Now, I have a completely different problem, but as far as the logs are showing, my client logged in, created a character and then the game crashed as it loaded the starting zone.
[SOLVED] Login server username & password required
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