My server is setup much like you are asking about. The "crowd" on it ranges from 1 person for a couple hours to 5 or 6 of us for an evening a couple times per week. The database is a mix of both angelox & peq. The grabnpc utility works very well but you'll get a couple cluttered areas that you will need to manually clean up afterwards. Well worth the time for me as both are very nice databases with their own flavor. Aside from getting rid of things like banish and death touch, the server has no "economy" with it only being available to a few friends. There is no large guild to pitch in for things like key quests, "raid" mobs or helping farm "no drop" quest items. Respawn rates in some of the zones will keep a small team stuck on entrance mobs for hours at a time if not tuned. I'm still in the process of making things like the dragons have enough HP, AC and specials to make them very difficult but possible for 4-6 people. So far I have not found that magic "%", either making them too easy, or not possible.
Things I have changed:
1. Doors - no more locked doors/key quests.
2. Increased respawn time for normal mobs. We can progress through a dungeon. Still tweaking this a bit.
3. Removed "no drop/no trade". I'm playing for an hour after work and find a buddy's quest item, no problem, I'll hand it to him later.
4. Increased drop rates across the board. We still have to camp, just not for weeks at a time.
5. Removed "death touch". Still hunting for "banish" (low priority).
6. Still debating removing copper and silver from the loot tables of all mobs over level 40. No economy on the server... who needs the added weight.
As I found out the hard way, make frequent use of the mysql back-up utility before mass changing db values. I work on the db for 1-2 hours, make a backup, log in and test changes. If happy, work on the next set, if not, rethink while I restore. I doubt my server work well as a public server. If there were 50 people, the economy would quickly flood, but for a few friends playing a couple times a week, it seems to work.
Fet
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