KMRA ruined my life. :(

Comfort

You never really played there though hehe :)

My opinion: Bots kill the community.

As you can see , there's a forum called 'EQOffline' for a very good reason; the original maker of the bots envisioned a 'home-box' version of EqEmu, where you could start a home server and play alone or with a few friends - and accomplish something in the game.
You can always disable this feature in the makefiles if you don't want it, so who ever has a server and has it on the public login, was by their own choice.
Personally, I think there are many other things to think about, that not only kill the community, but defeats the developers purpose of making all these fixes -such as, increased experience (or just set your own level), drop rates, multi-boxing, summon items, spells, etc.
Even on at home play with the bots, I'll agree it's too easy, and I have many ideas on how to correct this. But then we'll have another group of people saying 'It's too hard!'. and we added a set of rules, this would only further burden the over loaded rules table.
And really, why should we add rules to make a game easier or harder?
We should just make the game as it should be.

First of all, I disagree with the statement that bots are kill the community. If they didn't exist, I wouldn't be playing on PEQ or any other server, I simply wouldn't be playing EQ. Furthermore, there are several instances where I have worked co-operatively with other people running full raids, and a few more I have planned in the future.

As for other fixes:
Experience multiplier toggle is perhaps more necessary on bot servers; but it's experience multiplier lowered, not experience multiplier increased.
Drop Rates: Still needed on Bot servers. We kill mobs and loot to equip a raid force the same as you would on any other server.
Multi-Boxing: You're right. This reduces the need to multi-box. But with hardware commitments required, I don't see this as a bad thing.
Summon Items: If you're referring to a freedom server command (#summon item IDNumber); then yes, summoning anything you want for your bots would be overpowering. That being said, it's a freedom server. Most other servers don't allow players to summon items for free.
Spells: Bots need updated spells and spell lists the same as players do.

Furthermore, even if all your complaints were justified and true (Bot players not needing to worry about exp, drop rates, or spells at all), bots are a small fraction of those playing on EQEmu. The server list has 5-6 servers with bots, and only 1 or 2 of them ever breaks 10 people. The vast majority are, and the vast majority will probably always be, PEQ/Raid Addicts/CEQ/Stormhaven/Etcetera. Which means the vast majority will still appreciate your coding in the way you intended it.

As for difficulty of encounters with bots; try running a naked raid of 71 against Bertox, Tallon Zek/Rallos Zek Script, Rydda Dar, Veeshan's Peak (all at PEQ difficulty). It can't be done. The only difference in challenge/difficulty, is with Bots, you can actually count on having a full raid. On any other server, you can't.

bots or no bots - its all about making game PLAYABLE.

even on pEQ the raid boses only are at 10% of their true power cause otherwise they would be unkillable.

So you can either - have 70 bot raid force, OR you can tune down encounter to be done with 20 living people - the end result is the same.

what Emu gives you are OPTIONS- the more options, the more rules- the better for everyone, since people can play the game the way the WANT, and not the way someone decided- "best for everyone"

I totally agree with you - I'm the first one who does not like the way things go on SOE live; never liked the slow exp, how incredibly hard a lot of the mobs were to kill. I always thought since I never got to see most good drops and mobs in the game, SOE cheated me out of my money; If I buy a game and pay money for it - I expect to see most of it with in a reasonable time of game play.

But regardless of what I like and do not like, I also don't think the game should be altered if we are going to call it an emulator.
'Everquest emulator' to me means we are attempting to follow the current original Everquest and be as close to it as possible.

well some of us don't just want easier game - we want diffirent game. rather than make eq easier - we want to make it diffirent - or MAKE IT RIGHT , if you will. And Emu provides perfect tools for (I say it AGAIN) playing the game every single individual WANTS TO PLAY. And I am among the people who will use every opportunity to alter the game in every way posible to make it the way I want it to be =P

It's to make up for the lack of community on individual servers. Heck, even populated servers... :p

Bots are available on Live now with the latest expansion. I doubt you can build up an entire raid but the community has decayed to the point where it's now an option to hire a mercenary bot.

my server has bots, but i removed the bot raiding "feature" because having 71 pets that you can hand decent weapons to is ridiculous and I watched some players basically sit back and send in 71 more or less naked bots to slaughter all sorts of raid content

Somebody mentioned the peq database has raids tuned down to around 20 people. Now that we have 72 it would be nice to be able to crank up the difficulty instead. What's the formula CD?

Yeah if we were to ever engage it on Raid Addicts which I do plan on doing. It will be only to the capability to help soloists / groupers , and not Raiders..