Eekk, I forgot all about Phantom Raiders. Sorry for the insult. hahha

I've tried dropping the A/V | Firewall previously. I had created ports in Windows Firewall for 5998. (Which I've been able to see the login screen)
I even made sure to give Everquest.exe and eqgame.exe their own rules.

The affinity command line work around doesn't help either. I even tried the Use 1 CPU from EQEMUlauncher to see if that would help. I've reinstalled 4 times now. Each time to a different folder than before.

The issue is resolved.

Evidently my motherboard was overclocking my CPU by 300Mhz and EQ didnt like it. Once the OC was straightened out Im on and running fine. Woot!