Hi! I just found the site 2 days ago and read up on the forums and such to set up my own eqemulator server. I was able to set it up without much difficulty thanks to Spike's tutorial -
http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18935 which is the least confusing one I could find

Although this part threw me off and gave me authentication errors for a while:
6) Copy and paste this Code:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO Username@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'Password' WITH GRANT OPTION;
REPLACE...
Username = your mysql username
Password = your mysql username
(password should be your mysql password

)
I guess the bulk of my questions have to deal with the fact that I'm not able to play since I just recently patched everquest to what looks to be a 12/17 patch (I didn't even have the patch before 12/15 since I haven't played eq since 2000).
But my world window, minilogin window and my boot5zones windows all seem to be functioning with no errors. I can't log in of course and it just sits there at the login screen of everquest after I type in a user/password, but I suppose that will be fixed once a new version of eqemulator comes out.
I plan on using this eqemulator only in a lan setting with 2 computers - one with a legit server, and both playing clients.
Well, here's my questions:
1. I downloaded a kunark database and sourced it - does this mean only eq and the kunark expansion works? And what exactly to these databases do/add? - monsters/quests/npcs?
2. What does the boot5zones.bat do? Some of the tutorials only have 2 lines of 'start zone' code while others have 5. They also seem to have different numbers between the IP addresses.
3. Are quests there without using perl? Do I have the quests that are typically on everquest live? Is the perl stuff only used for making new quests?
4. What exactly does minilogin do (like does anyone have a basic overview of it)? As far as I can figure from it, whatever it does, it seems like it would cause me a bit of a hassle since it authenticates people by IP address rather than their username/passwords. So If I wanted to play another account on the same computer, I'd have to update the username/IP address in the database. Can I use my 2-computer lan setup without using minilogin? How do I set up authentication and add accounts in eqemulator without using minilogin?
And thanks to all of the developers for their hard work. I realize a lot of people out there get mad at you since for some reason they expect you to create a product for them and fix all of their problems for free. I've seen a lot of great freeware projects go under because of constant complaints by those newbs and I hope it doesn't happen to eqemulator any time soon. Just ignore them or ban them and move on
I also realize that developers don't have the time to write new FAQs, manuals, or tutorials for each new version of their software that is released, so I'll be glad to help out in that regard as soon as I get my server up and functioning. I plan on using eqemulator for years to come and I used to write technical tutorials for the customer service/sales people (who know nearly nothing about computers) in the web hosting company I worked for. So I'll do my best to help out and alleviate as much pressure as I can that's caused from the newbs begging for assistance - although spike's tutorial is pretty good already
Well, I'm back to updating my EQ expansions - it takes about 24 hours to update from the base EQ install on my 256k conection!
Thanks again!