New Solo Progression Server

[bodi]

Hey guys,
I got my server running the other day and I wanted to pick your brilliant brains about a few things before I waded into it and did everything the hard way.

The server I am starting is classic legit, but mobs mindmg and mxdmg scaled to be difficult but soloable.
*Increased out of combat regen/mana
*Fast mob respawn
*Expansions are solo progression - basically, there is a mini quest in each major zone, so lets say the quest starts out and gives you an empty book which says "book of blackburrow." You get quest components from each of the named mobs in blackburrow, combine them in the book and you get "token of blackburrow" This is the same for the main old world bosses, then you combine all of your tokens, turn them in and get "Key to Kunark" as a flag that opens all the kunark zones... rinse repeat... you advance through the expansions at your own pace. When you start a new expansion, you are lowered to the level that expansion was made for.. etc.

Any help with quest coding ideas would be great. I have added soulbinder, buffer, and things to all major original starting cities.


So, basically, I can flag all of the zones of an expansion and have it unlocked via "x" item. Coding the flag is easy, but how do I create the "item" which unlocks it. I need a script to issue the quest, need to create the "book" for quest combines, and place the quest items on the named mobs. I don't know how to do any of that but it doesn't look that difficult so far.

I would also like the beginning of the quest to give you a charm that gates you to your starting city of choice. Any help with the scripts for these would be helpful!

I have it running on my home server for now, but when it grows, what is the most cost effective way to maintain a server, buy a dedicated server to run out of my home, or purchase a server from godaddy or whatnot, or host in the cloud via amazon or something?

I want the server to be one where the content takes a long time to get through, but one that you can do on your own if you need, so that you don't have to wait for LFG before adventuring. Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.

-Bodi Satva