I just wanted to put in my 2 cents again.
I think that there would be a lot more support for EQemu if there was a way to actually get the files. It's a world of difference between going and getting a CD that was distributed in the stores and installing the game and trying to find some location that has the patch files from a relatively arbitrary date. I know a good 20+ people who would happily buy and install Titanium if they knew that they could play on any emulator server after that. I'm sure that there are a number of places out there to get the patch files, but it's not that easy to find them (I've looked, but I'm not going to burn hour upon hour searching) as opposed to going to the store to buy the discs. Also, even if I did find the files, then I'd have to burn it to a DVD so that I could get the files over to my friends. If we could simply use the Titanium CDs, it would be a world of difference, since I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of copies of the CDs out there right now and you can still buy the CDs today. Kind of like the Kunark CDs... I know a good dozen people who still have copies of their Kunark CDs. I'm about 99% sure that I don't know anyone with a compatible set of files for the EQ Emulator.
I honestly think that the relative lack of activity in the community (compared to some other emulator communities like UO or even WoW) is because of the difficulty in acquiring a working client. While a good number of people could care less if there were an easier way to get a working client, I think that there would be a lot more tools available, from quest creation tools and mob creation tools to even possibly zone creation tools for people who want to make their own zones. I wouldn't be suprised if there were some of these tools out there already, but I think that the quality of them would possibly go up with a more active community.
In short, having a 'release' version to use for the client could only help the community. There would be zero downfalls and while there might be some people who would still whine about not being able to get the files, their justification for saying they can't get a widely available distribution would be vanishingly small.
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