So with my son, Achilles Caramon, being born a month ago I havent had the time to do much work on bots or anything but I have finally got my server working in a fashion that I am extremely happy with and thought I'd share the idea for anyone interested in creating something similar.
It is a progression server of sorts and I may at sometime create a perl script that would automate opening up the next expansion. I would also like to know if there is a way to compare two DBs and have a sql script written to change change one to be like the other. If there is then I will post the sql to make it easier for others to test play to see if it is to their liking.
Well on to the changes. What I was looking to create was a progression server that was fun and hardcore.
First thing I did was run a script that changed the min status for each zone to 100 that was expansion => 2 (I manually changed Sol Ro Tower, Warrens, and Stonebrunt back to 0 as I don't find their loot unbalancing and they fit in well with classic EQ zones).
I changed the on death penalty: no longer leave naked corpses and no corpse runs...this also means death exp loss is permanent. No rezzes. And I have the exp multiplier set at 0.1 so death friggin hurts.
I deleted all Fabled mobs. Their loot can be unbalancing and the level cap is set to 50 so, for instance, the Fabled Ishva Mal would effectively stop that dungeon.
I wanted no real down time as my play time isnt what it used to be, but I wanted challenge in combat. So I set mana regen to 400 which will still allow your healers/casters to run out of mana in combat (although slower, obviously) but they will be almost full mana or full mana by the time you reengage.
I feel like there was more but cant think of anything atm. I'll post more if I think of it.
SO far my chars are level 13 and all little people 2 gnomes, 3 halflings and myself a dwarf pally and it has been a blast. A couple bronze pieces the sporali sword from runnyeye. Good times.
BTW if anyone has a script to add Cazic Thule as he used to be I'd appreciate it. Or even his old stats and I'll write a script.
Basically, for my server to progress I need to kill all the MoBs in the raid zones (pretty standard) but also have all of my main group geared in the planes gear - PoH (iirc). Similarly, to open Velious I'll need all of my main group fully epic 1.0ed and geared in the Kunark armors, etc
The thing I love about the emu and bots is being happily married and with children I can do all of thing things in eq that I missed on my schedule.
Criimson
EDIT: Oh yea I also changed spawn times that are greater than 1 day to 1 day. When I get to raid level if I want/ have the time to raid something 2 days in a row I dont want to have to wait.