For spawning NPCs, GeorgeS has a very nice tutorial on his website here:
http://wizardportal.dyndns.org/eqemu...tut/index.html
Also, at the top of that page, there is a link to another good tutorial for making NPC pathing.
And, if you haven't tried them yet, try installing and setting up GeorgeS editing tools. His tools are pretty amazing and make database editing much easier and quicker.
Keep in mind that everyone around here gives information when possible. There is so much info out there that it would be near impossible to have it all up to date. But even though a large amount of it might have some outdated information, it is still WAY better than not having any info at all. Almost all of it is still extremely useful, and mostly only just needs a small change here and there.