This is fairly easy to do and cheap if you want to do it now. The only issue is the Emu database is up to OoW. The files to spin up a server are easily available and you can set the rules as you see fit. Having a copy of the game on emu that is where live is at currently would require manually building all of that yourself or copy of DPGs files. If you want to do the former though, setting up a server and doing some tweaks to things like NPC values or drop rates are very easy to do and guides are available on the EQ Emulator forums.
Because they don't have the code...
Definitely this. If they decided that emus take enough money out of their pocket they'd have lawyers shutting them all down first thing in the morning. They'd all have to move hosting to eastern europe like WoW emus do. Now that the company isn't purely a Russian money laundering front you're starting to see them care more about the bottom line.
Making money off the emu is the quickest way for DPG to come down on the emus hard. DPG has been willing to look the other way all these years. With new ownership I don't think it'd be wise to ruffle any feathers or test the limits.
I agree. Charging people to use an emu is a really bad idea. I'm not even fond of the servers that have pay to win features. I get that they use the funds to keep the servers maintained and such but still. I think if you're gonna run a server, give an option to donate for the server upkeep. Don't require it and certainly don't add pay to win features. I'm gonna zip it now. I think I went a little off topic on that.
