And when Verant stops providing the servers for us, we officially are SOL.
In fact, this should really be investigated, since whenever the servers are
down (or in a really bad way like last night), we are unable to use our
paid-for service. Server emulators provide us a means to access our
paid-for game when Verant cannot or will not. Otherwise, we are paying $50
+ 10/month for coasters. This is rather like purchasing a car and being
told that you can only drive it on highways - never locally.
Other people are building emulators as we speak (if for nothing more than
the challenge of it), and I'm sure that there are even hack-programs being
written to allow people to alt-tab, etc. Verant will be hard-pressed to
stop all of it, and to be honest, considering some of their recent
attitudes toward customers, I have little sympathy. (cf. Ak'anon Alliance
scandal, secret 'nerfing', failure to reimburse for bugs THEY caused.) I
lost a shiny brass shield last night, due to a bug, the ONE "neato" thing I
*WORKED* for (I fought that trainer, and fought and fought until I got the
shield), only to lose it to a bug. FYI, never drop a LORE item inside of a
backpack onto the ground. It goes bye-bye. I didn't even bother
petitioning it - just logged the bug, then went back to dying in Everfrost
(which also annoys me - 5 hours spent looking for the elusive Karg Icebear,
only to find out he only spawns once a day, and then is immediately killed
by GZ hunters.)

Talies the annoyed Wanderer
<The Wandering Minstrels>
Bristlebane