I haven't started, but am thinking of a foray into EQ I land.

I was leaning towards six boxing, with:
- Bard: Puller, Dot Buffs, Speed, HP/Mana Song, Haste & OverHaste
- Mage: Call of the Hero, Tank Pet, Summoned Pet Items
- 3x Necro: Pet, Dot DPS, Fear
- Druid: Heals, Buffs, Ports

I had a necro, and really liked the class.
I've played a mage, but only fairly low.
My main was a Druid, when I played the game a lot and I have three accounts, which will be considered Silver.

Back in the day, I four boxed, on four machines: Druid, Cleric, Rogue, and Bard.
Obviously not all that optimally, giving the need to twist bard songs but bouncing between systems.
My roommates had a Shaman and a Warrior, so we were a full group.

It looks like quite a few box this game, from looking at the SoE forums.
Three box, without software, seems quite common...
That gets you three mercs including a Tank and a Healer.
I'd imagine software boxing would make it that much easier.
A healer merc would be nice support, to make healing easier.
A tank merc is stronger than a PC tank, until the PC has around 900-1000 AAs.
If you go with a Pet Tank, any NPC/PC in melee takes threat, so you cannot have melee classes with a Pet tank on your team.

They had/have the equivalent of instanced raids, with multiple groups.
If you want to go that route, you might want a real tank, etc.

For single group content, I'm told by EQ I boxers, pretty much anything is going to work, all the way up.

They also recently removed the majority of the non-Gold restrictions; all races and classes are open.
For $50 of so, can basically buy everything you'd want to have the game, less the two most recent expansions and an AA cap of 1000... which should last for several months of play.
You'll want Gold, somewhere around 60th or 70th, purely to allow for additional AAs to keep most classes average-strong for their level; 1K AAs won't cut it at 80th or 90th.

And you can buy Krono (in cash, out of game) or with in-game platinum (from someone who bought it out of game) and 'use it' in game for a month of Gold play.
So that gets us:
a) buy Krono, and sell it in game, for a legal method to buy platinum... when starting out; and
b) once established in game, and generating your own platinum, a method to have Gold subs without spending real cash.