IMO its not possible to create server who acctualy wll be like the old ones, and the reason is develope of play style in l2 doesnt mention p2w, corruption and other sh1ts waht present servers have. I remember when i was playing on dex x4 many years ago and it was one big diference in front "today" There was no strictly CP, of course there was a parties with ppl who acctualy play very often with someone BUT they do it bcs they like to play with them. It was amazing those days when all the fck time some randoms make pt for IT or someone find rb up, 4s ..... ale the fck time there was shout like that.
From some time idea of ConstatParty get hero rank :P ofc its absolutely true that ppl playing all the time with same squad, do many things automatic... less open think more automatic think = better pvp BUT it kill clan society, they spend time on ts with same people and after some time are just bored, jokes are not so funny when you repet it a hundred times then changing a server just to have competition "who will first kill aq-baium etc. , other days all ppl in clan wanna make this clan stronger, everyone was feeling resposible for it. Now clan its likke 6-7 cp - and it is nothing more like mini clans who only care about their CP (and of course CL sharing those epics act unfair bla bla bla) ... going on epics not to win and make clan glory just bcs this epic is might be for them.
If you wanna make server like you write, maybe rates must be lower doesnt have idea maybe x2 -(there was alot server x7, in few clans we start dynamic in the beginig, make advantage, kill few time all the epics with just funny pvp with some other clans - and after that they left server) ofc noone wanna one side server but especialy on low rate server need time for creating " a sides" - problem is deep in players mentality, after 6-10 easy win pvp on epics ppl write on clan/ally chat "dead server" "guys some other server will be up ..." "we should say to gm GTFO bcs he is just making money and go somewhere" - THIS IS REATRDED STANDARD
There is one kind of server im almost acctualy sure it will be sucess and its unbelievable that no one making sucha thing:
-Making for example, not stricted classic BUT starting form c4 with changing a chronicle in compare with server sophistication.
-low rates
- MOST IMPORTANT THING: not big BUT monhly payment for every player (one IP maybe to avoid paying 2 times for creating a buffer) free will donation with rewarded hats or some other non important thing, also payment need to be fair for admins they also need to be happy to keep the project up, maybe they will doesnt earn some amount like for 'ANOTHER GRAND OPENING" but they can have nice passive income for years. Calculate cost of server/page/client etc. make +20-30% profit margin = SUCCESS you are now buisnesman, you have stable firm who give you and your staff profit making your customers happy too.
There is a lot l2 old players, me and many my friends with i start l2 journey, we all had fall in love in l2, but when we wanna come back play again we doesnt have where coz world of l2 players/servers are totaly diferent. Also there is a lot of l2 ppl who will pay monthly 5-6 euros or even more just to have great entertaiment like they was know.
Maybe its bcs years on official and a lot of flame on monthly payments - dunno, the truth is many of us spend that kind of money daily just to make our day more attractive... 5-10 euro per month for my old love l2, OF FCK COURSE :)
Anyway gl with project and mucho sry for this quite long monolog, think about it :)