The only way you'll get most of the vets back is with a server, Deimos if you will.
Deimos would need to be as followed:
8x8 World Size
No potions
No jewels(except WEAPON drops)
+25 per skill max cap.
Lower economy, example: roaches drop one gold(on a 1-25 chance), dark sithareens or something around that skill level drop 3-5 gold(on a 1-50 chance), sithareen knights, infernal machines, drakes, and other skill level examples drop 8-10 gold(on a 1-75 chance) Souls drop 10 gold only(on a 1-50 chance)
No quests
No towns except one plot with Bob the Collector, which reminds me-roach antennaes=2 gold. And a lifestone, outside the plot, forced PK, including all guilds.
Remove jewel-making skill
Lower black magic, example, Lightning IV does 60-80 dmg, (literally, wood wand does 60, copper/iron does 65, gold does 70, titanium does 75 and hessite/mag/damon/viking does 80.) Go down for each level, III does 40-60, II does 20-40, I does 1-20.
Lower red magic, level one attribute and hero boost does +10 to any thing, including attributes(strength, dexterity, quickness, intelligence, and wisdom) Level two does +20 and level three does +30. Increase the attribute red magic level 3s to 250(as hero 3 is now) and same for level 2, level 2 red magic to 150(as hero 2 is now). this lessens the ability for noobs to level 3 boost them selves at level 1.
Raise ability of mining, I'd say something like this:
Iron and Granite Ore--75 mining
Silver and Copper Ore--100...125? mining
Magnetite Ore--150 mining
Gold Ore--175 mining
Titanium and Zircon Ores--225 mining
Hessite Ore--250 mining
Magma Ore--350 mining
If this was my server, these would be non-negotiable, as they're all quite fair in mine and many others opinions.
ALLOW DAMON TO BE PURCHASED, via gold. I'd say one damonite ore for 200 gold would be fair. As the fact roaches drop 1 gold every 25 kills, and etc. this could be a nice feature to keep the economy stable, although perhaps the item economy unstable...Able to negotiate
Hire a programmer or program self, idea of taxes. We're playing in the Medieval time period, and yet no taxes are ever mentioned. I say 1 gold per v-month for level 1-5, 3 gold for lvl 6-15, 5 gold for level 16-25 and 7 gold for level 26-40 and finally 10 gold for level 40s and above.
Perhaps this would be hard to maintain and/or figure out a way to solve an issue if somebody doesn't have the gold on them, and I'm unsure if it's possible to program it as I stated.
Stealing enabled.
Guilds forced war
Mules and traders cost 10 gold each, land costs 5 gold, guild creation costs 50 gold, guild membership costs 10 gold, and whatever else I missed always above 5 gold.
Conclusion: I'd like feedback/suggestions on my ideas, while it may never happen, I'd just like to see what the players would want.
I don't want people to say this would be too hard to program or code, because aside from the tax suggestion, none of this would be hard to change at all. I'd say Mick could easily get a server up such as this within 5 days, maybe 10 if the tax thing was seriously considered.