I honestly do not understand why TAKP can't get more than 10% of P99's playerbase. Let me think this through. There are four big differences that I can see:
- TAKP is Planes of Power Era vs Project 1999 in Velious. In the immortal words of Fieldfare: "please god no more Velious". Edge: TAKP
- TAKP has staff enforced rotations vs Project 1999's 'competition'. There are STILL threads in P99 RNF about how player X can't get their epic due to other people out-nerding them. No need to say more here, although monthly resets have supposedly helped massively. Clear Winner: TAKP
- TAKP's garbage client vs Project 1999's gimped titanium. Aside from a small group of status signalers, no one likes shit interfaces. TAKP's client isn't terrible, but the lack of 3rd person scroll, the 10 macro limit, and the inability to 'target nearest' practically anything don't help. Winner: Project 1999, until Nilbog gets the trilogy client working
- TAKP allows boxing. I really think this is the biggest difference. P2002 for example does not afaik have many players, despite the Titanium interface. Boxing wrecks the social aspects of the game and massively increases the amount of work necessary.
So IMHO if you want 500+ primetime users, all you have to do is start a new server that supports the Titanium client (can't be that hard if P2002 can do it) and does not allow boxing. Add legacy items like the guise and fungi staff for a few months to give people an incentive to join. And that would be that. In fact I would venture to guess that half of the current TAKPers would switch as well.