How to fix low server pop

[Castigate]

Obviously unroot the dragons.
You'd have to be blind not to realize that the spectacle of pulling ToV dragons would attract people with the quality and ease of streaming now. It was a unique experience in gaming in general.

They could probably further that growth if raiding was treated more like a sport where penalties and most violations were handled exclusively in real time. Minor penalties like a guild quickly being ejected from the zone and dumped X zones away but still allowed to play rather than the raid petition legal system with weeks of punishments as a standard that has been in place would encourage "fun" and evolving gamesmanship. I don't know how practical that is though from a server staff standpoint.

"Non-classic" obvious QoL stuff may help as well. 4 action bars, buff timers, and as much as I don't like them, even targeting rings all make the game more approachable without actually changing the "core EQ experience". These are min/max population gain solutions though and probably won't happen based on the p99 ethos.

Merging all of the servers would provide a temporary boost, but it wouldn't address the underlying decay that anything this old and stagnant will have.