L2 is a political game. There needs to be 2-4 major clans fighting each other. Once u have that, even if server populations is 18 (9v9), it could be a fun server. No one plays L2 just to kill raids, farm gear, and PvE. Things like player counter on the website doesn't matter, anyone logging on the server and visiting gludio/giran will figure out how populated the server is quickly.
I think what people needs to see is strong clans looking to do things (farm parties, get hero, do epics raids, prepare for castle siege) that are recruiting more people. My first L2 server in C1 was no larger t