Excuse my bump...Haven't checked these forums in a few years.
The person 1 post above me made some good points, however I believe it is possible that if certain (although unrealistic) things fell into place then a PWV server could exist in these times.
What is the current state of the game and its servers?
The official Perfect World International servers have been "surviving" to say the least. There have been a number of changes that have been implemented on the official servers that have actually impressed me and although the economy has gone to complete shit, there seem to be features that seem fun to play. It's fair to assume that the majority of remaining PWI players are people who have been playing on the official servers for very many years and have put time,effort and money into their characters thus not wanting to abandon the game. However from what I have been told by people who still play PWI actively, is that the game seems to be in a somewhat even state. The amount of new players seem to be consistent with the amount of players that leave the game.
During 1.4 Vendettas lifespan, there were a handful of other active servers you could choose to play on. Storm/Deva/Epic just to name a few. Each server was different and had its own unique characteristics and features but each eventually died out. Vendettas main competition was Epic Perfect World which was only really good for 1-2 years. The grind, to this day, on Epic is awful and I personally know so many people who decided not to play Epic because of the grind. The fact that you were able to basically buy the best gear stats (which is nearly irrelevant now since everyone has close to perfect stats) was one of the worst decisions Agatio made for the game. Yes personally he probably made a lot of money off of kids who wanted to have the best stats, but it was terrible in the long run.
Epic is the last remaining truly "active" server and it is still beyond dead. The last time I was on Epic, the PK had to be organized through Skype otherwise nobody would log on to play. Agatio has even handed the reins over to someone else to run the server.
Why was Perfect World Vendetta successful?
Firstly, Vendetta was active because it was released at one of the best times it could have been released at. Many PWI players were getting bored of the game and at around this time, PWI kept introducing newer endgame goals for players that become far too unrealistic for the casual player to reach. Hundreds of PWI players heard about Vendetta and flocked to the server in order to try it out and they loved it. Could a newer 2017/8 Vendetta server be as active as a 2012 Vendetta server? Almost definitely not but I still believe it could be active enough. If 2017 PWV were to be successful, it would have to be attractive enough to PWI players.
Ontop of that, the server had virtually ZERO GRIND. You logged in and voted for gold so that you were able to purchase packs in order to acquire Jades of Steady Defense, the ingame currency at the beginning. Once you were geared/sharded, which didn't take more than 2-3 days at maximum, and had done your cultivation you were ready to PK. What a lot of other devs don't understand is that people don't play private servers to grind and farm. Private servers exist because players felt that the corporations behind these official games were making all the wrong decisions. I feel like BasH/Megan and whoever was on his team at that time understood that.
The team that BasH had assembled to help run the server was probably the best team on any server. Megan as the Head GM and her team of appointed GMs, Kaedes/Martin/MariBear and a few others I am forgetting. They were active, they kept the server clean and held plenty of events to keep the community interested.
The custom content/instances was truly amazing and some of the best I have ever seen. The Battle Royal maps were crazy fun and provided daily action.
1.4.5 was, in my opinion, the golden age of Perfect World. Nowadays you have broken newer classes that are 10x better than the older ones.
So what happens now?
In a perfect world (heh) I think under the right conditions, just how Blizzard has recently announced with WoW, a legacy server would interest a lot of past/present Perfect World players. But what steps would have to be taken and what would the server have to entail in order to garner interest and activity?
First BasH would have to be convinced to put in the time/money/effort into hosting a server, all over again.
People would have to decide which version of PW the server would run (1.4/1.5 etc).
BasH would have to try and persuade old GMs to help admin the server or find new ones.
The server would have to be advertised in any way it could be, meaning players from PWI and other Private servers would hear about it as well.
BasH could publicize the costs of server hosting and other costs that go towards ensuring the server is kept online. By doing so the community would have transparency and an understanding of how they are supporting the game and the developer.
The server would have ZERO grind, you log in and have to do the bare minimum (Culti/Level Skills etc) in order to be PK ready.
Content could be established for PvE players who wish to experience that game mode but the server will be mainly PvP focused.
There should be plenty of custom flyers/mounts/weapon skins that are available to DONATORS only. These should not be available ingame to players for ingame currency.
Like I said, these are very unrealistic and there's always a chance that the server is not profitable enough for BasH to continue spending his time on. HOWEVER, I do believe that if a server were to run with these as guidelines of some sort, you would have a server that is active enough for people who still have an interest in playing this game.
But yea, I just wanted to give my 2¢. I very much doubt anything like this will ever happen, but who knows.