One possible solution:
You move all 3 servers to the same housing location, if its not already so. The costs of keeping up servers are probably more related to computing power and bandwidth usage, should not be afflicted much by the number of channels/servers, rather then by the total number of players.
You open up a fourth, fresh server and close the old three servers to new characters. New players can only start playing in the new pristine world with the new rules (no cats from ops, new prices by npcs etc).
So you have a fresh new thriving world with all new people playing together and feeling a big community with a better working economy, and you still have the old veterans that didn't want to "let it go", swimming in their pools of mats and cats like scrooge mcduck, till they decide to move to the newbies and have some fun.
You move all 3 servers to the same housing location, if its not already so. The costs of keeping up servers are probably more related to computing power and bandwidth usage, should not be afflicted much by the number of channels/servers, rather then by the total number of players.
You open up a fourth, fresh server and close the old three servers to new characters. New players can only start playing in the new pristine world with the new rules (no cats from ops, new prices by npcs etc).
So you have a fresh new thriving world with all new people playing together and feeling a big community with a better working economy, and you still have the old veterans that didn't want to "let it go", swimming in their pools of mats and cats like scrooge mcduck, till they decide to move to the newbies and have some fun.