Development has officially begun. At the moment I am collecting various data and familiarsing myself with the framework that I have chosen. In the end the poll favoured the old school Arios 498 vote, but some people suggested to use an old school 317 framework instead, and after giving it some thought, I decided that this would be my best option. So I chose lare96's Asteria 2.0 project.
Thanks to everyone who voted. It was a hard decision, but an important one, and you all helped clarify to me what would best suit the server. The pros of using Asteria 2.0 is that it has combat and all core features which will save me a lot of time (no point re-inventing the wheel). It comes clean with no skills so I can happily build my own systems with nothing else to get in my way.
Long road ahead now. Features will be updated as they are completed.
Opinions on the time scale?