Seriously, you have a template for this in the form of Year of the Dragon, at minimum, the benefits should be that good, I'm only playing right now, because of the Year of the Dragon bonuses, I've already dropped like $80 while waiting for Dragon Disciple next February.
Maybe change the name, you seem tied to the nomenclature of "VIP" instead of looking at purely the benefits people want that don't line up with some exclusive elitist type of benefit structure. IIRC VIP used to get server priority, which is the most basic "VIP" real world analogue of skipping lines and getting acess to exclusive areas (expansions/ GW2 has literal areas you have to pay to access).
You don't want to give away expansions, I can understand that, so give a year round discount on them for VIP. People wait for expansion discounts already, so signing up for VIP to get access to the discount outside of those times makes sense, have the discount scale based on the length of the sub, so a year sub gives the best discount, it would be nice to be discounted as much as the special deals, but even 50-60% would be good for a 12 month sub, so 5% discount per month or something.
Universal/Racial AP point (stackable) tomes every few months you subscribe.
FFXI has a thing where you can get their version of hirelings based on subscription points or something (I vaguely recall how it works), so it would be cool to get the rogue Jeets, or the Cleric from the tutorial as a hireling based on subscription time. It would really help new players to get a companion to help them solo without spending gold/plat for going VIP, and if it has multiple level versions, it's useful for higher level players too.
Monthly Astral Shard gift
Free Daily Gold Rolls , potentially with advantage, roll twice, pick result you want, could stack every 12/24 months
Sentient XP (substantial, multiple runs worth), and a % bonus to Sentient XP, the gems can stockpile for new players, and old players can benefit from both benefits
Temporary cosmetics that release at the end of the year and you can keep, VIPs get a discount on the purchase while non-VIP pay full price, discount based on how many months that year you subscribe
Free daily resurrections (helpful for new and older players, new players are likely not going to pay money to res, not sure how many vets buy spirit cakes)
Doggo companion, with ability to pet
Discounted/Free Reincarnations, it's free to grind for the hearts already, so you're not innately losing money, and if it's cheap enough, people will just buy it rather than farm it.
Unlock House P Buffs without favor (helps new and old players doing reincarnations/first lives)
XP boost
Slow Mount (40-50% move speed bonus), (helps new players and entices them to farm/buy a better one, not much benefit for vets)
Fairy hireling/companion/pet that lets you cast Treasure Finding once per rest, (spams Hey, Listen! when it does so)
Near-instant healing/recovery/ability refresh at taverns, cut down the wait time to get ability uses back at the tavern
There's tons of ideas, and I'm honestly concerned that you guys could come up with is this bad, any random player could throw some at the walls and hit closer to the mark, whoever is in charge of the financial needs to take their finger off the scale a bit and stop being stingy.
