Hello,
let me answer those questions from a bit of a more pessimistic perspective, coming from someone who played on many other private servers in the past which I will not name for obvious reasons. But it was 10 or more servers over the years, and of course I played for many years on retail too.
What is the playerbase like?
As far as numbers go, I would say realistically you get around 200 people on either side who are actively playing during the peak hours of the server. In the mornings and late night, the server is pretty empty. You have to take into consideration though that many of these people do not speak English, as this server is suffering from the same problem as European retail - too much focus on too many different language groups. You will find coordination with other people very difficult. There is also the added problem of the Russian following and focus of this server, just like the one that was here before this one, and other Russian servers with high population. Yes, this is an European server, or atleast targeted at Europe, but you will find that the Russian community is much more organized than the English (resp. international) one. For example, on the Elyos side, we have 2 bastion static alliances of Russians, and 1 that is German/International, but no English ones. I am not sure how things look on the Asmo side, as I decided surprisingly to roll Elyos this time around.
I have nothing against Russians, a lot of them are very kind and good players, but the language barrier is something you just cannot overlook. But the only way we can build an English community is with more new players coming to the server!
What are the rates?
Pretty much retail-like. But both enchanting and socketing are made harder by the general lack of population which leads to a lack of resources on the broker. On retail, burning through a stack of 200 manastones was not much of an issue, as they were abundant and cheap due to many people (and bots) farming. Here, manastones are precious and rare, and so are enchant stones. You can definitely do it, just be prepared to farm a lot of stuff yourself.
Are instances being run?
Again, that depends on the time, the instance, and how many languages you can speak. The basic stuff like Sauro, barracks...is being run every day by many people. Advanced instances like Infinity Shard and Eternal Bastion are mainly done inside legions, and LFG alliances can often fail. But this will also eventually get better in my opinion, as more and more people come to join us on the server.
If you decide to join the Elyos and need any help, feel free to contact me, I will try to help if I can.
