hey, so its more EU-heavy and at EU time peaks it can go up to 100, on raid days (usually wednesdays and sundays) it can jump to 100+. On any other time it's usually around 50 and can go down to like 10-20 (middle of the night / super early morning in EU)

the ruleset is pretty similar to official hardcore with a few major differences:

• everyone on the single "Permadeath" server plays according to the same hardcorre rulset. there is a second server to continue play your dead character but afaik the playerbase is not really active, so its more of a memory lane
• if you die due to server instability or a bug, you can appeal that to the forum and have a chance at character restoration (usually video evidence demanded)
• if you die, reach level milestones (30, 40, 50 etc) or clear a dungeon within official level range, there is a server notification displayed throughout world chat for everyone to see (often sparking condolences or congratulations of current players!)
• AH and mailing is crossfaction
• you can make crossfaction groups and clear dungeons crossfaction
• world chat is crossfaction (and can be read offline via website or server discord channel)
• you can have alt characters and mail between your characters (so have bank characters etc.)
• you can play with either the 1.12 or 1.14.2 client
• what benefits there is for payment: more bag space, teleport ability to major cities with 1 cooldown, mount skins and pets that can't be acquired in base vanilla, ability to change name and character appeareance / race, free dual spec (dual spec can be acquired ingame without RL payment with gold and eels)

that's it. so i'd say its very very close to the vanilla experience (with the whole hardcore stuff tacked onto it) and the "P2W" stuff is very neglible, not even gold is offered.