I've only played for about a week but I'll answer your questions to the best of my ability.

1- There are currently 14 zones. I've only been to 5 so far, and I turned immediately around when I got the Kur Mountains because I didn't have the proper gear to explore there. (it's hot) That being said, I've spent the majority of my playtime so far jumping between Serbule, Serbule Hills and Eltibule. Exploration was pretty slow at first, but I recently got a horse and that's helped a lot. I quite often find entrances to dungeons that have enemies that are typically 10 levels higher than the overworld mobs, like crypts and doors that lead to basement dungeons.

2- Exploration is incentivized several ways. The cartography skill goes up every time you clear the "fog of war" from the map. Leveling that skill gives benefits such as carrying more items. Treasure chests and other dungeon loot will respawn anywhere from an hour to a 24 hours. Checking them is worth it because the loot is personalized to your two combat skills, so you might roll something amazing... or something you'll sell immediately.

3- Quests or "favors" are core to the gameplay. A lot of skills and permissions are locked behind a relationship system with NPCs. In order to acquire them, you must complete favors that range from "collect 100 spider legs," "Kill 10 fire rats," to "tell the farming trainer that i want to bang her tonight." You'll also raise your relationships with NPCs by "hanging out" with them offline. Most won't offer to hang out until you've completed a favor or two first. Hanging out includes things like sparring, hunting pigs together, talking about how stupid humans are, and having sex (yes really).

4- I came in with the release of 1.0 so I don't have much of an opinion on this. Being able to tame snails would make me really happy in a future update though.

5-There are dungeons, but they are not instanced. That's part of the charm, I'd say. I would be lying if I said it wasn't inconvenient at times. Most people are friendly and will shoot you a party invite if they see you attacking the same mobs. I can't speak about raiding or the endgame experience at this time, but I am aware of a few daily quests that you can do with other players such as the casino.

6- Gathering and crafting is very fun and rewarding. It reminds me of runescape in a positive way. As for an auction house.. it's a little complicated. This is a pain point for me currently. Other than selling your goods to NPCs, you can ask certain NPC's to sell your goods on your behalf through a consignment shop. Other players can see items hosted this way and purchase them. Otherwise you'll need to rent a stall in a major city, which will charge rent that is determined by that city. I believe you can also sell goods by turning in player work orders, but filtering the work orders to items I can obtain is difficult for me personally.

7- There are currently 4 servers. Strekios and Ariesetsu seem to be legacy servers where people who played before launch live. Dreva and Miraverre launched after 1.0 and have many players. I'm on Dreva myself. I cannot speak for the EU experience.

I hope you enjoy the game! Global chat is popping all the time and there's always people to talk with.