New Player - Going Crom Server, whats the pop like?

Just curious, will it be a ghost land leveling as an entirely new player?

As a relatively new player myself (started playing over a year ago) I was pleasantly surprised with how active Crom is. I am EST, and Tortage was always active with other players. That activity drops off a bit when you move on to Conall’s Valley, Wildlands, Gateway, or Khopshef. But I was never alone in a zone. I also tend to play at different times throughout the week, not always at primetime, and so I was able to see that the activity level does change, but the server was never dead regardless of the time.

That doesn’t mean that you’ll always be able to get a group for a dungeon. You won’t. But the server is active and things do happen - mostly at level 80. But peeps do spam chat looking for groups for lower level dungeons, purity runs, etc.

For a game as old as this one, I am surprised at how active the pop is.

Ty sir - much appreciated. Going to come back to experience the world of Hyboria - and will def help to have people around to ask questions about general navigation etc…

Thinking of going bear shaman for my first toon, but also interested in ToS and Necro. Thoughts?

Bear Shaman and ToS are fun, I would advise you to go for the shaman first though because you will learn more about positioning, shields and melee combat in general (as well as being a support). ToS is a pure spell class though it has a few “oddities” that make the playstyle different from normal casters.
That said, skip Necro for now, they are very bare-bones when it comes to playstyle (no pun intended). In my opinion it’s the worst class in terms of fun playstyles. They are just too basic overall (send pets, cast ranged spells).