I haven’t really played this much since the f2p model. What’s the community like these days? I don’t want to go through all the quests and whatnot if there’s nobody playing.
Thanks!
I’m sure people will bring in all kinds on anecdoctal evidence on whether the game is alive or not.
My opinion: it’s a comatose patient that, occasionally, lifts a finger or twitches an eye. If you expect the game update / player activity levels of an A-list game prepare for disappointment. I play Guild Wars, a game whose last update was eight years ago, and I come across more players than I do in SWL.
I’m curious where do you look for people? With 13-person cap per instance. Hourly event bosses seemed lively for me but then I have only ESO to compare on my side which has more people around but then it’s bigger game.
Also ‘alive’ for game is such a subjective term, really. Just ask details you are interested in. Community is there, chats are active, people are there too, you can see ones looking for group (and finding it) quite regularly. 
Agartha is the high population cap area. If you’re there and check the Looking For Group or General chats you shouldn’t have any trouble finding people. SWL Official Discord is a good place to meet up with people before/during gameplay. There’s a lot of options depending on how you like to approach things!
Find out some of the active cabals in game. SWL discord is also a good place to look for that. Compare timezones with cabal activities as well as average LVL of cabal member some are endgame only while others have a mixture. This is probably the best solution. If you plan to be a lone wolf and hang around in agartha looking for people to do content with that works to but its not always that easy depending on your play times. Also most knowledgeable and skilled players are in cabals and run with there cabal so unless you enjoy the chaos that is pug groups then finding a cabal is the first big step.