Server has great content and lots of stuff to do, it's just a shame that it's pay to win like world of warcraft, you literally cant play the server unless you pay the fee. Boats are locked, promotion is locked, and a bunch of other stuff like market etc.
I get the idea though "It's not free to host a server!" that is correct, but you have a faithful fanbase of like 200 players. It quickly dies down though after like a week of fresh launch there's like 200 people playing.
If there wasn't a demanding pay-wall to play the servers you would get way more new fans and server count would probably be around 400 players for atleast a month or more. But they are not given a chance to learn to enjoy the server because of the paygap.
In the end if prem only locked to maybe promotions you would get way more players in the end and more money. Goes hand in hand.