Hey y’all!
I’m a returning player to Wow. I’m about to start playing classic, but I’m deciding between rolling on this server and Zandalar Tribe.
Since I’m digging RP, I’m wondering if the RP community is active on this server? 
Also, how’s the balance between Alliance/Horde RP, is either of the factions more active? 
Thanks!!
Heya! And welcome.
The most distinguishing difference is that Hydraxian Waterlords is an RP-PVE realm, which means that you won’t be able to attack other players usually. Zandalar Tribe is an RP-PVP realm in the meantime, meaning that you can attack other players but other players also can and will certainly attack you.
While as far as I’ve heard on ZT Horde is bigger than Alliance, which is the norm for PvP realms, here as is common for PvE realms Alliance is bigger than Horde, which means more rpers and rp on alliance side also.
The community is active I’d say, events being held, new ones popping up and you can certainly find rp out in the open on a regular basis, you just have to look a bit closer at times and also initiate rp yourself. There’s a (rp) guild thread maintained by Thalei here in the forums, there’s a server Discord that has channels for rp discussions and also for guild advertisement, and rp events are being advertised on both platforms also. Lastly there are respective ingame rp channels also.
If you don’t have it yet I highly recommend either of the addons, Total RP 3 or MyRolePlay 3, to be able to customize your character and to be able to easier see other rpers around you.
While horde tend to be the larger faction on PvP realms. When it comes to Zandalar there are actually much more Alliance than Horde at lvl 60. The general faction balance is okayish however a lot of Horde have migrated due to the much higher amount of Alliance 60 player existing andhave resulted in a huge advantage in terms of raw numbers, currently resulting in Horde being farmed with the relase of p2 right now. Its quite brutal. A brief visit to the ZT forums will give you an idea pretty fast. The addons measuring this currently suggests its 3-4x as much active lvl 60s on Alliance side than on Horde. The amount of active accounts in each faction as a whole is more balanced, lvl 60s aside tho.
Without knowing how it really is on HW, I can say ZT is a huge disappointment. If you like easy prey, join alliance on ZT. Your faction will only grow, so bright future awaits.
I have more or less the same question than the op, but I don’t care about pvp, I just want to know what’s best for a brand new player since it’s getting a little late to start Classic.
HW seems to have a better ambiance overall, but is there enough low level players to make the leveling experience enjoyable ? I don’t want to start a new toon and be alone on my trip, so I wanted to know, before starting anything.
From my own experience of joining this server (around 2 weeks ago now) ive found that its not a bad server, very small in population from what ive seen Hordeside and pretty much no RP happening at all (besides some times on friday at razor hill).
To answer Shayja, from what ive seen there are lots of people still leveling, its not hard to get a group really, no harder then it usually is anyway!