New player, some questions

[Autumnbow]

Gonna be a few hours before I can finally install the game, but I'm way excited about playing right now so I'm gonna obsess a little :P

I want to make a cleric! Is this a good choice? It's fun to heal. There isn't a disproportionate number of clerics here, is there? I'm having a bit of a hard time picking a race, too. Dwarves are ugly, so they're out. Thinking high elf or dark elf. Will going dark elf seriously limit me in any ways, like with quests?

How hard is it to find groups, when leveling? Is there much of a low-end population to exp with, or will I mainly be on my own? And how friendly are the people here, in general?

It's such a shame that the red server has a blah population. EQ without PvP isn't nearly as much fun, but you can't play the game without others :/