There are both Private and Public servers. If you want to run your own server and play on it by yourself, you can do that. If you want to play on someone elses server with other people, you can do that as well.
There are about 50 servers to chose from right now. Though, only the top 10 or 15 actually have decent population sizes.
Welcome to eqemulator! If you played EQ before, be prepared to fall in love with the game again
BTW, you will NOT be able to play the emulator with the download for the EQLive trial. You will need to buy the EQ Titanium package and install it.
You can find full instructions here:
http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka...akka=PlayGuide