Never played wow, I’m interested in wow classic anniversary…

So wow classic anniversary is just regular wow just at the beginning of the expansions? Will it try to keep what made the game great back then intact and keep what works?

I know wow is at its core a theme park, but I love being forced to travel, and being cautious of other players in the open world, is open world PvP a thing or PvP servers?

I know I missed the boat for the native wow classic anniversary and the first expansion is about to be released, but is now a good time to jump aboard? are the servers active enough to find a good group of folks? I want to find a community I can help craft stuff for and do events and activities.

Thanks, sorry if I’m all over the place I’m just trying to understand the difference in all the wow server types.