check out this wiki page at the top here, in particular player commands
www.lomcn.org
I suppose the server has quite a high number of pple so what you see standing around is a small part of them, I suppose most are afk or just chatting.
many never log out when they work or sleep but stay parked in SZ
probably gold inflation, if you get higher level, you will make lots of gold simply from hunting
I recall when starting at about lev15 or almost 20, I had no luck in drops to have more than copper rings, iron braces etc. and buying from the shops would ruin me LOL, never mind buying from TM, but then it got much better once I went to bug cave
also noticed ppl in chat were talking about gold inflation even then, maybe two weeks after the server opened
I don't play now or maybe anymore but the problem might be that not that many pple are starting out (or ~ at your level and higher but not by much) and they don't put items you need in TM for sale, and those that were there are now expired and pple don't relist them for sale
can't expect most higher lev pple to care about those starting out to either relist or even less, bring back from hunts to sell
but that's just speculation, I haven't been on in weeks, just saying what happens on all servers at some point and likely it won't be different here
I suspect those running servers are concerned that longer expiry time on TM would cause lag or something but probably just have some misguided view on the matter