1.) Artemis is the oldest, and probably the most populated server. Govinda is likely the next most populated, with Reni and Osha swapping back and forth for third place. Palenque (English/Spanish bi-lingual PvE), then Grimdal and Indigo (PvP) round out the lot.
2.) You can obtain Item Shop products without spending real-life money. The accepted way is to use Phirius Tokens--gained through doing Daily Quests--in the Token Shop area of the Item Shop. The downside to this is that the kinds of IS products are rather limited and the Token cost is, shall we say, a tad bit high.
The other way, which is in no way supported by Frogster/Gameforge, is to negotiate with another player to "purchase" (trade) in-game gold in exchange for his/her "gifting" Item Shop products. This can be dangerous for both parties, as one party can refuse to pay the gold (in thousands of gold per diamond) or refuse to gift the selected Item Shop products. Frogster/Gameforge does not support such gold-for-diamond transactions and will not reimburse someone who is "scammed" or "cheated" out of either their gold or diamonds.
3.) There's no real "main quest", unless you're referring to the first of the Epic quest lines. That one begins with the NPC Lola in Logar, Howling Mountains. There are at least three other Epic lines that start in various areas in the game.
Otherwise, many non-epic quests link or have continuations, so they may seem to be "main" quests.
