Just opened my ports and created a new MP character only to see no one is in any of the channels. Is this game dead or am i just not seeing everyone?

I guess it is pretty much dead, i got really disappointed, i was expecting that a lot of old schoolers would be back in battle.net reviving this all time epic, but i guess it is over. Blizzard totally abandoned old games and old b.net server. Too bad.

I think a lot of people are playing on modded version and not really interested in vanilla D1. Like you said it sucks but I guess with some friends it could still be a cool experience. I was hoping to meet up some randoms tho T_T

My interest in Diablo is tied to seasons really.I play this and StarCraft and potentially WarCraft around Autumn / Winter / Spring, while I burn to a crisp during summer trying to avoid the sun. If it's dead at the moment, wait a while and perhaps you'll find people.

Otherwise try to engage people into playing on new characters.

I mostly just play with my rl friend.

Not really. Everyone I know that still plays Diablo uses the D1 Legit Discord:

https://discord.gg/NeAwSEP

They also have a website with basic guides and such (https://D1Legit.com).