So I'm really new to the EQ2 emulator scene. I was wondering how far along this has been developed. I saw it said open Alpha but I'm not quite sure what that means. Are there actual open and functional servers that people who just want to play can get on to play? I was an old EQ player back in the day and have played a little on the EQ emulator but was wanting to check out this whole EQ2 emulator thing as well. Thanks for the feedback.

If you have the game you'll be able to log into most of the servers that are listed on the servers list page. This project is really coming along pretty good but what is meant by Alpha is that it's still in a stage where there is limited functionality and features missing. Although I have to admit that I was pretty thrilled to be able to complete that one quest on TESS EQ2 server which shows me pretty good progress

Cool, maybe I'll buy the game so I can play too. I'll probably want to wait until it's in beta so it's more playable and such though.

That is probably a good idea. There are rumblings of support for the Shadow Odessy expansion/pack, so until we nail whether or not we're going to support it/move to it, no sense buying something right now imo.
While there's lots to "test" right now, people are generally more interested in just playing than helping get things working completely. Unfortunately, it will take that much longer to finish with only half a dozen folks involved in development and testing. It is my hope that once more "playability" is introduced nearing our open Beta phase, more general players will get interested in reporting bugs or even getting involved in the humungous database project that will take us years to complete.