Sorn has the right if it! Just do a /who roses who is in your level range then send them a /tell asking if they'd like to party ^^ If you happen upon a group you can always ask if they have room for another too. People are much more open to casual inquiry here than some other games. I remember FFXI was like a gated community...

As for characters, warrior would be good for grouping, but cannot solo. Necro is great for solo, but not always desired for groups. A shadow knight might give you the best of both worlds. They can solo if needed (not the best, but certainly capable) and are well liked in groups for their pulling abilities (FEign Death eventually) and aggro management superior to warrior, but not as good as Paladin (who have more difficult time solo than SK)

Welcome to the server and good luck^^

Try to play solo at least as much as you play group. Leveling will be slower as a solo but it will give you the opportunity to learn what the class you are playing is capable of.
Experiment and improvise. Hone your problem silving skills. In the end this will make you a more skilled group member and folks you group with will think, "Wow! That guy really know his class!" And they will put you on their friends list and look for you next time they need a group or even reccommend you for membership in their guild.
The best and most failsafe way to make friends here is to play your class well and be polite.
It always tickles me when someone I am grouping with says, "Hey! I didn't know a [class] could do that!"

paladins are actually not bad soloers, i almost exclusivly soloed my paladin up until level 40. you just need good gear that i financed from porting. but as far as starting out with nothing casters are always easiest imo. but like everyone has said play what you want, welcome to p999!

I love my Paladin and mostly soloed 40 through 51, but if we are to say paladins are not bad soloers, I think we need to put that into perspective. Which classes are worse soloers than paladins? I can think of two...

yea i guess yer right.

I'm not sure I'd recommend a warrior as a first character. They're the most gear dependent class in the game. On top of it the're aren't great at farming plat, traveling, or holding agro against everyone's twinked dps.

Starting tank will be harder than preist caster or dps. Unless you want to roll a tank -- its better to wait until you have a lot of money to level one. Shadowknight and Paladin are still difficult, but easier to start on than a warrior (and better group tanks).

If you want a list of classes that are good to be from starting naked to finishing in epics, my list would be:

Bard
Monk
Shaman

Monk is kind of annoying because of weight limitations and the fact that they are overplayed. But they are pretty decent naked and scale well with additional gear.

There are a lot of classes like Druid and Enchanter that are great naked...but they also don't get much better with lots of gear. So if you want a class that will keep getting noticeably better as you raid etc, I would pick one of the three I listed.

Would playing the current F2P everquest help me get a feel for the class without as serious penalties for dying? or is it just too different?

You are looking for training wheels that are no longer there, unfortunately.

You don't lose exp until level 5 and usually you aren't that far from your bind point until then anyway. Other players will help you out. You just have to get out there and die a lot and maybe kill some stuff until you figure things out.

I wasn't looking for training wheels. I was wondering if the F2P everquest was as difficult as P1999

No, it's not.