There's some of that since the new update. But Valheim is supposed to be an isolated prison world for enemies of the Norse gods.

Lore aside, it needs something to make it less dead. A portal you can build to bring in NPC's from outsidde of it then?

I think they originally intended you to play with other people. But most of us play solo, and they have tried to help by adding tamed animals and this update, as said, more NPCs.
I agree, and hopefully this will happen somehow. Even a little bit like no man's sky helps a lot (you build a special station and the NPC populates it, gives a few quests and after that just being there animated helps a little).

Pumping the world full of passive NPCs just takes the joy out of finding them or something like remains of a village or a dungeon (black forest dungeons for example often have mobs guarding them). Some regions are practically crowded with life already, though it depends on the RNG of world generation. Meadows are supposed to be peaceful to help players to accommodate and learn the game.

I was hoping the Dverger would have an element of this. Maybe along the line of how Minecraft does it, with trading of things, since they're kind of a "lost" people/culture and would need certain resources sometimes. But, alas they're just more meat for the grinder, and considering they're 'guarding' stuff you need to advance, a bit too difficult when you're talking the mages...stars aside (which are also far too prevalent).

Coins still seem largely useless...Once you've bought a few of things that you need, you don't really need to buy more. Other than the occasional catastrophic death. lol