Ah, the other Demon’s Souls thread has the info on private servers. The world population is extremely low (which might explain why they were shut off in the first place) and there’s no level limit on PVP so you’re very likely to get dicknosed by someone who’s played far more than you… But that was always my experience with PVP anyway (shoutout to cheaters in DS2.)
I don’t think Dark Souls had any NPC bloodstains, aside from the phantoms. They more or less served as the tutorial in Demon’s Souls iirc.