I made an account specifically to reply to this thread.
It is true, no animals and some NPC's are not spawning in lobbies. Does not matter how many times you refresh, the land will be baron. There are also consistent bugs that are freezing players in the shops with an infinite loading screen.
Today I saw random wild horses in dozens spawned near Blackwater and during a NYM TDM I watched a man spawn duplicates of players in droves.
Seriously, they need to get on this.