Bethesda still repeats lines like these: "There’s nothing like the start of something new - for you and for us, and having millions of you join us on this new adventure is humbling for our studio. Thank you for sticking with us as we figure this online experience out together, and we do mean “together.”"
Is there any other way to read this than a claim that they still have "millions" of players? There's also this: "We’re thrilled by how much everyone is playing, with an average time of 4 hours a day."
To get to "4 hours a day" on average, you can't just assume a few very dedicated players to get to that number. Of course, Zenimax isn't a publicly traded company, which means they are free to lie about numbers like these. On the other hand, that wording with "the start of something new" makes it possible to read this as a future expectation. Well, whatever.
Anyway, they posted some kind of roadmap now:
Does the third one hint at human NPC's? The only detailed part is the first one though:
Some of the stuff that's already in the files gets rolled out.
All of this directly from the horse's mouth:
https://bethesda.net/en/article/7Lw6jVvhjzSNzuUMmKZgwn/fallout-76-100-days-roadmap-for-2019