I’m on a dead server - Retail. I see no more than 3 -5 folks in Stormwind when I log on. I’m a casual player but would like a busier server. TIA
OK.
I see you are on Aggramar/Fizzcrank, which is indeed a small server.
Here is a list of realms sorted by raiding population, which is not quite the same as overall population, but pretty close. Blizzard shut down the API we used to use to measure overall population. But this is accurate enough for your purpose.
https://raider.io/realms/us
Notice the lines, Blue is for Alliance. Red is for Horde. If you want to play Alliance, stick with the Blue ones.
BE CAREFUL of the time zones! The five merged servers with Dreadmaul, Frostmourne, etc are on Australian time, because they are on Oceanic servers, so avoid them unless you are in Oceania.
Other than that, time zones don’t mean much to the average casual player. Time zones are mostly for people having convenient times to meet up, because their day is not hours apart. But if you care, you can also factor in East or West Coast times.
Moon Guard is an RP realm, so unless you specifically want that, I’d stay out.
So you are probably choosing between Stormrage and Sargeras.
Stormrage is chock-full of Alliance, but overcrowded. There have been many reports of lag and downtime. Still, lots of people are willing to put up with that to have access to a HUGE set of Alliance players. However, unless you are pushing a lot of hard group content, I’m not sure that would be worth it to me.
Sargeras is next up. A solid choice, plenty of activity without the drawbacks.
Scrolling down, there is Proudmoore, which us known for its local culture of inclusivity, and Quel’thalas and Dalaran. All active servers with less of a “big-city” vibe than the Big Two.
I would suggest you make a starter Human on whichever you are interested in, level it to Stormwind, and suss out the local atmosplere.
You may want to turn off your “Trade Servives” chat channel on the Big Two, because the boost offers will be scrollingtoo fast for you to read any chat. If you do stay on one of them, there are addons like BadBoy that can filter out the spam that is left even outside the advertisement channel.
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A lot of non-RP’ers love RP realms due to how busy and alive they feel. Moon Guard (for alliance) and Wyrmrest Accord (for horde) are always my number one suggestions for people who say, “I want a server that feels alive and busy”
I’ve been on Tich, Area-52, and Proudmoore. But they all feel ‘full but empty’ and are just a afk lobby for instance content. Moon Guard and other RP realms actually feel, at least to me, that I’m in an actual world.
While i do some minor RP, most of my toons aren’t RP toons. And honestly I won’t go to any other server now cause MG makes them all look blah to me.
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i agree with this
i used to usually roll horde but when the game did all the realm and server combining stuff years ago individual servers almost became irrelevant
and the layering didnt help
because of this- moonguard has felt the most “alive”
at least in the elwynn forest area
and the players will at least acknowledge your presence in passing with an emote or something
and this can lead to some interaction
the “hardcore rp ness” of yesteryear isnt as noticeable and because of the mergers the old school “moonguarders” are more accomodating imo
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