Another reason that cities are less populated these days is that the game has way more content than it used to.
Whereas in Wrath people would just sit in town because… well, what else was there to do? These days people are doing world quests, or farming AP, or doing M+, or doing any of the many other activities in the game, now.
Honestly, I think they need to incorporate more “meat” to the game outside extravagant raids/M+/PvP theatres. It would be better to add unique activities to each city, and perhaps adding status (buff to certain crafts/professions). Revitalizing destroyed areas, or changing them positively would be a better route as well. Allowing guilds to have a physical location they can build in game would be pretty massive too, perhaps even going further with allowing taxes and management of cities/guild citadels, or other activities that promote a more guild oriented community, or benefits in some noticeable way.
I kind of agree, but so does adding intergalactic wars, and planets that originally could only be traveled to through portals and large sacrifices of souls/life. Anyway, yeah I would agree ,but they need to compensate the player base with more open world activities, and less queue timers.
I don’t think that’s the reason everyone’s in SW/Org, I think the issue is that there is no incentive to be anywhere else (aside from Oribos)
the events that brought players of all levels together in the world… of warcraft
were the pre patch wrath and legion launches
(legion launch more relevant as it involved the scaling mechanisms)
world events randomly scattered around kalimdor and eastern kingdoms that everyone can participate in and contribute
as far as populating empty cities? i dont know the answer to that unless there are reasons to be there rather than elsewhere
Lovely words.
I hope it snows in storm wind one day 
that will keep me there indefinitely lmao
I think Goldshire has this covered…
Don’t forget the most important part: Stop destroying the cities!
Anyone remember the Exodar? …Lmao
That might sound good on paper, but that’s an idea that would get annoying REAL fast, especially as it’s something that doesn’t respect the time of a player if you’re forcing them to travel halfway across the world for basic features.
What exodar? What sword?
The what? 
Oh, that awful place I kept ending up doing Legion prequest scenarios, or something, when I came back for BfA with no idea how to catch up on old content.
I never understood why they chose to shunt everyone into just one city per faction. It doesn’t really do anything for immersion. It’s not like if I needed help from someone in another city it was that big a pain for one of us to port over.
What really killed it was when they made it nigh impossible to port to/from any cities but SW/Org. Then as if to pile on there aren’t even certain essential services in the other cities like Ironforge. It has and always will Feel Bad.
I think convenience kills the game generally as it brings it closer and closer to CoD
This expansion we didn’t even get portals to all cities in oribos, a first in many if not most prior expansions. The main fault lies there. Second is that you’ll still want to go to stormwind for a few things like transmog, really the only amenity that’s universal is mailboxes and the AH.
If they fixed those two things, I’d love it. I want a reason to hang out at exodar again (and wouldn’t it be the bee’s knee’s if they parked the vindicaar and made IT a hub!), I mean it’s difficult to get to, offers very little. Even ironforge is missing at least one, I think it’s transmog but I could be wrong.
Honestly don’t know how this situation is seen as intended. No need to shunt everyone into a single capital. It wrecks my immersion that I’m always in SW on this character, when maybe I’d rather hang out with the other goats.
Why would you want to fracture and divide the community any more than it is?
On my server Stormwind and Oribos aren’t very populated. Putting 3/5ths of those people in the other capitals, and spending development time to do that?
That’s a good point, but hear me out. What if the population is so low that not even one capital is truly poppin’, in which case where’s the harm? Let us hang out where we’re aesthetically at our best. Give ports in every city to the other cities and important destinations. Have all amenities at each capital. I’d rather see 2 people in Ironforge than 4 people in Stormwind and 0 in Ironforge.
The more people that feel the game is dead, the more people that will leave.
Again, fair point. I don’t base my enjoyment on how many randos are around me, though I do care if I have friends playing. I suppose that is the most logical reason though, PR.
Berry white, boxed wine and lowered expectations
dont tell anyone about this but waaaaaay before i played in retail, all cities were full because all cities had all portals, so i say thats the way to do it, if you can travel from any city to any city and all have the same access to transportation, then people will stay in the city they like the most, but dont tell blizz some people used to play in not retail before