I went ahead and did an in depth head count on the Beta PvP test realm.
Horde(PvP) has about 575 people online. (82 of which are at the level cap of 30–a previous night, when I checked their level capped population there were an addition 20-some players online, so this head count is low, which should be expected, given the time of day)
Alliance(PvP) has about 521 people online. 96 of whom are at level cap(level 30). They’re also showing fewer level 30’s on than when I check in the evening hours a couple days ago.
Now the PvE realm looks pitiful by comparison:
Horve(PvE) 271 online, 11 of which are level capped.
Alliance(PvE) 362 online, 25 of which are level capped.
Now obviously, this is a true concurrency, this count was done with many manual /who’s performed over a span of about 20 minutes on 4 different logins. So it’s going to have a margin of error. But by my count, I see 1,729 results. Which is a higher number than 1,000.
This also doesn’t cover the F&F/Alpha rest realm which we now know still exists due to Blizzard’s problems when adding in Warsong Gulch. I’d also generally expect that for any “census” attempt made by a player, that for every player seen, there are probably another 1 to 3 players you didn’t see at that particular time. Given the time of day I did this at (between 9 and 930 AM pacific time on a Sunday), I’d expect it to miss closer to 3 than to 1. But going with an Average miss rate of 2 for every one counted on this “Sweep” through the population, you have a beta test population of about 3,500 people. Not 1,000. Going with 3 grows the population to somewhere in the 5 to 6 thousand range for the beta which I think is probably about right. The Alpha probably adds a few thousand more on top of that.
But still, even six thousand players out of pool that is likely to be somewhere in the 6 digit range as it is, would be just a drop in the proverbial bucket.