There is definitely a community to be had on the big servers; but it’s entirely different on a low-med pop realm. I transferred to Benediction(A) a month or two ago and I’ve also made friends from most of the same groups of people, but with everything moving so fast (lfg, the server discord, etc) it’s a lot harder to consistently see the same person, or even group of people again. It gives me big Area52/Illidan/etc vibes. I’ve been finding it a lot harder to find that ‘connection’ with other people.
Even most dungeon groups, people just…don’t talk beyond what’s absolutely necessary to complete the dungeon. I ran four heroics last night and there was probably a grand total of 15 words spoken, most of which was “roll for shards”. It sometimes feels pointless for me to ask how people’s day is going, or compliment them on their shiny new weapon, or ask how their raid went, because of this weird mentality of “maybe the dungeon will go faster if I don’t talk.” It’s a lot like approaching a busy intersection in your car and turning the radio down to concentrate more, it feels silly once you realize you do it - but does it really help?
I think this attitude is definitely fostered by just how huge these megaservers are, comparatively. This is not to say that my old server in particular was any better than any other server, big or small, but that it for a while felt like the goldilocks “just right” population size that quickly, then slowly, bled out to megaservers. It’s frustrating.
I don’t play an MMO to wade through an endless sea of chatter and spam to be plunked into dungeons and groups where people stop talking. I play an MMO to establish and develop friends and relationships (good and bad.) That being said, I’ve felt a lot more human connection on Benediction than I have on retail in many many moons. I just don’t want the essence of what made Vanilla and onwards so great, which is the forced communication and teamwork to reach a goal, even down to the little things.