Server Consolidation Idea

Modern content hides the population in instances.

Join an active guild. Most servers have at least one. This makes a huge difference.

Or, play on early progression if you want the organic joy of random people all over the place. Note that this joy includes drama in places where the fit chafes a bit.

I recall when RoS first released that in The Overthere things were really nasty for a while with /ooc threats to train, accusations of kills stealing (which isn't even a thing) and general prickliness and my play server is one of the more moderately populated ones.

People really don't like dealing with crowded zones.

I do recall that in 2000 my immersion was really broken when I was able to walk all the way through lower guk with a level 5 rogue to loot the mask of deceptions. It was so packed that there was literally no danger of anything aggroing me because they were all dead as soon as they spawned. Oh and the /ooc was full of discussions of anything but actually playing the game.

Every named was it's own camp. 140 people in there at 7am. LOL

I also remember, from that same time frame, was when Tholuxe Paells (sp?) first opened, and my buddy and I decided we'd roll new chars and get in on the excitement of a new server. Well, Toxx Forest was so filled with level 1-5 characters, that you couldn't find any mobs to fight anywhere, everything died as soon as it spawned. We spent about an hour at level 1, trying to find mobs to kill and level, and then finally gave up and went back to our home server.