This really surprised me, with that whole server meshing thing or what it’s called. DMF is a small zone, portal-separated from the regular game world, which should be ideal for controlling population levels there, and I was surprised how great the differences still were between realms. I thought the game would manage as many (little) instances as is needed to have each populated to a pleasant degree.
It seems to still be tied to the activity level of the realm you are playing on. I.e. if I went to DMF at a low-activity time, a highpop realm would have a busy DMF while a medpop realm had a virtually lifeless DMF where I was wishing the game would channel more players into that version.
I’d also assume managing this should not be too difficult because you can phase players in and out of one phase as soon as they leave visual range to others, with some additional leeway. Although even if not and you need to do this between zones, I’d have expected better population balancing.