I’m a 30+ year old man playing wow for the first time in his life. I’ve joined a New Players server (there are only two, don’t remember the name of the one I choose).
So far I’m having a lot of fun. Didn’t buy Shadowlands yet tho, probably gonna do it once i reach lvl 50 with my hunter. Before playing with my hunter I leveled up a Druid to level 50 but didn’t really like the class.
I read a few things here and there about the gnome that changes timeline, and decided to play WOD campaing, I’m a bit concerned, I’m almost level 50 and didn’t encounter more than 10 people while leveling up and doing quests.
Is this a WOD thing or something general in WOW? Eventually, after learning the game a bit more I want to start playing with other people, but since I see none I don’t know what to think.
Hi! Welcome to WoW and I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.
Population can vary wildly but is usually spread a bit thin in levelling areas. Since there’s so many zones and options to level in, the people levelling are scattered throughout the world. Add in Warmode* and that is another divide. The vast majority of players are playing Shadowlands content, so you’ll find once you reach Shadowlands areas you’ll see a lot more players running around.
Draenor (the realm forum you posted on) is a really populated server, there’s loads of people running around in the main city and you’ll see plenty of people out in the world as well. Some servers are quite empty though, or they could be populated heavily in favour of one faction so there will be more Horde than Alliance for example.
*Warmode flags you for pvp (just in case you didn’t know :P), it gives you some bonuses (pvp skills, bonus experience etc) but also allows other players to attack you (and you them). If you’ve disabled it you’ll only see people that have also disabled it as well and vice versa. I think most veteran players that are currently levelling will have it turned on for the bonus exp, but I might be wrong there.
Thank you for your answer and all the information shared.
It took me a while to answer because I didn’t understand many concepts you mentioned in the post.
I’m getting a better idea of how everything works. Today I bought SL and reached level 50, my WOD campaign become boring AF. I get one shot kill on all enemies. Only reason I’m still playing it it’s because I want tofinish all quests before i move to a different area, don’t even know if it’s worth it in wow. Hope to find more people once I jumped into Shadowlands, i feel like I’m the only player in Draenor’s expansion.
About the warmode, i had no idea, gonna try to change that, although i’m gonna get killed because of my lack of experience doesn’t hurt to give it a try.
Thanks again for taking time in answering my questions. I really appreciate it!
First of all, it is normal that you one shot kill your ennemies, you’re a hunter
Now for the serious business : server population. It all depends on what you want to do.
If you want to play with people you don’t know in the wild, any server would do because the world is shared and you can see people from other servers once in a while while levelling.
If you want to join a guild, you should be on the same server as the guild. Server with more people = more guilds to choose from.
The auction house : allows you to buy and sell things between players. Now this thing here… I know it’s too early for all this info now but trust me, it will help you A LOT. I struggled because I chose a small server and the auction house was… dead…
Some high population servers :
Horde dominant : Draenor, Tarren Mill, Ragnaros, Kazzak
Alliance dominant : Silvermoon, Ravencrest
You can also check out websites like raider(dot)io and wowprogress.
I would stay away from the site “WoW Realm Population” because it has some errors with the numbers…
But there is another thing :
The most populated servers can have struggles with connection at the launch of expansions or patches and some lag (but rarely). I am in Draenor and I had some lag yesterday for a couple of minutes. Just keep this in mind.
