I mean. On multiple realms Trade and Service is just non-stop spam which asks in-game gold for boosts. People just stand in cities doing nothing.
What happened? I feel game is good but people changed. Also guilds: nobody talks and guild info links you discord. Discords are mostly empty and when you talk to people they are mostly silent.
Did the game change too much so people left or is it the people? Because retail does not feel like MMO anymore.
I am not syure if OP is in the correct channel if he just sees boosts.
Iâve did ~20 m+ keys last week, seemed lively enough 
I donât know why you consider afk people in town as indicator of dead. Wrath classic has tons of people afk in Dalaran.
Logged on for the 1st time in a week, seems a hell of a lot busier than when i last logged tbh.
Guild nobody talks and discord is empty means you are in the wrong guild. My guild might not have more than 3-4 players online except afternoons that can reach 10 or raid days that can reach 22~ but has chit-chat at discord almost all day long.
Got to admit had to read that twice lol
Ill just say what most people want to hear who make these types of threadsâŠ
Retail is dead compared to classic
FFX14 is better than WoW.
WoW = dead game
Everyone should be happy now 
Stopped subbing last month, will soon wont be able to chat here so here is my message : Wow is not dead yet because people are still buying 6 months packs to get mounts and tokens, other than that u gotta know that we are less than a third of how much we were in like cata. Also blizzard designed the retail game so that you really can just play alone if you want, even at the higest levels, with boosts. Unless u got friends, Iâd not play that game. Pvp balance is misarable, pve m+ is all about bad people asking for the most op class to push +15 ( " do ur own key " ) pls.
Also letâs be honest, the story is next level non interesting, the things we had at df are next to non existant ( small open world events, reputations andddd⊠thatâs it ? ), devs arenât doing anything to try to make the game feel good, so people are quitting, and they are right to do so.
Classic has life?
Seen more action in my bedroom,
And I live in a monastery
People can change and have changed. We got loads of info from wowhead, discord communities and etc. Before then, in the early days - " a guy told me" was a valid way to get info about anything. Now there is no need. Just âgoogle itâ.
Happens in rl as well. Before - how to ask somebody out? Actually walk towards him/her and ask?
Now - add an 
to your whatsapp msg.
This didnât need another topic
To answer the title: No.
Back in vanilla people were just standing in cities doing nothing as well.
Was vanilla kinda dead?
Well yeah.
Society as a whole is quite different from 19 years ago.
Online gaming is quite different from 19 years ago.
It feels like an MMO to me.
Doomsayers like to spread their doomsaying because it makes their nonsense feel more real. 
Also guilhahahahahaha hahaha hahaha.
Stay
Away
From
Them
I havenât played this year much at all, just logged in every now and again, cancelled subscription off and on, but now Iâm starting to get into the game a bit again and I have noticed that it does seem more dead than ever before, especially during off-peak hours.
Thereâs a lot of new, world content I havenât seen before, the last time I was playing. So Iâm not sure if people are just doing other content or the community has shrunk quite a bit. It feels like it has. I do the rifts and those are cool and thereâs a handful of people there, usually.
The World PvP quest to get shards off of players took a while to complete today. Back when I was playing there were always loads of players in the PvP area for this quest and i could finish it in no time. Today, I spent a good hour in a group trying to finish it, hardly anyone showed up. I also was in queue for an hour waiting for a BG last evening, which was probably something that hasnât happened in ages.
I feel like WoW is declining a bit, but i mean, itâs understandable. WoW is an old game and although DF was a success, itâs not exactly fresh, long-lasting/appealing content for a lot of people. It also feels pretty bloated, like I donât even know where to start or whatâs worth doing on an alt character.
The class design in PvP has been the best itâs likely ever been though, itâs lots of fun. But the battlegrounds are lackluster, repetitive, bore quickly and Iâm not really into arena.
So as a casual world quest/BG/PvPplayer, Iâm not sure thereâs enough to keep me entertained for long. Thereâs also so many games out there to play. I just like to pop in and do something fun, like a BG, but they seem more interested the PvE side of things. we havenât had a new BG in ages it seems like and over the years itâs been pretty stale. I feel like we should have at least 10 more battlegrounds altogether.
I feel like the game isnât really designed with players like me in mind, who arenât interested in the grind of any kind. Itâs a shame, because the class design and fun factor of playing them for me, on all kinds of different alts, is great fun.
People noticed theres a huge market for boost because
ââYou need to have completed a +16 in time to get into my +14ââ
Impossible without friends, and even then it can be hard
ââYou need 10/10 heroic to get into my fresh runââ
Same deal, its just that more and more people realising theres a hugeee market for b00st
Yea you can always run your own key or start your own group for raid, but for that raid group nobody will join u, and for m+ you need to push it quite far & be lucky you dont get snobs who leave because ââthat route isnt meta!! reeeââ or ââyou died once, thats it im outââ
And another one 
yep itâs ded
If anyones spamming boosting in trade u can report them, their restricted to services only.
Game isnt dead.
Guilds do talk, tbe issue is WoW has ALOT of cesspool guilds, i.e guilds that just mass invite players. So u end up with stacks of unsocial players who just want guild perks.
Retail does feel like a MMO gamers changed allong time ago im afraid.
I run about 3 raids and 20 dungeons per week. Doesnât feel dead to me 
This is quite painful⊠but itâs not every group. I pugged my way up from 3/9 to 8/9 by selecting groups who werenât too picky. The next week it was easy to get into fresh runs because everyone knows they stop after Magmorax anyway 
Getting curve - that did need me to join a community and start taking part in more organised runs where people donât leave every wipe because âeveryone but me is uselessâ. Got Sarkareth down a couple of times, and since then itâs seemingly not a problem to join pugs.
Regarding the same problem in M+⊠yes it sucks. I think my only advice there is first build up some score on a healer or tank, even if itâs just hitting maybe 2500. Other players will see this and be much more likely to accept your dps spec into something it was always totally qualified for, but which you are competing with many more people over.
Honestly, at this point we have to blame Blizzard for not just class balance, but dungeon design. Stop having situations where multiple players are affected by horrible dots that can only be dispelled by a healer - or mass dispel. Stop needing mobs that need purging/spell-stealing. Shadow priest will be meta even if it does average damage, because MD is so valuable.
Unless thereâs a concerted effort by officers/leaders guilds die quite easily, even during peak periods.