decided to chime in again as a friend of mine was doing the free join thing, they decided to make a new character on a new realm and they asked me is it fine to play on the same server as my old one (we played on it way back) and i had to explain to them that “no it is a dying realm if you play horde on it” and while i was about to explain to them to join dreanor because it actually has population to play with on horde they said “what about the recommended realms? they must be good because they are recommended?”
i had to actively tell my friend “no do NOT listen to the realm list as its baiting you into setting up on a nearly empty or dead realm”, much to their confusion explaining a “high” population is good while a “low or recommended” was bad felt like i was trolling them, i mean after all back in the older days playing on a high pop realm ment frequent queues and lag where as now they are the true recommended due to better AH and guild options.