What happened to Lordaeron? [Population]

What's up everyone =)

Just is just a little question, because I stopped playing like a year ago or so... but back in the days the Lordaeron realm was (at least I imagined it like this) the "x1-uber-server-everyone-wants-to-play-on-because-high-rates-are-too-easy-anyway-and-x1-shows-the-true-skills hardcore server", with an always capped population plus thousands waiting in queue just for the sake of it.

Since I'm back tho I noticed that A LOT of players are gone and on the other hand the Icecrown server exploded with a capped population. Since I was gone for so long now I would like to know what actually happened? o_O - Back in those days I always thought people like the most blizz-like feeling and stuff... these days it nearly seems to be unworthy to even consider playing on Lordaeron, which confuses me a lot right now o_O

Hope someone can add some light in the darkness I'm currently in.

Greetings
- PowerWurmi

Turns out not many ppl can actually cope with slow leveling and disabled RDF , also ICC is icecrow so i guess ppl that likes to raid that went there , ICC will open in a few days in here so we should see alot of new players , but i really dont see why everyone is making threads about 5k+ population when servers that existed for years dont even get half that number. Also i dont get why ppl want capped servers and wait in que for a few hours

Mods should just delete these kind of topics.
What happend was logical and expected since day 1, and if truly wanted to know u would atleast check some older topics instead of constantly creating the same topics over and over.

Turns out when you played the whole Warmane played aswell, when Deathwing and Ragnaros combined into Icecrown and got Lordaeron's core all those players went back to their mains on Icecrown.

In my opinion, there are a few things that made people leaving (still, 5-6k ppl online is quite a lot), and those are:

1. Disabled RDF. Even though it was a nice and supported by the community idea at the start, now it turns out rdf wasn't so bad after all. Players already explored all zones numerous times, and it just became boring to travel to each instance over and over again, especially while leveling, which makes leveling experience even more boring and dull, cause you're forced to do quests 100% of the time (okay, maybe 95%), since it's so hard to find a group.

2. Lack of group finder system. If traveling to every single instance became boring, you should try finding a group on global channel. Yes, sometimes you can do it in a few minutes, if you're lucky, but usually it takes time. Not to mention if you're <80 level. This is not a problem if you're in a large guild

3. Lack of heilrooms combined with lack of dungeon finder makes leveling experience even more unpleasant. That might change when ICC releases

4. Lack of ICC. We hope people will come back after ICC releases

5. Lack of coin and point shop. It's hard to say if it had a bad or good influence on population. Though, i like it the way it is. I'd maybe like to have point shop only for twinks, but whatever.

6. Transmog. Staff didn't fulfill their promise and implemented transmogrification without possibility to turn it off on the website. Also, this maybe had a positive influence on population.

7. Azeroth became bugged again, compared to how it was in first months after release.

8. Icecrown's high population. Everyone loves high pop servers, so do the people of Lordaeron.

In the end, this is only haw I see things, and i'm maybe wrong for half of this.

Guys server is dying!
I have started leveling new toon and managed to do multyple runs of DM BFD Stockade Uldaman and even found group for WC and got to level 40 in 1 day played time.
I think we should leave before it gets too late the experiences was terrible, I dont know how can the staff members be so cruel they shoul atleast give free BiS gear when we hit level 80 or Im quiting

this kind of thread gets created on an almost weekly basis

should get his own sticky section

Well, they merged two servers into Icecrown and updated Icecrown to run like Lordaeron, so if you were on lord for scripting, you can now just roll Icecrown and get the same level of scripting with a larger community, ICC, RDF, and quicker leveling.

Its easier to level on Icecrown, promoting more people who don't want to spend time leveling from scratch, or just at all to roll Icecrown to bypass it, which I think is a problem on Lord. Not that many players are actually leveling anymore, my brothers just recently rolled here with their friends as I encouraged them to try it out, and they've noticed the world being very empty.

No RDF or Heirlooms doesn't promote making alts, which means emptier world, less tow level dungeons, making the leveling experience even more boring, and thus discouraging players from rolling here. Same can be said for the character trade system, players just buy the fresh 80's and bypass the leveling, causing the same thing.

Absurdly difficult entry level raids (10 mans like Naxx, OS) at the start of the servers raiding experience was a MAJOR turn off, some fights were just plain undoable without cheese strats (Helly Malygos). It wasn't as much of a challenge, as it was really annoying, and this is coming from someone thats cleared all the content on this server the hard way (going into 10 mans with heroic gear, instead of 25 mans). Its like they value their hardcore philosophy, but then ToC exists, which is just free gear at the current difficulty, and I don't understand why they even made the earlier raids so hard if they were going to leave ToC the way it was. Heres hoping ICC is a challenge, and not an unfun grind fest, maybe they've found some middle ground, the ICC release is going to dictate whether players come back, or if they stay away.