FFXI is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Player Game (MMORPG), it's meant to be played with many people at once in a large thriving world, not someone player by themselves with five imaginary friends. That multiplayer aspect is why everyone moves to Asura, there are actually people there to meet, play the game and make friends with. Unfortunately SE's crappy event system and slow content release schedule results in everyone having to do the same content at the same time. Asura only gets really busy at a specific time of day, right after 6PM PST when we have all four NA time zones playing at the same time.