Quote Originally Posted by Jojoya View Post
To be honest, there should be no standard at all. Each world is unique in population and what content the players tend to gravitate toward.

SE should be considering how to create a system that best serves the variety, not a standard.
Ehhhh, I'm not so sure about that. Seems like it would quickly lead to cries of favoritism, on top of the snowball effect that large servers already experience. Large server gets more resources, draws more players, needs more resources... I've been around long enough to hear Balmung calling for Mateus to be stripped of housing because "well they're low pop and not using it anyway."

Much of dev efforts are intended to achieve some semblance of balance, because that's what the hardware is designed for.

Plus, harkening back to a previous point of mine, their intention is not to serve everyone. Treating every server like Balmung would be a massive waste of resources. Treating everything like whatever the low-pop server is these days would obviously see massive outcry. So, they aim middle of the road, a balance between satisfying as many as they can, without blowing the budget. Or, alternatively, spending as little as possible while keeping the vocal outrage to a minimum.