I've come to just accept this isn't really a MMORPG but a single player game with multi-player available during certain times of day.

I recently played another "MMORPG" for a month and made a startling observation. A literal 25 year old game of the same genre as this one has more people playing and around to do things with during "off", non-peak, hours (for North America) than this one does despite having far less population and, so-called, popularity.

Let that sink in