Over 70% of my server participated in 40 man content and saw the early 40 man raids. Simple math completely dispells the notion that a tiny fraction of the server population were raiders. The large majority of players raided.

A dozen hardcore guilds, each fielding 40 man raids (at least 80 members each), 20-30 almost-hardcore guilds fielding 40 man raids and another 20-30 guilds at any given time either fielding 40 man raids or working together with other guilds, does not equal '1% of the players who get to see endgame content'...

The numbers say otherwise. Our server population was 3,000 - 3,500 Alliance during that time (as identified on wow census websites..and not just one). Add up all those raiders and thats a healthy chunk of that 3,000 population.

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These numbers are definitely just made up ones, and it's quite easy to prove it. Let's replace 20-30 with 25 and do the maths. According to you there were 62 guilds of 80 players each doing 40 man raids. Your server population was 3500 at most.

62*80 = 4960