not necessarily writing long narrative messages, but chatting amongst each other about things going on in the realm and the world.
Well, you cannot force people to it even sinking islands and adjusting density - I'm not against it, really, but you need to face it... people will leave. I like East Continent, I don't want to play in another continet, so, East Continent will have just one of my chars instead of two - Realms are used to discuss subjects in closed channels like Councils, Military Councils, etc. That will never change, even in more populated realms. I fought with Erik to reach the Council because that's where the game was... and we had 150 nobles at that time.
